Press release -
Photographic Art Reaches New Heights at Auction
At the year’s first international auction here at Bruun Rasmussen in Copenhagen, we have achieved a new Danish record for photographic art, where a work by the American artist Cindy Sherman was sold for DKK 220,000 (€ 38,000 including buyer’s premium). On the whole, the contemporary art was well received at Tuesday’s auction.
"We are currently experiencing a great interest in international contemporary art and photographic art at our auctions. Cindy Sherman is a superstar, so the expectations surrounding her work were already high, but they were both met and exceeded since we have now sold the most expensive photographic work in the history of the auction house. Several international contemporary artists surprised in a positive way, including works by the two Swiss artists Olaf Breuning and Not Vital that came from a Danish private collection," says Niels Raben, Head of the Department for Modern Art at Bruun Rasmussen.
It was the first time ever that Bruun Rasmussen had an original work by Cindy Sherman up for auction. Sherman belongs among the most influential and controversial photographers of contemporary times. In the sold piece, ”Untitled # 312", from 1994 she depicts three deformed dolls in a composition with strong sexual overtones and sends a critical nod to, for example, the Surrealist Hans Bellmer’s artistic adoration of fetishism. The work was exhibited at Sherman’s Metro Pictures gallery in New York in 1995 together with 14 other pieces, all of which had clear macabre and sexual overtones – distorted images of the kind you don’t easily erase from your memory.
Selected Hammer Prices
Tang Zhigang: "Children in meeting". Signed Tang 2001. Sold for: DKK 360,000 (€ 63,000 including buyer’s premium).
Olaf Breuning: "The Humans", 2007. Sold for: DKK 350,000 (€ 61,000 including buyer’s premium).
Cindy Sherman: "Untitled # 312", 1994. Sold for: DKK 220,000 (€ 38,000 including buyer’s premium).
Not Vital: Fifteen Tongues, approx. 1997. Sold for: DKK 170,000 (€ 30,000 including buyer’s premium).
Günther Förg: Untitled, 2001. Sold for: DKK 130,000 (€ 23,000 including buyer’s premium).
Topics
Categories
Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers is one of Scandinavia’s leading international auction houses, and one of Denmark’s oldest. It all started on 6 October 1948, when Arne Bruun Rasmussen conducted the first traditional auction in the saleroom at Bredgade 33 in Copenhagen. Today, Jesper Bruun Rasmussen stands at the helm of the family-run business together with the third generation of the family, his son Frederik and daughter Alexa, and the company’s CEO Jakob Dupont.
In 2004, the first online auction was launched, and today the auction house has expanded to include departments in Copenhagen and Aarhus and representations in Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain, Italy, Thailand and the US. About 100,000 lots are put up for auction each year at the traditional auctions and daily online auctions. Here you can bid on everything from art, antiques, modern design and jewellery to books, coins, stamps, wine and weaponry.
