At Auctions, Format Does Matter!

At Auctions, Format Does Matter!

Posted by Pi-eX Research on 11th Oct 2020

The beginning of October 2020 has been rather absorbing on the auction market, with an overcrowded sales calendar, particularly filled with Contemporary art sales.  Among them, several auctions of distinct formats, which all took place in New York at Sotheby's and Christie's. On October 2nd, Sotheby's held its Live Contemporary Curated sale, followed by the closing of its Contemporary Online sale on October 6th.  The day after, Christie's arranged its Live Post-War & Contemporary Art Day sale.

With such a tight schedule, how not to get lost in calendar shifts, new names, additional sales, Live and Online auctions?

As a picture is worth a thousand words, we mapped these three auctions to understand how they stand relative to one another and to give a clearer view on their performance this year versus historical results.

1.   While all focused on Contemporary art, each of the three auctions has its specificities:

- Contemporary Curated Sale at Sotheby's:

Sotheby's started the series of Contemporary Curated Sales in 2014 and runs it as a yearly event both in the spring and in the fall in New York and in London. For this October sale, the Consigned lots were selected by co-curators Virgil Abloh, Chief Creative Director and Founder of Off-White and Men’s Artistic Director at Louis Vuitton, and Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer Daimler Group.

- Contemporary Art Online sale at Sotheby's:

The sale, which started online on September 26th, closed on October 6th after running for 10 days.  This is a new purely online format started by Sotheby's in 2018. This October version was it third edition for the fall.

-  Last but not least, the Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale at Christie's:

This sale took place Live at Christie's Rockefeller Center on Wednesday October 7th.  This is the traditional Day Sale format from the November MEGA sale Week, which is - as the name indicates - traditionally scheduled in November but was this year moved to October.

2. Different formats command different levels of revenue:

On the graph below, historical sales for each auction format are mapped according to the number of lots catalogued and the total revenue generated by the sales.

As seen above, different auction formats command different levels of revenue, and this year is no exception.

Although the number of lots catalogued this year has been reduced, Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale and Sotheby's Contemporary Curated Sale brought the highest level of revenue, suggesting once again that the Live auction format remains more attractive to potential buyers than the online one.

Anna Benoliel contributed to this report.