tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25263081585293944302024-03-20T09:21:23.415-04:00Art AthenaeumPerspectives on the Global Art MarketGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.comBlogger226125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-15487830183490977652011-06-07T11:37:00.004-04:002011-06-07T11:41:35.970-04:00Hong Kong Prison to Be Rehabilitated as Lavish $231 Million Art Complex, With a Hand From Herzog & de Meuron<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8zmmzogrlsAUk-1f_FSJJrwhjYLiN31Zd4zlJLxdfyW0_0NVONnVoYeu6etwXexo_pKh4_srAr-k7XCBKV-R90H1my-bqDqLIEnWVe8dX_u61-Wz6G8egah83kNb2IyNYMGLHy2AK6MyC/s1600/HK+Museum_IMG_4986.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8zmmzogrlsAUk-1f_FSJJrwhjYLiN31Zd4zlJLxdfyW0_0NVONnVoYeu6etwXexo_pKh4_srAr-k7XCBKV-R90H1my-bqDqLIEnWVe8dX_u61-Wz6G8egah83kNb2IyNYMGLHy2AK6MyC/s320/HK+Museum_IMG_4986.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615502993432093026" /></a> The Central Police Station, Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison compound will be transformed into an art museum. <br /><br />HONG KONG— In bustling Hong Kong, a nexus of wealth and power is making waves, with a much expanded Hong Kong Art Fair that drew 63,000 visitors last month, dramatic auction results tallying $962 million during Christie's and Sotheby's spring season, and Western gallery incursions from Gagosian and Ben Brown. The city, however, still lacks a world-class contemporary art center. But that will change in dramatic fashion as ambitious plans for the British colonial era Central Police Station, Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison compound, located on Hollywood Road in the heart of the city and in disuse since 2006, will be transformed into a multi-venue contemporary art museum, performing arts center, and cinema. <br />Instead of demolition to make room for another batch of glass-skinned high-rises, this site will be largely preserved and interfaced with a brand new Kunsthalle, a Herzog & de Meuron-styled contemporary museum that will be about the size of London's Hayward Gallery. In almost fairytale fashion, the richly conservative Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust is initially bankrolling the Central Police Station Project (CPS) with a HK$1.8 billion ($231 million) commitment, along with the official blessings of the local government to launch the not-for-profit enterprise. According to the sponsors, CPS Project will establish "a centre for heritage, arts and leisure at this prime Central location [and] compliments the overall development of arts and culture in the city and adds an attraction with distinct Hong Kong character." <br /><br />"Our planned mixture of commercial and cultural usage," said Hong Kong Jockey Club chairman John Chan, "will ensure the vibrancy of the entire area." <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwMQFRaLqXreyTKEVniYiNH1Ths26SrZ0mMveeNRKBTPbEetvQfFKGBRpdQIN-0Clk3zprWGJg5-KOpb-oxkWnW52OL3iNTM6VIN0lFAQeB3XdwrHNstU1AZFb-afiqwPbDmaO0giQ50ZH/s1600/1_IMG_4998+inside+prison..jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwMQFRaLqXreyTKEVniYiNH1Ths26SrZ0mMveeNRKBTPbEetvQfFKGBRpdQIN-0Clk3zprWGJg5-KOpb-oxkWnW52OL3iNTM6VIN0lFAQeB3XdwrHNstU1AZFb-afiqwPbDmaO0giQ50ZH/s320/1_IMG_4998+inside+prison..jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615503071985505090" /></a><br /><br />The buildings were declared monuments by the government in 1995 due to their historical significance and remain as the sole surviving architectural remnants from that bygone time of Colonial rule. The complex's 16 mixed-use structures come from the mid-19th to early 20th century, with some of them sporting wooden louvers and balconies. The site is just steps away from the bustling, eastern end of Hollywood Road, where Asian antique shops proliferate with a more recent sampling of contemporary art galleries moving in, some local and some not (including Chelsea's Sundaram Tagore, which is currently exhibiting Sebastiao Salgado's gritty photographs of poverty and labor). <br /><br />The CPS initiative is a key part of the local government's "Conserving Central" initiative, "Central" being the name of the neighborhood where CPS, long cloistered from public view, is located. On a sunny and hot morning in late May, the official importance of the new initiative was underscored by a tour of the razor-wire festooned and ultra-secure derelict site led by David Elliott, the storied museum director and itinerant curator, who is serving the Trust in an advisory capacity. Elliott, who was the artistic director of the 17th Biennale of Sydney in 2010, expects the first phase of the project, the opening of the museum with "high-value exhibitions," by the summer of 2014. <br /><br />"It's early days," said Elliott, casually clad in a cowboy shirt and blue jeans, standing in the middle of the parade ground of the police station, a kind of surreal oasis surrounded by gleaming high-rises, "but these historic buildings are all being restored." <br /><br />Elliott estimates that 27 percent or so of the mixed-use site will be devoted to commerce, mostly art galleries and already existing non-profits working in Hong Kong. Those rent-paying ventures will help make the non-profit CPS independent. "We'll have to raise a lot of money to make that happen," predicted Elliott, who was the founding director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and also served stints at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. <br /><br />The plans also include an archaeological investigation of the Central Police Station and will be carried out before some of the less important structures are razed to make room for Herzog & de Meuron's cube-styled museum. It was evident during the tour that many of the original furnishings of the jail complex had already been removed, though the bare bunks were still standing in gloomy formation in the cell block, complete with peeling yellow paint and cautionary signs still warning