PEAKLIFE

Christie’s auction house witnessed the record price for a work by living artist for $91 million.

Jeffrey Koon’s 1986 Rabbit sculpture set a record price for the most expensive work sold by a living artist at an auction at Christie’s on 15th May. It was sold for $91.1 million on 15th May. Just over 3ft high, this stainless-steel sculpture has a faceless quicksilver rabbit which embodies a whole range of references while at the same time remaining deadpan & aloof.

Jeffrey Koons is an American artist known for working with popular culture subjects & his reproductions of banal objects, such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. His works have sold for substantial sums including at least two record auction prices for a work by a living artist, including this one.

The art work was sold to Robert E Mnuchin who is an American art dealer & former banker. He is the founder of the Mnuchin Gallery at 45 East 78th Street, New York. His son, Steven Mnuchin is the United States Secretary of the Treasury in the Trump administration.

The Rabbit has become one of the most iconic works of 20th century art. It is crisp & cool in its appearance and lacks facial features, yet evoking fun and frivolity. Christie says on their website that it is a mirror Jeff Koons says ‘it has a lunar aspect, because it reflects. It is not interested in you, even though at the same moment it is.’ Crucially, as well as being strong and useful, steel also has the gleam and glimmer of luxury. ‘I think the Bunny works because it performs exactly the way I intended it to,’ Koons said of Rabbit. ‘It is very seductive shiny material and the viewer looks at this and feels for the moment economically secure. It’s most like the gold- and silver-leafing in church during the baroque and the rococo. The bunny is working the same way. And it has a lunar aspect, because it reflects. It is not interested in you, even though at the same moment it is.’