Bidding War Over '200 One Dollar Bills' Ends at $43.76 Million

NEW YORK, NY — The art market may still be suffering, but a successful contemporary art auction on Wednesday night indicates a rebound is  on the horizon. A surprise bidding war between five potential buyers broke out when Sotheby's brought Andy Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) up to the auction block.

The 7 1/2-foot wide silkscreen painting of 200 life-size dollar bills in black, white and gray tones, sold for $43.76 million - more than three times its $12 million estimate. The painting sold to an undisclosed phone bidder, who paid the second-highest price at auction for a work by the Pop artist.

"Bidding was very deep tonight," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's contemporary art director. "The desire to have great things will make [collectors] step up and pay more than $40 million."

The late Warhol's artwork is certainly enjoying 15 minutes of fame this week. On Tuesday evening, another Warhol silkscreen, a portrait of Michael Jackson, also beat estimates; it sold for $812,500 at a Christie's auction.

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Read More - Warhol Fetches $43.7 Million at Auction | New York Times
[Photo: Andy Warhol. Two Hundred One Dollar Bills, 1962.]

Bidding War Over '200 One Dollar Bills' Ends at $43.76 Million

The Art World's Most Influential Figures | The Power 100 List (2009)

ArtReview magazine has published the eighth annual Power 100 - a comprehensive list of the most influential figures in the art world. This year's list includes artists, curators, art collectors, museum directors and critics. Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist was named the most powerful figure in the contemporary art world for 2009.

LONDON /ArtReview/ -- Coming on the heels of 12 months of extraordinary financial stress, both in the art world and the real world, the 2009 edition of the Power 100 reflects fundamental changes in influence. Previous No. 1s, both artists and collectors, have plummeted, while only the most ambitious of museums have stayed near the top; meanwhile, percolating up from the middle ranks is a new generation of highly networked, flexible, globetrotting curators – men and women at the very center of a new way of working.

1. Hans Ulrich Obrist 2. Glenn D. Lowry 3. Sir Nicholas Serota 4. Daniel Birnbaum 5. Larry Gagosian 6. François Pinault 7. Eli Broad 8. Anton Vidokle, Julieta Aranda & Brian Kuan Wood 9. Iwona Blazwick 10. Bruce Nauman 11. Iwan Wirth 12. David Zwirner 13. Jeff Koons 14. Jay Jopling 15. Marian Goodman 16. Agnes Gund 17. Takashi Murakami 18. Alfred Pacquement 19. Peter Fischli & David Weiss 20. Mike Kelley 21. Barbara Gladstone 22. Steven A. Cohen 23. Dominique Lévy & Robert Mnuchin 24. Adam D. Weinberg 25. Marc Glimcher 26. Amy Cappellazzo & Brett Gorvy 27. Cheyenne Westphal & Tobias Meyer 28. Ann Philbin 29. Matthew Higgs 30. Matthew Marks 31. Tim Blum & Jeff Poe 32. Gavin Brown 33. Ralph Rugoff 34. Liam Gillick 35. Anne Pasternak 36. Dakis Joannou 37. John Baldessari 38. Isa Genzken 39. Paul McCarthy 40. Michael Govan 41. Eugenio López 42. Cindy Sherman 43. Ai Weiwei 44. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros 45. Annette Schönholzer & Marc Spiegler 46. Diedrich Diederichsen 47. Richard Prince 48. Damien Hirst 49. Bernard Arnault 50. Massimiliano Gioni

51. Amanda Sharp & Matthew Slotover 52. Joel Wachs 53. Victor Pinchuk 54. Udo Kittelmann 55. Marina Abramović 56. Michael Ringier 57. Gerhard Richter 58. Richard Serra 59. RoseLee Goldberg 60. Kasper König 61. Roberta Smith 62. Monika Sprüth & Philomene Magers 63. Germano Celant 64. Emmanuel Perrotin 65. Peter Schjeldahl 66. Beatrix Ruf 67. Okwui Enwezor 68. Nicolas Bourriaud 69. Karen & Christian Boros 70. Isabelle Graw 71. Maurizio Cattelan 72. Charles Saatchi 73. Jerry Saltz 74. Jasper Johns 75. Louise Bourgeois 76. Thaddaeus Ropac 77. Mera & Don Rubell 78. Thelma Golden 79. Sarah Morris 80. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev 81. Anita & Poju Zabludowicz 82. Paul Schimmel 83. Jose, Alberto & David Mugrabi 84. Sadie Coles 85. Daniel Buchholz 86. Victoria Miro 87. Maureen Paley 88. Johann König 89. Nicolai Wallner 90. Maria Lind 91. Massimo De Carlo 92. Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi & Maurizio Rigillo 93. Rirkrit Tiravanija 94. Toby Webster 95. Long March Space 96. Nicholas Logsdail 97. Harry Blain & Graham Southern 98. Claire Hsu 99. Peter Nagy 100. Glenn Beck

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The Art World's Most Influential Figures | The Power 100 List (2009)

Will the Frieze Heat Up London's Art Market?

LONDON -- This Thursday, the art world heads to London for the seventh annual Frieze Art Fair. Frieze will showcase new and established artists to an international audience of curators, artists, collectors, gallerists and critics, as well as the general public. The event will take place under a large temporary structure of approximately 21,000 square meters in beautiful Regent's Park.

Frieze is one of the only exhibits of its kind to focus solely on contemporary art and living artists. This year, 164 of the world’s most exciting contemporary art galleries, representing 30 countries, will present new work by over 1,000 of the world’s most innovative artists. 2009 will also introduce Frame, a new section within the fair dedicated to solo artist presentations.

The equivalent of Switzerland's Art Basel, Frieze is a barometer for how London's art market will fair in the coming months. Frieze welcomed 68,000 visitors in 2008. This week, all eyes will be on the UK to determine whether the numbers predict success for next year.

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Frieze Art Fair (Oct. 15-18, 2009) | Website
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Will the Frieze Heat Up London's Art Market?