inmates to roll up their bedding before exercising in the delightfully tree-shaded prison yard. In one of the stripped rooms, a lone painting of sail-masted junk boats skimming along Victoria Harbor at sunset hung in eerie isolation, as if part of a secret Mike Nelson installation. <br /><br />Elliott has great expectations of the emerging art complex, noting, "good art doesn't all have to come out of London and New York." <br /><br />The CPS Project is scheduled to go live before the much bigger M+ Museum, sited on 95 acres of reclaimed land for the West Kowloon Cultural District on the riverfront. Lars Nittve, the founding director of London's Tate Modern (and, like Elliott, a former director of the Moderna Museet), has been recruited as executive director of this major new enterprise. During a boat tour of the famous harbor, Nittve told the assembled mix of art critics and dealers who flooded the city last month for the fourth edition of the ART HK, "the money [for the M+ Museum] is already in the bank to build the project and realize it. We don't have to fund-raise." Indeed, the local government has infused the project with an outright grant of HK$22 billion ($2.8 billion). The first phase, a 43,000-square-foot museum building on the scale of the current Tate Modern, is expected to open in 2016-17. <br /><br />The two visual art ventures have the potential of transforming Hong Kong into something more than the 21st century mecca for the consumption and acquisition of luxury goods that it is now. What better way to start that than rehabilitating a cell block?GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-61522352579140526982011-05-10T11:48:00.001-04:002011-05-10T11:52:55.486-04:00Adventures with Warhol, 1986 self-portrait editionIf you want a great example of how the entire business of the art world is built on opacity and information asymmetry, the Christie’s auction of a big Andy Warhol self-portrait next week is a good place to start.<br /><br />But first let’s go back to this time last year, when Sotheby’s was auctioning off a similar self-portrait: same size, different color, different wig. This information is high up on the official Sotheby’s page for the painting:<br /><br />According to our research, there are only four other self-portraits from this series in this size. They are located in the following collections:<br /><br />Self Portrait (Green), Fort Worth Art Museum<br />Self Portrait (Yellow), Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh<br />Self Portrait (Blue), Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh<br />Self Portrait (Red), Private Collection<br /><br />Scroll all the way down to the bottom, however, and you find a loophole: “It is believed that only five of the 108 in. square format self-portraits depicting this exact image exist”.<br /><br />My emphasis added — and it’s important, because the Christie’s red self-portrait is not the red self-portrait listed by Sotheby’s. Instead, it’s one of two slightly different self-portraits in the same size; the other, a green one, is in the Guggenheim.<br /><br />Now see how Christie’s explains where the other paintings are. The release quotes Amy Cappellazzo, Christie’s co-head of post-war and contemporary art, as saying that “with all other examples in museums, it will be the last chance that buyers will have to bid on a work that shifted art history”. It then goes on to explain:<br /><br />Warhol painted only seven large scale self-portraits in 1986. All the other versions are in museums or in foundations open to the public. A purple Self-Portrait was acquired in 2010 for $32.5 million for a private museum; other examples belong to Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Fort Worth Art Museum and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.<br /><br />It’s very easy to simply assume, when Cappellazzo says that all the other paintings are in museums, that she means just that. But really it isn’t true. Of the seven big paintings, only four are in museums: one in the Guggenheim, one in Fort Worth, and two in Pittsburgh. There’s also the one that Christie’s is selling — and then there are two more: the purple one which Sotheby’s sold last year, and the red one which Sotheby’s said was in a private collection.<br /><br />(And when Cappellazzo says that Warhol painted only seven large scale self-portraits in 1986, that’s not really true either: the Tate, for instance, has a huge 1986 self-portrait on show right now, which looks almost identical to the Christie’s one. It’s just not quite as huge: it’s 80 inches square, rather than 106 inches.)<br /><br />So what does Christie’s mean when it says all the other paintings are in museums (or, later on, “in museums or in foundations open to the public”)? If they’re public, it should be easy enough to find out where they are, right?<br /><br />Wrong. Ask Christie’s and they’ll suddenly go very quiet when you ask them for the location of the purple self-portrait and the other red one. (Although they will say that the other red one isn’t really red, it’s “coral”.) They obviously know where those paintings are, or think they know, but they’re not telling.<br /><br />And so we enter the murky world of art-world rumor, which has it that the red one is owned by Peter Brant and the purple one by Bernard Arnault. Brant does have a foundation which is kindasorta open to the public — it’s by appointment only and you make appointments by email. I tried emailing them to ask if they have the red Warhol; they never replied. But I’m pretty sure that the foundation has never shown the Warhol and there’s certainly no public indication that the foundation even owns it.<br /><br />As for Arnault, his Gehry-designed museum doesn’t even exist yet, and again, there’s zero public acknowledgment that he was the buyer of the purple Warhol last year.