When Sotheby’s put Swiss sculpter Alberto Giacometti’s “Walking Man I” up for auction, it was expected to bring between $19.2 million and $28.8 million. Instead, the piece was sold to an unidentified buyer for a record-setting total of $104.3 million.
The sale broke the previous record price for a work of art at auction, Picasso’s 1905 ’’Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice).” In 2004, that work was sold at Sotheby’s for $104.1 million.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
Giacometti, a Swiss modern master known for his haunting sculptures of blank-face Everymen, cast the work 50 years ago as part of a commission to plant several of his bronze figures outside Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City’s financial district. The artist famously struggled with the project and eventually abandoned the commission. But he later cast stand-alone versions of some of the planned sculptures, including “Walking Man I.”
February 4th, 2010 | 9:16 am
What in the world would you do with a piece of metal like that? Oh, I guess put it on the mantle and tell people you paid $104 million for it.
February 4th, 2010 | 10:44 am
This post comes with no clue as to why Joe Carter brought it to our attention. Let me guess: The astronomical selling price, far in excess of its already bloated pre-sale estimate, is a reminder that art has become an alternative currency. It is a speculative asset—not a sacramental—in which aesthetics need play no part. This sale is actually frightening. It hints at what someone (or some corporate entity) with market savvy and large cash reserves thinks of the currency in our pockets.
February 4th, 2010 | 1:50 pm
The only thing I find frightening about that sale is that anyone would buy the thing for any reason at all.
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