Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Sotheby’s and Christie’s are trimming their teams as the weaker market environment brings down the value of auction sales this year. At Sotheby’s, redundancy consultations are in process for about 50 people from its London team, people close to the company say, although the auction house would not confirm this number nor its total staff count in the capital. Redundancies are also happening at Christie’s, according to senior figures; a statement says that “we constantly review our global resourcing needs to ensure we remain commercially resilient and adaptable; this can impact roles.” The statement adds that “we are not in a collective consultation process”.Sotheby’s is not commenting on its redundancies, but reaffirms a commitment to business in London, which “is and will continue to be our largest and most important centre for sales, exhibitions and talent in Europe and our second-biggest sales location in the world”.Separately this week, The Art Newspaper revealed that a Christie’s client based in Dallas, Efstathios Maroulis, filed a class-action complaint in New York over the auction house’s alleged “failure to properly secure and safeguard sensitive information of its customers” during its recent data attack. Personally identifiable information “remains in the hands of those cybercriminals”, the filing claims, while the data breach is described as “a foreseeable and preventable cyber attack”. Christie’s declined to comment on ongoing litigation.A disappointing year of auctions in Hong Kong showed little improvement in May as Christie’s sale of 21st-century art fell short of its HK$369mn (US$47.2mn) low estimate to make a total HK$275mn (HK$338mn with fees). Two works — by Matthew Wong and Kaws — were withdrawn, while 10 of the remaining 47 lots went unsold. Phillips’s Modern and contemporary sale landed just below estimates, with a total HK$173mn (HK$210mn with fees).Christie’s 20th-century works performed more in line with expectations, albeit just within estimates at HK$328mn (HK$405mn with fees). Its top price across both sales was the catalogue cover lot, Andy Warhol’s “Flowers” (1965), which went below expectations for HK$55mn (HK$67mn with fees). Anders Petterson, managing director of research company ArtTactic, finds that evening sales in Hong Kong in the first half of the year are down 40 per cent on 2023 to their lowest level since 2017. He notes that the vastly reduced number of high-end artworks (above HK$10mn) follows the dynamic seen at sales in London and New York so far this year.Despite the results, Christie’s continues to double down in Hong Kong, citing “Asia’s global market demand” while confirming that its next 20th- and 21st-century art auctions will be in its new Asia-Pacific headquarters on September 26-27. These will be followed by a week of luxury sales in October and of Asian art in November. Christie’s new headquarters is in four floors of The Henderson building, recently developed by Zaha Hadid Architects in the Central district.Three works from the House of St Barnabas, a London homeless charity and not-for-profit members’ club that went into liquidation this year, are on offer online through Sworders auction house until June 9. The works, donated by either the artists or their galleries, are topped by Banksy’s 2005 artist’s proof print “Soup Can (White, Orange and Raspberry)”, est £30,000-£40,000, a pastiche of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s series instead using the budget-range branding of Tesco, a UK supermarket chain. In 2005, another version of this work was surreptitiously hung in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, undetected for six days. The Sworders work is signed and comes with a certificate of authenticity issued by Pest Control, Banksy’s authentication body.The other two works from The House of St Barnabas are a papercut by illustrator Rob Ryan (“The Map of My Entire Life”, 2012, est £2,000-£3,000) and Wanda Bernardino’s “Sisters” (2015, est £800-£1,200), a disturbing painting of two faceless Edwardian women.This summer, a London emerging art gallery, Pipeline, will exchange its space with Slugtown, a non-profit based in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England. Pipeline takes its artist Conor Rogers to Slugtown’s space (July 19-August 3) while Slugtown moves to Fitzrovia with a two-hander of work by Rachel Adams and Hilda Kortei (July 12-27).Each space opened in 2022 — Pipeline by Tatiana Cheneviere, previously at Gagosian for seven years, and Slugtown by Matt Antoniak and Max Lee, both artists. “We started out with a spotlight on artists who aren’t from London, but I began to feel uncomfortable always taking from the [UK] regions and it felt necessary to create a conversation properly,” Cheneviere says of the roots of the gallery swap.Their audiences will be different — Pipeline attracts the central London art crowd, she says, while Slugtown, which sits among public housing in Newcastle’s developing Shieldfield district, has more local residents and families. Rogers has made “site-responsive” work for the Newcastle show, Cheneviere says. Lee says that “the spirit of collaboration is key to growing and supporting artists,” contributing to “a more interconnected arts scene across the UK”.Pace Gallery now represents Australia’s Northern Territory artist Emily Kam Kngwarray (1910-66), in partnership with the Melbourne-based D’Lan Contemporary. Pace’s first show of her work will be in London in May 2025, ahead of the artist’s landmark retrospective opening at Tate Modern on July 10.Kngwarray has a healthy following on the art market with an auction record of $1.6mn — “She is not a discovery,” says Elliot McDonald, Pace senior vice-president. He describes Kngwarray as “a revolutionary, abstract artist who made cosmic paintings” and sees a natural fit with the gallery’s artists, from Mark Rothko to Pam Evelyn.Kngwarray made objects for private ceremonies and rituals for most of her life and only started painting acrylic on canvas in her late seventies. Today, her collectors include actor and writer Steve Martin. Pace brings two Kngwarray works to Art Basel next week, her trademark pointillist “Emu — Yuyara and Yam — Annlara Dreaming at Alalgura” (1990, $220,000) and “Yam Story” (1995, $250,000).Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life & Art wherever you listen
