Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, an ARTnews series where we interview the movers and shakers who are making change in the art world.
For Christie’s Global President Alex Rotter, November was a vindication. After an up-and-down year, the auction house kicked off New York’s fall marquee sales week with a double-header that brought in $690 million with fees on 79 lots—up more than 40 percent on the equivalent sale in May—with sell-through rates of 97 percent by value and 96 percent by lot. Two nights later, the house’s 21st-century evening sale added another $123.6 million, with just one work failing to sell.
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It was the kind of week auction houses dream about when the market feels wobbly: deep bidding, a handful of new records, and, crucially, no disasters. For Rotter, who also serves as Christie’s global chairman of 20th- and 21st-century art, the run was also a test of whether his read on the market was right.
Last week, Rotter and I met in a tucked-away bistro in Midtown. Red leather banquettes lined the walls beneath framed black-and-white photographs, and a chandelier hung low over a row of two-tops that anchor the room. It’s the kind of place within shouting distance of the holiday throngs in Times Square, and yet completely invisible to them.
The man behind sales like Jeff Koons’s $91 million Rabbit, Andy Warhol’s $195 million Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, and Leonardo da Vinci’s $450 million Salvator Mundi arrived in a dark blue wool chore coat and a thin blue-and-black scarf. His long salt-and-pepper beard was, as always, trimmed with barberly precision. After ordering over-easy eggs and toast, we chatted between bites about the market’s returning confidence, how much his job involves reading “feel” rather than comps, and Christie’s increasing comfort with private auctions—a format he describes as “basically a private sale, just with competition.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and concision.
ARTnews: When we spoke after the opening night of sales in November, you said, “This felt like what an auction should feel like. I feel the tide rising.” What did that week confirm for you about where the market actually is right now?
Alex Rotter: It confirmed that there was never a lack of money. There was a lack of confidence. You could feel that before—people sitting on their hands, waiting. In November, you suddenly had this sense of, “Okay, I’m allowed to be excited again.” For me, an auction is successful when you see real engagement, when people are willing to go a few bids farther than they planned. That’s what it felt like. Not 2021 insanity, but depth. Rational exuberance, if you want.
Nabokov said that when he had a new idea for a novel he felt a glimmer. You told me you had a similar feeling a few months ago, in September, before the sales, that the market was about to reach a real turning point. What happened then?
(Laughs.) Yeah, exactly—a glimmer. Look, the summer is always slower. People have other things to do. But in September I felt a kind of rejuvenation, a little bit, of the entire market. It started with a mid-season sale in New York that nobody outside the building really cares about.
This is a little bit inside baseball, but I look at sell-through rates obsessively. I’ve been looking at them for 26 years. And in that sale I saw a 5 to 7 percent difference on the upside in the sell-through range for a very small sale.
That sounds boring, but it tells you something: demand was a bit stronger than the estimates anticipated. That glimmer in September led into London in October—which already felt better than February—and then to Paris, where the auctions, the fairs, the museum shows all came together. After Paris, people came back actually excited again. You could see it in their body language.
You also said that when you saw the market “disappearing,” the first thing you could really influence was price. How much of November was simply a matter of repricing?
A lot. We had five estates in play—good estates—and we went in generally pricing down a little bit. If you want to bring people back, you have two levers: taste and price. Either you tempt them with something they absolutely love, or you tempt them with something that suddenly looks very attractive compared to what the same type of work looked like before.
What we did this season was to be disciplined. We were conservative on estimates, we guaranteed the right things, and we resisted the temptation to chase the last peak. That creates confidence. If people feel the numbers are sane, they will spend on the big, trophy works. And they did.
You’ve talked a lot about “feel” and about the behavior of different generations of collectors. How different are the new buyers at the top end from the classic collector stereotype?
I always say your behavior as a collector is not that different from your behavior in life. If you run a very conservative fund, you’re not suddenly a cowboy in the salesroom. If you’re a risk-taker in business, you often are in collecting, too.
What’s changing now—and this is what excites me—is that the formula has been broken. There used to be a very clear script: you buy this artist, and this artist, and this artist, and then you graduate to these six names, and then you are a “serious” collector. That’s gone. I love that.
