New York, .- A striking metallic rabbit was Wednesday the protagonist of the auction of contemporary art of Christie’s held in New York, where the “Rabbit” of the American Jeff Koons marked a new record price for a living artist to be sold for more than 91 million dollars.
The experts had given him an estimated value of between 50 and 70 million dollars, which far exceeded when reaching a hammer price of 80 million dollars, which increased to 91.1 million when taxes and commissions were included.
Koons thus snatched the record of a living artist from the British painter David Hockney, who had reached the historic figure of 90.3 million dollars just six months ago in another auction of Christie’s with his “Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) “.
Interestingly, this box by Hockney also reached a hammer price of 80 million dollars last November, but the recent increase in commissions of Christie’s, the third in the last three years, led “Rabbit” to overcome the British box by less than $ 800,000.
With the singular piece, Koons recovers the record of a living artist, who had held since November 2013 with his “Balloon Dog (Orange)”, because the one that was paid 58.4 million dollars, until November 2018, when Hockney snatched it.
The sculpture, just over a meter tall and made of stainless steel, is considered one of the icons of twentieth-century art, and is the only one of the four copies that was produced that still remains in private hands. that the other three belong to museums in Los Angeles, Chicago and Qatar.
In addition, while the “Rabbit” of the Board Art Foundation of Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago and the National Museum of Qatar are frequently exhibited, the auction on Wednesday had not been shown to the public since 1988, when it was seen at the Fredericianum Museum in Kassel, Germany.
“Rabbit”, a minimalist sculpture of a rabbit in a bright silver color, has appeared on numerous covers of books, magazines and catalogs, and a monumental version participated in 2007 in the popular Thanksgiving Day parade organized in New York Macy’s department store chain.
Another of the most outstanding works of Christie’s Wednesday auction was one of the largest serigraphs of the American Robert Rauschenberg, “Bufallo II” (1964), which was very close to “Rabbit” at a price of 88.8. million dollars with taxes and commissions included, above the maximum value that had been estimated of 70 million dollars.
Almost 2.5 meters high and 1.8 meters long, the piece is the product of one of its most fertile periods in Rauschenberg, where it began to capture disparate images, such as the eagle, the Coca-Cola logo or the portrait of former US President John F. Kennedy who are seen in “Bufallo II”, with the aim of capturing the social and political spirit of the time.
It also exceeded the fifty hundred million dollars a work of Andy Warhol, the painting “Double Elvis -Ferus Type-” (1963) exhibited for the last time in Los Angeles the same year of its creation and for which 53 million were paid dollars, within the minimum of 50 and maximum of 70 million calculated by Christie’s staff.
Also highlighted one of the monumental spiders of Franco-American Louise Bourgeois, more than 3 meters high and 7 long and produced in bronze in 1997, which exceeded 32 million dollars.
The “Point of Pines” by Frank Stella, a minimalist work in which the black dominates, sold for more than 28 million dollars, thus marking a new record for the 83-year-old American artist.
Among the pieces by Latin artists was a copy of the Mexican Diego Rivera, “Niña sentada con flores”, from 1949, which exceeded the estimates of the experts when sold for $ 375,000 against a maximum of 250,000 that had been calculated. (EFEUSA)
