Joopiter, the auction platform founded by musician and designer Pharrell Williams, is holding its inaugural sale of contemporary art through Tuesday (6 May), and has enlisted food and lifestyle mogul Martha Stewart to highlight a half-dozen lots. The 48-lot sale includes works by blue-chip artists like George Condo, Tom Wesselmann, Jeff Koons and Ed Ruscha, as well as emerging artists and contemporary stars like Tschabalala Self, André Butzer, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Toyin Ojih Odutola. Stewart chose to highlight works by Amy Sherald, Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei, Louise Bourgeois, Roy Lichtenstein and Alex Katz.
“I sat for Alex Katz long ago when he painted a large facial portrait of me,” she said in a statement regarding the highlighted Katz work in the sale, the 2022 print Straw Hat 3 (est $18,000-$25,000). “It was typical of his simple, planar, partially textured work. This portrait is a bit more complex and colorful, and very representative of his work.”
Works in the sale—dubbed The Contemporary Take—span prints and editions to unique works on paper, sculptures and paintings. They have estimates ranging from $4,000 to $1.2m. “This sale is an opportunity to start a collection of your own—or to expand one you have already begun,” Stewart said in a statement. “It’s also an opportunity to learn.”
Amy Sherald, As soft as she is…, 2023 Courtesy Joopiter
Joopiter, which Williams founded in 2022, has held sales of a variety of collectibles over the past three years, from rare sneakers and a group of works by the celebrated athlete-turned-artist Ernie Barnes to objects from the personal collections of the DJ and designer NIGO and the rapper and actor Kid Cudi.
“At Joopiter, we often invite guest curators to lend their perspective to a sale, and we were honored to collaborate with Martha Stewart,” says John Auerbach, the chief executive of Joopiter. “She selected a group of lots that reflected her personal taste, shared insights into each selection, and promoted the auction across her own channels. As a result, her chosen works, such as those by Amy Sherald and Roy Lichtenstein, have received significant attention throughout the campaign.”
Indeed, many works in the sale have already logged many bids since it launched on 28 April, including, as of this writing, more than ten bids on the opening lot, a Matisse-esque painting by the emerging, Brussels-based painter Anastasia Bay. Still, Auerbach anticipates the bulk of bidding will happen in the final hours of the sale, especially when lots begin to close Tuesday morning.
Louise Bourgeois, Couples, 2001 Courtesy Joopiter
“We are pleased with the performance of the auction to date,” he says. “As is typical with online auctions, early success is measured by traffic and engagement—such as bookmarks and page views—with the majority of bidding activity expected to occur in the final minutes before the close.”
While Joopiter has since its inception straddled the worlds of fashion, jewellery, design, collectibles and art, historical auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s have expanded into these art-adjacent categories aggressively in recent years. Particularly as sales of art have largely stagnated, the expanding market for luxury goods has been seen as a vital sector for growth.
Williams is one of the co-chairs of the 2025 Met Gala—along with Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Anna Wintour, as well as honorary chair LeBron James—which takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight (5 May).
