Book Excerpt: 'Lulu Meets God And Doubts Him'

July 2, 2007 — --

Fall Postwar and Contemporary SaleMonday, 7:00 PM

November

The auction starts-Ladies and Gentlemen, we begin this evening's sale of postwar and contemporary art with lot number 1, blah, blah blah-and I hold myself still. It's a game I like to play at sales. I entertain myself with the implausible fear that if I so much as scratch my ear or push my glasses up on my nose, the auctioneer will perceive this as a bid and I will suddenly own a piece of art I can't possibly afford. That this is impossible only adds to the fun. I don't even have a paddle.

I stand at the back, squeezed in with the press and other observers. I take an elbow in the rib from a fat guy in a droopy overcoat scribbling names and paddle numbers in his notebook, but I hold my ground. I've chosen my spot in the sale room carefully. I figured I'd be invisible back here, in the standing section with the reporters and the pretend collectors and other folks not too proud to watch an entire auction on their feet.

There is another whole room of people watching on a screen upstairs in the annex-talk about Siberia! But they miss seeing the bidders in action. From where I stand, I can see everything. And I hope no one can see me.

Especially not Simon. Except there he is, coming down the center aisle, clutching his ticket to his chest as though someone might snatch it away and he'd be banished to the back to stand.

Simon is late. The first piece, a smallish Richard Prince cowboy, always an easy sell, selected to set the mood-Buy! Buy!-has gone far above the asking price. There is just the slightest break in the tension in the crowded room. The bubble will not burst tonight.

I try to tuck myself behind the fat man, so Simon can't see me. I don't think he'd bother looking in my direction; no one of interest to him would be standing. Or so I think. I'm wrong, as I often am when it comes to my former boss. He does look in my direction. And he sees me. He stops in the aisle and our eyes meet. He runs his hand through his hair. Surely this will be the extent of our exchange. This is already too much intimacy for Simon.

He continues down the aisle toward me. This is the most crowded sale room I've ever seen, the seats jammed up against each other like coach class on Continental. Simon has to step over legs in the aisle to get to me. "Mia McMurray. What in bloody hell are you doing here?"

It's not like Simon to be so loud. The fat reporter immediately starts to shushing. Head turn in our direction as the auctioneer accepts bids on lot number 2. "How'd you even get a ticket?" His voice gets louder. More heads turn. The reporter waves a hand at Simon to get him out of the way. This doesn't work. Simon glares at each one of us in turn. He doesn't seem to know what else to say to me. I give him my friendliest smile. I haven't seen him since June. I wonder if he missed me a little. "Take your seat," the fat guy growls. He makes a gesture toward the ticket Simon is still holding at his chest. This works. Simon gives me one last withering look before he turns to find his spot in one of the rows of chairs. I step back. The fat guy edges over into the space I just released and I let him. "Thank you," I tell my new friend as he jostles into position. He doesn't respond.

Jeffrey Finelli's painting of Lulu is hanging in the sale room. It's on the right wall, above the bank of phones manned by a growing cadre of extraordinarily attractive salespeople employed by the auction house. He is flanked, not incongruously, by Ed Ruscha and Willem de Kooning, two of my favorites, From the far wall a Basquait and a Hirst face the Finelli. There, the painting glows, imbued with the power of context. The official title of the piece is Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him. Wordy, isn't it? Talk about awkward. Most people leave off the part about the doubting and call it Lulu and God. Or "the one with the girl and the paintbrush." Or just, "the big one." It certainly is big. A swirling riot of orange, pink, and yellow on a nine-by-twleve-foot unframed canvas. In the lower right corner is his signature, Finelli. A scrawl with an exaggerated F and a long tail on the I at the end.

It's an exquisitely composed portrait of a young girl holding a small canvas of her own in one perfectly detailed hand, a dripping paintbrush in the other. The use of light is remarkable, a clear golden light that evokes Florence. The scale gives the piece intensity, and the swirling colors give it Finelli's own unique style. But it's the look on the girl's face, wise and so clearly full of doubt that the explanatory title is unnecessary, that makes it difficult for the viewer to look away.

The Lulu in the painting has circular gray eyes. When they fix on yours, they lock in. You move before her and her eyes move with you, like Mona Lisa's eyes, only much bigger. She's riveting. From her spot above the audience gathered for tonight's sale, the nive-by-twleve-foot Lulu gazes down at the art world with a wry smile, as though amused by the spectacle before her. It is quite a spectacle. There are three types of people crammed into the tightly packed rows of seats. First, of course, are the collectors. The big players peer down from their boxes above the action, like at the ballet. The others occupy seats as good or as bad as their recent buying history. There are passionate collectors, fueled by lust, and others, only midly horny, looking to enjoy themselves without commitment. Within this category are a crop of new-moneyed thirty-and forty-year-olds with an air of being on a Saturday shopping spree.