If you’ve been stuck in traffic near Rockefeller Center recently, it may be because the chance to view a particularly gruesome automobile accident has been drawing crowds.
Excerpts from Resolve40’s transcript of the bidding at Christies (evening sale 5/16) for Lot 15:
“Green Car crash showing on my left, your right, behind the telephones…described in your catalogs, a 1964 Warhol…and 17 million dollars, at 17 million dollars, at 17 million dollars, 17 million,**** 18milion dollars, 19 million, 20 million…”
***Editor's Note: Previous Auction record for a Warhol was 17.4 M
Whether the clash of stylish form and chilling content in the piece was intended to be a warning, a comment, or simply a depiction of what our culture was becoming, the message today is clear - we all have become very adept at using the media, in it’s many forms, to filter the harshness of reality. On the one hand, Warhol’s business-as-usual passerby predicted the unawareness of the reality television addict, focused only on a pre-digested, digitized commercial representation of a life that he cannot or will not contend with in actual space and time. On the other hand, it demonstrates how manipulation enables us take in horrific events without falling apart as a result, allowing us to survive and learn, and how the media can now help us to understand the urgency of our environmental peril and take whatever action we can without collapsing in terror.
Andy Warhol - Warhol Crash
courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd. 2007
An auction preview is that rare wild card in the deck of choices for appreciating contemporary art. It is assembled not by curators or foundations or dealers, but by classification and timing - this is the best stuff made available for sale by various collectors and estates, at this particular date and place, out of it’s original milieu and in juxtaposition with sharply contrasting work. A perusal provides not only an opportunity to see work not often on public display, but also a survey of what people have bought, and the range in quality, genre and size is often quite astonishing and enlightening in terms of the wide variance in taste and ideology demonstrated by the items people were willing to spend a great deal of money to acquire. Freezing such an exhibition in a time capsule would add an interesting dimension to what we know about the social, political and economic history of the 20th Century.
As for the sale itself, it can be hard to imagine wanting to witness an art auction until you have actually been present at a sale. The very air is charged with an excitement that is difficult to pinpoint - it ‘s about art, it’s about money, it’s about both and yet, somehow, more than that. Creativity, competition and acquisition have a unique and tantalizing chemistry - the auction is a true spectacle of human achievement aspiration.
“….49million, 49 million 500 thousand, (the pace has slowed, the crowd murmurs as the auctioneer addresses the bidders) 50 million, is that one, 50 million 500 thousand, 51 million, against you…yes, 51 against you, (laughter) 51 million 500 thousand…”
The auctioneers celebrate and thrive on the theatricality of their profession. In the catalog for the afternoon sale at Sotheby’s last week - a 350 page glossy volume that everyone leafs through as they follow the action - an apparent anomaly appeared on facing pages 218 and 219, between lots 545 and 546. The two page spread showed nothing but a detail of what was apparently a fairly large-scale painting by Jackson Pollack, but the entire work and it’s description did not appear until the crowd reached page 236, which gave the details on lot 555, titled “Not Pollock,” by NY artist Mike Bidlo. Yes art can be fun, but is fun good business? Apparently it is, Bidlo’s work surpassed the estimate of $40-60,000 to sell for at total of $168,000 (including the buyer’s premium, a surcharge added to and based upon the winning bid).
“..59 million 500 thousand, this telephone…Yes! 60 million…61 million, 61 million dollars, 61 million against you…on this telephone fair warning and selling,61 million 500 thousand, new bidder (applause)…”
Earlier that day at Sotheby’s, two lots of Warhol’s Dollar Sign works were on the block. Viewing them reminded us momentarily of the cigarettes proffered in “Atlas Shrugged,” branded with only a small gold “$,” that portended a call to action. While some may see the works as reflecting commercialism in the art world, we wonder if the prescient artist was really making us an offer of insight into the course of our own lives that we should not refuse.
“63 million 500 thousand against…63 million 500 thousand in the room, 63 million 5 - 64 million, 64 million now on this telephone, against you, 64 million dollars, more? No? Sure? 64 million…against you and selling this time. fair warning…at 64 million dollars (gavel).”
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