The $6.2 million banana, Frank Auerbach recalled, Lindokuhle Sobekwa’s photographs of addiction in South Africa

Maurizio Cattelans Comedian (2019), the work featuring a banana taped to a wall with gray tape, sold at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday for $5 million, or $6.2 million with fees. But how did other works fare at this week’s auctions in New York? Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, about the sale.

Frank Auerbach, the painter who escaped the Holocaust and spent more than 70 years creating portraits and cityscapes of London in raw, thick paint and expressive charcoal, has died. We speak to the curator of three of his most important exhibitions – and a model for Auerbach for more than 40 years – Catherine Lampert, about his work.

Frank Auerbach, *Primrose Hill, warm summer evening* (1974-75) © Frank Auerbach, courtesy of Frankie Rossi Art Projects. Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates, London

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mzwandile at home after coming from the rehab centre (2018), a photograph from Nyaopea series by South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa. In the series, he explored the devastating effect on his local community of a heroin-based drug called nyaope. The work is part of the exhibition Heroin fallsat the Sainsbury Center in Norwich, UK, and I spoke to Lindo about the work.