Interview

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Monday night's reception and preview of the latest Christie's Interiors collection up for auction (which was co-hosted by ELLE Décor) wasn't a Britney Spears concert (or a Top Shop dinner at The Box, in a similar vein), but it wasn't completely a wash either. Located on the first floor of Christie's headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza, the Interiors showrooms were absolutely cluttered with furniture, decorative art pieces, and fine art of varying periods and styles, from a pair of 20th century French cream-painted upholstered fauteuils to a pair of figurines from the Tang Dynasty—horror vacuii is the appropriate term I think. It reminded me of nothing so much as the various aesthetics of the Bowery Hotel. A psychedelic Vasarely painting hung cheek by jowl with a Piranesi print like it "ain't no thang."  The presumed strategy was to force the visitors to wear blinders, to view each piece as independently as possible, and imagine it in your living room or the living room or office of someone you love. One attendee remarked, "I bet that mallard lithograph would look absolutely divine in my billiard room!"

I can't say it enough: Christie's Interiors collection, amassed from private collectors and collections the world over, which goes on sale starting today, runs the gamut—from Neoclassical copies of Roman busts that might make perfect sense on your gilded mantle to a pair of enamel  and black leather chairs originally designed by le Corbusier. Spanning epoques there was an uber-modernist Menorah from famed Israeli artist Yaacov Agam and a map of St. Croix, and some brightly-colored pill-shaped lamps (how very Hirst-ian!). An eye-catching Alexander Calder painting, Bubble with Blue Drop, was hard to miss: It was hung right behind the bar.