On Tuesday in New York, Sotheby's auctioned $47 million worth of contemporary art, failing to meet the auction house's already low expectations. Sotheby's projected the sale, which yielded a fraction of last spring's $362 million, to bring in between $52 million and $72 million.

The mood in the packed Manhattan salesroom wavered between tense and tentative, with collectors seeming to hold their breath whenever works garnered no bids. The sale's biggest buzz centered on the arrival of actor Owen Wilson. He bid on nothing and left before the sale was half over.