Kanye's 'Famous' sculpture ft. naked 'Taylor Swift' selling for $4m

Los Angeles gallery Blum & Poe has put the piece up for sale after holding a private exhibition attended by Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner

The controversial artwork which formed the centre of Kanye West's music video for "Famous" has gone up for sale, with The New York Times reporting hopes it'll fetch $4 million.

The Los Angeles gallery Blum & Poe hosted a private exhibition of the piece, which saw attendance by both Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner, while West made an appearance through an onscreen avatar.

The work features 12 major figures in pop culture rendered nude in hyper-realistic silicon: namely George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Amber Rose, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Anna Wintour, Bill Cosby, Ray J, and Taylor Swift. Alongside Kanye himself, of course, as well as Kim Kardashian and Caitlyn Jenner; each figure including a mechanism which creates the illusion of breathing.

Members of West's creative collective DONDA say the piece took four months of animation modeling, 3-D scanning, stylist consulting, and Instagram searches to create. Each individual body was hand-sculpted down to the freckles and hair (which is human), and then applied by hand, piece-by-piece; though West didn't directly construct the piece, he was responsible for its conception and direction.

Some have thrown doubt over the $4 million price tag, but gallery owner Tim Blum claims it's "a good ballpark". "I did the math in my head, and it took $500,000 to a million just to make it," stated LA artist Aaron Axelrod, "This caught me off guard. It’s one of the coolest pieces I’ve ever seen, which is kind of annoying because it’s Kanye West."

Blum has some hopes the piece will end up in a museum. "I have friends who are directors of museums," he stated. "This is a thing you could see at Lacma [Los Angeles County Museum of Art], MOCA or the Hammer very easily."