That Costly Object Of Desire

By DAVID ELLIS

The art 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 two unseen telephone bidders. The winning offer: $135,000 from a Belgian art dealer.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart