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| Andy Warhol, "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)" (1963) |
$105.4 million. £65 million.
The record-breaking work was sold at the Sotheby's auction on the 13th of November, in New York City to an unidentified buyer.
Warhol has beaten his own record that night. A fantastic, yet scary happening to the art market. With that price going up, the values of the secondary market will inevitably rise, and auction house bidders should expect an increase in estimates too. But what makes this piece so special? After all, Warhol's highest sale until then was of $30 million.
Andy Warhol is a world wide known artist. In terms of fame, he could be put side by side with names like Picasso, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, and even Da Vinci. He revolutionised the arts by creating a range of visually accessible images - popular, everyday-life objects which turned into art. Then, he multiplied them, as if it were a religious act. He commercialised the arts, like nobody has ever done before. Warhol, of course, is a label in itself.
Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, mentions how "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)" is compared to a filmriss, a german expression meaning a tear on a film strip. When a film tears, the projector stops reading the images and the screen goes black. The same thing may happen in a traumatic event: images move around your head until everything goes blank. Blank.
This work has only been seen by the public once in the past 26 years, and is considered the most important from the "Disaster Series". Its size, year, series and uniqueness are additive factors to its value. There is still no identity to the buyer, but most certainly it will become the highlight of his collection.
