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If you organized the sale that happened to include the priciest work of art ever sold at auction, maybe that means it’s time for a promotion. And so, Loic Gouzer will be the new Deputy Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary at Christie’s, a representative for the house told ARTnews.
“I guess it’s a big deal, I guess,” Gouzer said when reached on the phone. His previous title in Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary department was Senior Vice President. “I’m not really impressed by people’s titles, I’m impressed by what they do. I guess in Europe there isn’t really the culture of titles”—Gouzer is Swiss—”but it is in America, so I’m happy.”
The news first appeared in the Baer Faxt newsletter this week. Gouzer’s move up the ladder comes just a few months after Picasso’s Les femmes d’Alger, Version O (1955) sold for $179.4 million in an auction at Christie’s, making it the most valuable work of art ever auctioned off. That sale, dubbed “Looking Forward to the Past,” was held during the week of evening sales in New York last May, and also saw Giacometti’s L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) go for $141.3 million, making that the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction. The sale brought in a total of $705.9 million.
Gouzer also partnered with his friend Leonardo DiCaprio on “The 11th Hour,” a 2013 sale that benefitted the actor’s wildlife foundation and other conservation charities.
The evening sales at Christie’s begin next month, with “The Artist’s Muse,” a special curated sale, on November 9.