Word: objet
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Shame" because its ostentatious decor mirrors the incorrigible excesses of Mobutu's rule. Visitors to Kabila's headquarters, however, are struck by an even more telling reflection. Much like Mobutu's imprimatur these days, the elegance of his erstwhile estate is largely hollow. Almost everything that is ostensibly an objet d'art is fake--the marbleized plastic dining table, the plinths inlaid with artificial malachite, the spanking new Oriental rugs...
Some of the faithful will have to be content with the catalog, which was published last week. It is a thick paragon of low-intensity salesmanship: plain cream cover, small gray type, no objet d'art staring from it--which is only proper, since what Sotheby's is selling is spiritual contact. Some 100,000 copies are available, at $90 (hardback) and $45 (soft). This print run will probably take care of the cost of the color plates, which are many and which reproduce such treasures as Lot 924, "A Set of Six French Stoneware Butter Pots, Modern," estimate...
...market is in a tailspin, but no one would know it from the attention lavished on one item auctioned in Manhattan last week. Objet-Dard, a 1962 Marcel Duchamp bronze casting owned by the estate of the late graffiti artist Keith Haring, was listed in the Christie's catalog at a cautiously low estimate of $8,000 to $10,000. (The title of the frankly phallic piece is a pun on objet d'art, substituting the French word for dart.) In a matter of seconds, bids for the 8-in. work soared into six figures in a battle between...