You don’t have to be dead to be hot in the art world. There are a number of people out there making art that others are willing to pay gobs of money for. Like ridiculous amounts of money.
In terms of prices for individual works, Jeff Koons remains auction king. His Balloon Dog (Orange) (1994-2000) sold for $58.4 million at Christie’s New York in November 2013, a price still not outstripped by any other living artist.
For the list of total auction sales by volume, Germany’s Gerhard Richter remains at the top, with total sales of over $1 billion, followed by Koons at a distant second with $402 million, then Christopher Wool with $377 million.
Gerhard Richter in front of his painting “930-7 Strip” at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in June 2012.
Also a new arrival to the 100 highest lots is Peter Doig, whose painting The Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991) sold for £11.3 million ($16.3 million) at Christie’s London this past February. I’m personally in love with this piece. The toned down colors and visual texture is just really comforting to my brain.
Peter Doig, The Architect’s Home in the Ravine, 1991. Courtesy Christie’s.
And it’s not all men on the top selling list. Women are represented by Jenny Saville, whose fleshy nude painting Shift (1996-97) sold for $9 million this June, landing her at #85. Cady Noland had a $9.8 million sale of Bluewald (1989) at Christie’s blockbuster “Looking Forward to the Past” sale in New York in May 2015.
Bluewald (1989)
One of the most interesting and wild artists on the list is Yayoi Kusama. Who recorded sales of $203 million, which is largely made up of installation work that people tour. Like her super trippy work, Infinity, in which a viewer enters a room of mirrors and light.
Plus look how damn fun and eccentric she is. Yayoi is like an installation all on her own.
H/T to art site Artsy.com, who compiled the list of top 100 through tiring work that I don’t have my shit together enough to do. Bravo.
