I’ll save for another time why I happened to be at a modern art auction at Castells in Montevideo last night.

The auctioneer appears on the right, elevated. At the left, auction house employees bid on behalf of clients on the phone. The guy in front of the painting is doing the same by mobile phone. The waiter approaching the women has a tray with champagne, whiskey, water (sin o con gas), and fizzy brown high-fructose-corn-syrup water.

The pieces sold from USD 1,200 to over USD 30,000 while we were watching.