«I LIKE MONEY ON THE WALL»

On Wednesday, a work from Andy Warhol's "Flowers" series with an estimated value of over $1.1 million (800,000 euros) goes up for auction. But bidders won't be traveling to London or New York to raise their hands in a lofty auction house and they won't hear the sound of the auctioneer's gavel slamming down in the end. Instead, they will sit in front of their computers and place their bids with a simple mouse click. For the first time, such a highly priced piece of art will be sold exclusively on the Internet, by the online auction firm Artnet. Companies like Artnet are now taking one of the last offline domains - premium art sales - into cyberspace. They operate similarly to eBay: Artnet provides a platform for transactions, but once an object is sold, it is shipped directly from the seller to the buyer, Artnet founder and CEO Hans Neuendorf explained."But we don't leave our customers alone like eBay does. It merely connects sellers and buyers. We advise our customers and we use experts to assess the authenticity and the value of the items on sale," Neuendorf told Deutsche Welle.According to him, this ensures a high level of quality and security for buyers. "This is the only way to go in art selling," Neuendorf added.

-July 13 2011