Sales totaled $ 219 million and 58% of lots sold above the high estimate.
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A sign of the vitality of the contemporary art market, the forty lots in this “21st century” sale have all found buyers, from the Christie’s auction room at the Rockefeller center.
Sales totaled $ 219 million and 58% of lots sold above the high estimate, Christie’s said.
The auction house found the public again, after several entirely virtual seasons because of the pandemic, but in a hybrid format, where it was possible to bid physically from the room, via connected rooms in London and Hong-Kong, or still online. Auctions have been recorded from 27 countries.
The most anticipated work, “The Guild of gold teeth”, a monumental canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the artists who has dominated the auction for years, went to 40 million dollars. “Flash in Naples”, another painting by the New York designer who died at 27, in 1988, sold for $ 19.8 million.
Just below Basquiat, the Scottish Peter Doig also reached Tuesday evening nearly 40 million dollars (39.8), for a canvas, “Swamped”, painted in 1990. A record for the Briton, one of the more efficient also on the art market.
Two paintings by British street artist Banksy, “Sunflowers from Petrol Station” and “Monkey Detonator”, were sold for $ 14.5 million and $ 2.19 million respectively.
“Human one”, the first “physical” work by the American artist Beeple, known for his digital works and holder of the record for the NFT – unique digital object – the most expensive at auction ($ 69.3 million in March), went down to $ 28.9 million.
The installation, a pillar of four LED screens two meters high rotating on itself, represents the image of a human in a futuristic suit, Daft Punk type, who advances in a setting evolving between vegetation, desert and glacier.
But what makes this work unique, sold with an NFT, is that it has the particularity of being modified remotely by the artist, via blockchain technology.
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