Proving that there are still people out there with lots of money and itches to scratch, Duchamp’s Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette, sold at Christie’s today for $11 million, lambasting its $1 million estimate (first word via artfagcity tweet). The bottle, the inspiration for Francesco Vezzoli’s GREED exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome, was included in a three-day sale of the collection of the late couturier Yves Saint Laurent (a fun 1971 video here). In the catalogue description, Dada scholar Francis Naumann describes Duchamp’s readymade perfume bottle, which features a Man Ray photograph of Duchamp in drag, as “one of the most provocative works of art ever made, a simple bottle of perfume whose liquid long ago evaporated, but whose essence, to be sure, will continue to influence artists long into the future.” Provocative? Obviously.
shmui
/ February 24, 2009wait…all the perfume evaporated? it’s an empty bottle? Maybe whoever bought that can buy some of the empty liquor bottles that the rest of the country are chugging from being out of work and scared! The fact that it was estimated at 1 million, then got sold for 11 makes the story even more ridiculous. Keep up the good work!
http://www.makeyourowndamnrice.wordpress.com
Art
/ February 25, 2009unbelievable…I mean, I thought serious art collectors were still buying, but I don’t know if I’d count this
cstachowski1
/ August 14, 2013I think that it is wonderful! Glass art and history, if you got it shake it, all in all everything in the sale for Yves Saint Laurent went for a good cause, it was donated for AIDs research. Bravo Mr. Berge’
wildsides
/ January 16, 2014provocative!
wildsides
/ January 16, 2014i wrote about it, but on serbian language… wildsidefashion.wordpress.com