<br /><br />When I asked art collector Adam Lindemann about all this, he replied succinctly that “they always say it’s the last one until someone else needs or wants to sell”. The fact is that auction houses are essentially art dealers and art dealers make their money by putting the best possible spin on the art that they’re selling and by knowing the secrets of who owns what. In this case, while Sotheby’s just said that the red self-portrait was in a “private collection”, Christie’s has upgraded it to being in a museum, or something tantamount to a museum. Which if you ask me is a bit of a stretch.<br /><br />One of the weird things about conspicuous consumption in the art world is that for all that it’s conspicuous it isn’t public — outside the big public museums everybody tends to be very secretive indeed about what they own and what they don’t. That allows collectors to sell art quietly without admitting that they did so. And it also allows dealers and auction houses to make claims about where paintings are which are very difficult indeed to fact-check. Even when those claims are about “foundations open to the public”.<br />- Felix Salmon May 2011GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-23291046927593797732011-05-10T11:44:00.003-04:002011-05-10T11:47:24.203-04:00Christie’s Blurs The Line Between Public and Private Collections<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjae5Y-Qe6rXbRyBapGETgfoTw32kaiP6CUjXkRLI1owKmFG96h3rPyrQciErBGjKF6sa9kbakcFWg_e5I4urh19RL_9UbCc76rs-P5XMQfF0UIcuEPeEVW5ibRxxff5Len8MXeBp1tm2ws/s1600/warhol.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjae5Y-Qe6rXbRyBapGETgfoTw32kaiP6CUjXkRLI1owKmFG96h3rPyrQciErBGjKF6sa9kbakcFWg_e5I4urh19RL_9UbCc76rs-P5XMQfF0UIcuEPeEVW5ibRxxff5Len8MXeBp1tm2ws/s320/warhol.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605113899025232146" /></a><br />Felix Salmon has a good post about the Warhol auction racket, if you can parse the Warhols. According to Salmon, seven same-sized large self-portraits exist, each painted in 1986. Christie’s claims ”[a]ll the other versions are in museums or in foundations open to the public”, but only four are easily traced to such institutions: one in the Guggenheim, one in Fort Worth, and two in Pittsburgh. Remaining is the one Christie’s will auction May 11, and one sold at Sotheby’s last year, and another, which was described by Sotheby’s last year as part of a private collection.<br /><br />So where are the two Warhols in question? Christie’s doesn’t want to say, but according to art world gossip recounted by Salmon, collector Peter Brant has the red one, and Bernard Arnault the purple. Both have semi-public foundations — or at least, in the case of Arnault, plans to create one — and that’s good enough for Christie’s.<br /><br />Now, obviously using the words “public collection” to describe private collections with sharing intentions isn’t particularly accurate, and it’s good that Salmon called it out because ultimately it means the piece isn’t as rare as Christie’s claims. Collector Charles Saatchi does better than either Brandt and Arnault in respect to making his collection public — The Saatchi Gallery maintains regular hours — but that’s still no guarantee that he won’t sell the work. In fact, he has a bad reputation for unloading recently acquired art.<br /><br />All this goes to say that even when private collections are made public, that doesn’t mean that a collector will love those works enough to never sell them. This makes a difference, because for a buyer, there’s a pretty big distinction between purchasing a work that will likely be the only one of its kind on the market, and owning a work of which two others are floating around. Surely this is exactly the kind of distortion that could inflate the painting’s sale price.<br /><br />by Paddy Johnson on May 6, 2011GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-31619709034386383272011-05-10T11:37:00.003-04:002011-05-10T11:41:59.024-04:00Thiebaud Gets His Slice, Chamberlain Sets Record Sotheby’s Stone SaleA raw, twisted steel 1958 John Chamberlain sculpture, Nutcracker, sold for $4.8 million last night at Sotheby's in New York. The price achieved an auction record for the artist, selling to a Gagosian Gallery representative who paid more than double the presale $1.8 million high estimate. Gagosian recently signed on the 84-year-old artist, following a two-decade partnership with Pace Gallery.<br /><br />Nutcracker was the most coveted artwork on offer in a single-owner sale from the estate of Upper East Side dealer Allan Stone, who died in 2006 at the age of 74. The sale included 42 lots totaling $54.8 million, topping the $46.8 million high estimate. The lure of estate material and low estimates resulted in a healthy 93 percent of lots finding buyers.<br /><br />While results were steady, the mixed quality of works on offer was more suited to a day sale than an evening sale. Nevertheless, Sotheby's gave the Stone estate the royal auction treatment, having snatched the business away from Christie's, where a first round of works were sold in 2007.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTBNjG6cqc9xXqV2av0vqHJ0XtuEIZEIKAtSpVxMNL0n1m7IX1dS-XrTWdLz4zAFjwDiUk3k8Ju4wEHTqNROzI-jYWd1nwVnSvwwYlsddwzcV-GWb_-bRImF4WWNvuf-Bce634kNImucT/s1600/img-christies-53-21_173707555088_jpg_theibaud..jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTBNjG6cqc9xXqV2av0vqHJ0XtuEIZEIKAtSpVxMNL0n1m7IX1dS-XrTWdLz4zAFjwDiUk3k8Ju4wEHTqNROzI-jYWd1nwVnSvwwYlsddwzcV-GWb_-bRImF4WWNvuf-Bce634kNImucT/s320/img-christies-53-21_173707555088_jpg_theibaud..jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605112702215057778" /></a><br /><br />Stone was a compulsive buyer who filled his suburban home with whatever caught his eye. His daughter, Olympia Stone, directed and produced a 2006 documentary about her father, The Collector: Allan Stone's Life in Art. Two skyboxes filled with Stone family members and friends watched the proceedings, snapping photos and sipping champagne.<br /><br />This sale launched a weeklong series of contemporary art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips de Pury, stocked with big-money paintings by Warhol and Rothko.