Lots Highlights | 5 letters worth RMB 360m: set a personal record price as the Top 7 annual priciest lots
Radio – the priciest five letters
What impressed you most in the art markets in 2019? A surprise in the art markets, the total turnover of major auction houses, the soaring price fetched by a dark horse artist or an auction king of the markets?
Different people have different answers. Today we are going to talk about the five most expensive letters in 2019 - Radio. It is the seventh most expensive artwork in 2019, which refreshes the artist's auction record.
Radio from Ed Rusha.
Who is Ed Rusha?
He is one of the representatives of Pop Art. Pop is the abbreviation of popular, so Pop Art also means popular art. It is an artistic style mainly derived from the forms of commercial art.
What does he have to do with the US President?
Former presidents mostly chose works from artists who had been dead for more than 20 years to decorate the White House, but Obama favored contemporary art, such as Pop Art, and Ruscha was one of them.
He has also been selected as one of TIME's 100 most influential people. In the same year, there were celebrities such as then-President Obama, Pope Francis, and Tesla founder Elon Musk on the list.
Breaking the record to be Top1
On November 13 (New York time), American artist Ed Ruscha's "Hurting the Word Radio # 2" sold for $52.485 million (about 368 million yuan), setting a record price for the artist at auction in Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale.
The work at 150cm by 140.3 cm was created in 1964, with c-clamps to distort the “R” and “O” in the word RADIO, shaded yellow capital letters on an azure blue background.
When people see this painting, they are likely to ask: Why can the simple few letters of RADIO make a sky-high price? In 1964, radios were still a key media symbol of that era in the US. This painting not only presents the letters, but also arouses people's thinking and memory of an era.
Those who are familiar with Ruscha should know that this is his classic creative style.
American pop artists follow the anti-traditional artistic concept of "art reflects daily life". Those words and pictures seem to have unlimited boundaries, triggering viewers to think and explore further. Obviously, Pop style still has huge prospects in the market.