Seven Days in the Art World (4 page)

Lot 1 is bought for “$240,000 hammer” the buyer’s premium (a 19.5 percent commission fee up to $100,000 and a 12 percent fee over $100,000) means that the final price for the work is actually $276,300. From the first to the final bid, the deal took just over a minute and a half. Deals are quicker when works sell near their low estimate, but when the final price is three times the high estimate, as was the case with this lot, it takes a little longer. Either way, an auction is a staggeringly swift way to sell art.

“Lot two is next,” says Burge. “The Richard Prince showing there on my right. In this case ninety thousand starting. Ninety thousand for it. Ninety-five thousand, one hundred thousand, thank you. One hundred ten, one hundred twenty, sir? Yes, one hundred twenty, one hundred thirty…”

It’s no coincidence that none of the evening auctioneers of art in New York are American. Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s chief auctioneer, is German, while Simon de Pury, the auctioneer and co-owner of the smaller specialist contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury, is French-Swiss. Burge, of course, is British. They bring a measure of European urbanity to a series of crude transactions. In another gesture toward Old World gentility, auction house sales personnel are officially called “specialists” and informally referred to as “experts.” They apply art-historical knowledge to market trends in order to evaluate works, bring them into a sale, and then drum up interest in the lots. In the words of one expert, however, “we’re really analysts and brokers.”

Amy Cappellazzo, a specialist who is also the codirector of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Department at Christie’s, is an animated brunette with twinkling eyes and a no-nonsense way of talking. She is one of the few Americans in the upper echelons of the company and currently the only female head of a “major grossing” department. During our presale interview, she was high-energy, but now she looks almost serene. “I never get jitters during the sale itself,” she says. “At that point, all our hard work is done. We spend about eighty percent of our time getting great things for sale and twenty percent of our time lining up buyers. Obtaining great work is the key. We increasingly have to remind clients that if they turned a work on their wall into a liquid asset, it could be worth more than their entire home.”

The bidding on Prince’s
Untitled (Cowboy)
, an artist’s proof being “sold to benefit Tibet House,” has stopped, and Burge is attempting to squeeze another bid out of the audience. Eye contact is essential. He looks at each individual bidder as if that person were the only one in the room. “Two hundred and sixty thousand. Two hundred seventy, madam? Still against you standing. One more from you at the back? No. At two-sixty on the telephone and against you all here. I’m selling, fair warning, at two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.”

Burge raps his hammer, and half the crowd lean over their catalogues to write down the price. “One thing you do learn from experience,” says Burge, “is when a bidder has more life in them than they’re saying. Sometimes they shake their head to say no. An inexperienced auctioneer will take them at their word and not look back, but an old hand knows that this collector has really got another bid in them. When some dealers or private collectors shake their heads, it’s clear you don’t have to deal with them anymore. They’re very controlled. That was it, not a penny more. Others, you can feel that they are still wavering. They are talking to a spouse or a friend. He’s very eager and she’s doing the bidding. Or he said no and she wants to go on. You see all of that from the rostrum.”

We’re on Lot 3, but Josh Baer and the correspondent from the
New York Times
are still conferring on who was bidding on the Prince. “I hate this salesroom,” says Vogel. “You can’t see the bidders.” The reporters don’t have the benefit of Burge’s elevated face-on view, nor do they have access to his confidential book. Four names go back and forth, but they are still not sure. Sometimes an auction feels like a whodunit where thrills are provided by the large sums and mystery created by the shy or shady bidders who avoid the eye of the press.

Burge’s astute psychological reading of the room is essential to the way he does his job. His perspective on the behavioral minutiae of the bidders is second to none. “About two lots before someone bids,” he reveals, “they will start doing small things that signal to me that they are interested in a lot. People sit up straighter in their seats, they adjust their jacket, begin to look a little nervous. Even if they have been doing this all their lives, hardened professionals give something away. It means that in a lot or two, they’re going to bid on something. I pick that up, because their body language is so different from the regular slump.”

