Christie’s pulls off US$114.7 million auction despite cyberattack
THE advance buzz leading up to Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale on Tuesday (May 14) had little to do with the art.
Instead, an apparent hack hobbled the company’s website in the days leading up to the sale. (Christie’s chief executive officer Guillaume Cerutti described it as “a technology security incident” in a mass e-mail to clients.) Through the weekend, as advisors and collectors visited Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters to view art intended for the auction block, chatter focused on whether the all-important May sales would go ahead and what a downed website would mean for both buyers and sellers.
“I think that it has certainly caused a level of confusion on both the side of the auction [house] and the buy-side,” said the advisor Rob Teeters, speaking before Tuesday night’s sale. “I have people interested in bidding, and up until this morning there was some confusion as to whether or not there would be a sale – that was partly my own feeling.”
Cerutti’s e-mail, which went out on Sunday night, put rumours of a cancelled auction week (mostly) to rest. “I am also pleased to reassure you that our clients for these sales will be able to bid securely in person, on the phone or via Christie’s Live,” Cerutti wrote. Online bidders who registered as such in advance were sent a link through which they could bid, even as the official website remained down. This was in contrast to Christie’s “Only Watch” charity auction on Friday in which online bidders couldn’t participate.
Nevertheless, with Christie’s website still redirecting to a temporary site as the sale began, questions both immediate and existential lingered.
“It’s two issues,” said lawyer Michael Quinn, a partner at Eisenberg & Baum who specialises in art law. “Does it affect the bidding process and the auction itself? And are there data breaches?” It’s the latter issue, he continues, that is “probably more concerning, because of how they handle private client confidential information, and whether they are following good protocol or not”.
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“Christie’s continues to work with an additional team of technology experts who are determining the scope and impact of this incident,” wrote a Christie’s spokesperson in response to questions about client data. “Please rest assured, if we need to notify anyone about an impact to their data, we will do so.”
Business as usual
Even before Christie’s website went down, there was uncertainty over prospects of the May auctions. Amidst a tepid global art market, down by 4 per cent last year, both Christie’s and its rival Sotheby’s have suffered from a dearth of major collections coming to auction. Overall valuations for the bellwether May sales are down significantly – this week Christie’s expects to sell between US$578 million to US$846 million, before auction house fees known as premiums are calculated; last May, it sold about US$922 million worth of art during the same sales.
“Everybody knows it’s smaller sales in general across all three houses this week than it has been in past years,” said the advisor Megan Fox Kelly.
But on the night of the sale itself, nothing seemed amiss, with the usual mix of advisors, dealers and a small handful of actual collectors packed into Christie’s sales room. There was no major overflow from people who suddenly felt the need to be in-person, and the number of specialists taking phone bids appeared to be the same as before – a turn of events several advisors said was to be expected.
“We are not bidding for US$10 million, US$15 million, US$20 million lots by clicking a button on the website,” said Fox Kelly, speaking a few hours before the auction began. “I want to see what’s going on in the room and I want to get a sense of what other bidders are going after the work.”
The night itself
Christie’s evening sale was broken into two parts. The first consisted of artwork belonging to the late collector Rosa de La Cruz, who housed it in a private foundation in Miami; the latter part of the sale was dedicated to 21st century art.
The 26 artworks from the de La Cruz collection were estimated to sell for between US$25 million and US$37 million before premiums. Bidding for many of these lots was often prolonged, with multiple phone bidders competing. A suite of 12 colour photographs by Ana Mendieta, who died in 1985, was estimated at US$50,000 to US$70,000 and sold for US$277,200; a piece using a string of lights by the late artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, which carried a high estimate of US$12 million, sold for US$13.6 million. With premiums, the sale of de la Cruz’s art totalled US$34.4 million.
“There was real depth of bidding,” said the San Francisco-based advisor Laura Smith Sweeney, as she left the sale. “I thought they were quite clever about that.”
But after a brief break while the auction house prepared for the second portion, the crowd in the room thinned somewhat, as did the bids. Three works-including a large painting by Brice Marden that was estimated to sell between US$30 million and US$50 million-were withdrawn at the last minute, an act that often indicates a lack of interest. Expected to total between US$104 million and US$155 million, without the Marden’s inclusion in the sale, the 21st Century sale total, with premiums, tallied a disappointing US$80.3 million.
“We didn’t have as many consignments and big single owner sales,” said Smith Sweeney as she prepared to exit the building. “So they did pretty well.” BLOOMBERG
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