Art Market Watch Records Fall At Christies Contemporary Art Auction

Art Market Watch Records Fall At Christies Contemporary Art Auction

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Now that was a sale and a half. Literally. Christies New York evening auction of contemporary art on Nov. 8, 2011, included 91 lots, and lasted two-and-one-half hours. By the end, a clearly worn-out Christopher Burge, who does know how to move things along, was nevertheless presiding over an all-but-empty room, allowing the more stalwart dealers to pick up random lots without contest (see below).
Fittingly for such a blow-out, the stats are supersized as well. The auction totaled $247.6 million, with 82 of 91 lots selling, or 90 percent. A lucky 13 of the lots were financed by third parties. One non-fiscal highlight was the presence of Leo diCaprio and his Inception co-star, Lucas Haas, sitting with dealer Helly Nahmad.
When they left, about halfway through the sale (without buying anything), diCaprio pulled his baseball cap down low and held his cellphone as if taking a call, effectively shielding his face from view as he passed across the front of the salesroom -- it could have been a scene from The Aviator.
The auctions top lot was Roy Lichtensteins witty 1961 comic book panel of a man looking through a peephole and saying, I Can See the Whole Room! . . .and Theres Nobody in It! -- probably Lichtensteins most contemporary work, at least judging by the conceptual-art joke, which could come from the Maurizio Cattelan playbook.
After starting the bidding at $27 million, Burge bounced it back and forth between the telephones and the room until the picture sold for $38.5 million at the hammer, or $43,202,500 with premium, to Guy Bennett, a former auction-house specialist who is now a private dealer.
The painting had previously appeared at auction in 1988, when it sold for a little over $2 million -- an auction record then.
Celebration also greeted the sale of an 11-foot-tall Louise Bourgeois bronze Spider from 1996, displayed outside on Christies entrance plaza, for $10.7 million, a new world record for the artist, and a record for any artwork by a woman (excluding that $28 million Eileen Gray armchair from the Yves Saint Laurent sale at Christie's Paris in 2009). The buyer was an anonymous U.S. collector.
Another top lot was Andy Warhols 40 x 40 in. Silver Liz from 1963, which though it sold for a muscular $16,322,500, seemed somehow out of the limelight. The buyer, sitting in the front row, was jewelry magnate and supercollector Laurence Graff.
New auction records were also set for photographer Andreas Gursky ($4,338,500 -- the price is a record for any photograph), and Vija Celmins ($902,500, bought by the perennially youthful art dealer Iwan Wirth).
The sale started a half-hour early, at 6:30 pm, to accommodate 26 lots from the collection of software pioneer Peter Norton, a patron of leading-edge contemporary art since the 1980s. The Norton material was 100 percent sold and totaled $26.8 million. Norton watched the proceedings from the skybox, along with his advisor, Los Angeles art dealer Tom Solomon.

One highlight of the Norton Collection was lot 5, Paul McCarthys lively Potato Head (Green) installation from 1994 (it is one of three variants). Bidding climbed rapidly to $4 million at the hammer, or $4,562,500 with premium, about triple the presale high estimate. Iwan Wirth was the buyer. Might the new price make selling the McCarthy bronzes that have just now gone on view at Hauser & Wirth on East 69th Street that much easier? The gallery price range is $1.5 million-$2.6 million.

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