Which Jeff Koons Art Piece Sold for 4137500
Jeff Koons 'Rabbit' Sets Auction Tape for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist
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A shiny stainless steel sculpture created by Jeff Koons in 1986, inspired by a child'due south inflatable toy, sold at Christie's on Wednesday night for $91.one 1000000 with fees, breaking the record at auction for a work past a living artist, set just concluding November by David Hockney.
Robert E. Mnuchin, an art dealer and the father of Treasury Secretarial assistant Steven Mnuchin, made the winning bid for Mr. Koons's 1986 "Rabbit" from an aisle seat near the forepart of the salesroom. He was seated near Peter Brant, the collector and individual museum-owner, and Jeffrey Deitch, the dealer.
It was the ultimate prize amongst six works offered at Christie's from the collection of the magazine publisher Due south.I. Newhouse Jr., who died in 2017. Estimated to enhance at least $50 million, this sculpture, made in an edition of three and one artist'due south proof, was the last case left in individual hands, according to Christie's.
[Update: Robert Mnuchin would rather not hash out his customer (or his son) .]
The price, surpassing the $ninety.ii meg with fees achieved, once again at Christie's, for Mr. Hockney's 1972 painting, "Portrait of an Creative person (Pool With Ii Figures)," confirmed how Mr. Koons'southward metallic sculptures accept become the ultimate billionaire trophies produced during the gimmicky fine art boom of the 1980s and '90s. The Hockney milestone came at the expense of Mr. Koons, the previous tape-holder, whose "Balloon Dog (Orangish)" sold at auction for $58.4 million in November 2013.
Critics pointed out that the "Rabbit" sculpture elegantly and enigmatically alludes to earlier pieces by such artists as Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol.
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"I always thought information technology would be in the pantheon," said Mr. Deitch. "It was instantly embraced by artists and cultural critics, and it's kept its resonance for all these years."
This validation is all the sweeter for Mr. Koons, whose career trajectory has been contradictory, controversial and uneven. In 2017, slowing demand for some of his more recent works necessitated a major downsizing of his studio. Auction prices for his most valuable sculptures have besides slumped. Since 2014, the nearly recent spike in sales of contemporary art, the highest price paid for a Koons sculpture at auction was $22.8 1000000, for the colored aluminum sculpture "Play Doh," according to the Artnet database of salesroom prices.
Mr. Koons has been embroiled in suits accusing him of copying, and in 2016, he upset the French cultural establishment by giving Paris a colorfully upbeat "Bouquet of Tulips" sculpture, inspired by the Statue of Liberty, as a memorial to victims of contempo terrorist attacks in French republic.
"In that location are and so many strange, disconcerting aspects to Jeff Koons, his art and his career that it is hard to quite know how to approach" it, Roberta Smith wrote in the The New York Times, reviewing his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2014, then its largest survey devoted to a single artist.
His work ranges from the notorious pictures that depict the artist in flagrante with his and then-married woman, Ilona Staller, known in her porn-star days every bit La Cicciolina, to knowingly kitsch sculptures like one of Michael Jackson with Bubbles, his pet chimpanzee, to his reflective, oversize "Rabbit" that "turns the hare into a space-invader of unknown origin," Ms. Smith wrote.
In all, the vi contemporary works from the Newhouse collection raised $115 one thousand thousand Wednesday evening. On Monday evening, five Impressionist and mod works endemic by Mr. Newhouse had raised $101 million. Before this week, this grouping of 11 had been estimated at $130 meg.
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Other notable sales included a Louise Bourgeois "Spider" cast in 1997, which sold for $32 million, a record for the artist and the second-highest toll paid at auction for a work past a adult female.
Considering Christie'southward offered the two choicest manor collections of the week, the sale was packed with classic works past major names of American postwar and contemporary art. The auction began with 11 works from the Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer family, based in Chicago. Buying directly from dealers in the 1960s, the Mayers amassed a formidable collection of Pop Art.
"They were important collectors, and they bought early," said David Nisinson, a collector and fine art adviser in New York. "Christie'south had a lot of fresh material from well-known collectors that hadn't been seen for years."
The choice of the Mayer works was Robert Rauschenberg'southward 1964 silk-screen painting, "Buffalo Two," evoking the turbulent political climate after President John F. Kennedy's bump-off. It sold for $88.8 million with fees. The couple had acquired the painting in 1965 from the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York.
"It's a very pregnant painting," said Mr. Nisinson. "And Rauschenberg has been undervalued compared to other artists."
Most of Mr. Rauschenberg'southward most innovative works from the 1950s and '60s, particularly his trailblazing "Combines," have long been held in museums and rarely appear on the market place. This early on silk-screen painting, packed with evocative imagery, is the most significant Rauschenberg to announced at auction in years. The previous high for Rauschenberg had been $18.6 million in 2015, according to Artnet. Another Mayer prize was Roy Lichtenstein's "Osculation," from 1962, which brought in $31.1 one thousand thousand.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/arts/jeff-koons-rabbit-auction.html
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