talk
auction provocateur Ham: shutterstock.com. all other images: artcurial catalog.
The white gloves are off at Artcurial, where even a hunk of meat is deemed collectible. by lynn yaeger
M
All bidness The Artcurial catalog has included such man-centric lots as a Solex 3800 motorbike and a Keith Haring table setting.
en will bid as much for a Jabugo ham as a gold Rolex,’’ declares Fabien Naudan, the associate director of the Paris auction house Artcurial. ‘‘I want to have a 360-degree view of what our client might be interested in, from a bottle of wine to an office set by Hermès — the whole domestic landscape! Let’s try to open things up — let’s make it wide!’’ Naudan seems obsessed with the idea of turning the hidebound image of the traditional auction house on its head. In case you haven’t been inside one of these places lately, they remain remarkably frozen in time, with their hushed columns of vitrines containing priceless objects culminating
in the salesroom, a recess reminiscent of that creepy auction scene in ‘‘North by Northwest.’’ But at Artcurial, which was founded in 2001 (by comparison, Sotheby’s dates from 1744), the management is out to convince you that waving a paddle can be as much goofy fun as wolfing down an exotic meal or strolling around an interiors store with your wallet open. Instead of Ming vases and Monets, Artcurial organizes events like its Aéronautique auction, during which a Mirage 5 plane was parked in the house’s courtyard. (It sold for more than $130,000.) Naudan, a lifelong Parisian who grew up in a leftist family (he is three years younger than Mai 68), came to Artcurial to start the design division in 2002 after working for fashion brands like A.P.C. and Paul Smith. Though he has the serious demeanor of a man on a mission, he says that he is not particularly interested in the investment side of the business: ‘‘I am more concerned about the provocative aspects.’’ And indeed, his aesthetic insouciance is evident when you look around his cluttered but charming office, which is decorated with, among other trifles, a gaggle of pink plastic porkers he 89