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.
Are_we_sure ago
Explain your money laundering claim.
Exactly how? People keep repeating this without explaining how this works. How does putting a painting with a proven ownership history up for auction launder money. Who's money is being laundered? What makes it clean?
People are confusing the impulse I don't understand why some art is so expensive with the absolutely evidence-free claim of art is expensive only because of money laundering.
art prices
As for US artists, Pollack had piece go for $140 million, Edward Hopper had one go for $92 million. I suspect if there were more super rich women, Georgia O'Keefe prices would be up there. Alice Walton of Walmart wealth bought an O'Keefe for her museum for $44 million in 2014. Basquiat had one go for $110 million.
2019 is a more favorable time to sell art based on stock market and tax scenarios, so
Blacksmith21 ago
Oh look...Sotheby's Head Shill in Charge is weighing in. Art is only worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If a piece of art would normally sell for 2 million based on market conditions, but the parties involved in the sale agree to inflate it's value, then a $2M piece of art (market) could be sold for $18M, or whatever price of to include black money being laundered through a sale. Koons is not O'Keefe, Pollack, Picasso, Rodin, etc.
Apologies that I cannot simplify this any further.
Are_we_sure ago
The reason it's hard to simplify further it because it doesn't make sense.
If I have 18 million dollars and I pay 18 million dollars for a $2 million dollar piece of art. I just lost 16 million dollars. I cannot sell that painting for 18 million dollars, so how did I just launder my money? And why would I accept only getting 11 percent of my money back? Even if my money is black. I can get a much, much, much better return for my money in a lot of ways.
Remember it's the person with the money who needs to launder it. Why wouldn't I buy 18 million dollars of art or real estate or anything I could later sell for 18 million dollars.
This is completely irrelevant to the argument because there is obviously a very strong market for Koons and your personal judgment isn't going to affect that. Neither your opinion nor my opinion prevent Justin Beiber from having a career.
There's zero evidence this Koons auction involved money laundering.
Blacksmith21 ago
I bet you did well on the debate team at prep school.
Here's a little precedent:
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/art-and-money-laundering
https://amlrightsource.com/posts/money-laundering-artwork/
https://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2017/02/19/the-new-york-times-still-doesnt-understand-the-basics-of-art-money-laundering/
"This isn’t about the money. The finances are just a side show for most art world participants. Big league art deals are exercises in money laundering, tax evasion, and insider trading, but not that many get into that high roller category. What is most concerning is what it says about those controlling our cultural expressions."
https://remodernreview.wordpress.com/2018/07/15/commentary-jeff-koons-and-the-establishment-art-worlds-condescending-cult/
@vindicator @srayzie @think-
think- ago
LOL
Thanks for the links.
@letsdothis3 @Factfinder2 @swordfish69 - please see parent.
letsdothis3 ago
Interesting.. a link from that last Koons article which links to : OxyContin Outcry Forces Purdue's Sackler Family to Suspend Arts Donations
think- ago
Yep. I think it was Nan Goldin, a photographer, who said she would withdraw a planned exhibition if the museum in question (I think it was the National Gallary) would accept a donation from the sackler family.
Althought the lady in question has nothing to do with the sackler pharma branch.
It's not so much about developing a conscience, more like choosing between losing a donor, or losing famous artists, and thus having lower numbers of visitors, and a damaged public image.