Interview with Rajeev, part 4 of 5.

Having never been to an auction before, my only exposure to this practice consists of antique shows on BBC, so I thought it would be interesting to ask him: What’s your most memorable auction, whether it was because of the specific artwork or just the general events surrounding it?

There was a Star Trek memorabilia auction, that was pretty cool, and I was enough of a geek to appreciate it. Christie’s announced that it was actually their highest online participation, and you can imagine why. Usually, with online bidding, they have it just to show that they are cutting edge, but everybody either bids over the phone or in person. But the Star Trek one, there were a lot of bids online.

Also, while I was in Christies the big sale of the year was of post war contemporary, and that’s when you get 10-20 million hammer price. There were certainly one or two works by Andy Warhol that fetched those prices, it was pretty exciting to see.

Sometimes it just boggles the mind that we think that a diamond ring or fancy car for tens of thousands of dollars is a staggering amount but we think an artist selling for 50 thousand dollars is reasonable in the art world. 50 thousand dollars is not a lot in the art world, it’s paper and paint and we are fine with that selling for 30-40 thousand, but that amount for a diamond ring or a fancy car we find astronomical. There’s this very strange disconnect at the auction between pricing and the object. So when we struggle with that reality and be at an auction and see the hammer go down on an oil on canvas for ten million dollars… even though the art side of you knows the value or can appreciate the history behind the painting, physically, it’s just an image and it’s staggering. There’s a magic to that.

No. 5, 1948 by Jason Pollock boasts the highest known price paid for a painting.
It sold for USD 140 million in 2006, which in 2010 inflation-adjusted price is USD 151.2 million, according to Wikipedia's List of Most Expensive Paintings article. The Mona Lisa was insured by the Louvre in 1962 for USD 100 million, which in 2010 inflation-adjusted price is USD 713 million. (!!!)