Word: auction
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...blessed Brendan, who said it best: "One must have a heart of stone to read [Dickens' description of] the death of Little Nell without laughing." Much the same is true of the latest story to convulse the art world: the travails of the world's two biggest art-auction businesses, Sotheby's and Christie's, rivals that now stand accused by the U.S. Justice Department of colluding to rig the auction market by fixing their sales-commission rates. The art market, particularly in its auction form, has always been secretive, manipulative and repellently sanctimonious, preaching the "objectivity" of auction prices...
...long been taken for granted that the art-auction business, like the art business generally, was immune to criminal investigation. Why? Because, you boring philistine, it was about noble and holy art. To stand on the podium and receive bids for a Rubens Crucifixion or a still life by Van Gogh, who died for our sins, was not like buying a vanload of AWOL television sets or a few vials of crack. But, of course, it is just another business. The auction market shifts more than $4 billion a year, and its two powerhouses, Sotheby's and Christie's, control...
...didn't really sell, the degraded spectacle of Americans hyped into bidding tens of thousands of dollars for gewgaws that once reposed in Jackie O.'s lavatory, the nitwits scrambling for sole and unimpeded possession of Marilyn Monroe's faded frillies. So for many, the idea that the mighty auction duumvirate should find itself humbled for any reason was almost too delicious to contemplate...
...discoverer of species, Van Roosmalen has the right to choose their scientific name. Instead he may auction off this privilege to the highest bidder and use the proceeds to protect the species in their original Brazilian habitat. Fame means less to him than saving a pure, emerald swath of the Amazon. Otherwise, he warns, "the rain forest will be destroyed before we even know what plants and animals are out there...
Together, Sothebys and Christie's control about 95 percent of the $4 billion worldwide auction industry...