On Tuesday Amazon announced the launch of Amazon Art, a partnership with 150 U.S. dealers and galleries that currently features some 40,000 works from 4,500 artists.

    There's a Monet selling for $1.45 million (user reviews are appropriately snarky: "BUYER BEWARE: THIS ITEM IS IN FRENCH. There is no English version. I purchased this product and couldn't understand a word of it.") and a Norman Rockwell for $4.85 million, the most expensive piece on the site, so far.

    On Wednesday Fortune sat down with Christie's CEO Steven Murphy, who is especially well-suited to consider the magnitude of Amazon (AMZN) entering the fine art space.

    Before arriving at Christie's in 2010, Murphy worked in music and book publishing -- first at the publishing house Simon & Schuster, then as a president at EMI Records, and finally as the CEO of Rodale. So he's seen, firsthand, his industries hugely affected by the online retail Goliath. Edited excerpts follow:

Does this Amazon news worry you?

    All these things worry me! I'm on the anxiety diet over here. Why shouldn't I take Amazon going into the art business seriously? I can hear the trucks! [laughs] It's the big rumble ... it's like: AMAZON. It's perfectly well named. It's huge! But, I'll tell you, like the Wizard of Oz said, "We have something they haven't got." We have the Christie's brand.

There's a similar argument, which is not completely analogous, but it's something book publishers, and book sellers, and record companies have made before, and Amazon completely ate their lunch.

    No, no, no I agree with you. This is a major event, something to give us concern. This is a complex point, let me jump ahead: They can take a big chunk of the art world. That's a given. But there is a big difference between Christie's and brands in the books and music. Frankly, no one is buying Eric Clapton because he's on Warner. And except for very few but a couple publishing imprints ...

Sure, sure, most people don't know Knopf, or FSG ...

    But if you read the New Yorker, maybe.

Right, but the vast majority of people, folks on Amazon don't.

    It's very rare. Christie's does have 250 years of a value and certain imprimatur. Amazon is creating a marketplace for dealers, some of whom have a good brand. My first pass is: This is actually good for the art world. Encouraging people to buy art online is going to be good for Christie's, because I'm building an online platform for Christie's. I think I'll have an opportunity to grab some of the business myself. Our job will be to make sure we have the exclusive on the art that people are looking for. The name of this game is still consignments, and that is a game we are very, very good at.

    周二，电子商务网站亚马逊（Amazon）宣布推出艺术品交易平台Amazon Art。这个平台和美国150家艺术品交易公司和画廊建立了合作关系，目前可供交易的有4,500名艺术家创作的约4万件艺术品。

    在Amazon Art上出售的一幅莫奈画作标价145万美元（894.65万元人民币，浏览者对它进行了犀利吐槽：“买家注意：这件作品用法文作为说明文字。没有英文版。买它的人一个字也看不懂。”）另一幅诺曼•洛克威尔的作品标价485万美元（2,992.45万元人民币），是目前为止该平台上最贵的一件艺术品。

    周三，《财富》（Fortune）杂志记者采访了佳士得拍卖行（Christie's）首席执行官史蒂芬•墨菲。要评价亚马逊进入艺术品市场的意义，墨菲无疑是个特别合适的人选。

    墨菲于2010年进入佳士得，此前从事音乐和图书发行工作——最初他在西蒙与舒斯特出版社（Simon & Schuster）工作，接着又在百代唱片（EMI Records）担任总裁，最后的职务是Rodale出版社首席执行官。因此，他亲眼见证了这家电子商务巨擘给出版行业带来的巨大冲击。编辑后的采访摘要如下：

亚马逊的消息让你感到担心吗？

    所有这些都让我感到担心！为了缓解焦虑，我都开始食疗了。我为什么不应该认真对待亚马逊涉足艺术品市场这件事呢？我都能听见他们的卡车来拉货的声音了！（笑）这件事动静很大……它打着亚马逊这块金字招牌。这项业务有个完美的名称，而且规模巨大！不过我要告诉你，就像《绿野仙踪》（the Wizard of Oz）里奥兹国的巫师所说：“我们有他们没有的东西。”我们有的就是佳士得这个品牌。

以前也有人这么说过。虽然不完全相同，但图书发行商、图书销售商和唱片公司都说过这样的话，然而亚马逊最终完全占据了他们的市场。

    对，没错，我同意你的说法。这是件大事，我们很担心。这个问题很复杂，让我说的超前一点：他们能在艺术品市场占据一大块地盘。这毋庸置疑。但佳士得和那些图书、音乐品牌之间有很大差异。说实在的，大家买埃里克•克莱普顿的唱片绝不是因为他和华纳（Warner）签了约。除了极少数的那么几个品牌……

