Tag Archives: Auction

Art Auction or Game Show? Sotheby’s Tries Something New

With a “multicamera global livestream” in place of its usual New York sale, the auction house tried breathing life back into a pandemic-numbed market.

Auction
From left: “Omi Obini” by Wifredo Lam, “Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus” by Francis Bacon and “PH-144 (1947-Y-No.1)” by Clyfford Still were among the works included an online auction at Sotheby’s on Monday.Credit…Wifredo Lam/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; The Estate of Francis Bacon/DACS, London/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; City and County of Denver, via Clyfford Still Museum/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Sotheby’s

LONDON — “This is what we like: the ping-pong between New York and Hong Kong. We see them on the split screens in perfect clarity,” the auctioneer Oliver Barker said late Monday, sounding like a prime-time TV game show host. He was taking seven-figure bids at a Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art, presented as a “multicamera global livestream.”

The marathon 74-lot auction at Sotheby’s, which replaced the postponed May evening sales in New York, used the latest technology to try breathing life back into the pandemic-numbed top end of the international art market.

The hybrid format featured the suavely suited Mr. Barker taking bids on a rostrum in an empty room in London, facing a bank of screens showing telephone-wielding colleagues in an adjoining room, as well as in New York and Hong Kong.

The auctioneer Oliver Barker took bids from international colleagues on screens in an empty salesroom.Credit...via Sotheby's
The auctioneer Oliver Barker took bids from international colleagues on screens in an empty salesroom.Credit…via Sotheby’s
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