Gravity, Schmavity…

We only stayed through the first 25 lots at Christie’s last night, just long enough to decide we could toast the continued strength of the contemporary art market with a cocktail. Our friend, the irrepressible director of Von Lintel gallery,
Collette Blanchard, Bambino (who was attending his first auction), and I headed out into the crisp midtown air content that the Art Market Deathwatch Cheerleaders would have to keep their pompoms at their sides for at least another night.

Here’s how The New York Times summarized the evening:

In an overflowing salesroom at Christie’s, bidders from all parts of the globe were happy to pay top dollar Tuesday night for everything from an abstract canvas by Mark Rothko to a painting of a monumentally fat woman by Lucian Freud.

The auction also included a five-bedroom Modernist house, which was snapped up for a record price.

It was the first sale in a week of nonstop postwar and contemporary art auctions, and although there were often only one or two bidders for a work of art, the offers were high enough to defy recent economic jitters and produce a strong sale.

The “overflowing salesroom” was mostly why we decided we should get some fresh air, but there were also no lots bought in by the 25th (although three would be by the auction’s close) and most were respectfully being bought above their low estimate and some far above that, so…we went on to debate politics, disparity in the art world, and other topics the results gave us license to indulge ourselves in. For now at least.