ArtCrush Gala Auction Breaks Records, Brings in $4.5M for the Aspen Art Museum

Aspen ArtWeek wrapped on Friday with the 19th annual ArtCrush Gala at the foot of Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain during which 600 guests gathered for music, dancing, an expansive wine tasting, dinner, and of course the ArtCrush Gala auction.

This year’s auction, which took place both live and online, brought in $4.5 million for the Aspen Art Museum’s year-round curatorial and educational programs, easily surpassing last year’s total of $3.8 million. It was the highest earning ArtCrush Gala auction to date. 

This year’s auction featured works by Jacqueline Humphries, Allison Katz, Emma McIntyre, Jason Moran, Naudline Pierre, Marina Pérez Simão, Emmi Whitehorse, Kennedy Yanko, Marley Freeman, and Delcy Morelos—donated by the artists or the galleries that represent them. 

For the first time, Christie’s led the live auction, which had a total of twelve lots. The house’s global head of private sales and co-head of Impressionist and Modern Art, Adrien Meyer, surely cemented Christie’s roll in future ArtCrush galas. Dynaimc in a crisp white shirt open at the neck, navy blue suit, and dark Oxford shoes, he’d throw his note cards into the air behind him once they’d been read. He jogged across the stage or walked though the seated crowd as people jumped up from their chairs to bid, swiftly moving from one side of the expansive room to the other. 

Once a lot seemed ready to go, he was tableside, gavel in his hand. “No regrets! Anyone else? Very well, congratulations madam … its yours!” he’d say, then bang the gavel on the table to the delight of the guests seated around the winner. In between lots, Fleetwood Mac, Eurythmics, and other Top of the Pops hits blared through the speakers. It was one-part benefit auction, one-part rock concert, and one-part church revival in a massive tent, decorated red and gold, at the foot of a mountain halfway between Snowmass and Aspen.

The museum’s Collector Committee, co-chaired for the second year by Abigail Ross Goodman and Molly Epstein, organized the auction while the gala was co-chaired by Sarah Arison and Thomas Wilhelm, Jen Rubio and Stewart Butterfield, Charlie Pohlad and Jack Carter, and Eleanore and Domenico De Sole. The event marked the museum’s 45th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of its Shigeru Ban-designed building.

“I am energized by the enthusiastic response to this year’s special anniversary edition of Aspen ArtWeek,” Nicola Lees, Nancy and Bob Magoon Director of Aspen Art Museum, said in a release, “and to have welcomed visitors from all over the world to participate in the program we have been building and growing since we first staged it four years ago.”

The week’s programing included artist talks, Audience Plant 2024, a concert staged in partnership with Aspen Skiing Company, featuring music by Michael Beharie, Lizzie Fitch, Ashland Mines, Aaron David Ross, and Ryan Trecartin—another performance featuring Jason Moran, and a hike led by the artist Lena Henke. At the museum and free to the public was an excellent group exhibition organized by Allison Katz in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii “In the House of the Trembling Eye.”