Younger people, this new generation of collectors understand that there are many different things in the market that can be exciting. And they’re much more willing to follow their own eye. You see it with Old Masters, with design.
You’ve built a reputation as the person who can get the rarest things—the Rabbit, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, Salvator Mundi. Is that still the game at the very top, or has that changed too?
The very top has actually become more interesting. On the one hand, it’s still about rarity, about quality, about the best example. That doesn’t change. On the other hand, the people who can buy at that level are now much more independent in their taste. So the job becomes: how do I put in front of them something that is both objectively great and subjectively compelling for them? When I can get someone who doesn’t have 15 minutes to spare to stand in front of a beautiful, rare painting for 15 minutes and really engage—that’s the high for me. It’s not the number. It’s never been the number.
But sometimes the job means saying no. There was a masterpiece recently where, in my opinion, the buyer’s estimate was simply wrong—too high. I said, “I won’t take it at that price.” [He shrugs.] Sometimes that’s smart, sometimes I’m wrong. But you have to protect the ecosystem. You can’t just throw things in at any number and hope hype will save you.
We’ve talked about the public side of the auction world—the theater of the evening sale—what about the private side that most people never see. Where are you seeing the most change?
There is definitely a private side that has gained momentum on the higher end. Of course you know about our auctions but we also do private sales, and we do private auctions.
Private auctions?
Absolutely, and it’s exactly what you think it would be in the fantasy. By-invitation-only, no audience, only people who are actually willing to bid. I’ve never talked about it before. [He laughs.] You’re the first, congratulations.
It’s not a show. We run it like a normal sale—we’re literally in the salesroom—but the room is mostly empty. If you’re registered, you have your own feed. There might be five, ten, people in attendance. It’s very intense and, honestly, I love it, because you stop performing and you just auction.
But I want to be clear: this is a special thing that I do only rarely, and only for the very high end. I’m not doing this for a $10 million painting. That’s not interesting. It’s for the moments when privacy is as important as the price; a private sale with competition.
When did Christie’s start running these private auctions?
We started during COVID. Just like with private sales, I can’t go into detail. But I will say this: the strategy Christie’s developed—and that we were the first to use—is reserved for only the very highest-quality and highest-priced works.
You called it “basically a private sale, just with competition.” Why do that instead of a normal evening sale?
Optionality. We live in a world of optionality now. There is no longer one prescribed way to sell a painting. Some clients want the full theater: the packed room, the livestream, the press releases. Others want the exact opposite. It’s an exclusive event, and anyone who might be interested in buying at the highest level is invited.
A private auction gives you a structure that is familiar—bidding, increments, a hammer price—but without the spectacle. For certain collectors, that’s perfect. For some works, it’s also healthier for the market. If a thing sells very high in that format, it’s because the people who really care were willing to fight for it, not because someone wanted a headline.
Three quick background questions: your first art world job, the year, and—if you’ll give it—your age?
My first art world job was at Galerie Lang in Vienna, a small gallery in the city center. I started around age 21 or 22. But I actually started at art fairs earlier—first doing setup, then sales, since I was 15. I sold my first 18th-century Meissen cup at the Vienna art fair. I’m 51 now.
You were just promoted to global president while keeping your 20/21 role. Does that change how you think about your job?
The title changes. The job is still: make sure Christie’s gets the best things and sells them the best way. Now I do that across more departments and regions, with more responsibility for how the whole machine works—auctions, private sales, these more experimental formats.
What I like about the 20/21 structure is that it already forced us to think across categories. We built that department because collectors were already doing that—buying across movements and periods as if it were all one universe, which it is. So the promotion is, for me, an opportunity to take that mindset and apply it more broadly. But at the end of the day, I’m still the guy who gets very excited about a good sell-through rate. (He laughs.) That does not change.
Last one. When you’re not thinking about estimates or sell-through rates, what actually turns your brain off?
Watching football—preferably live at the Meadowlands. My team is the Jets. That’s proof I am not a fair weather fan. J-E-T-S! Jets, Jets, Jets!
