Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) is one of my favorite auction houses here in Los Angeles. Their upcoming auction on Sunday May 17th, 2015, is going to be a spectacular event. It includes everything from mid-century furniture, to sculpture, to painting. The gorgeous Alexander Calder Mobile shown above is listed for $500,000 – 700,000… wouldn’t you just love to be a fly on the wall and watch the heated bidding for this item! I was fortunate enough to be in the room once when a Frank Lloyd Wright chair was being auctioned off, and watched the bidding go to over $90,000. That was nearly 15 years ago before much of the bidding was done online. You were either in the room, or on the phone for privacy sake. It was beyond exhilarating and you could cut the tension in the room with a knife. With buyers premiums and taxes that $90,000 chair would have totaled up to at least $108,000 or more… for a chair! Would you let your guests sit on that chair when they come to your home, or would you put it on a pedestal and rope it off like a museum? I will admit that I have a fancy auction house chair that I won’t let anyone sit on at my house, but it’s not worth anything close to that. I have a few friends who can’t understand why I’d spend that much on a chair that no one can sit on… because it’s ART!

If you’re a collector ‘wanna be’ and don’t have the money for these kinds of purchases, I’d at least recommend going to one of the previews at LAMA and seeing their items in person. It doesn’t cost a thing to look, and the same goes for sitting in the room while the auction happens. If nothing else, it might be a very enlightening experience and you might also make a few really cool friends…. friends who might invite you over to sit on their fancy auction house chair once they’ve won that sought after lot.

View the entire online catalogue here.