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AUCTION REPORTS

LONDON—The red-hot Christie's evening sale of postwar and contemporary art on February 16 raced to $99,190,888 (£61,380,500), marking the highest London result in the category since June 2008 — the apex of the last art boom. The total annihilated Christie's $61.1 million result from the same sale last February.

The sale was powered in part by the previously unrecorded, six-foot-square Andy Warhol "Self Portrait" from 1967 that sold to Larry Gagosian for a staggering $17,441,892 (£10,793,250), over an estimate of £3-5 million. The sale featured 15 other offerings that broke the million pound mark, and 28 that hit over one million dollars. 

Rare Jewelry and Gauguin's Flowers Tempted Buyers Amid a Sea of Nautical Art in Palm Beach - ARTINFO www.artinfo.com The array of wares at last week's Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show drew Floridian crowds, and even Regis Philbin.

The eighth annual Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show this year featured over 180 dealers of objects ranging from antique jewelry to textiles to American silver, the four-day fair drew an estimated 50,000 people.

How is the American Folk Art Museum, which has been struggling to ward off closure after repeatedly failing to make payments on the $32 million it borrowed for its current building, coping with all that stress? By going to Venice, of course. The Venice Biennale, that is, where the museum now plans to stage an off-site exhibition of work by African-American artists who are either self-taught or practice graffiti art.

Planned to open on June 1, the month-long exhibition will take place at the Fondacio dei Tedeschi, the New York Times reports, and is budgeted at $300,000-400,000.

 For its part, the museum is now trying to raise money to cover the exhibition costs.

OHWOW Gallery Goes West, Expanding to Los Angeles - ARTINFO.com www.artinfo.com

OHWOW, the New York art platform that has expanded over its three-year existence to encompass a Miami Beach bookstore and numerous gallery collaborations and pop-up shows around the country, is now giving in to the increasing pull of the burgeoning Los Angeles art scene by opening a new center in the City of Angels. The new space, located at 937 North La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood in an ivy-covered former laundromat, is being refurbished by artist Rafael de Cárdenas and will feature a gallery, a bookstore, and a shaded outdoor patio. It debuts on March 19 with a show by artist Scott Campbell.