CarnalNation

Art collectors interested in sex may want to check out an auction happening in London next month.

On March 19th, the UK arm of auction house Philips de Pury will be hosting the Sex auction.  Featuring 121 pieces by artists as diverse as Picasso and Nan Goldin, the auction articulates the range and depth of the contemporary art world's attitudes towards sex.  In-between the obligatory Bruce Weber and Terry Richardsons, there's also stuff by a number of artists who aren't very well-known outside the art world.

Some highlights from the auction include Russian artist Sasha Gusov's 1994 photograph of Jude Law, taken around the time that the 22-year old actor had his first starring role in an obscure British crime thriller called Shopping.  Helmut Newton's Beverly Hills Hotel, from 1988, depicts a high-heeled women sprawled out on a bed, her legs spread for the viewer as she pets a small dog.  That work, one of the more high-profile pieces in the auction, is expected to get between  £20,000-30,000.  Another highlight is Nan Goldin's eerie 1998 photograph David H. In The Shower, Lausanne, and pictured above is Bob Carlos Clarke's Men Have Feelings Too.

Not all the work is photographic, however.  There's also Jonathan Yeo's celebrated 2007 collage Bush, a portrait of the former president composed of pornographic images of women.  Ukrainian painter Vassily Tsagolov's From the Series of Office Affairs 2 depicts a man kneeling before a woman bent over a desk, and Harland Miller's 2003 painting I’m So Fucking Hard - Ernest Hemingway gives some insight into the literary canon and book cover art.

The Sex auction is one of eighteen monthly themed auctions hosted by Philips de Pury in an attempt to revitalize the contemporary art market in New York and London.  Though the contemporary art market hasn't fared at all well amid the tanking economy, the third-largest contemporary auction house hopes to attract young buyers who have never before bought art at auction.
 

(h/t Jockohomo)