A Silver Bunny for $91 Million: Koons Tops the Living Artists

It is barely a metre tall, shaped like an inflatable toy, and made of mirror-polished steel. In May 2019, Jeff Koons's 'Rabbit' (1986) sold at Christie's in New York for $91.1 million — a new record for any living artist at auction.

The price reclaimed the title Koons had lost months earlier to David Hockney. Loved and loathed in equal measure, the American's slick, playful sculptures sit at the very centre of the debate about money, taste and meaning in contemporary art.

The winning bid came from dealer Robert Mnuchin, acting for a client. For a shiny bunny with no face, it was an astonishing sum — and a perfect emblem of the booming top end of the market.

Image: “Christie's (Manhattan, New York) 001” — Leonard J. DeFrancisci, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.