Artists’ union auction resumes after technical failure

The Estonian Artists’ Association’s (EAA) fundraising auction will resume at 6 p.m. on Friday at the ARS art campus and online, ERR reports. Organisers said the technical fault that halted bidding on Thursday had been fixed and the system thoroughly tested.

Andres Veske, a board member of Estonian Art Auctions OÜ, which runs the auction platform, said the problem was caused by exceptionally high traffic. One part of the application could not handle the load, although the organisers had prepared for strong interest. The server service provided by Zone was unaffected. An initial suspicion of a cyberattack was not confirmed.

Because some bids may not have reached the system or may have been deleted, bidders have been asked to check their offers and submit them again if needed. This applies to both regular and automatic bids.

Only one work was sold during Thursday’s auction: Jüri Arrak’s “Tiger”. Auctioneer Reigo Kuivjõgi said the buyer had been contacted to confirm the usual sale details.

Friday’s session will continue with Arrak’s “Games Around a Tree” and run through to Viktor Karrus’s “Legend”. Saturday’s auction will start at 3 p.m. with Flo Kasearu’s “Tomorrow Is on”. The hall at ARS, at Pärnu maantee 154 in Tallinn, opens at 5 p.m. Bidding is also available online.

The auction features 162 works and aims to cover nearly 700,000 euros in losses suffered by the association in a fraud case this spring. EAA president Maarin Ektermann said the platform’s failure was regrettable and that the organisers had confirmed it had been repaired and tested.