Across photography, sculpture and painting, Christie’s experts share highlights from Contemporary New York

‘The photographic image, which is then made into a puzzle and contained in a bag, makes me think of memory. There’s the idea of piecing together a puzzle and also this containment aspect. It’s sealed in a bag, but the bag is a fragile thing. Over time, the plastic can wear, maybe a piece of the puzzle comes out. I think it beautifully reflects some of the lived experience of sensation and memory and demonstrates why Gonzalez-Torres is such a successful artist.’

‘These paintings done on bamboo offer an interesting intersection between painting and sculpture. To create them, Saldanha had to meticulously prepare and paint the bamboo in bands of colour punctuated with geometric forms. The process, from start to finish, took time. First, she harvested the material and then waited between six months to a year for it to dry out and be ready to paint, after which she applied several preparatory coats of white paint. Once dry, the structures were filled with colour in one go. While each painted bamboo sculpture is an individual artwork, when presented together, they create a whimsical and poetic experience for the viewer.’

‘This spectacular Anne Collier photograph is one of the highlights of the contemporary works in Ambassador Traina’s collection and one of my favourite lots in the sale. Collier has said that her work is about the act of looking and the associations we bring to and project onto images. She often incorporates eyes, advertisements and photography manuals in her work. In Woman with a Camera (Cheryl Tiegs/Olympus 2) (2008), the source is one of several Olympus Camera advertisements from the 1980s in which the supermodel Cheryl Tiegs appeared.

‘When I’m in front of this photograph, its bright colours and the supermodel’s beauty are immediately appealing. However, the large scale and lack of context make you question what you’re looking at. Once it’s clear that this is a vintage advertisement reproduction, we note that the agency was not with the woman in this ad and that she was the subject of the male gaze. In Collier’s confrontational presentation, the roles are reversed: the woman with the camera reclaims her position as the gazer.’

‘Recent auction seasons have shown an increased interest in the work of Bob Thompson, an artist whose practice revolutionised conceptions of figuration. His canvases are imbued with a rhythmic and colourful passion that is linked to his love of jazz. This particular work has been in the same private collection since its execution in 1965, so it’s one of those rare-to-market opportunities to access a top quality work by Thompson.

‘Though intimate in scale, this painting is teeming with energy. It speaks directly to Thompson’s unique facility with figuration and his larger ethos of broadening the scope of art history to be more inclusive of his peers. Here, he cites the Old Masters, specifically Claude's Landscape with Cephalus and Procris reunited by Diana (1645). Thompson weaves in the same compositional elements while transforming the ways in which the figure is portrayed vis-a-vis color, form and experimentations with materiality. If you look very closely at the canvas, it has incredible depth and texture. He experiments with different sheens and surfaces of paint, illuminating Thompson's technical excellence, compositional ingenuity and art historical importance.’

‘This exciting work reflects on the relationship between architecture and nature. Saraceno is deeply interested in exploring how art can address environmental concerns like the current climate crisis. His Cloud Cities series, of which this is part, is one of his most iconic bodies of work. It started with a childhood fascination with clouds. Saraceno grew up in Argentina and, as a boy, clouds captured his imagination and sparked ideas about movement and dreaming of a world beyond your own. The cloud cities represent proposals for futuristic, intergalactic communities. I love the utopian and earnest nature of these works, centered around the future and our collective survival.

‘This work — made from plexiglass and metal modular clusters suspended from the ceiling — functions as a floating city comprised of translucent clouds. Although large, the scale feels very accessible which allows you to experience the work in a more intimate manner. Saraceno tends to work on a grand scale, often siting works in public spaces, like the rooftop garden at the Met Museum or the outdoor spaces of the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale. With this work, you get the same impact but at a scale you can live with.’

‘Charles, Vasa, Minnesota (2002) is far and away the most iconic photograph of Alec Soth’s series Sleeping by the Mississippi. In the tradition of the great American road trip, Soth started in Minneapolis, where he’s from and where the Mississippi River begins, and drove down to the Gulf of Mexico, where the river ends. Along the way, he took photographs with a massive 8-by-10-inch camera, almost in the vein of reportage — not reporting on any particular event, simply capturing the people, places and homes he encountered.

‘This image became an emblem of a new generation of photographers who were working in the tradition of the road trip and was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. It’s part of a strong thread of colour photography in Ambassador Traina’s collection. The collection also includes masterworks from artists like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore who pioneered the use of colour as a serious artistic choice, and Soth represents a key player in 21st-century photography who is continuing this tradition.’