【Geneva, Swit】Art Market: Caroline Lang Leaves Sotheby’s After 39 Years, 34 of Them in Geneva

This is news. But it’s not really a surprise. In a lengthy press release, written in English as is customary, Sotheby’s announces the departure of Caroline Lang, its “chairman” (or rather “chairwoman”) for Switzerland. Everything is in flux today at the multinational owned by what is arguably the world’s most indebted man (1), and Johann Strauss has nothing to do with it. Restructuring is happening at full speed. Caroline is fortunate to have spent nearly forty years at the great auction house, whose inner workings she knows intimately. Suffice to say, her career is already largely behind her. A trajectory she will have steered with a firm hand. It seems very difficult to resist Caroline, who knows how to use both her charm and her authority. It’s like being caught in crossfire.

The director will therefore leave her position at the end of June. She will no longer be seen in the company, which has been housed for a few years on Rue du Stand in a lovely small building constructed in the 1920s. Most importantly, she will no longer be heard, which will make the main difference. Caroline readily raised her voice there, with an indeterminate accent. This polyglot thus seems to me to have been born nowhere. This must indeed be the case. Polished to a degree that is not permitted, the official press release gives neither place nor date of birth. The text, however, likes numbers, insofar as it only talks about prices and records. Everything is, of course, in millions. That’s the new monetary unit today. Given her thirty-nine years at Sotheby’s, which began in London in 1986, I deduce, however, that the woman is at least in her fifties, even if the accompanying photo was even more arranged than the biography. A pity, by the way! I find Caroline Lang much more expressive in her natural state now.

The former director recounts herself amusingly in the few personal sentences that Sotheby’s, a house where pressure is always applied, allowed her. We thus learn that she began in the “Impressionist and Modern Art” department on New Bond Street, under the mentorship of Michel Strauss. Caroline arrived in Geneva in 1991, where she quickly made herself known. Impossible not to notice her, her and her cowboy hat! And then there was the laugh. Loud and contagious. I seem to hear it right now. She was promoted to Managing Director for Geneva in 2004. In 2013, she moved to head Switzerland. She also became, with a title as long as your arm, “Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe,” while the house changed hands and the market transformed from top to bottom. The latter today has little in common with that of 1986, which in turn remained quite close to that of 1886. Suffice to say, one had to hold on tight to appear to master more than thirty different departments selling, cumulatively, everything like a department store.

Caroline gives the impression of loving this diversity. She is indeed known for advising some major collectors. Many enthusiasts, if not needing to be mothered, at least need to feel reassured. Their friend knows the market well, having seen its highs and lows (it seems to be heading towards a low point at the moment), changes in taste, star sales, and social sidelines. And then there is the human aspect as a bonus, even if the current press release at times seems to come from a calculating machine. I have always been struck by this in Caroline Lang, especially when I compare her to many collaborators at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, who have the air of well-mannered robots. What can you do? It’s the world of five-star hotels in a commercial version. Very much alive, the woman was therefore surprising. She also stood out a bit. That’s why she will leave a void. The press release, moreover, gives us no name of a successor in conclusion. That would be awkward for him or her.
(1) Patrick Drahi, who acquired Sotheby’s in 2019.