Business Notes AUCTIONS

International art collectors may be surprised at a Christie's catalog this fall. Instead of rare Renoirs, Turners and Manets, they will behold photos and descriptions of shopping malls, office buildings and hotels worth at least $5 million apiece. In November the London-based art auction house plans to team up for the first time with Cushman & Wakefield, a giant Manhattan realty firm, to put some $100 million worth of prime U.S. commercial real estate on Christie's Park Avenue auction block.

The sale will be open to telephone bidders worldwide, but no specific offerings have been announced. It will take one of the sale's more expensive properties to beat Christie's fine-arts record: the $39.9 million a Van Gogh painting brought last March.