Roy Lichtenstein,"Ohhh...Alright..." sold for $42.6M at Christie's
Ohhh…Alright. That’s the title of Christie’s big seller yesterday evening by artist Roy Lichtenstein. It sold for $42.6 million, which according to Lindsay Pollock’s reporting for Bloomberg, had New York art adviser Stefano Basilico saying “The patient has made a full recovery.” Well, sort of. It was likely the auction house’s tripling of sold goods that made him say that. As a reader points out in the comments, the buyer had agreed to bid on the work in advance, and was the only interested party.
If the patient is Roy Lichtenstein’s avid collector I suppose he’s right, but I have to wonder about the stability of these results. It’s not like I open up the front page of the Times every day to great economic forecasts, even if I’m continually reading about how much richer the rich have become over the last thirty years. I suppose I should be rooting for the buoyancy of the market, but I’d rather the art market suffer a little in exchange for a more even distribution of wealth.
Abdi Farah's Baptism
In more frivolous news, Work of Art winner Abdi Farah sold his piece “Baptism” at Phillips de Pury Auction house last week, over the estimated bid of 6-8,000 for double, $16,000. I assume Bravo reaps those awards as they own all the work made on the reality show, so I’m not sure this is a giant win for Farah. Speculation about how the sale would effect his career would be pertinent were he over the age of 23.
