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Whats happening in Dubai?

Starting a Collection on the Cheap

You haunt gallery openings and art fairs, and you’re eager to get some art on your own walls. Unfortunately, you’re on a tight budget — not an art collectors’ “budget” of several thousand (or million!) dollars, but a regular Joe’s couple hundred bucks — and your taste is more Bacon or Banksy than Bed Bath & Beyond. What to do? You could save up for years to buy one expensive piece, or you could start small right now, collecting carefully selected, affordable works.
The Affordable Art Fair, running June 12–15 in New York, offers a place to start, with an unintimidating atmosphere and more than 70 international galleries offering pieces priced as low as $100. But even if you miss the fair, you can still surround yourself with cheap art that appears to be anything but. According to the art-world insiders ARTINFO chatted up, you just have to know where to look.

Here are some of their most useful tips and lots of places to start your search:

Thinking Outside the (White) Box
To start, “try to visit alternative art spaces and galleries that aren’t in Chelsea,” recommends Tricia Wimmer, co-founder of the Brooklyn-based Pink Elephant Projects gallery.

Some of the coolest finds and best prices will turn up where you might least expect. Pink Elephant Projects, for example, offers limited edition prints as low as $30. But to find them you’ll have to go where few galleries have gone before: the Clinton/Washington stop on the G train in the Clinton Hill neighborhood.

“We’re not about selling art in a museum setting or on white-box gallery walls,” Wimmer says. “We’re committed to showing underrepresented artists and giving people a hands-on experience of seeing art.”

You’re more likely to find bargains by frequenting dealers committed to supporting newer artists, a goal that goes hand-in-hand with off-the-beaten-path galleries. Small art blogs and Web sites with the same aim, such as Etsy.com, are also good places to look.

“It doesn’t have to cost $100,000 to be good,” says Rob Kalin, founder of Etsy, a site offering hundreds of thousands of artworks and other handmade items, many with a price tag of less than $100. “Our big goal is to enable people to make a living making things. There are probably artists on the site whose work will be very collectible in 10 years, but it’s more about what art should be about: surrounding yourself with work that you want to see and experience in your everyday life. It’s great to know you’re supporting the artists, too.”

Start Small
Another point to consider: Bigger isn’t always better. Smaller-scale artworks tend to make less of a dent in the wallet, but can still pack a punch on your wall.

“If you really like an artist, but the bigger pieces you see are out of your range, ask if there are any smaller works available,” says Cris McCall, director of the Hollywood, California-based Tinlark gallery, which specializes in affordable art and offers lots of diminutive pieces.

Says Wimmer, “Even a small original piece speaks louder than a giant poster from Target over the couch.”

Buy Direct
Of course, some of the best prices can be had by going straight to the source. Get to know the artist, and you’re more likely to get a deal, too.

“Find art walks and open studio events in your area where you’ll have the chance to meet artists and buy directly from them,” McCall says.

She also recommends MFA shows and school Web sites. “Graduating artists are affordable and keen to sell their work,” she says. “If you see a piece you like, call the school—they should be happy to pass along your information to the artist.”

Here are some other places to start building your collection:

The Affordable Art Fair, June 12-15
The Altman Building/Metropolitan Pavilion, 135 West 18th Street, Manhattan
aafnyc.com
The Affordable Art Fair runs in six cities throughout the year, but this is your only chance to catch it in the United States — other locations are Bristol, London, Sydney, Melbourne, and Amsterdam. The New York fair includes galleries from the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America, and lots of original artworks, many with price tags that won’t make you hyperventilate. It’s also a good place to familiarize yourself with a wide range of contemporary artists and dealers.

