A sentence written in block letters sells for $26 million

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Shattering the art world with its catastrophic incantation, Apocalypse Now made its debut in 1988 during a collaborative exhibition with Robert Gober at 303 Gallery under the humble title, A Project: Robert Gober and Christopher Wool. Hung directly across from Gober's Three Urinals of the same year, Apocalypse Now emerged as the decisive, commanding and seemingly unmatched tour de force of Wool's contemporary output. An image so indebted to its time--to the grittiness of the Lower East Side, the graffiti battered walls, and the hard-edge punk scene--Apocalypse Now is no less powerful today than it was during its creation. Timeless and affecting, imposing and arresting, Apocalypse Now imprinted such a resounding impression that the Chief Curator of New York's New Museum, Richard Flood, still recalled a decade after its debut, "The first time I was really aware of work by Chris Wool was in a now legendary exhibition at 303 Gallery in 1988. It was a collaboration with Robert Gober and included Apocalypse Now, arguably one of Wool's most important paintings. It was probably the painting of the year, and one of the most emblematic pictures in the recession to come that would humble the art world the following year. It offered such a simple, reductive solution for moving on that it became a kind of late-eighties mantra" (R. Flood, "Wool Gathering," in Parkett, no. 83, 2008, p. 142).

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