<br /><br />Last night's sale included a group of 18 works by painter Wayne Thiebaud. Sotheby's strategy, offering a large pool of work by a single artist, can risk flooding the market. In this case the gambit paid off. Seventeen sold, totaling $27.5 million, above the $18.3 million high estimate.<br /><br />"The work that was really great sold very well," San Francisco dealer Gretchen Berggruen told A.i.A. "[Thiebaud has] a much broader following than people think because he's always been labeled a California artist." Berggruen purchased Various Cakes for $3 million, above the $1.8 million high estimate.<br /><br />Stone originally met Thiebaud in 1961, a year after he founded his gallery. They continued to work together until Stone's death. Thiebaud's 1961 still-life painting of rows of symmetrical Pies, thickly painted on a cream background and in step with a then-emerging Pop style, sold for $4 million, above the $3.5 million high estimate.<br /><br />International phone bidding from Europe, Israel and Asia helped propel Thiebaud's prices. An 11-inch-tall 1962 work, Four Pinball Machines (Study), soared over a $900,000 high estimate, selling for $3.4 million.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNAOgG6gPn43YmFnvcQpvnSL1GYo5Ki2wJU_DL_lrSL2_EAkHbAjmE7JTyx_fysCaKPHZjsR6ijQVZQ_ePlTaBHakU_zRdhQaPpIEWJjErEZ5HGCzz-p5RFsapURL3hL7d6Px-LnFjl3n/s1600/img-christies-53-20_173648804921_jpg_dekooning..jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNAOgG6gPn43YmFnvcQpvnSL1GYo5Ki2wJU_DL_lrSL2_EAkHbAjmE7JTyx_fysCaKPHZjsR6ijQVZQ_ePlTaBHakU_zRdhQaPpIEWJjErEZ5HGCzz-p5RFsapURL3hL7d6Px-LnFjl3n/s320/img-christies-53-20_173648804921_jpg_dekooning..jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605112805808665170" /></a><br /><br />The sale also featured Abstract Expressionist artists, including nine pieces by Willem de Kooning, who is the subject of a major survey at MoMA this autumn. "The quality of the De Koonings weren't very good, and they didn't generate much enthusiasm," noted dealer David Nash, of Mitchell Innes & Nash, after the sale. The most significant de Kooning, a 1947 greenish-yellow and raspberry painting on board titled Event in Barn, missed a $5 million to $7 million estimate, selling for $4.8 million.<br /><br />The most hotly pursued de Kooning was the pink and flesh-toned painting on newsprint, Woman in a Landscape (1965–66). Estimated to sell for $700,000 to $900,000, more than four bidders pushed the price up to $1.1 million. It eventually sold to an unnamed phone bidder.<br /><br />"The sale was a good warm-up for the week, but many of the key players didn't show up," observed dealer Edward Tyler Nahem. "Tuesday night will be packed."<br /><br />TOP: Wayne Thiebaud, Pies, 1961. Oil on Canvas, Est. $2,500,000–$3,500,000. Sold: $4,000,000<br />ABOVE: Willem de Kooning, Event in a Barn, 1947. Oil, enamel and paper collage on board. $5,000,000–$7,000,000. Sold: $4,800,000.<br /><br />by Lindsay Pollock 05/10/11GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-21199569585600441052011-03-24T14:16:00.002-04:002011-03-24T14:19:17.583-04:0020x200<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7KClYaqwxyuJCFHN3N-6a4MrCQrtvz_toMjAELkHPxhTkhkPGVpXMyHAUUwjbO2FzoaQcXyRfiKOg8KeRIM_cNe5QV0kceiSOWVKb5nKvNRbVkQNhIPEBZZ6U_yMgFzHoOB1UqpXBPQy2/s1600/2815_artworkimage.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7KClYaqwxyuJCFHN3N-6a4MrCQrtvz_toMjAELkHPxhTkhkPGVpXMyHAUUwjbO2FzoaQcXyRfiKOg8KeRIM_cNe5QV0kceiSOWVKb5nKvNRbVkQNhIPEBZZ6U_yMgFzHoOB1UqpXBPQy2/s320/2815_artworkimage.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5587712633568288050" /></a><br />Maclean’s charts the growth of online art selling in Canada giving credit for the emerging trend to Jen Bekman and her success with 20×200.com:<br /><br />Vancouver artist Indigo quit her secretarial job last year, and has been able to support herself thanks in part to income generated on Cargoh.com, a Canadian-based website for buying and selling art. Robyn McCallum’s work was spotted onEyebuyart.com, prompting her inclusion in an exhibition at Toronto’s Drake Hotel. And Montreal photographer Robert Cadloff makes more than 200 sales a month on Etsy.com, earning “just a little less” than he did in engineering. “Ten years ago, this kind of career change and all the sales wouldn’t have been possible,” says Cadloff. “You needed to schlep your portfolio around to galleries and beg people to exhibit your work. I wasn’t born with that pushy gene.”<br /><br />Luckily for Cadloff, and a growing number of artists—both emerging and well-known photographers and painters looking to further raise their profile and tap a new market of less-affluent collectors—selling art online is gaining momentum. New Yorker Jen Bekman is credited with starting the trend in 2007 when she launched 20×200.com—her site features limited-edition prints and photographs starting at $20. Others have instituted a similar curatorial policy. Claire Sykes, co-founder of Toronto-based Circuitgallery.com, says she “keeps the quality high” by featuring prints of established Canadian contemporary artists, including Robert Bean and Andrew Wright. “Earlier sites were more like clearing houses,” she says, “and artists were worried, quite rightly, about damaging their reputations by being associated with uncurated spaces and cheaply produced prints.”<br /><br />March 24, 2011 By Marion Maneker - Art Market MonitorGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-11207021278966224282011-03-06T13:37:00.002-05:002011-03-06T14:13:44.385-05:00The Armory Arts WeekThe Armory Show <br />Piers 92 and 96, Twelfth Ave., at 55th St.; 3/2–3/6; Th–S (noon–8 p.m.), Su (noon–7 p.m.); $30, $10 students <br />This behemoth loves it when you call it big poppa, with its hundreds of exhibitors divided into two sections: Modern (Pier 92) and Contemporary (Pier 94). Besides that there are forums and a film schedule, making it possible to never see daylight. <br /><br /><br /><br />Fountain New York<br />Pier 66 and the Frying Pan, Twelfth Ave., at 26th St.; 3/4–3/6; noon–7 p.m.; $10<br />Named after Duchamp's famous piece, the avant-garde fest features twenty exhibitors, a collaborative mural, and live-action performance art in an offshore setting (so probably best to skip if you get seasick). Funk-infused popster Gordon Voidwell kicks off the festivities at the public reception Friday night. <br /><br /><br /><br />Volta NY<br />7W–7 West 34th St., nr. Sixth Ave., 11th fl., 3/3–3/6; Th (3 p.m.