Gigaweek opened with what are effectively teaser sales. Both Christie’s and Phillips made sure that their respective events went well. Phillips, which guaranteed more than half of its lots, may have backed up that success with its own investment in the art. Christie’s, which has never been above doing the same, seems to have hustled to get consignors to take numbers on the low end or below estimates.

In the case of Christie’s, observers are more than willing to credit the team with making a success of conceptual art works that are not obvious crowd pleasers. This is what Katya Kazakina heard:

“For difficult conceptual art, the result was quite good,” Christophe van de Weghe, an art dealer in New York, said about the Christie’s sale. “This is not easy material. A stone with some hair on it — it’s tough.”

Robin Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn got a similar message from the doyen of the art market:

“It shows that it’s not as bad as people think,” said the dealer William Acquavella afterward. “If you’re selective about what you put in your sales and it’s fresh material, it will do O.K. The sales may not be as big as they were in November — there are no $100 million items — but it’s still alive.”

And the market’s bad boy:

“The entire market was waiting to see what tone the auction set,” said Helly Nahmad, a New York dealer, after the Christie’s sale on Sunday. “So the fact that it was fairly strong gives the market a lot of confidence, which is good at the beginning of the sales.”

The Art Newspaper didn’t have that much to say, so they took a little poke at the man of the hour last night, Christie’s Loic Gouzer with this quote:

“Loic is one of my good friends so I’m here to support him,” the socialite Paris Hilton said after the sale. “I love him. I think he’s an amazing man. I’m really proud of him today.”

Mini Hitler Figure Leads $125 Million Sales as Frenzy Dissipates  (Bloomberg)

Christie’s Sale Opens Spring Auction Season Amid Predictions of a Softening  (The New York Times)

(Not) Bound to Fail: solid results for Christie’s ‘curated’ auction in New York (The Art Newspaper)