Auction of Contemporary Art Sotheby's: high prices and ... loud protests

Auction of Contemporary Art Sotheby's, held in London on 15 February, was remembered not only great prices - 7.5 million pounds for Gerhard Richter, 3 million for Andy Warhol - but the protest, arranged, apparently, students of art schools.

GERHARD RICHTER An abstract painting. 1990. Source: artinfo.com

first sales. Bidding went briskly from the start: the first lot, the installation of porcelain seeds authorship Chinese dissident Aya Weiwei (Ai Weiwei), exceeded the lower estimate is more than three times (350 thousand pounds in the evaluation of 100-120 thousand). The same seeds are now filled half the Turbine Hall Tate Modern gallery. In its work, Ai "immortalized" food, which was the basis of the diet of ordinary Chinese during the Great Leap ».

record amount - nearly 1.5 million pounds - brought photorealistic painting Gertsha Franz (Franz Gertsch)« Luciano I »(1974), depicting a handsome young man. Previously, the product belonged to the Museum of Modern Art Vezerburg in Bremen. The auction house expected to fetch him at least 500-700 thousand.

artwork graced the auction catalog reproduction of the "abstract paintings" by Gerhard Richter (Gerhard Richter), which, as we said in the beginning, "flew" up to 7, 2 million pounds - the upper estimate. For the product could be particularly not to worry: he already had a guaranteed buyer. It is reported that the final price of calls from clients in Asia, which was later picked up his self-portrait photographer Thomas Struth Düsseldorf school (Thomas Struth), paying him 421,000 pounds.

Generally, the picture enjoyed popularity in the auction: for example, snapshot of Cindy Sherman (Cindy Sherman) «Untitled#87" bought for 577,000 pounds. In previous times have seen the creation of an auction in 1986 when it brought 4.6 thousand dollars.

Closer to the middle of the auction, when taken out one of the top lots - "Nine multicolored Marilyn Andy Warhol (AndyWarhol) - there was a synchronous beeping of mobile phones, followed by loud sighs and groans. These sounds attracted the attention of a group of well-dressed young men and women who began to scatter pyatidesyatifuntovye fake banknotes. They unfurled a red banner with the words «Orgy of the Rich» («orgy rich »).

bidders appear to" performance "fell in love: they enthusiastically picked up the banknote, and some even applauded . However, the guards quickly brought activists into the street, where there was a demonstration against the cuts in the budgets of cultural institutions.

auction continued - Warhol, sold for 3.18 million pounds in estimating 2-3 million. Later, a bronze sculpture of Juan Muñoz (Juan Muñoz) has brought an incredible 3,000,000 pounds (estimate 600-900 thousand). The total value of lots amounted to 44.36 million, buyers are not found only five papers out of 59.

material was prepared by Julia Maksimova, AI

Sources: artinfo.com , artinvestment.ru