So we're currently outside of the Christie's Headquarters

in New York before the biggest evening sale of the year.

Where literally hundred of millions of dollars

worth of art is going to be sold within a matter of hours.

Let's check out some of the highlights.

(groovy music)

So Alex, we are underneath Christie's in a secure room

where some of the most valuable lots of the upcoming

post-war and contemporary art sales are being housed.

That's what we refer to as the vault.

The vault of paintings gets stacked up and ready

for the big viewing experience.

So what are we looking at right now?

This is a painting by one of the most well-known

artists in our field, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

It's very aggressively painted.

His paintings are about the feeling of a black man

living in the United States in the 1980's.

And how much does it cost?

We have estimated this painting

called Il Duce, 25 to 35 million dollars

and the pricing is based on what we feel of the quality

of the painting, but it's also based on what we know about

the private market for Jean-Michel Basquiat.

This is an A+ painting from this artist

who is very hot right now, it falls in line with what

we've seen in the last three or four years really.

So behind us is a very different work

by Mark Rothko from 1957.

It's a hard shift from Basquiat to Rothko,

but it's also wonderful shift.

Rothko is one of the father's of the purely

abstract painting, the gestural abstraction.

Rothko, Pollock, are the ones that really opened

the mind to the abstract form.

What is this estimated to sell for?

Interestingly enough, it's also 25 to 35 million dollars,

so it's in the same price bracket, very different feeling.

Yeah.

So another painting from 1957,

so the same year, Cy Twombly Sunset painting.

The Twombly is about 20 million dollars,

the same year as Rothko, so it's interesting

to see them actually in a sequence because it's two great

abstract artists of the post-war period.

So, we looked at two 35 million dollar paintings,

one 20 million dollar painting.

These are like the greatest hits of the art market today.

Do you have anything coming up in the sales for the mere

millionaires to purchase?

Absolutely, we have something for everyone.

Let me just go to the next rack here

and see a wonderful Kerry James Marshall,

priced at one to one and a half million dollars.

A bargain.

A bargain.

This is a different price range.

Beautiful canvas, rare to come to the auction market.

Just coming off some wonderful museum shows in America,

in New York, in LA, we have very high expectations.

It's a really beautiful painting.

This is a perfect storm of very high-profile and

high-priced artworks coming together at a specific point.

Do you think that we can extrapolate

from how these paintings do, to get a better sense

of how the art market is or where the art market is going,

or do you think that we should really, kind of

consider this sale in a vacuum.

I think you can definitely get a general read

off the art market after the sale, once the results are in.

What day is the sale?

Big night is November 15th.

Okay, and that's when all of the works

that we've just seen...

And many more

... and many more, are gonna go up on the auction block,

and we'll see how they do.

Exactly.

(light music)