Rodin sculpture center stage at Sotheby's "Divine Comedy" exhibit, © Photo: Mackie Healy

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

A month before Philippe Segalot’s “curated” auction at Phillips de Pury, Sotheby’s has mounted their own curated, retail-style selling exhibition. Cue the roiling debate on the colliding worlds of private and public sales.

Divine Comedy, a nod to Dante’s epic poem, has taken over the 10th floor at the auction house’s York Avenue headquarters until Oct. 19. Sotheby’s says around three quarters of the works on view are for sale.

The show, the pet project of former Guggenheim director and Sotheby’s chairwoman Lisa Dennison, highlights humor through themes from Dante’s one hundred cantos. Galleries are reserved for poem chapters including Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise.

Though most of the works are contemporary, there are a few older examples from the likes of William Bouguereau, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Rodin. One of the show’s high points–and perhaps inspiration– is Frans Francken the Younger’s painting Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma – the Choice between Vice and Virtue, (1635)  depicting the overarching theme of Divine Comedy – the choice between good and evil. Minerva, goddess of wisdom, occupies the center of the painting, surrounded by her trademark owl, Hercules, Satan, Venus, Kronos, and more – all lingering between their ultimate after-life destinations. The painting comes from London based Old master dealer Johnny Van Haeften who paid $9.5 million in April at the Viennese auctioneer Dorotheum, more than ten times the high estimate.

On the newer front, and highlighting the ‘Inferno’ section is Maurizio Cattelan’s Him, (2001), a kneeling figure facing a wall in a nook on the right side of the gallery. From the back, one imagines a crouching little boy in his Sunday best. Turn the corner and he is revealed to be Adolf Hitler.

The gloomy grey walls of ‘Purgatory,’ are lined with fashion photographer Sante D’Orazio’s black and white photos of contemporary artists (Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, etc) outfitted in clergy garb. Meanwhile baby blue-hued ‘Paradise’ is reserved for seraphic, sweet images of butterflies (Damien Hirst’s Summer in Siam, 2002), angels (Bouguereau’s L’Amour Vainquer, 1886) and kitsch (Jeff Koon’s Cherubs, 1991). Confectionery artist Will Cotton created a cupcake-crowned painting of Beatrice, Dante’s guide to heaven.

Rob Pruitt has also adapted his Holy Crap series to include photographs of aphorisms posted on real-life church signs, on display in the building’s windows facing York Avenue. Text includes such prophetic declarations as, “You may party in hell, but you will be the barbecue!”

About a third of the works hail from private collections. Others sources include artists, galleries, and foundations.

Named sources include:

Sante D’Orazio (4)
Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman Collection, Courtesy The Flag Art Foundation
Frank Gallipoli  (3)
The Great Art Fund II
Hall Collection (2)
Paul Kasmin Gallery
Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann Collection (2)
Locksley Shea Gallery (2)
Mary Boone Gallery
Meta Design
Otto Naumann LTD
Skarstedt Gallery
Sperone Westwater (2)
Stair Sainty Gallery
Johnny Van Haeften LTD

Hirst's Butterfly rondel, "Summer in Siam" on back wall, at Sotheby's "Divine Comedy," © Photo: Mackie Healy

Maurizio Cattelan's "Him" at Sotheby's "Divine Comedy," © Photo: Mackie Healy

Works by Bouguereau, Koons at Sotheby's "Divine Comedy," © Photo: Mackie Healy

Paul McCarthy at Sotheby's "Divine Comedy," © Photos: Mackie Healy

Sante D'Orazio's photos of Koons and Ruscha, © Photo: Mackie Healy