Victoria Beckham spices up life at Sotheby’s
Posh is showing a raft of contemporary artworks at her London showroom, but will all the Richters not distract from the beautiful clothes on sale?
Rakewell is delighted to see a luxury company and the art world join forces yet again. This time it is the turn of Victoria Beckham and Sotheby’s. Of course, Beckham fans (and perhaps auction goers) will remember that this is not the first time two have become one. Beckham first tried to elevate her brand with Sotheby’s in 2018 when she displayed a selection of Old Masters in her exquisite showroom on Dover Street. At the time, as now, Beckham made a great play about her love of the arts. As she recently told a Sotheby’s interviewer, ‘It was important for me to create a space that combined art and fashion. The store is a full immersion into our world, and every part of this should feel considered and inspiring to clients.’ Rakewell finds it harder to be inspired by art when the price tag is such a critical part of the display, but who do we think we are to criticise such things?
The works chosen to spice up the showroom are a roll call of market-friendly artists, from Basquiat and George Condo to Gerhard Richter and Yoshitomo Nara. And of course, your roving correspondent shouldn’t carp too much; the works are, after all, from Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Auction in March. Apparently, it is Nara’s Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) (2005) which La Beckham really, really wants. Curiously, when asked by the auction house which piece she regrets not buying, she replied: ‘It was a dark, black painting from Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Nets” series that David wanted to buy, but at the time I found it too heavy. We kick ourselves every time we discuss it.’ This is not the first time she has mentioned Kusama. In 2018 she said that she had been to a Kusama show at Victoria Miro and ‘loved it’. Rakewell likes the idea of Victoria Beckham going full Kusama and transforming her entire showroom into a Gesamtkunstwerk. She could, perhaps, give over the whole space to one of the artist’s Infinity Rooms, though it might make finding her clothes a little hard, so perhaps we had better stop right there.