–7 p.m.), F–Su (11 a.m.–7 p.m.); $10–$15, $40 Volta and Armory Pass<br />Midtown gets a creative infusion: This fair's 80 galleries each chose only one artist to represent, which cuts down on the clutter. For an insider's point of view, InContext tours is offering an opportunity to mingle with the artists and discuss works with art critic and fair director Amanda Coulson.<br /><br /><br /><br />Pulse Art Fair<br />Metropolitan Pavilion; 125 W. 18th St., nr. Sixth Ave.; 3/3–3/6; Th (1 p.m.–8 p.m.), F–Su (noon–5 p.m.); $20, $15 students and seniors<br />A contemporary art fair with signature large-scale sculpture, held annually in both New York and Miami. Check out Ben Wolf's site-specific Clamber, an eighteen-foot-long ship's hull salvaged from an abandoned vessel in Newark; or Molly Dilworth's "Field Test," site-specific paintings that use X-ray and electron microscopy images of rare earth elements as visual references.<br /><br /><br /><br />Verge Art Brooklyn<br />Antidote, 81 Front St., ground fl., Dumbo; 3/3–3/6; Th–S (noon–10 p.m.), Su (noon–6 p.m.); Free<br />Art in Brooklyn! This fair turns Dumbo into an art city, with over 70 exhibitors sprawling over nine locations. They do it up right with a dance party opening night at Galapagos running from 9:30 p.m. to 3 a.m., with acts including Sister Anne and Violens. <br /><br /><br /><br />Moving Image<br />Waterfront New York Tunnel, 269 Eleventh Ave., nr. 27th St.; 3/3–3/6; Th–S (11 a.m.–8 p.m.), Su (11 a.m.–3 p.m); Free<br />Single-channel videos and video sculptures selected from international commercial galleries and nonprofit institutions, including artists like Leslie Thornton and David Wojnarowicz. A panel exploring the state of moving-image-based work is scheduled for Saturday, and private tours are available for groups. <br /><br /><br /><br />Scope Art Show<br />355 West 36th St., third fl., nr. Ninth Ave., 3/2–3/6; W (VIP and first view, 3 p.m.–8 p.m.), Th–S (noon–8 p.m.), Su (noon–7 p.m.); $10–$15, $20, $10 students, $100 First view <br />Contemporary art will be shown in all its forms, as one of the larger fairs (taking over a 60,000-square-foot hall with a price tag to match) shows over 50 exhibitors, and this year features "Us vs. Us," five days of performance in the fenced mezzanine. <br /><br /><br /><br />Independent Art Fair<br />548 West 22nd St., nr. Tenth Ave.; 3/3–3/6; Th (4 p.m.–9p.m.), F (11 a.m.–8 p.m.), S (11 a.m.–8 p.m.), Su (noon–4 p.m.); Free <br />It's the second year this impressive gallerist collaboration takes over three floors in the former Dia building in Chelsea, exhibiting over 40 international galleries in an open-layout plan, making it less of a fair and more of a conversation.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-62254161885866390322011-02-09T14:46:00.002-05:002011-02-09T14:49:14.704-05:00Who Bought What at Sotheby’s London I/M Sale<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0D9uSqyphXIvGJyxhH9-WLfkawrrdV4KNigb0y2w8CsHcJwz0hD5EXKb4XyZArdwsUzbQ6QEaGxkMTv8ioYrcFABLCBLtuqjKdAgVOBilallEYCwxsNThOhS6Al0Z9sC4K60elXIXSy9T/s1600/Lot-32-Picasso.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0D9uSqyphXIvGJyxhH9-WLfkawrrdV4KNigb0y2w8CsHcJwz0hD5EXKb4XyZArdwsUzbQ6QEaGxkMTv8ioYrcFABLCBLtuqjKdAgVOBilallEYCwxsNThOhS6Al0Z9sC4K60elXIXSy9T/s320/Lot-32-Picasso.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571778912640009842" /></a><br />Picasso's "Le Peintre et Son Modele dans un Paysage" sold for $3,227,816 at Sotheby's London<br /><br />The Master, Judd Tully, has the bid spotting from Sotheby’s “no surprises” sale:<br /><br />■James Roundell bought Picasso’s wartime 1943 still life “Compotier et Verres” for $1.3 million (£802,850) on a £600-800,000 estimate.<br /><br />■The Nahmad art trading clan, seated at the front of the salesroom, dropped out rather early, and finally Sotheby’s Mark Poltimore, a former president of Sotheby’s Russia and a well-known cultivator of Russian-based clientele, nabbed the picture at the hammer price of £22.5 million, before the buyer’s premium was added.<br /><br />■Guy Jennings and Simon Theobald of Theobald Jennings Ltd. were also active, nailing Paul Klee‘s peppy late abstraction of 1931 “P Vierzehn (P Fourteen)” for $1.3 million (£25,250) on a £700,000-1 million estimate<br /><br />■Acquavella Galleries, meanwhile, beat out the Nahmads for Picasso’s late and autobiographical “Le Peintre et Son Modele dans un Paysage” from 1963 for $3.2 million (£2 million) against a £600-800,000 estimate. The painting last sold at auction at Christie’s New York back in May 1981 for $115,000<br /><br />Scott Reyburn gathers a few tight-lipped comments on the sale:<br /><br />■“The auction did all right, not great,’’ the London-based dealer Alan Hobart of the Pyms Gallery said in an interview. “The auction houses are struggling to find the goods. Rich collectors are hanging on to their art. Once prices are driven up, the market becomes more discriminating.”<br /><br />■Giacometti’s 1957 bronze portrait of his younger brother, “Grand buste de Diego avec bras,” estimated at 3.5 million pounds to 5 million pounds, failed to sell because of its pale color, according to dealers.<br /><br />February 9, 2011 By Marion ManekerGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-54994843596620824102011-02-09T14:40:00.001-05:002011-02-09T14:45:01.761-05:00Caring for PhotographyIn her celebrated essay on photography, writer Susan Sontag observed that, "to collect photographs is to collect the world". This sentiment is no doubt held by the growing number of collectors focusing on photography. Along with choosing photographs for one's collection comes the need to know more about caring for them. Below is some helpful advice:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Deo0E3hb9M4r01CnKnefwilSlOyf4EoxW88GyfeQaT7foeZP5wRy24zF0k7HpnGgsrGEaFXmSVDLyOrUHy112hrNepA16iGRil9jn-b8xspXWjBLdw0SX3avrO59vi6QQHbKXZ5_9UhI/s1600/Ski+picture.