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Lehman Brothers Art Fire Sale at Sotheby's Totals Out at Just $12 Million
The "fire sale" of the Lehman Brothers art collection went so-so. Some serious bargains were grabbed; some things-this Richter lithograph-went for well above estimate. The big Julie Mehretu painting (everyone, where everyone is Goldman Sachs and their like, has one!) seems oddly like a bargain at a million dollars. The Neo Rauch, at half a million, mid-estimate, seems like a great buy. The John Currin went for a very low price. And so the circle of boom and bust continues unabated etc.
That Dmaien Hirst shit, UNSOLD.
How do you not snap up a Vito Acconci? He's a heart attack waiting to happen.
Acconci market diluted by too many early multiples?
Would this be what they are talking about when they refer to a "redistribution of wealth"?
Or a Russian bubble. You know, a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble…
but what of the Franklin Mint Commemoratives?
I think those were actually Koons.
I'm surprised Betty didn't go for more. If only I had the moneys…
Betty — greatest work of the late 20th c.? or Caspar David Friedrich ripoff. I lean towards floorwax AND dessert topping.
I'm not surprised the John Currin went low though it will in the long-run be a great investment for whoever got it I think.
Currin is rubbish!
I used to think so too until I read about his process.
But no, I would never want one on my wall.
What I'm saying is he is working on a level of technical skill that is probably unrivaled in his contemporaries, which I think will secure him a (boring, pedestrian) place in the canon, especially if people like Donald Kuspit have their way.
But yes his paintings are boring as hell.
John Currin is the Mark Ryden of the High-End set.
which is to say: kitsch.