Another world record was hit last night in the auction house art wars. Francis Bacon’s triptych, a 1969 study of the artist Lucian Freud, Bacon’s friend and rival, sold for $142 million, the highest price for a work of art at auction, EVER. Christopher Wool’s “Apocalypse Now” hammered for a record $26,485,000, and Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog (Orange) made $58,405,000, the highest price for living artist. Tonight, Warhol’s image of suburban death, “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster),” goes up and Sotheby’s estimates it will bring $60 million to $80 million. (Given these sales, I think it will pass $100 million and it might even best the Bacon) “If these sales do well, it means that there is an enormous amount of cash around, and people still think contemporary art is the place to put it,” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s principal auctioneer and head of its contemporary art department worldwide. “If they don’t, it shows that marketing doesn’t make a masterpiece.” The work is beyond solid, honestly, these guys don’t throw around this kind of dough for any old painting. A lot has to be at play, but I think the work has to be one thing to garner these stratospheric amounts – it has to be ICONIC.