“But,” I press, “some of the most powerful collectors and dealers, like the Nahmads, are so casual. They apathetically raise a finger as if it just occurred to them to bid.” The Nahmad family reputedly once owned 20 percent of the world’s privately held Picassos, but they now buy huge quantities of contemporary art. Rumor has it that they never spend cash, because when they are buying in the contemporary sale, they are selling something in the impressionist sale—constantly rotating old for new stock.

“They have been around for a long time,” says Burge, “but there is usually some sort of family conference going on as we head into the lot, so I know something is afoot. Moreover, we know what they bid on. David Nahmad loves to buy things back that he has owned before, and in some cases I will know exactly what he is planning because I will have talked to him at length before the sale.”

We’re already on Lot 4, a painting by Marlene Dumas. Josh Baer leans over: “You notice they started the bidding
above
the high estimate.” One bidder has just left his paddle in the air. He’s “steamrolling,” an aggressive tactic to put others off. The bids are coming in at an incredible pace. Burge barely has time to breathe: $550,000, $600,000, $650,000, $700,000—“several of you”—$750,000, $800,000, $850,000. “What’s that? Eight hundred eighty thousand.” Someone has offered a split bid. He or she is trying to slow down the sale by cutting the bidding into smaller increments. “Nine hundred thousand dollars in the room. Against you all on this side.” Auctioneers don’t like to accept cut bids, because the sale can lose momentum. However, at the moment, the bidding is three times over the high estimate and well over the artist’s record price, so Burge decides to be gracious.

When the bidding hits $980,000, there is a long pause. Large amounts of money command hushed respect, and unexpected amounts create a stunned stillness. Everyone wonders, will the painting get over the psychological hurdle of the million mark?

That would make Marlene Dumas one of three living women artists to trade for over $1 million—the other two are Louise Bourgeois and Agnes Martin.
*
Is Dumas going to join them? One of Christie’s spotters signals to Burge that there is a new bidder, standing at the very back of the room. “One million dollars,” Burge says with subtle triumph.

“Where’d that bid come from?” whispers Baer insistently. The press pack wants to know, and even collectors turn around in their seats to catch a glimpse of the mysterious bidder who has entered the fray at the eleventh hour. Some people like to come into the bidding late because it suggests that there is no limit to how high they can go. Auctions are full of ego and posturing. It’s important to bid with style.

“One million dollars,” repeats Burge with a faint trace of amusement. “One million fifty…one million one.” It’s back to the late entrant hidden from view at the back. “One million, one hundred thousand dollars. Fair warning now. Not yours. Last chance. One million one. Selling to you at the back.” Bang. The volume of chat surges with the hammer. “Paddle four-oh-four. Thank you,” says Burge. I hear laughing. A couple of people shake their heads in disbelief. A voice deep from within the press pit exclaims, “One point one! Will anyone know who she is in twenty years?” Other people exchange affirmative nods as if to say, “Yes, we’re backing the right horse.” The reporters are having a mini-conference about who could have bought the Dumas. There are clear differences in how high people are willing to bid, depending on whether they are “crazy committed collectors” or dealers buying for long-term inventory. Everyone assumes that only a crazy collector would have paid that price. But who?

From her position among the rows of Christie’s people, Amy Cappellazzo gives a knowing wink to someone in the audience. The Dumas painting is medium-sized and predominantly red. It appears to depict a woman looking expectantly out from under her bangs at the viewer. Her finger is phallic and coquettishly touches the lower of her gently open lips.

Cappellazzo is refreshingly unpretentious. When I asked her, What kind of art does well at auction? her answer was uncannily appropriate to this lot. First, “people have a litmus test with color. Brown paintings don’t sell as well as blue or red paintings. A glum painting is not going to go as well as a painting that makes people feel happy.” Second, certain subject matters are more commercial than others: “A male nude doesn’t usually go over as well as a buxom female.” Third, painting tends to fare better than other media. “Collectors get confused and concerned about things that plug in. They shy away from art that looks complicated to install.” Finally, size makes a difference. “Anything larger than the standard dimension of a Park Avenue elevator generally cuts out a certain sector of the market.” Cappellazzo is keen to make clear that “these are just basic commercial benchmarks that have nothing to do with artistic merit.”

