OVERVIEW: Art in Embassies Program Gave Podestas, Jeff Koons, Rockefellers, Clintons, Marina Abramovic, Rothschilds even Alefantis access to a private shipping channel that could bypass airport security credit: @Swordfish69
Jeff Koons ‘Rabbit’ Sets Auction Record for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist
Robert E. Mnuchin, an art dealer and the father of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, made the winning bid for Mr. Koons’s 1986 “Rabbit” from an aisle seat near the front of the salesroom. He was seated near Peter Brant, the collector and private museum-owner, and Jeffrey Deitch, the dealer.
It was the ultimate prize among six works offered at Christie’s from the collection of the magazine publisher S.I. Newhouse Jr., who died in 2017. Estimated to raise at least $50 million, this sculpture, made in an edition of three and one artist’s proof, was the last example left in private hands, according to Christie’s.
The price, surpassing the $90.2 million with fees achieved, again at Christie’s, for Mr. Hockney’s 1972 painting, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures),” confirmed how Mr. Koons’s metal sculptures have become the ultimate billionaire trophies produced during the contemporary art boom of the 1980s and ’90s. The Hockney milestone came at the expense of Mr. Koons, the previous record-holder, whose “Balloon Dog (Orange)” sold at auction for $58.4 million in November 2013.
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Blacksmith21 ago
That is insane - American artists like O'Keefe, Klee, Pollack, etc. don't even command prices like that. This reeks of a money laundering operation.
What really throws me is Mnuchin being involved. But art is art, regardless of who or what created it. I love art, but the industry is filled with freaks and creeps.
Nice find.
ImmaLueserBaby ago
No kidding? I had to search this Koons guy and his work is nothing special. It looks like the same mediocre pop art you see in marketing campaigns. A team of graphic artists could easily churn stuff like this out.
Cold_Guinea_Pig ago
Isn't this also part of the plan? To make shitty 'art' seem more important than it actually is? It's kind of telling people to stop thinking for themselves. I mean I have been to art galleries and have laughed my head off and said so. The looks you get when you point out that the 'emperor is naked' are priceless. They are all falling for this. They don't see when they are shafted and pretend to be knowledgeable, when in fact they are sheep.
This isn't art, it's to influence people to be told what to like and what not. Anyone with a brain cell can see that most of modern art is a load of crock. And yes I do understand art and that some has a message, but when you see some wood laid out on the floor and a stone plonked in the middle, and people go 'hmm yeah, yeah, fascinating..'I lose my rag.
ImmaLueserBaby ago
I agree. I've seen masterpieces that took years to complete IRL and art was a requirement in college. There's just no comparison between industrialized pop modern "art" and the craftsmanship of the more classical styles. Same goes for architecture- modern designs look tacky and quickly date themselves.