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 243px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Deo0E3hb9M4r01CnKnefwilSlOyf4EoxW88GyfeQaT7foeZP5wRy24zF0k7HpnGgsrGEaFXmSVDLyOrUHy112hrNepA16iGRil9jn-b8xspXWjBLdw0SX3avrO59vi6QQHbKXZ5_9UhI/s320/Ski+picture.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571778099938253026" /></a><br /><br />When Transporting Artworks:<br />-Make sure that the vehicle is large enough to accommodate the artwork and its packaging.<br />-Make sure the works are professionally and correctly packaged for shipping.<br />-Ask the gallery or insurance carrier for advice on shipping to avoid using inexperienced art handlers.<br /><br />When Framing, Hanging and Storing:<br />-Make sure your artwork is protected with archival framing.<br />-Glass vs. Plexiglas? Glass is easier to clean and care for but when it breaks, it can destroy artworks. If the photograph is of high value choose the added safety and protection of Plexiglas.<br />-Always protect art from heat and direct sunlight. Never hang expensive art over a fireplace.<br />-Use appropriate picture hangers for artwork, which are available at professional framing stores.<br />-Avoid storing works in basements. If you must, be sure to keep the artwork at least 3 inches above the floor.<br /><br />When Dealing with Insurance:<br />-Keep your insurance company updated with the current values of your artwork. This should be done yearly or when there are significant changes in values.<br />-Confirm coverage for the work includes shipping and transportation coverage.<br /><br />When in doubt, seek the advice of an expert. Museums, galleries, and historical societies are your best resources for the proper care and storage of photographs. If you own a photograph that has sustained damage, they can refer you to a paper conservator qualified to treat your photograph. <br /><br />Article contributed by Colin Quinn, Director of Claims Management and Loss Control Services, AXA Art Insurance CorporationGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-19549224384497244872011-02-08T10:47:00.002-05:002011-02-08T10:50:45.784-05:00KiptonART Art Talk with Art Enthusiast Ann LydeckerAnn Lydecker is an active and established member of New York’s vibrant Art Industry. Prior to joining Cirkers and Hayes Fine Art Storage & Logistics as Director of Worldwide Sales, she founded Metropolitan Art Advisors.<br /><br />As Founder of Metropolitan Art Advisors, Ann Lydecker shares her passion, insight and comprehensive understanding of the art world with clients by providing introductions, connections and direct access to major artists' studios, leading galleries, museums, art fairs, auction houses and private collections globally. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCTEVVVCww3ToIWN7KujtGEr6aE50kk0rvltuydxnMAubtxmFBRSuIaG5Aeao-QWBBIceXPo58QYD1HjEvJpPGg1OHKh2IYbvXTDMRTVJEjdR4YPJuzP3A6OnWCnYz-0EK5sPkTqSbLu1/s1600/ann+b%2526w.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCTEVVVCww3ToIWN7KujtGEr6aE50kk0rvltuydxnMAubtxmFBRSuIaG5Aeao-QWBBIceXPo58QYD1HjEvJpPGg1OHKh2IYbvXTDMRTVJEjdR4YPJuzP3A6OnWCnYz-0EK5sPkTqSbLu1/s320/ann+b%2526w.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571346398410053394" /></a><br /><br />Who are your favorite KiptonART artists? Why?<br /><br />I am a friend of Stephan Fowlkes, and really believe in his future as an artist. I’ve also discovered several other painters and photographers on KiptonART whose work I’m curious to see in person because it looks good online, such as Joseph Conrad-ferm and Jane Frances Lloyd. <br />Most importantly, I’m excited to see the upcoming exhibition of 2011 KiptonART Rising Winners which will be featured at Cirkers Fine Art Storage for a brunch during Armory Arts Week March 5th from 9:30am-12noon.<br /><br />What was the last exhibition you attended? <br /><br />The MoMA Abstract Expressionism show which I really enjoyed. I also like the recent shows at Sundaram Tagore Gallery on West 27th and my friend Michael Lyons Weirs new gallery on West 24th Street.<br /><br />How would you describe the décor in your home?<br /><br />Hollywood Glam… meets contemporary art. It was designed by New York based interior designer Martin Hughes for MStudiolo in 2009. He was an absolute pleasure to work with and wildly creative & resourceful! He custom designed almost everything throughout the apartment. I selected Martin after seeing his magnificent apartment on West 10th Street. He is a rare and exceptional talent.<br /><br />What was the first work of art you purchased? <br /><br />A Wayne Thiebaud of eight lipsticks from the Campbell Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco. I cherish this work. <br />Since then I have purchased several Eric Zener paintings, Matisse drawings, Picasso prints, vintage photography of famous Americans, Bert Stern's last sitting photos of Marilyn Monroe, paintings from emerging NY & California based artists. I own some contemporary Chinese Art from a 2006 MoMA trip to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong such as Yue Minjun. And Latin American painters such as Bradley Narduzzi Rex from an international art tour I organized & lead for Microsoft executives in Mexico City. Recently, I’m inspired by Middle Eastern female artists, but I haven’t purchased any yet, as I need a larger apartment. LTMH Gallery on the upper east side is a great resource for some of these artists. I also like some of what Jen Beckman at 20x200 has too!