A week full of big bids

The highly anticipated art-auction season arrived on Sunday with a specially curated sale that included a sculpture of a kneeling Hitler by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which fetched a record price for the artist, and a ball suspended in a water tank by Jeff Koons.

Christie's Bound to Fail themed sale kicked off the weeklong New York auctions of modern, postwar and contemporary art at Christie's and Sotheby's.

Him, Cattelan's controversial sculpture of Hitler, appears as a small child kneeling in prayer when approached from the rear. But from the front, the viewer comes face-to-face with the unmistakable likeness of Hitler. It sold for a record $17.2 million.