The Ultra-Contemporary Painting That Set Avery Singer's Auction Record

Avery Singer's Happening (2014) sold for $5.25m at Sotheby's in New York on May 19, 2022. The acrylic on canvas work had been traded once in the past.

Singer's 2014 canvas was among the works in her solo show at the Kunsthaus Zurich that year, an exhibition that turned the artist, who was under 30 years of age at the time, from an up-and-coming young painter to a rising star.

Singer creates her signature works by first drafting images using a 3D rendering architectural software that she began using while still an undergraduate New York’s Cooper Union. Singer then projects her underdrawings onto a large-scale canvas before painting half-human, half-cyborg figures with geometric precision, using masking tape and airbrush.

The sale beat Singer's previous auction record by $759,800, a 16% rise. The previous record was set by Untitled (Tuesday) (2017), which sold for $4.49m at Christie's on December 01, 2021. The work had been traded twice in the past.