Self-taught French artist and provocateur Ben Vautier, a cofounder of the Fluxus movement known for his humorous text-based paintings, took his own life June 5 at his home in Saint-Pancrais, France, hours after his wife, Annie, died of a stroke.
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Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle
Derrick Adams,
Esteemed by museums, curators, collectors, and fellow artists alike,
Figure in the Urban Landscape 31 (2019) a double portrait conceived in a style, with a father and daughter intersected by perpendicular roads on which model cars are mounted for $250,000 at its “Post-War to Present” sale in New York, tripling the artist’s previous auction record. It was the first of his large-scale paintings on panel to appear at auction, but the result, more than double its low estimate, suggests there will be more.
Demand for the series was strong prior to the result at Christie’s, with works from this series on offer in Tilton Gallery’s booth at Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2017 and 2018 finding buyers. They were also the focus of a solo show that opened at the gallery’s Manhattan space in November 2017.