Countries from Asia to Europe to North America are beginning to emerge from the global lockdown imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but the slow reopening has not begun to catch up with the plans hatched during what seemed like an interminable hiatus. Without a clear view of the art market beyond the lockdown, Sotheby’s had begun to generate more and more sales tailored to the unique world of remote viewing.

Since the beginning of 2020, Sotheby’s has generated $127.9 million, more than a solid Contemporary art Day sale during the marquee New York auction weeks, through online-only auctions. That’s a six-fold increase over all of 2019 online-only sales volume in less than half the time. During the lockdown period alone, Sotheby’s held 55 auctions from five of its selling locations worldwide. The sales comprised 4,500 lots, arriving at an average price of $28,422. Expanding an already robust online platform, which brought in $80 million in 2019, Sotheby’s has seen, since the beginning of 2020, a third of its digital bidders and buyers new to the firm.

With a clear demonstration of demand and an occluded sales channel, Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art for Europe, decided to organize a sale that would not try to circumvent the lockdown, but instead take advantage of both the need to source works locally and meet obvious global demand. As auction houses must be in possession of the works to sell them—and with few ways to move property around the world these days—Branczik has adapted a new sale to the current market restrictions.

The result is “I have to stay at home,” a sale of Contemporary art that closes on May 28. The sale takes its name from an inscription on a 1986 Martin Kippenberger canvas Copa und Ipa (est. £60,000–£80,000) that reads “I have to stay home.” It was made after the artist’s return to Dresden from a hedonistic stay on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and is an ode to recovery and loss. The tightly curated sale is offering a total of 32 lots, each of which was sourced in London.

The sale’s highlights are George Condo’s Woman with Golden Hair (2018) estimated at £900,000–£1,200,000; Anselm Keifer‘s Le Dormeur de Val (2014, est. £650,000–£850,000); and Zao Wou-Ki’s Hurricane-period 28.5.65 from 1965, with a value of £600,000–£800,000.

Among the other central works are Bridget Riley’s Measure for Measure (2018, est. £350,000- 450,000) and one of Howard Hodgkin’s last works, Through a Glass Darkly (2015–16, est. £100,000-150,000). Grayson Perry’s 1994 Trapped in Suburban Hell (£60,000–£80,000) may capture the feelings of many during lockdown.

The sale is structured like a live Evening sale with a few sought-after lots likely to outperform the estimates front-loaded to generate excitement. Chief among those lots is the third work by Amoako Boafo to come to auction since his breakout event at the Rubell Family Collecting in December. Since then, Boafo has sold works for six-figure results. The £20,000–£30,000 self-portrait on offer in this sale is likely to follow that trend—the small work received bids up to £48,000 in the first few hours that the sale was open.

“Online sales are reaching a new world of buyers and bidders. They’re offering us a vastly expanded reach; in some sales up to 50 percent of buyers have never transacted with Sotheby’s before,” says Branczik. “The star lot of the recently online Contemporary Curated sale, George Condo’s Antipodal Reunion, sold for $1.3 million to a buyer who was completely unknown to us beforehand.”

Early bidding has not been confined to the lower-priced lots. The sale’s star George Condo work already has a single bid at the low estimate, meeting the reserve for the work. The online sales at Sotheby’s have proved a strong attraction to new buyers, but that hasn’t put off the regular denizens of the art market who are chasing works through their previous relationships at auction houses. Condo, in particular, is attracting competition from both old bidders and new.

Sotheby’s investment in the online sector is enabling a broadened approach to auction formats set to expand in the future. “A new generation of auctions has arrived,” says Branczik. “The new digital online sales are here to stay. Following the success of recent weeks, they’re destined to become increasingly omnipresent in our world alongside ‘traditional’ auctions in our galleries.”