So what’s the relationship between aesthetic value and economic value? I ask.

“It’s not fully correlative. There are lots of wonderful artists who don’t have strong markets. What is the correlation between good looks and good fortune in life? It is that kind of discussion.

It’s moot. It’s nihilistic.” Hmm. Both good looks and aesthetic value are in the eye of the beholder, but beholders are social animals that tend to (consciously
and
unconsciously) cluster into consensuses. Cappellazzo doesn’t apologize for the market. It is what it is. “I used to be a curator,” she says. “When I run into academics that I knew back then who ask what I’m doing now, I say, ‘I do the Lord’s work in the marketplace at Christie’s.’ It’s one of my personal jokes.”

The bidding on Lot 5, a classic Gilbert and George from 1975, went up to $410,000, while the bidding for Lot 6, a Maurizio Cattelan sculpture from 2001, has started at $400,000. Gilbert and George may be Britain’s most important conceptual artists, but on this occasion they are no competition for the less prolific, hip-and-happening Italian. The catalogue is the auction house’s main marketing tool. It’s a full-color, glossy tome on which the images on the front and back covers are part of the negotiations meant to entice vendors to consign their art with Christie’s. This Cattelan work, a self-portrait in which he peers through a hole in the floor, not only graces the back cover of the catalogue but is also reproduced on the invitation-only ticket.

The “Maurizio market” (it’s de rigueur to refer to living artists by their first name) is much debated. Cattelan is a cynical prankster who polarizes opinion. Some people think he is the Marcel Duchamp of the twenty-first century, others say he is the over-hyped Julian Schnabel of our time. It can initially be difficult to distinguish innovators from charlatans, because the former challenge extant versions of artistic authenticity in such a way that they can easily look like pretenders. The test is in the perceived depth and longevity of their “intervention” in art history. Some heavyweight collectors buy Cattelan’s work in such serious bulk that it leads others to complain that his market is manipulated. However, as one consultant puts it, “It’s not manipulation—it’s more unconditional support.”

The bidding on the Cattelan is “fast and furious,” as the auction cliché goes, and the work sells for $1.8 million, twice Cattelan’s previous auction record. “William Acquavella,” mutters Baer as he scribbles in his catalogue. Acquavella is a wealthy second-generation dealer whose gallery is located in a plush townhouse on East Seventy-ninth Street—one of the few who can afford to buy at that price for inventory. For consultants and dealers, buying in the room acts as an advertisement for their services.

Lot 7 is one of three Ed Ruscha paintings for sale this evening. It “flies” for $680,000. Baer grumbles “Meltzer” and “Gagosian,” the buyer and underbidder. Gagosian represents Ruscha on the primary market and “protects” his artists at auction. If Ruscha were to go out of favor, Gagosian would probably buy key paintings and sit it out until the artist came back into fashion.

Lot 8 is a Gursky photograph. It exceeds its high estimate but sells for well below the artist’s record. It is not one of his more celebrated works. Lot 9, Dan Flavin’s elegant
Untitled Monument for Tatlin
, sets a new record for the artist.

In general, this auction is bearing witness to an incredibly strong market. “Every season we wait for the big correction,” says Jack Gold. “No boom lasts forever,” adds Juliette. It’s not a bubble until it bursts, say those in the business.

I ask Josh Baer about the “endless bull market.” As he peers over the crowd, he replies nonchalantly, “Without auctions, the art world wouldn’t have the financial value it has. They give the illusion of liquidity.” He stops to jot down the starting bid of Lot 10, then continues. “A liquid market is the New York Stock Exchange. Someone will buy your IBM stock at a price. There is no law to say that someone will buy your Maurizio, but the auctions give a sense that most of the time, most things will sell. If people thought they couldn’t resell—or that if they died, their heirs couldn’t sell—many wouldn’t buy a thing.”

Lot 10 is bought with a nod for a flat $800,000. Baer turns to me and adds, “We live in a climate where everyone expects prices to go in one direction only. But a lot of artists who are doing well now will be worth zero in ten years. You should look back at old auction catalogues. People have short memories.”