Mass Confusion

I left the MassArt Benefit Auction on Saturday night a little bewildered. It wasn't because of the art, it was because of the attendees. Whatever I thought I knew about the market, went totally out the window. An unlimited edition by Julian Opie went for four times its price on Opie's webstore (to multiple high bidders!), while amazing pieces, like David Ording's portrait of Lady Agnew (shown here) went for almost half-price. There were no surprises with the usual crowd pleasers in the live auction- Laura McPhee, Abe Morrell, and Ambreen Butt, but downstairs was literally a bargain basement with the exception of a (very) few works that seemed to have been originally priced too low. These included a couple of interesting student works by Jonathan Lewis and Lisa Foti, which were both bought at 150% of suggested price through the "buy it now" option. Many really good pieces that should have easily sold closed without any bids. Some of us got great deals on specific pieces that we had targeted (like the Michael Mazur print I won), but the best strategy would have been to bought in volume, picking up all of the decent work that didn't have bids. How could the same audience overbid for an Opie wall sticker and not place any bids on paintings that could have been won for a fraction of those bids. Were they just unknowledgeable buyers? Is there some twist on charity that I am missing?