Auction houses are continuing to adapt their offerings as virtual and online realms loosen. “I expect that we could see many more of our live auctions move seamlessly to an online format,” notes Branczik. “However, Sotheby’s is also rolling out an expanded range of auction formats for the new landscape, such as silent auctions and virtual live auctions, streamed to collectors across the world but without an in situ audience.”

Sunday afternoon, Sotheby’s announced the sale of Michael Jordan’s Game-Worn Autographed Nike Air Jordan 1s from 1985 were sold in an online auction for $560,000. That’s an auction record for any pair of sneakers, including the Nike 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat ‘Moon Shoe’ sold for $437,500 in July 2019.

Sotheby’s described the online bidding as driving the “value up by $300,000 within the final twenty minutes of the sale. The pair achieved more than 3.5x their $150,000 high estimate. Bidders ranging from age 19 to 50+ participated across 4 continents, with 70% of bidders new to Sotheby’s.”

Sotheby’s also pointed to some of the other unique attributes of the pair of shoes, including the fact that the sneakers are a mis-matched pair of sizes and deviate significantly from the shoes sold by Nike during the sale season. “The right shoe features Michael Jordan’s signature in black permanent marker,” Sotheby’s said in a press release. “Unlike many of Jordan’s Game Worn Autographed shoes which are signed with a ball point pen that wears away over time. On offer in remarkable condition, the pair shows frequent wear in comparison to most of Michael Jordan’s other Game Worn Shoes, as he wore a new pair of shoes in every game later in his career.”

As the Mid-season Contemporary Art sales scheduled for the first week in March edge closer, there are a host of provocative lots leading interest around the middle-market auctions at Christies, Sotheby’s and Phillips. Typically, these mid-season contemporary auctions hold lower estimates than both Day and Evening sales. For veteran collectors, these sales can signal which upcoming artists’ works have the potential to perform in the secondary market Day and Evening sales slated with higher estimates.

The top lots in Sotheby’s sale include Wayne Thiebaud’s urban landscape Civic Center (1986), estimated at $2.5 to 3.5m, and Lee Bontecou’s untitled metal and fiberglass work estimated at $900,000 to $1.2m. Last year, the March Contemporary Curated sale achieved a total of $36.8m, surpassing the sale volume in the London Contemporary Day sales. Last year Sotheby’s was able to sell Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Painter) for a sum far in excess of its high estimate. The work sold for $7.3m over a $2.5m high estimate; that would be an impressive price in any Evening sale.

Christie’s Postwar to Present sale on March 5^th will feature 217 middle-market pieces by 20^th Century icons including Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Robert Indiana, as well as emerging artists such as Julie Curtiss and Eddie Martinez, who have found recent success in the winter season London Evening sales. In the top echelon of estimates are two of Robert Indiana’s classic LOVE paintings sourced from the artist’s estate—each estimated at $1-1.5m—and Alma Thomas’s Flash of Spring estimated at $450,000-$650,000. Warhol’s Jackie (1964), a blue silkscreen carries an estimate of $600,000-800,000, following the sale of a trove of Warhol portraits of celebrity athletes from the collection of Richard L. Weisman that surged the market in the February Christie’s London Evening sale. Additionally, Agnes Gund donated Donald Judd’s Untitled (1978), reasonably estimated between $50,000-70,000, to be sold for the benefit of BOMB Magazine’s Endowment Fund.

A painting by Eddie Martinez titled Keys to a Defunct Castle (2015) will also be offered at an estimate of $480,000-680,000. In 2015, the work was sold to a Chinese collector at Art Basel Hong Kong by Mitchell-Innes & Nash around $80,000.

Keith Haring’s Untitled (1984) from the collection of Warhol confidant Jon Gould will also being offered at $200,000-300,000 at Christie’s. This follows the £3.2m sale of a massive Haring tarp that opened the Phillips February Evening auction. A glass sculpture by Rachel Whiteread, who enjoyed a retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. last year, will be offered at an estimate of $70,000 to $90,000 in the Postwar to Present sale.