An auction, de Pury says, is put together much the way an exhibition is.

Simon de Pury: Yes. We definitely view ourselves as also having a curatorial responsibility in a sense. And when we try and put an auction together we try and put it together like an exhibition. For instance we are going to do the first auction ever fully devoted to Japanese contemporary culture shortly. Japanese contemporary culture has a huge influence on the use all over the world. I mean up through the early ‘80s, American pop culture was a dominant culture for young children all over the world. Since the ‘80s, Japanese pop culture has taken over. So when you look at children, they are very much influenced by the electronic games they play; by the mangas; by the cartoon characters; by those toys; by those robots and all of that. So it’s all that Japanese culture that has become universally very important. And so we are going to have an auction which we put together like a museum where we show the best contemporary art – artists like ...; by ...; by the best Japanese photographers like ...or ...; but also the best Japanese designers, the fashion makers, the toy designers; and where we mix all that and bring it all together – the high and low, the best of Japanese culture. So yes, we view ourselves as curators, and we like to put shows together as if we were museum curators. Recorded on: 2/7/08