This article was published in 2009 and describes an auction record on the international art market.
Last Thursday afternoon, September 24, a work by Ruud van Empel (World # 17, 2006) sold at Sotheby's in New York for $116,500 (€79,438.92), setting an auction record for Ruud van Empel.
After two works by Andy Warhol, this was the highest-priced work sold at the auction.
The World series (2005-2006) is a collection of photographic portraits of Black children in which the interplay of light and color creates a hallucinatory effect. The production process behind these works, which are both dark and beautiful, is particularly remarkable. Van Empel does not hesitate to use thousands of digital fragments to create a single artwork—as if he were painting his photographs, with a computer and digital camera serving as his paint and brush.
