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Dan Colen’s Holy Shit (2004–06) features these two words spray painted in red on a dirty canvas, which is displayed upside down. The text-based work from the star artist’s early days in downtown Manhattan was offered as lot 443 of Christie’s Postwar to Present auction on Monday, September 30. It sold for $12,700 against a $10,000 to $15,000 estimate (sale prices include fees, estimates do not).
The price is strikingly low for Colen, whose paintings have sold for $3 million at auction, according to the Artnet Price Database. Holy Shit fetched $341,000 when it was offered at Sotheby’s contemporary evening auction on November 13, 2013. It has traded hands since, according to the published provenance. In 2023, it returned to the block at Sotheby’s with the much reduced estimate of $40,000 to $60,000 but found no takers.
Collector Peter Brant and artist Dan Colen at the Brant Foundation. Photo: Patrick McMullan
Also striking was the positioning of the work in the sale: although it was the first lot when it sold 12 years ago, it was the last lot of the auction this week.
The work was part of a larger group consigned by collector Peter Brant, according to a regulatory filing with the New York State Department of State. The newsprint mogul included it in “Help!,” a 2014 exhibition of work by Colen at the newsprint mogul’s Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, where it was casually displayed on the floor, leaning against the wall.
New works by Colen have been priced at many multiples of the auction results. Last year, Gagosian brought Colen’s 2023 painting, Mother (Flowers), priced at $225,000, to Art Basel Hong Kong.