Christie's International moved $18.3 million in art at its contemporary London auction on Friday. Three pieces sold for more than $1.6 million (including fees), with the top price going for a piece by Martin Kippenberger ($3.76 million); a phone bidder acquired it. Of the 25 lots offered at the art auction, which coincided with the Frieze Art Fair, 24 sold. Half the lots went to bidders from North America.

The equivalent auction held by Christie's last year consisted of 47 lots and brought in revenue of $52 million. But, it missed the low-end estimate of $95 million by a mile. At that auction, 45 percent of the lots didn't sell.

The seemingly better performance this year may provide a warm feeling to a market that's been battered for a while, but it should be balanced against the fact that expectations were much lower than last year, a trend that has developed throughout the art market slump.

Other impressive results include $1.46 million for "Signal Box" by Neo Rauch, $1.57 million for Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Fuego Flores" and $886,000 for Damien Hirst's "Retribution."

Another year of The European Fine Art Fair (better known as Tefaf) in the Netherlands and diamond kingpin Laurence Graff is already buying and selling. Bloomberg reports that he sold an emerald-cut white diamond, of about 30 carats for $5 million to a U.S. client. Not bad, although last year bang Graff sold a 70-carat yellow diamond out of their booth for around $11 million. Graff also spent some money at Tefaf picking up one of Jean-Michel Basquiat's boxer paintings for 3.5 million euros ($4.5 million).

This year there are a record 239 dealers offering over $1 billion worth of art ranging from Old Master paintings to silver, ceramics and contemporary art. The sale runs from March 13 to March 22. All the works are of the highest quality, Art Daily reveals that there are 25 committees made up of 155 experts who ensure quality, condition and authenticity. The entrance hall in the exhibition is decorated with thousands of flowers for an impressive display. Many are hoping that after the huge results earned by the Yves St. Laurent sale in Paris, collectors are once again in a spending mood.

This week's dismal art auction returns continued with the sale at Christie's New York on Wednesday night in which close to one third of the 75 lots found no buyers. The savvy shoppers were out in hordes though, Bloomberg reports that tennis star and collector John McEnroe, Salma Hayek and the ever art-hungry Eli Broad were in the room checking out the lots. The sale brought in $113.6 million which was around half its presale low estimate. Francis Bacon has been quite the hot seller of late, fueled to some extent by the buying habits of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. But last night a self-portrait by Francis Bacon that Christie's had estimated would sell for about $40 million couldn't find a new home.

And that collection of 16 drawings sold by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard S. Fuld Jr. and his wife, Kathy, brought in $13.5 million a bit below the low estimate of $15 million for the collection. More than half, a full 52 percent of the lots sold below the low estimate and Christie's guaranteed the sale of 39 lots, 12 of which didn't sell, which had a combined low estimate of $48 million. This means Christie's is on the hook for those works.

But every evening has its bright spots, Gerhard Richter's 1989 eight-foot-tall ``Abstraktes Bild (710),'' painted with a squeegee sold for $14.9 million. And you can't keep a good Basquiat down, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich sold a 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting ``Untitled (Boxer)'' for $13.5 million, above the $12 million estimate.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is selling a massive 8-ft. wide Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at Christie's in New York on Nov. 12, where it's expected to fetch about $12 million. Untitled (Boxer) (above), painted in 1982, is an important "proxy self-portrait,'' Brett Gorvy, Christie's international co-head of postwar and contemporary art, tells Bloomberg. "The black artist as defiant hero.'" In 2002, Ulrich, a noted collector, sold Basquiat's 1982 Profit I at Christie's for $5.5 million. In July, Irish rock band U2 sold the artist's Untitled (Pecho/Oreja) for $10.1 million at Sotheby's in London. The auction record for a Basquiat work was set at Sotheby's in New York last year with the $14.6 million sale of 1981's Untitled.

Celebrities often buy and sell art, (as Hugh Grant did last year when he parted with his Warhol) but it's rarer that the painting belongs to a band. The piece above, a powerful painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat belonging to rock band U2, will be auctioned July 1 at Sotheby's London. Untitled (Pecho/Oreja), completed in 1983, is estimated to sell for £4-6 million ($7.775-11.662 million) but could go higher.

U2 bassist Adam Clayton first spotted the painting, which is acrylic, oil stick and paper collage on canvas, and the band bought it way back in 1989, a year after Basqiat's untimely death. It has hung in their Dublin studio ever since. The painting, which was begun when Basquiat was just 22 features some of his popular motifs including the stylized, skull-like face, the small crown and his use of words and scrawled lines to invoke an urgent chaos. BBC News reports that the current auction record for a Basquiat work stands at $14.6 million.

Renowned jeweler Laurence Graff has a habit of spending big at the big jewel and art auctions but this week Graff really went overboard spending $40 million this week on rare red and blue diamonds in Geneva and scooping up contemporary art in New York. Bloomberg reports that Graff paid $8.4 million for a Warhol soup-can picture, $15.7 million for Warhol's double image of Elvis Presley. as well as Warhol pictures of Jackie Kennedy and Truman Capote and Jean-Michel Basquiat's portrait of Sugar Ray Robinson. In an interview Graff was quoted as saying that what he bought he mostly got at low estimates and that he thinks they will go higher (this even as a prominent art dealer named Warhol and Basquiat as two of the most overpriced artists). Graff wasn't just buying, he also sold $10 million of art at this week's auctions.

Also on Graff's shopping list this week on the business side was the 493 carat Letseng Legacy, the world's 18th largest known diamond. Graff and manufacturing partner SAFDICO beat out 10 other diamantaires, eventually paying $10.4 million.

[Thanks, Lana]

I saw these on The Stylephile and decided they were a must-have for my favorite artist who has a birthday coming up. Reebok has made a new collection of sneakers that are designed based on the unique designs of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat, whose works were recently shown in a comprehensive retrospective at the MOCA here in Los Angeles, was famous for his graffiti-inspired art. The sneakers have Basquiat's name on back, his signature crown and a Basqiuat design on the sole. The sneakers come in just a few colors and are made in limited runs of 500. The Stylephile says you can get them at%uFFFD Sportie L.A. or Barneys for $140 but I found my pair for $120 at Karmaloop.