Christie’s new auction technique: Global gavel

It started in Hong Kong at 9:25 in the evening, moved back eight time zones to Paris and London in the afternoon, and then finished in New York at 11:15 Friday morning. In just under four hours, $420.9 million had been spent.

This was the back-tothe-future format of Christie’s livestreamed “ONE” sale, the latest attempt by an international auction house to demonstrate that, thanks to the latest technology, the multimillion-dollar top end of the art market can still sparkle in the gloom of a pandemic.

Christie’s four-venue “global 20th-century art sale” replaced the company’s live evening auctions of contemporary, impressionist and modern art in New York in May and in London in June. It followed Sotheby’s pioneering livestreamed $363.2 million “clicks and bricks” auction June 29 and an equivalent hybrid offering at Phillips July 2 that raised $41 million.

The COVID-induced shift from live to online-only sales has severely dented turnover at the major auction houses. During the second quarter of 2020, Christie’s auction revenues were down 60% from the same period last year, according to London art analytics company Pi-eX. Christie’s, like Sotheby’s and Phillips, has had to come up with compelling new auction formats to reengage the 0.01% of the population that buys and sells big-ticket art.

The sale eventually started 56 minutes late. The live feed was prone to freezing and breaking, and viewers were at times confused as to which auctioneer was actually selling the work in question. “No, I’m selling it,” said a frustrated Cécile Verdier, Christie’s auctioneer in Paris It eventually topped the Paris session with a price of 6.5 million euros (about $7.4 million).