Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the work featuring a banana stuck to a wall with grey duct tape, sold at Sotheby’s in New York, on Wednesday for $5m or $6.2m with fees. But how did other works fare at this week’s auctions in New York? Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, about the sales.
Frank Auerbach, the painter who escaped the Holocaust and dedicated more than 70 years to creating portraits and cityscapes in London in raw, thick paint and expressive charcoal, has died. We speak to the curator of three of his most important exhibitions—and a model for Auerbach for more than 40 years—Catherine Lampert, about his work.
Frank Auerbach, Primrose Hill, Hot Summer Evening (1974-75) © Frank Auerbach, Courtesy Frankie Rossi Art Projects. Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates, London
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mzwandile at home after coming from the rehab center (2018), a photograph from Nyaope, a series by the South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa. In the series he explored the devastating effect on his local community of a heroin-based drug, called nyaope. The work is part of the exhibition Heroin Falls, at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, UK, and I spoke to Lindo about the work.
Mabhuti and his friends prepare for the next hit. Thokoza, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2013. Part of the exhibition Heroin Falls at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK © Lindokuhle Sobekwa/Magnum Photos
- Heroin Falls, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK, 23 November-27 April 2025
