Wax sculpture of Hitler on his knees sells for a whooping $17.2million at auction

A statue of Hitler on his knees was auctioned for a record-setting $17.2 million on Sunday, the most for any work by Italian art world prankster Maurizio Cattelan. The wax and resin statue titled Him, called 'one of the most shocking and disquieting works of art to have emerged in the post-war era', had been expected to fetch between $10million and $15million at the Christie's auction in New York's Rockefeller Plaza.
Him, which was completed in 2001, disrupts the viewer's expectations with its size. From behind, the statue appears to be that of a young boy praying, while the all too recognizable face creates an unsettling contrast. Cattelan, who considered destroying the piece of work several times, said: 'Hitler is pure fear; it’s an image of terrible pain. It even hurts to pronounce his name. And yet that name has conquered my memory, it lives in my head, even if it remains taboo.

'Hitler is everywhere, haunting the specter of history; and yet he is unmentionable, irreproducible, wrapped in a blanket of silence.
'I’m not trying to offend anyone. I don’t want to raise a new conflict or create some publicity; I would just like that image to become a territory for negotiation or a test for our psychoses.’
The statue sparked controversy in 2012 when it was installed in a former Warsaw ghetto, where thousands of Jews died under Nazi rule. Some accused the work of belittling the suffering of Jewish victims, while others saw the piece as a reflection on evil and its many forms.