<br /><br />What artists most inspire or influence you? <br />The list is so long. I am crazy about artists spanning from Spanish and Dutch Masters to Hudson River Painters to Mark Rothko to Damian Hirst. The work of Kenneth Noland, Caio Fonseca, Banksy, Takashi Murakami, Marilyn Minter, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Vik Muniz, Helen Frankenthaler and Andy Goldsworthy inspire me. <br />This week we have a magnificent Impressionist painting hanging at Hayes Fine Art Storage and celebrity clients are coming in to view it. It’s more beautiful than many you’d see in museum collections.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-27828486440158771342010-03-08T10:47:00.002-05:002010-03-08T10:54:26.573-05:00Interview with Todd Levin Art Advisory<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYP8Msm-RREqbGwOIRthRYrGps5BRoAc6W7Gau0_Vh7yx4TTsaEkfX6TaBJ7_-5fK2bqfi_cQluBNY1zP9BMeixUJLIX8SaPtUdfsuOeezSlAwWblZhV5QlNmnS1lCCzlWX_A6Qxz8-g5k/s1600-h/Alighiero+e+Boetti+1979.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 196px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYP8Msm-RREqbGwOIRthRYrGps5BRoAc6W7Gau0_Vh7yx4TTsaEkfX6TaBJ7_-5fK2bqfi_cQluBNY1zP9BMeixUJLIX8SaPtUdfsuOeezSlAwWblZhV5QlNmnS1lCCzlWX_A6Qxz8-g5k/s320/Alighiero+e+Boetti+1979.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446290805834572130" /></a><br />Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York<br />Alighiero e Boetti's "Far Quadrare Tutto," 1979<br /><br />NEW YORK— It goes without saying that art advisors are intensely busy people during art fairs — especially when, like Todd Levin, they occasionally don a curatorial hat too. We talked to the Levin Art Group dealmaker (and curator of the acclaimed 2009 show "Your Gold Teeth II" at Marianne Boesky Gallery) to find out why he considered the Dakis Joannou show a miss, what was hot at the ADAA, why the art trumps the nightlife, and why Independent is the must-see of all the satellite fairs. Here is what he had to say.<br /><br />• With so much going on this week, the three most significant things for me are the ADAA opening, the Armory opening, and Independent's opening. Everything else is negligible. Independent is singularly interesting, specifically for the person who conceptualized it, Darren Flook, along with his wife, Christabel Stewart. The invited participants will represent an interesting and lively cross-section of what's happening in the young and mid-level galleries now.<br /><br />• The two most interesting and elegant booths at the ADAA were Sperone Westwater's all-Boetti booth and Marianne Boesky's featuring a very interesting selection of Arte Povera. The opening felt lively. <br /><br />• I purposely avoided the Dakis show on Tuesday night for a number of reasons. First, I strongly disagree with the entire concept of the exhibition based on the obvious conflicts of interest. Second, I didn't think I'd be able to see the work, given the crowd. I really abhor celebrity cluster$@%#s.<br /><br />• As for my strategy at the Armory Show this year, rather than going for specific objects at specific booths, I'm really going to take the overall temperature of what the gallerists are doing in terms of their programs. I'll go over the weekend to really have the opportunity to speak with the gallerists one-to-one and gain a better understanding of what they're doing in their spaces. This time around, it's more about research and development, and less about purchase and acquisition.<br /><br />• I don't do the whole nightlife thing. It doesn't add anything for me, neither in terms of my social connections nor in terms of access to information. My nightlife thing consists of private dinners and private drinks with gallerists where we can speak in a detailed, prolonged way about work and do business in a more humane fashion. <br />By Sarah Douglas<br />Published: March 5, 2010GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-59128327152880654652010-03-08T10:29:00.005-05:002010-03-08T10:47:39.494-05:00Michael Anderson at Marlborough Gallery<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dfGL-82CuxbdSClLaQPoC7LkB9VW5u_u9X-bnCMo6vxTmNR69-LGdmZlVS3092KxCo4nuP8Muv7vLZB30WkzM4hsYihd5nPd9e436UmpxRW0yu36sCVtWnoCJ0Yr0BNhMTU87w_NAUvM/s1600-h/MOMA+Party.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dfGL-82CuxbdSClLaQPoC7LkB9VW5u_u9X-bnCMo6vxTmNR69-LGdmZlVS3092KxCo4nuP8Muv7vLZB30WkzM4hsYihd5nPd9e436UmpxRW0yu36sCVtWnoCJ0Yr0BNhMTU87w_NAUvM/s320/MOMA+Party.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446285682658079602" /></a><br />Marlborough Gallery's Collage Artist Michael Anderson greets associate Ann Lydecker, Metropolitan Art Advisors at The MoMA/Armory Week Party.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAyOFjT8fHhyphenhyphen9nZrKvkVjXZv4Trti_IjDbovCOlG2TXQvcCOdWVyfnABH7wgQjAW_O3eCUT2WJYsBigJSgh9uMTpKCD86CN4Fkx5pLwe99lozoxWUzY8sX0H0X5Jv-mT_yLLaSx5xc7TT/s1600-h/MAnderson,+Simpson..jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAyOFjT8fHhyphenhyphen9nZrKvkVjXZv4Trti_IjDbovCOlG2TXQvcCOdWVyfnABH7wgQjAW_O3eCUT2WJYsBigJSgh9uMTpKCD86CN4Fkx5pLwe99lozoxWUzY8sX0H0X5Jv-mT_yLLaSx5xc7TT/s320/MAnderson,+Simpson..jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446288409019214226" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHFTzZQnhEg1mPa-tsNSAhyphenhyphen3Qso8GhETQGz1GHiZMA6rwpl8O3Dg66zPPkE8mTlw3QB8E879zCjIvFp5VU4eyzJ10X5lSeaNg1v9ELOzufhld9yj4qN8Vh_k6ikVRkQy7kOI-n-B5C9a64/s1600-h/Michael+Anderson.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHFTzZQnhEg1mPa-tsNSAhyphenhyphen3Qso8GhETQGz1GHiZMA6rwpl8O3Dg66zPPkE8mTlw3QB8E879zCjIvFp5VU4eyzJ10X5lSeaNg1v9ELOzufhld9yj4qN8Vh_k6ikVRkQy7kOI-n-B5C9a64/s320/Michael+Anderson.