A life-size 1961 bronze cast, Alberto Giacometti's L'Homme Qui Marche I, today became the most expensive work ever sold at auction. It went for £65,001,250 ($104,327,006), just more than the the 2004 record set by Picasso's Garçon à la Pipe (1905), at $104.1 million (£58,052,830). It was also $80 million more than the previous record for Giacometti, and $70 million more than any other modern sculpture sold at auction.

The news makes Paris,the site of the artist's studio, in focus. The cityisn't really noted for its contemporary art scene, which is why a budding exchange program with youthful Berlin last week seemed so pertinent.

An exhibition at the International Center for Photography in New York looks at Paris in its heyday—even before Giacometti, although perhaps this auction will revise consideration of the city's prime. Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris includes photographs by Brassai an Man Ray, among many others who got a surreal look at Paris in the inter-war years. See more at ArtBeast.

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