Art Market

The auction record for the street artist Invader was broken at Artcurial.

Benjamin Sutton
May 6, 2019 7:56PM, via Artcurial

Invader, Vienna, 2007. Sold for €356,200 (about $398,800) at Artcurial. Courtesy Artcurial.

A large-scale mosaic work by the French street artist Invader zapped his previous auction record on Sunday, when it sold for €356,200 (about $398,800) in Artcurial’s sale of urban and Pop art in Paris. The record-setting work, Vienna (2008), features a hypnotic arrangement of black and blue outlines emanating from one of the artist’s trademark pixelated aliens from the vintage videogame Space Invader. The work is mounted on two panels and spans more than seven feet wide. It sold right around its high estimate of €350,000 ($391,800), surpassing Invader’s previous auction record of $HK 2.68 million ($346,800) set at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2015. Artcurial noted that Vienna’s buyer is a foreign (i.e. not French) collector, but would not give any other information.

The Invader work was one of six new artist records set during Artcurial’s two-part urban and Pop art sale on Sunday, which totaled €3.6 million (or over $4 million). New auction highs were also achieved for works by the legendary Puerto Rican graffiti artist Lee Quiñones, the late New York City graffiti artist Anthony “A-One” Clark, the Portuguese street artist Vhils, the French street artist HOPARE, and the Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá. At the same sale, a Porsche sportscar painted by the French street artist Speedy Graphito raised money for cancer research when it sold for €160,000 ($179,000).

Further Reading: 5 Essential Tips for Collecting Street Art

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Benjamin Sutton