The art world is holding on to its mask as one of many passengers on the never-ending Covid loop-the-loop. Continuing to defy gravity, and tagging along with the cresting United States stock market, is the world of auctions. In India, a one-time art juggernaut, yet sluggish since the 2008 financial crisis, two local houses sold top-drawer paintings for dozens of crore while the country’s infection rates climbed to tragic highs. In late August, homegrown Mumbai upstart AstaGuru pawned off an average MF Husain painting in an online sale for a respectable USD 2.5 million, with some punters suggesting it went to a Hong Kong buyer. A week later, the nearby Pundole’s house sold a subdued, gray-tone VS Gaitonde at a live auction to a nearly empty room, for a whopping, though not entirely surprising, USD 4.4 million to a buyer on the phone. South Asian gallerists were wondering who the bidders were, and, more importantly, if they are all-in for a ride or simply looking for a quick flip?

Similarly enjoying the thrill of negative Gs, Sotheby’s has been selling works, modern and contemporary, at dizzyingly high prices in Hong Kong, leaving gallerists on the ground grumbling. Even more discombobulating is how similar paintings are still pushing record prices, such as Sanyu’s smaller Nu (1950–60s), a painting of a woman’s posterior, which sold for a wallet-warming USD 21 million. Exactly a year ago, in 2019, a larger Nu (1965) went for USD 25 million. Many attribute these highflying acrobatics—even through the worst of times—directly to Sotheby's top modern Chinese specialist and sales diva, Vinci Chang. Yet just after raking over USD 400 million, reality hauled the French-owned giant back to earth, with news that the Taiwan-born, Christies-trained rainmaker was departing. With the announcement that Rebecca Wei, Christie’s Hong Kong’s former chairwoman for just eight months, was joining the New York secondary-market dealership Lévy Gorvy, perhaps Chang is following suit and entering the international gallery House of Mirrors.