RSVP : They Came; They Saw; They Bought : Benefit: It was serious business for enthusiasts at the Temporary Contemporary’s auction. But then, when art is lethal and Leonard Nimoy shells out $15,000, what else could it be?

The best kind of art enthusiasts came, some 700 strong, to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s sixth biennial art auction Friday night. You know what kind that is. They meant business.

“Well, I work for a collector I could safely say is considered big by major auction houses, and we have every intention of trying to secure something tonight,” said Michele DeAngelus, curator of the Broad Foundation.

And could she say what she might be trying to secure?

“Oh, no, one never does that before bidding,” she replied.

Never mind the Patina-catered dinner. Throughout much of the silent auction, Rhona Edelbaum, director of the Ruth Bloom Gallery, was poised, ear to cellular phone, before a porcelain plate depicting a gigantic puppy by Jeff Koons. Her boyfriend, who was at home, wanted it, and she needed to know how much he was willing to spend before a rival dealer got it. (The boyfriend beat out the dealer.)

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world,” said another bidder, rushing through the Temporary Contemporary (not scheduled to formally reopen until next year) to get another look at the piece she wound up taking home, a Seth Kaufman collage of photographic equipment salvaged from buildings destroyed in the 1992 riots. “I’ve been to auctions that are better than Broadway shows,” she said.

Even if some of the prices fetched were a disappointment--a few pieces went for far below their printed, estimated value--90% of the works sold, bringing in more than $500,000 for the museum. “That’s a nice little kick in the treasury,” said John Marion, chairman of Sotheby’s, who conducted the live auction.

Still, nearly everyone, amateur and professional, had an opinion of the art-market temperature based on the evening’s take. “Flat,” concluded one dealer. “Do you think the estimates have anything to do with reality? They’re dream figures, and if you get anywhere close you have a successful auction,” said collector Richard Rosenzweig, ticking off some of the evening’s highest prices.

“There are different ways to interpret what happens in an auction and this one is no different,” allowed Richard Koshalek, MOCA’s director. “It’s still a difficult market, and it hasn’t begun an upward swing, but because just about everything sold, it shows there is still strong interest in acquiring works by leading contemporary artists.”

It was Leonard Nimoy and his wife, Susan Bay, who provided one of the evening’s most dramatic moments during the live auction. With paddles flying, they made the winning bid of $15,000, nearly double the high estimate, for a Joel Shapiro chalk and pastel on paper. “Well, we wanted the piece,” Nimoy said coolly. “We could sense there were other people interested, and we were determined to stick it out.”

Noting the evening’s key players, the invitation looked a little like a letterhead for a major law firm. Unlike other charity affairs where party organization is a key component, this one also required an “auction executive chairman”--Bob Gersh--and “executive chairman emeritus”--Doug Cramer.

When someone nearly tripped over one of the pieces for sale, a pair of “shoes” carved from large hunks of tree by Liz Young, Cramer, ever the art lover, suggested cheerily: “They’re dangerous. That’s the good thing about the best of art--there’s always that lethal quality.”