We  have reported several times about the Takashi Murakami organized charity auction “New Day: Artists for Japan”, in association with Christie’s. The event finally took place Wednesday morning in New York City and was jam packed with both collectors and fans of the Japanese artist. Participating artists included Zeng Fanzhi, Mark Grotjahn, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, KAWS, Jeff Koons, Friedrich Kunath, Mr., Yoshimoto Nara, Gabriel Orozco, Anselm Reyle, Cindy Sherman, Aya Takano and Luc Tuymans.

Our favorite, Kaws, got a record high for his “Kawsbob Enters the Strange Forest” (2011) painting, at a whooping 155′000 USD. Having followed him now for such a long time, it is great seeing him come this far. A price war between the Paris dealer of the artist, Emmanuel Perrotin, and one of his clients, forced the price up to 155′000 USD.

The highest piece of work sold during the auction, was the Jeff Koons “Balloon Monkey Wall Relief” for exactly 1′000′000 USD. All in all the auction raised almost 9 Million USD for the Japanese earthquake victims, which is simply incredible. (Via AI)

Auction house Christie’s will be teaming up with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and his company Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. to support the victims of the March 11, 2011 Tohoku-Pacific earthquake in Japan. For the occasion a dedicated section of their November 9th, 2011, auction in New York was given to Murakami. Murakami contributed works himself to be auction off and chose other works from some of contemporary art’s biggest names to support the event. Works by Zeng Fanzhi, Mark Grotjahn, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, KAWS, Jeff Koons, Friedrich Kunath, Mr., Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Gabriel Orozco, Anselm Reyle, Cindy Sherman, Aya Takano, and Luc Tuymans will be part of the sale.

Gagosian Gallery will be holding a preview of the works from the auction, from Wednesday, October 26th to Friday, October 28th at their Madison Avenue Gallery in New York.

A preview of the works follows after the jump.

After the recent pop culture auction at Phillips De Pury & Company, we see now a major auction house also moving in this direction. Christie’s is about to hold their pop culture auction next month.
"Christie’s Pop Culture auction slated for Wednesday, June 25th 2008 @ their Rockefeller Center location features a wide variety of entertainment collectibles. Mixed in with the movie, television and comic collectibles are several designer toy lots . In addition to Amanda Visell’s custom 20" Gnome Eating Bat Munny (est. $3000 – $5000) and Sket One’s 20" Kong Dunny (est $3000 – $5000), there are several other lots that caught our eye. Sucklord is represented with four lots including a great Gay Empire Attack! display (est. $1500 – $2000) shown above (Image: Christie’s ).

Beyond the custom pieces, there are several production figures up for launch — including a lot of 3 full unopened Dunny sets : Dunny LA, Colette, and Tattoo ($2000 – $3000). There are several other Dunny lots as well — Gary Baseman, Deph and Huck Gee (HMNI) . Joe Ledbetter collectors will be interested in the Mr. Bunny lot ($1k – $2k) as well as his "The Defender" painting ($3000 – $5000)." Via Vinylpulse.
It is great seeing artists and designers that we feature on a daily, appear in this more serious art environment. It seems like interest outside of our niche market is starting to pick up. More info on the auction and everything that will be auctioned off, you can check here.