Aaron Young

Aaron Young was born in 1972 in San Francisco, California (Wikipedia gives Salinas, California; the point is not fully settled across sources). He earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2001 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2004, then settled in New York, where he continues to live and work.

Young's practice spans painting, sculpture, photography, and above all performance, using extreme physical action, most often the burnout marks of motorcycles, as a generative process. His best-known work, Greeting Card, was staged at the Park Avenue Armory in 2007: motorcycle riders performed choreographed burnouts across a floor of painted panels below an audience, producing a large composite work through smoke, tire tracks, and controlled destruction, in a gesture often read against the history of Abstract Expressionist action painting. That same period saw him take part in the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2007, a period that also produced his Arc Light series of tire-and-motor-oil panels, dated 2008.

His institutional profile rose through inclusion in Greater New York at MoMA PS1 in 2005 and the Whitney Biennial, subtitled Day for Night, in 2006. He has had solo exhibitions with Gagosian in Beverly Hills (2010), Massimo De Carlo in London (2011), and Kukje Gallery in Seoul (2013), and his exhibition history is documented on the website of Almine Rech, which has also presented his work.

Young's work has drawn attention for turning risk and destruction into a form of gestural painting. His 2007 performance, Greeting Card, staged at the Park Avenue Armory, drew wide press attention as an example of that era's spectacle-driven contemporary art. His motorcycle-burnout works are often discussed in relation to gestural, action-based painting and physical-risk performance traditions, with the resulting panels read as records of a live, dangerous event rather than conventional studio production. His inclusion in Greater New York (2005) and the Whitney Biennial (2006) established him early as a notable figure among younger American artists working across performance, sculpture, and painting.

The public auction record for Aaron Young is thin and only partly documented in accessible sources. Phillips' own sale archive lists a dated example, ARC LIGHT (Moscow, quadriptych), executed 2008, which sold for USD 15,000 against an estimate of USD 12,000 to 18,000; the exact sale date is not published in accessible records. The same archive lists higher sold prices for other works, including Untitled (Gold) at GBP 37,500, Untitled (magenta) Triptych at GBP 25,000, and Burnout (Black Angel III, Triptych) at GBP 22,500, though sale dates for these lots are likewise unavailable. Artsy's public auction-results summary places at least one result for the artist in the USD 50,000 and above bracket without disclosing the specific work. Taken together, these figures suggest the artist's true auction high is likely above USD 15,000, but it cannot be confirmed with confidence from publicly accessible sources. His market is small and infrequent at auction relative to his museum and biennial history, which places more weight on primary-market and gallery-verified sales than on a developed auction track record.

Aaron Young's public auction record is thin and inconsistently documented: Phillips' own sale archive shows results for different works ranging from USD 15,000 to GBP 37,500, exact sale dates are often unpublished, and other databases suggest results above USD 50,000 exist, so no single figure should be treated as a confirmed, stable auction high. There is no catalogue raisonne, and current gallery representation is not stated in a single authoritative, dated source; the strongest available evidence points to Almine Rech, MASSIMODECARLO, and Kukje Gallery as galleries that have presented his work most recently, with Gagosian a significant earlier dealer. Collectors should verify any prospective acquisition directly with the artist's current galleries and rely on his museum exhibition history, rather than auction data, as the primary indicator of institutional standing.