Christie's Wild and Wacky Night: Boisterous Bidding and Senior Moments

Contemporary art buyers hadn't blown their wad at Sotheby's Tuesday night. They were just getting started.

Several records that had just been achieved at Sotheby's (Cecily Brown, Morris Louis, John Baldessari, Hans Hofmann) were toppled last night at Christie's. The Rockefeller Rothko's $72.84-million price still stands as the auction record for any contemporary work, but just barely:

Andy Warhol's "Green Car Crash" (Sandy Heller's comments notwithstanding) sold for $71.72 million, trouncing the artist's previous record of $17.38 million and almost tagging the Rothko.

Some 26 new auction records were set, and the $384.65 million sale total far surpassed Sotheby's $254.87 million record contemporary art auction of the night before. Perhaps most extraordinary was the 99% sold rate by dollar; only four of the 74 lots failed to sell.

But what most impressed me last night, observing the intense prizefights from ringside, was the depth of the market: For numerous lots, bids were flying in from all over the room and the telephones, making auctioneer Christopher Burge work so long and hard that by the end of the sale he was admonishing slow megabucks deliberators to "speed it up."

The price list is here. The online catalogue is here.

While fielding the thick-and-fast bidding, Burge had an uncharacteristic "senior moment" (as he called it during the sale). Veteran dealer Larry Gagosian appeared to have one too, while bidding unsuccessfully on Warhol's "Lemon Marilyn" (which became the second highest-priced Warhol at auction at $28.04 million).

But more about all this craziness tomorrow.