Street art sold in Hong Kong auction

Chu Teh-chun's work L'automne tops the sale at a price of 4.24 million HK dollars. Photos provided to China Daily

Mysterious French street artist Invader's art made an auction debut in Hong Kong, with his work in tribute to kung fu fetching 1.96 million HK dollars ($251,000) at a recent sale.

Alias HK_58, an installation of ceramic tiles on a panel, appeared at Sotheby's "Boundless" sale of contemporary art on Jan 20. Invader's inspiration for the work, created in 2014, was a US animation series from the 1970s, Hong Kong Phooey.

He portrayed the series' protagonist, Penrod Pooch, in a kung fu gesture. He saluted the film culture of Hong Kong, where kung fu movies flourished and stars such as BruceLee got a career boost.

Invader, a pseudonym adopted by the artist, is well-known for installing colored mosaic tiles in public places. He calls these works in more than 35 cities across the world "invasions". The sold work is actually a re-creation of an original he installed in Hong Kong's Happy Valley but was later destroyed by local authorities.

The "Boundless" sale put under the hammer 105 contemporary works of Chinese and Western artists, including Zhang Xiaogang, Zao Wou-ki, Roy Lichtenstein and Damien Hirst. It achieved 42.1 million HK dollars in total.