Pink Elephant Projects
64 Washington Ave., Brooklyn
pepgallery.com
Tricia Wimmer and Joe Weiner started exhibiting art from little-known artists out of their Fort Greene and Clinton Hill apartments in 2006, and they also created a Web site to showcase and sell those works. A year later, the site and their apartments were seeing so much action they decided to open a brick-and-mortar gallery. Pink Elephant Projects now mounts an exhibition about every five weeks and has participated in various art fairs, but it still retains the scrappy community feel it was founded with. It also still offers a variety of cool pieces starting as low as $30 (check out Jashar Awan’s limited-edition silkscreens) and features a section on its Web site called ArtMart that is dedicated to affordable art.

Charming Wall
191 West 4th Street, New York
charmingwall.com
This little gallery, standing alone amid the tattoo and novelty shops in New York’s West Village, offers a curated selection of quirky, wonderful, open-edition prints that never go above $80 — and that includes framing and matting, too! How does Charming Wall maintain such affordable prices? The owners are in the boutique printing business, so production costs are minimal, and the gallery maintains personal relationships with all its artists who approve each print, according to gallery director Katie McClenahan. The prints are available online, too, and the gallery also has a small monthly exhibition of original art priced anywhere from $50 to a few thousand per work. “We’re trying to get up-and-coming artists out there and provide affordable art for the masses,” McClenahan says. Less than a year old, Charming Wall has already attracted media attention from the likes of New York magazine and DailyCandy.

Etsy
etsy.com
Rob Kalin dropped out of art school and founded Etsy in 2005, with the goal of helping people make a living by making things. The result is an addictive online marketplace where you can buy anything from original artworks to handmade jewelry and clothing. According to Kalin, art is the third most popular category on the site and accounts for 10 percent of Etsy’s overall sales. “This is about the idea that art is a craft,” Kalin says. Etsy’s selection isn’t curated, so quality is hit or miss and it can be time-consuming to page through its thousands of offerings, but the site features some great finds, such as Valerie Galloway’s small hand-toned vintage-look original photographs with metal frames, which start at only $45.

Tinlark
6671 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, Calif.
tinlark.com
ARTINFO stumbled across this little gem during this year’s Armory week at the satellite fair Red Dot. “Carefully curated, affordable art — that’s what I do,” gallery director Cris McCall told us, and she has the prices — starting at $25! — and selection to prove it. If you can’t make it to Hollywood, look for Tinlark online or at smaller art fairs.

McCall recommends works by Drew Beckmeyer, Kirsten Tradowsky, Wesley Younie, Nathaniel Klein, and Nancy Baker Cahill, whose pieces sell in the $200 to $300 range. “Their pieces are compositionally exciting, super well executed, conceptually smart and funny,” she says.

Also keep your eyes open for Brooks Salzwedel’s haunting graphite, tape, and resin landscapes that start around $275, some of our favorite works at Red Dot.

Tiny Showcase
tinyshowcase.com
True to its name, the four-year-old Web site Tiny Showcase showcases prints that are, well, tiny. You can sign up for their newsletter and snatch up a limited-edition piece each Tuesday for minimal dough — from around $20 to $100 — but you have to be nimble; the works usually go within hours. Imagine covering an entire wall with these exquisite little pieces: Each one is printed with archival paper and ink, but the best part is that a percentage from each work sold goes to a charity of the artist’s choice. - By Jacquelyn Lewis

Artist Damien Hirst's audacious sales strategy

Art sales: bullish Hirst rattles the market
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 24/06/2008

Colin Gleadell on Damien Hirst's direct sales plan

Market news
Damien Hirst has unveiled an audacious plan to bypass his dealers and sell directly at auction, sparking fears that the salerooms will take business away from galleries selling new art.

No surprises: Hirst has always been his own man
In September, he will offer a number of new works directly from his studio at Sotheby's. Leading the sale will be a 2m x 3m bull in formaldehyde called The Golden Calf, with hooves and horns cast in solid 18-carat gold, and a golden halo crowning its head. The sculpture is estimated to fetch up to £12 million, which would be an auction record for the artist.

Hirst has always been his own man. Twenty years ago, he bypassed the gallery system with the landmark exhibition, Freeze. Since 1991, he has been represented by Jay Jopling, the founder of the White Cube gallery in London, and, since 1996, by the Gagosian Gallery in America, two of the most powerful contemporary art galleries in the world.

However, as he has become more successful, he has chosen to work with several other galleries, notably Mexico's Galguera. His contracts with White Cube and Gagosian are not exclusively binding, so he can show and sell where he wants.

For most artists, the gallery system is invaluable in the way that it nurtures their careers, and they are happy for dealers to take an average 50 per cent commission on sales. But Hirst is so powerful that he can dictate rates of as little as 20 per cent. Even then, the earnings for his galleries can be considerable. At Hirst's show at White Cube last year, about £130 million in art was sold.

But, at the Sotheby's sale, neither Gagosian nor Jopling will get a penny. Both are putting on a brave face: Gagosian says that "as Damien's long-term dealer" it will be prepared to bid, while Jopling says he is "looking forward to many adventures to come" with Hirst.

Others in the art world, however, see a parallel here with the way film stars asserted their independence from controlling Hollywood studios in the late Forties and believe that where Hirst leads, others will follow.

Hirst says he wants to continue working with his galleries, and no doubt he will. But, after the success of the "Pharmacy" sale at Sotheby's in 2004, in which he sold the contents of the former Pharmacy restaurant in west London for £11 million, he discovered a taste for the auction process, with its high-powered marketing and global reach. He now thinks auctions are "a democratic way to sell art and a natural evolution for contemporary art".

While Christie's is known to have designs on the so-called primary market, Sotheby's is not. Oliver Barker of Sotheby's says that the Hirst sale is just "a reflection of our relationship with Hirst and not part of any corporate strategy to enter the retail business". So far, that relationship has produced two highly successful auctions: the Pharmacy sale and the "Red" charity sale held earlier this year. But can the partnership work again? Or will it become a victim of the current gloomy economic situation?

Prices for Hirst peaked at auction last summer when the large pill cabinet, Lullaby Spring, sold to Sheikh Saud Al-Thani for £9.6 million. But, since then, more than a dozen significant works by Hirst have gone unsold. According to a survey to be published this week by ArtTactic, an art advisory company founded by former JP Morgan banker Anders Pettersson, confidence in Hirst's market has fallen by 25 per cent since last May. Since the record price was achieved last June, the majority of works that have been sold did so at the lower estimate.

The next indicator will be the London contemporary art sales which start on Sunday, where 21 works by Hirst will be offered with a combined estimate of between £9 million and £13 million. Potential buyers will be asking whether the market can absorb the quantity of Hirsts about to be unleashed in September. Such fears could dampen demand. And, while failure in a private gallery would not attract attention, in a public auction it could be extremely damaging.

All this makes The Golden Calf, the symbol of idolatrous worship of money, even more potent. It could herald a new peak in the excesses of the art market, or alternatively its complete meltdown.

Indian Art Market

Indian art to feature at Sothebys
India Infoline News Service / Mumbai Jun 23, 2008 13:40
Sotheby’s sale of contemporary art to feature exciting works by leading Indian contemporary artists


Indian artists such as Subodh Gupta (b. 1964), Bharti Kher (b. 1969), Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), Raqib Shaw (b.1974) and T.V. Santhosh (b. 1968) are an ever-growing force in Sotheby’s international sales of Contemporary Art– in addition to the company’s regular dedicated sales of Indian Art – and this summer’s major series of Contemporary Art sales in London will see this trend gather further momentum still. The sales on Tuesday, July 1and Wednesday, July 2, 2008, will present a total of eight works by these cutting-edge and highly sought-after names and together the works are estimated in excess of £2 million. The sale will also include a work by Pakistan’s leading Contemporary artist, Rashid Rana.
James Sevier, a specialist in the Contemporary Art department, comments: “The group of works by Contemporary Indian artists being offered in our July sales is the largest group of its kind to be offered in our international Contemporary Art sales in London, indicating the growing international focus on this area of the market. Featuring recent paintings and sculptures by Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher and TV Santhosh - alongside important works by Raqib Shaw and Rashid Rana - the tightly curated assemblage reveals the broad variety of themes, materials and ideas that are flourishing within India’s Contemporary arts scene at the beginning of the 21st century. As the country’s traditional beliefs and rural way of life are confronted with the rapid pace of change exacerbated by the country’s urban transformation and the global media, the work of these artists explores the divisions and conflicts prevalent in Indian society today.

We have witnessed a huge growth in demand for works by Indian artists over the past 18 months; their work is increasingly being sought by Western and Indian collectors. This demand has seen new record price levels continually being achieved at auction. We expect the works on offer in July to follow recent trends, affirming the position of these artists as some of the most innovative and influential names on the international Contemporary Art auction market today.”

An Untitled sculpture from 2003 by Anish Kapoor leads the group in terms of value, with an estimate of £1-1.5mn. This stunning piece (illustrated left) embodies the pioneering manipulation of space and material that characterises the very best output of this world-renowned sculptor. One of the largest of the artist's alabaster works and the first double-concave piece to come to auction, its sheer magnitude marks it apart as a sculptural phenomenon, evoking the grandeur of a feat of nature. Contrasting to the immensity of the marble, two beautiful hollows have been carved to mirror each other either side of the monolith, creating a spatial echo across a thin screen of alabaster. Thus, while the work's scale is truly inspirational, addressing the viewer at eye-level and engaging total bodily experience, the colossus is also imbued with a serene weightlessness. It manifests dualities that have become synonymous with Kapoor's seminal canon: presence versus absence; infinity versus illusion; and solidity versus intangibility.

An Untitled black Belgian granite sculpture by Kapoor will also be offered with an estimate of £400,000-600,000. Executed in 2002, the sculpture is a further sublime example of the artist’s ongoing sculptural enquiry into the relationships between form, material and space. Powerful in scale, the awe-inspiring physical presence and natural beauty of this rough-hewn monolith engages the viewer at eye level. It is one of only a handful of works that Kapoor has made on this scale in black Belgian granite. A third piece by Kapoor will be a lacquered bronze sculpture entitled After Marsyas. The title of this sculpture relates to Kapoor’s 2002 commission for the Unilever Series in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern entitled Marsyas. After Marsyas, estimated at £70,000-90,000, presents an experimental lens for contemplating the metaphysical polarities
of human experience.

Subodh Gupta’s Untitled from 2005 is estimated at £200,000- 300,000 and this work will see Gupta - who is arguably the most internationally recognised of all the Indian Contemporary artists - take the stage in a major Evening Sale of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s once again. The Untitled canvas (illustrated left) depicts a vessel stall glistening in the pink dawn of sunrise and it is one of the artist’s most important and powerful photo-realist paintings to ever come to the market. The canvas captures the sense of promise and expectation that epitomises the mood of ambition and prosperity within India’s flourishing economy. The glistening pots and pans mark a stark contrast with the flatness of the soft pink background, creating a strong visual tension. The pots and pans are everyday icons of India’s complex and rapidly evolving contemporary identity; they are a staple of Indian homes both among the rural and urban echelons of society. Gupta utilises the stainless steel objects to inspire a commentary upon the prevailing social ills of discrimination, caste politics, industrialisation and religious tensions exacerbated by India’s urban transformation.

A second work by Gupta will be a highlight of the Contemporary Art Day Sale and this comprises a cast aluminium sculpture from an edition of three entitled Untitled (Across Seven Seas). This piece (illustrated right) is estimated at £40,000-60,000.Naval, New Delhi-based Bharti Kher is a trans-cultural Indian whose broad artistic language explores everyday concerns like identity, race, ethics and society and their continued dislocation within a global media age. Executed in fibreglass, wood and fur and estimated at £40,000-60,000, Misdemeanours (illustrated left) from 2006 is one of Kher’s most iconic and powerful sculptures. It captures a snarling hyena whose hyper-real – almost hallucinatory form – typifies the dream-like characters inhabiting the surreal landscape of Kher’s imagination. It points towards the shattered harmony between man and nature in a modern society in which animals are increasingly confined to laboratories, zoos and tourism in their struggle for survival against the onset of urban expansion and a booming human population.

Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee (after Kotsushika Hokusai) encapsulates the multiple layers - in terms of both style and subject matter - that typify the work of this artist. Shaw’s output can be defined as occupying a space between two artistic traditions; that of Kashmir in India (where he was born) and also London (where he now lives). Taking inspiration from the work of the great Japanese painter and printmaker Kotsushika Hokusai, Shaw applies a vibrant Kashmiri palette to the Japanese organic source motif, transforming the subdued, delicate hues of the original print into an explosion of iridescent colours. Motion in an otherwise static image comes from the bee that is, like the eye of the viewer, drawn to the flower. Shaw’s treatment of the chrysanthemum – considered in the Western world to be the symbol of death and mourning – is a masterstroke in the inverting of preconceived notions and truly embraces the Japanese interpretation of the flower as a symbol of regeneration. The panel (illustrated on the front page) was acquired directly from the artist by the seller in 2001 and is estimated at 80,000-120,000.

Further Day Sale highlights include TV Santosh’s oil on canvas from 2005, Man Made Famine and the Rats (illustrated right), estimated at £40,000-60,000 and a stunning work by Pakistan’s leading Contemporary artist Rashid Rana entitled Veil #6.

Since Rana’s first solo exhibition in 2004 with Peter Nagy’s Nature Morte Gallery, he has become one of the leading figures of Mumbai’s vibrant Contemporary Art scene. Rana is an artist who is best known for his photographs, videos and installations which tackle multiple issues such as politics of gender, violence and popular culture, as well as the authenticity of a work of art in the current media age of global distribution. Veil #6 belongs to Rana’s critically acclaimed series of works that drew their inspiration from the urban environment of his home city of Lahore. It depicts a found newspaper image of five veiled Muslim women at a protest rally against un-Islamic dress and brings together all of the artist’s concerns regarding gender, race, the media and popular culture with a single image. Added to this is the work’s underlying subversive content – namely the thousands of tiny pornographic images that describe the composite image in a pixelated x-rated mosaic. Rana’s photographic practice creates images that offer an alternative view of how popular ideas and prejudices are created.* Pre-sale estimates do not include buyer’s premium

Russian spa opens monument to the enema

June 19, 2008
MOSCOW (AP) - A monument to the enema, a procedure many people would rather not think about, has been unveiled at a spa in the southern Russian city of Zheleznovodsk. The bronze syringe bulb, which weighs 800 pounds and is held by three angels, was unveiled at the Mashuk-Akva Term spa, the spa's director said Thursday.
"There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art," Alexander Kharchenko told The Associated Press. "An enema is almost a symbol of our region."

The Caucasus Mountains region is known for dozens of spas where enemas with water from mineral springs are routinely administered to treat digestive and other complaints.

Kharchenko, 50, said the monument cost $42,000 and was installed in a square in front of his spa on Wednesday. A banner declaring: "Let's beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas"—an allusion to a line from "The Twelve Chairs," a famous Soviet film comedy—was posted on one of the spa's walls.

Sculptor Svetlana Avakina said she designed the 5-foot-high monument with "irony and humor" and modeled the angels on those in works by Italian Renaissance painter Alessandro Botticelli.

"This device is eternal, it will never change," she told the AP. "We could promote this brand, turn it into a franchise with souvenirs and awards for medical doctors."

Dozens of monuments dedicated to characters from tall tales and popular jokes have been erected in post-Soviet Russia.