Bid On Dash Snow’s Couch, Other Treasures

Christie’s is auctioning off a collection of contemporary art that includes Dash Snow’s cheap leather sofa and other oddities. A gift from his friend, photographer Ryan McGinley, the old couch lived in Snow’s LES apartment where it was excavated in a fruitless search for a mythical bag of coke. Snow later planted a palm tree and various other drug den decorations in the hole he and McGinley dug and titled it “This Was Your Life.” The party mess was exhibited at the now closed Rivington Arms Gallery in 2005, sold to collector Charles Saatchi, and is estimated to be worth between $40,000 and $55,000. Also up for bid at the Post-War & Contemporary Art auction on October 17th in London is a tattooed pig by Wim Delvoye, a couple of trashy fucking rats, a $30k FAILE painting and Damien Hirst’s statue of a girl with a broken leg, featured after the jump. Read more »

Basquiat Is Still Recession-Proof

Art connoisseurs might not be interested in shelling out big bucks for a Lichtenstein, but Jean-Michel Basquiat, no problem. Although a third of the work failed to sell at Christie’s contemporary art auction here in the city—including a much hyped Francis Bacon—this 1982 painting by the legendary sometimes street vandal sold for $13.5 million making Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, the seller, quite happy. About a million and a half times happier with the painting selling for more than its $12 million estimated price. |BBC|

Christie’s Shamelessly Auctions Off James Brown’s Stuff

Snooty auction house, Christie’s, moved forward with its James Brown auction despite protests by the “#1 Soul Brother’s” children. Approximately 350 items went on sale and are expected to fetch around $2 million in total. |Gothamist|

‘Well-Dressed Women’ Watch As Christie’s Auction Breaks Records

This Christie’s auction makes Banksy’s $210,000 sale price at Bonhams NY look like child’s play.

“There was no rest for the wicked last night at Christie’s as the market for Contemporary art proved just as strong as ever. The $348.2 million sale was packed with buyers, dealers, and numerous well-dressed women there to watch the action.”

Wait. Was that just a coy way of saying that auction-attending women are gold diggers? |NYSun|
Lucian Freud, “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” 1995. Sold for $36.4 million.

French President’s Naked Wife Sells for $91,000

Remember that bare-skinned photo of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife Carla Bruni, taken while she was a fashion model in 1993? The full body nude, shot by photographer Michel Comte was recently auctioned off at Christie’s and fetched more than 20x it’s estimated sale price. Although the photog claims he’d never sell the more “explicit” photos he has of Bruni, will he consider changing his mind now that the market has been tested? He didn’t bank anything on this after all, the photo was owned by collector of naked models Gert Elfering. Despite being one of the most famous nudes for sale at the auction, this image of a naked Kate Moss sold for $97K, but Brigitte Bardot had both of them easily beat with a photo of her fetching $181K. |BBC| |AmateurPhotographer|