当然，的确，大多数人并不知道Knopf或FSG出版社……

    但《纽约客》（New Yorker）杂志的读者可能知道。

对，但绝大多数人，还有亚马逊的用户都不知道。

    这种情况非常罕见。佳士得的价值和某些特许品牌经历了250年的积淀。亚马逊为交易商建立了一个市场，其中一些交易商有很好的品牌。我的第一反应是：这对艺术品行当来说这实际上是件好事。鼓励人们在网上购买艺术品对佳士得有利，因为我正在为佳士得建立网上平台。我认为自己有可能亲自抓住一些商机。我们的工作将是确保我们独家拥有那些人们想买的艺术品。这个行业的实质仍然是委托，而在这方面我们非常、非常在行。

And the online retail game?

    Look, it's early days at Amazon in this space, so I don't really know enough about it, but I imagine we're serving slightly different audiences in different ways. When our online business comes to complete fruition -- this is the first year, and we've gone from seven tests to 60 online auctions -- we're approaching the relationship between our network of buildings and exhibition space more in the same way that apparel companies might have a store to drive their online business. So there will be things being toured, seen -- so it's very different than Amazon.

I imagine that the key differentiator is how you treat your customers, and retaining them, which is something that, well, with Amazon, you could be anybody, or nobody.

    Yes. Yes. Look, philosophically I think it's really important when new things happen to embrace them and do it better rather than say: Go away, this will never happen. I remember vividly Jack Valenti going to Congress to try and stop home recording when it was already happening. It's like that old story about the railroads thinking they're in the railroad business when they were in the people-moving business, otherwise they wouldn't have missed the airplane. We're in the client business, and the mandate has been to focus on how they interact.

    We just did a very tasty, beautiful little sale of some wonderful Chinese porcelain from the 18th century ... The price point is $20,000 or $8,000 or $45,000 -- it's an aficionado's category. We had 55 pieces in the online sale, sold 50, and only marketed online. Twenty-five of the 50 buyers were brand new, from Canada, China, the U.S., and Europe. Now they've just received contact, sometimes phone calls, we're not selling them, just inviting them back in: What information can we provide them about their purchase? What more do they want to know? Someone who just spent $20,000 two days ago might like to know the story behind what he bought, and we can give that to them. I don't know if Amazon can.

那么对在线零售业务呢？

    是这样，亚马逊刚刚进入这一领域，所以我了解到的情况还不够多，但我觉得我们两家公司的目标客户稍有区别，我们为客户服务的方式也不一样。今年是我们开展在线业务的第一年，我们已经从最初的七次测试发展到了60场在线拍卖会，今后我们的在线业务将完全成形。它和我们的经营场所以及我们的展示厅之间的关系更像是服装公司为促进自身在线业务的发展而设立的店面。我们的在线业务将提供导购服务，顾客能在这里看到我们的艺术品——这和亚马逊有非常大的区别。

我猜最重要的差异化因素是你们待客之道和留客之道，而就这一点而言，谁都可以成为亚马逊的顾客，或者说它并不在乎顾客是谁。

    是的，没错。瞧，在这一点上我很豁达。我认为真正重要的是当新事物出现时予以接纳，而不是简单地说，一边去，我绝不会让你成为现实。我清楚地记得美国电影协会前主席杰克•瓦伦蒂在国会试图禁止个人制作音像制品，而当时已经有人在这样做了。这就像那个关于铁路公司的老故事，他们觉得自己从事的是铁路生意，而实际上他们的业务是客运。如果不是那样的话，他们就不会错失飞机带来的机会。我们从事的是客户业务，而且我们的工作重点就落在他们的反应上。

    我们刚刚拍卖了一批精美的18世纪中国瓷器，拍卖过程非常有品位，非常出彩……这些瓷器的价位有2万美元（12.34万元人民币）、8千美元（4.94万元人民币）或4.5万美元（27.77万元人民币）——这是一批专门为爱好者准备的艺术品。我们在网上拍卖了55件瓷器，成交了50件，整个过程都在网上进行。50位买家中，有25人是首次参与我们的拍卖，他们来自加拿大、中国、美国和欧洲。现在我们开始和他们进行联络，有时候给他们打电话，但不是要卖什么东西给他们，只是邀请他们回来，看看我们能为他们拍下的艺术品提供哪些信息，看看他们还想了解些什么。两天前在我们的拍卖会上花了2万美元的顾客可能想知道他拍下的艺术品背后有什么样的故事，而我们可以为他提供这些信息。我不知道亚马逊能不能做到这一点。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie