Out of the Gate

Christie's "First Open," the auction house's contemporary season icebreaker, brought in $12.2 million yesterday against a high estimate of $12.6 million, with 76% of lots finding buyers. Some works performed well — Louise Nevelson's Dawn's Presence Two fetched $552,000, an auction record for the artist — and others less so — a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat fell below its low estimate of $1.2 million, bringing only $1.16 million.

Bloomberg's Lindsay Pollock noted a "whiff of caution" in the salesroom. One art adviser told her, "This is not a sign of anything, this is second-tier material." Alberto Mugrabi said, "There will be a correction with certain artists. Some things don't deserve to be where they are."

Christie's, for its part, issued a press release proclaiming that the sale caught "the energy and enthusiasm of a market clearly confident and fervent" and "established a well-tuned, positive tone for the season." And Pollock also notes that the sales total beat that of a similar auction one year ago by almost $4 million.

Sotheby's is holding a sale of contemporary art tomorrow — maybe it will yield more clues as to which way the market is headed.