Family bought a Warhol Brillo Box for $1000, traded it, then learned it sold for $3 million

Sarina Frauenfelder 2:31 pm Wed Aug 2, 2017

On Sunday I saw the screening of Brillo Box (3¢ Off) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The 40-minute documentary was written/directed by Lisanne Skyler and will air on HBO on August 7th. The film tells the story of an Andy Warhol “Brillo Box (3¢ Off)” sculpture that Skyler’s parents bought in 1969 for only $1000, and traded shortly after for another piece of art. The same Brillo Box recently sold for 3 million dollars. When Skyler was a child, her father enclosed the sculpture in Plexiglas and her family basically used it as a coffee table.

In Skyler’s director’s statement, she talks about the drastic change in value of the sculpture: “I was fascinated by this stunning turn of events and wondered about all of the personal decisions that had shaped its journey. What was the role it played in other lives, and what secrets did it hold about my own family?” Skyler’s questions about the box are answered in the film through footage of the Warhol Factory scene, interviews with her parents who spent their lives buying and trading art, and a look into the rapidly changing art world that Skyler witnessed first hand as she grew up.

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