Sotheby's Bids for New Buyers, Looks to Crypto, Saudi Arabia

News Bidders Go Bananas for Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ Sam Gaskin

Sotheby’s will hold its inaugural sale in Saudi Arabia on 8 February 2025, marking the first international auction in the country. In another historic first, the multinational firm will accept cryptocurrency payment for all 119 lots on offer, citing the desire to expand its buyer base.

Held in the historic city of Diriyah, just outside the capital Riyadh, the two-part auction, titled Origins, will see the firm testing the waters with diversified lots, including modern and contemporary art by Saudi and international artists, luxury items, and sports memorabilia.

Collectible works to premiere include an AI-generated painting configured to real-time telescope data by Turkish artist Refik Anadol, estimated between 800,000 and 1.2 million (all prices in USD).

René Magritte‘s L’État de veille (1958), valued at 1 to 1.5 million, will lead the sale. Arab modernists such as Saudi artist Mohammed Al Saleem and Syrian painter Louay Kayyali are also represented, with Kayyali’s Then What?? (1965), depicting mourning women responding to conditions of war and exile, predicted to hammer between 500,000 and 700,000.

In May 2021, Sotheby’s became the first major auction house to allow digital currency payments, for a print of Banksy‘s Love is in the Air (2003) in their New York auction. Ex-Christie’s chairman Loic Gouzer’s NFT company, Particle, bought the work for 12.9 million and divided it into 10,000 NFTs, priced at 1,500 each. Particle retained the majority of rights to the physical work, which is held by Gouzer’s Particle Foundation.

Last November, tech entrepreneur Justin Sun made headlines when he acquired Maurizio Cattelan‘s wall-bound banana, Comedian (2019), at Sotheby’s New York for 6.3 million, paid for with cryptocurrency.

Alternative currencies like Bitcoin and Ether have surged ahead of the second term of U.S. President Donald Trump, who recently announced that his media company will invest up to 250 million into fintech. While the global cryptocurrency market is currently valued at over 3 trillion, it remains to be seen whether there are significant overlaps with the art business, where speculation is only part of the equation.

In December, Sotheby’s laid off an estimated 100 employees after sales dropped by 23 percent year-on-year. The job cuts followed a 1 billion investment from Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ and majority share owner, telecoms billionaire Patrick Drahi, in August 2024.

A company spokesperson said 800 million went to paying down the firm’s 1.65 billion debt. The remaining funds were allocated to real estate acquisitions and expansion, including new offices in Paris, Hong Kong, and the Breuer building on Madison Avenue in New York. —[O]

Main image: At-Turaif district in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Photo: Radosław Botev, via Wikimedia Commons.