"Christies Comments" from Oriana

Oriana Calman
American Shakespeare
November 8, 2006

Christie’s

Each time I walk east along the broad streets near Rockefeller Center, I sense a kind of holiday, film-like cheer that resides permanently within the raucous traffic, sidewalk steam, and Fifth Avenue suits walking briskly to and from lunch. Since I can remember, this journey east has been unfailingly the same, boisterous and elegant, annoying and glimmering, and I love and loathe it every time. However, this particular trip down the same nostalgic, big city road was a little different in that I entered an interior space that mirrored much of what I experienced outside. This space was Christie’s New York.
When I first walked into the auction house (an effortless transition from outside to inside with the help of a doorman pushing the revolving door for me) I thought that perhaps I had mistakenly waltzed into a hotel. There was a large desk with several smartly dressed, young men and women, answering telephones and assisting patrons, a scene very appropriate for a busy hotel. Yet, this was Christie’s, as the large and proudly displayed Estate Sale announced to my right. I turned around, hoping to find a little corner where I could wait for the rest of our group, but could not refrain from gawking like a buffoon at every other person milling about. I have never been inside an auction house before, and I was extremely fascinated to either confirm or cancel my pre-conceived notions about such an establishment. When I saw several older gentlemen in tweed suits and horn-rimmed glasses walk by, I could not help smiling. I wanted to join them on their hunting trip (for it looked as though that is precisely what they were about to do), but I followed the rest of our group into the exhibition spaces housing Impressionist and Expressionist works that were to be auctioned the following week.
I wanted to relinquish myself from feeling slightly out of place, but I was extremely aware of the other patrons or buyers, looking at these works as if they were items in a store. As soon as I saw three Schiele pieces, the magnitude of what was taking place at Christie’s became very real to me. To view these works with a price tag as their main descriptive accompaniment was like no other experience I have had. This dramatically changed my perspective of viewing art, for the discourse surrounding much of these works was financial rather than aesthetic. I felt unsettled by this presumption and at the same time, extremely eager about the possibilities of such an environment.
After looking at several works on canvas and paper, we met with Francis Walhgren, who was extremely enthusiastic and accommodating. As I have found for most of our trips, the people whom we meet and interact with are usually the ones who enliven these institutions by being so welcoming and informative. Mr. Walhgren was fantastic in that he really wanted to share his experience of auctioning the Berland Shakespeare Folio with us. He had materials available for us regarding the layout of the Folio’s history and condition, and he told us about the inner workings of the Book Department at Christie’s. Mr. Walhgren put it beautifully when he stated that what he represented was the merging of the scholarly with the business field. Though I am still deciding whether or not this kind of merger could be a harmonious balance for me, I find a great deal of what Mr. Walhgren spoke about very appealing. He informed us that Christie’s acts as an intermediary between the owner and buyer of a work or object, implying that there is a very strong degree of exposure to all worlds and contexts within which the item has existed. I love this idea very much. He also shared with us the kind of cataloging and history tracing that he and his colleagues have the opportunity to do. This segued into the realm of comparing Christie’s to a library, and the kinds of differences and similarities that make up both institutions. I found it extremely interested when he said that Christie’s took the stance of preserving works just as they were found. I agree with this on a certain level, but I also agree with the library stance, which more often then not, is concerned more with mending the work and stabilizing it so that it may continue to service the needs and queries of patrons. This issue is a very difficult one to take sides on, for in an ideal world, both methods would be terrific.
After speaking with Mr. Walhgren, and after having the pleasure of experiencing the tension and excitement of such a monumental moment in auction history when we saw footage of the auction, we left the conference room and traveled down the same set of stairs with, what seemed to me, a sense of ease, whereas only a short time before, we had ascended with nervous and anticipatory doubts about Christie’s as a whole. Walking out of Christie’s I felt that I had indeed cancelled out all of my previous notions about the institution.