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446287764305386994" /></a><br /><br /><br /> 1968 Michael Anderson was born in New York, New York<br /> *<br /> 1996 - 2004 Member Artist, GAle GAtes et al., Brooklyn, New York<br /> *<br /> 1997 - 2004 Open Studio, DUMBO Arts Festival, GAle GAtes et al., Brooklyn, New York<br /> *<br /> 1999 Independent studio, Kreutzberg, Berlin, Germany<br /> *<br /> 1999 Independent Studio, Mexico City, Mexico<br /> *<br /> 2000 Artistic Residency, La Panaderia, Mexico City, Mexico<br /> *<br /> 2004 Guest artist, Kangol flagship store, New York, New York in cooperation with The Apartment, New York, New York<br /> *<br /> 2005 Art Editor, Animal Magazine, Instincts Issue, No. 6<br /> *<br /> 2005 Panel discussion, featured artist, in conjunction with East Village USA, The New Museum, New York, New York<br /> *<br /> 2005 - 2008 Studio Residency Grant, Chashama, New York, New York<br /> *<br /> 2006 Art editor, Animal Magazine, Wildlife Issue, No. 7<br /> *<br /> 2007 Curator, Sex, Drugs and Violence, Canal Chapter, New York, New York<br /><br />Solo Exhibitions<br /> *<br /> 2009 Collage Geomancy, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, New York, United States.<br /> *<br /> 2008 Harlem Collage Shop, Galeria Marlborough, Madrid, Spain.<br /> *<br /> 2007 - 2008 Media Violence, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, New York, USA.<br /> 2006 Fracture/Frattura, Changing Role-Move Over Gallery, Rome, Italy.<br /> *<br /> 2004 Mad Collectors, Paul Rodgers/9W Gallery, New York, New York,USA.<br /> *<br /> 2002 Post No Bills, Paul Rodgers/ 9W Gallery, New York, New York, USA.<br /><br /> 1997 Recycled Amsterdam, Vi Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.<br /> *<br /> 1996 The Ark, Gale Gates et al., New York, New York, United States.<br /><br />http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/new-york/artists/michael-anderson<br /><br />http://www.artcritical.com/zinsser/JohnZinsserMoMAParty.htmlGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-27907968706769024422010-03-07T01:05:00.005-05:002010-03-07T01:14:38.893-05:00POOL Art Fair at Gershwin HotelThe PooL Art Fair is different from all other art fairs in the US. Although there is a tradition in France of independent art fairs, starting from the famous Courbet’s Salon des Independents, PooL is the premiere fair in the US dedicated to artists that do not have representation in galleries.70+ Artists - 8+ Curators - 10+ Special projects,<br />POOL ARTISTS <br />Jae Hi Ahn | Cesar Arechiga | Nicole Awai | Thierry Alet | Lluís Barba | Woody Batts | Laurence Billiet | Toni Brogan | Sonia Burel | Michael Burkard | Gülsen Calik | Walt Cessna | Pierre Chadru | Tatiana Chaumont | Amélie Chunleau | Rob Clarke | Bob Clyatt | Chris Coffin | Ken Cro-Ken | Joro De Boro | Gregory de la Haba | Cat Del Buono | Marc Dimov | Leah Dixon | Debra Drexler | Laura Elkins | Chris Flisher | Rebecca Frankfurt-Nadler | Jose Maria Garcia-Armenter | Robin Gaynes-Bachman | Rachael Gorchov | Mark Grimm | Ellen Hackl Fagan | Adam Handler | Elizabeth Hendler | Sol Kjok | Daniela Kostova | Kasper Kovitz | JSUN Labibete | Scooter Laforge | M.P. Landis | Dov Lederberg | Gwyneth Leech | Tom Leighton | Liz-N-Val | Bonnie Lucas | Charles Lum | Thom Lussier | Francesco Masci <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFQtvfKQhb-xLwuonU-5hvcL1EOKYoWhE4vMJGHya0Ffd-_LvRUZudG9o8mxv3pfMXO6_R9fZn4gMmdIXoVaqZU4snYXoAFze7QRTlmgZYCK_8_98zZH1D9EDVdHDe6MSGyFL5L64GYbi/s1600-h/IMG_1688.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFQtvfKQhb-xLwuonU-5hvcL1EOKYoWhE4vMJGHya0Ffd-_LvRUZudG9o8mxv3pfMXO6_R9fZn4gMmdIXoVaqZU4snYXoAFze7QRTlmgZYCK_8_98zZH1D9EDVdHDe6MSGyFL5L64GYbi/s320/IMG_1688.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445770424704067714" /></a><br /> Hilary Maslon | Sarah McCoubrey | Kristin Meyers | Ruben Millares | Dick Mitchell | Michael Mitchell | John D. Monteith | Andrew Mount | Sean Mount | Antonio Ortuno| Stavros G. Pavlides | Per Pegelow| Chris Pennock | Madonna Phillips | Ves Pitts | Erik Pye | Margaret Roleke | Ned & Aya Rosen | Matthew Sandager | Michael Sanzone | Jacqueline Sferra Rada <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXTGg_SyMqtXRVVjjZu-RjXMuFLX-11f8hBh4BHvWAIypK0viLgG6ZwHE5EG1uhNOB0sR3sRCkis5k_eii7S4D91kVjAjLaWpd8Fkg4fF1vQmLNruqtXzbhDjVFW1Aab8Vj-aDulyhQBAH/s1600-h/IMG_1678.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXTGg_SyMqtXRVVjjZu-RjXMuFLX-11f8hBh4BHvWAIypK0viLgG6ZwHE5EG1uhNOB0sR3sRCkis5k_eii7S4D91kVjAjLaWpd8Fkg4fF1vQmLNruqtXzbhDjVFW1Aab8Vj-aDulyhQBAH/s320/IMG_1678.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445770417906440402" /></a><br />| Kaeko Shabana | Angie Arlene Smith | Will Spangenberg | STAN | Giustina Surbone | Cigdem Tankut | Dale Threlkeld | Tyrome Tripoli | Conrad Vogel | Al Wadzinski | Sadie Weis | Lynda White | Marion Wilson | Paul Wirhun | James Woodward | Antonia Wright |<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lMGJjGIXXJD777ROdAsWAiEwpptaz4ZmAbc901jW8IPmsd0nhF9MfGBmXaQMtzUgPwLR7qnXrjrtoJ3psGwTmucJvhoiLajkRebSrkH8CjXxPV4shPJgUJwt8l31WZAcsU6Z1w0Q0_Rw/s1600-h/IMG_1684.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lMGJjGIXXJD777ROdAsWAiEwpptaz4ZmAbc901jW8IPmsd0nhF9MfGBmXaQMtzUgPwLR7qnXrjrtoJ3psGwTmucJvhoiLajkRebSrkH8CjXxPV4shPJgUJwt8l31WZAcsU6Z1w0Q0_Rw/s320/IMG_1684.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445770420149817762" /></a><br />CURATORS<br />Marion Callis | Debra Drexler | Kathryn Miriam | Natalia Mount | House of Delicious | David Gibson | Cynthia Corbett | Savannah Spirit <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQxIxFqo_tl8qQr-MjVFIC_2ILUtwEFnjJa1aUacD4JyhuaSMVFN3kAK0Pv7SC1gqib-HzeMazuNJfwwkWIXGNbaYLQSbAv9oHjBFyAtORbzHg7t82w4hLg5lM_kDsf-TjGIVN0zs0yKs/s1600-h/IMG_1686.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQxIxFqo_tl8qQr-MjVFIC_2ILUtwEFnjJa1aUacD4JyhuaSMVFN3kAK0Pv7SC1gqib-HzeMazuNJfwwkWIXGNbaYLQSbAv9oHjBFyAtORbzHg7t82w4hLg5lM_kDsf-TjGIVN0zs0yKs/s320/IMG_1686.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445770428310252578" /></a>GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-39596837558052002962010-03-07T01:01:00.004-05:002010-03-07T01:05:07.770-05:0085 Broads & Metropolitan Art Advisors at Armory Preview 3/3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZNHX94rslD-EbYREirzeJsednXetMua9MfL6JPG7LFE49r7mkI0XfhMdGB7F_fkLAexBp3sy0rulNqQV4hYdBRnX3TioSKJSy-3cBvzkTTq6bj6x4vEv6XpNKJtW_8_ic93oxDvjynWw/s1600-h/IMG_1524.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZNHX94rslD-EbYREirzeJsednXetMua9MfL6JPG7LFE49r7mkI0XfhMdGB7F_fkLAexBp3sy0rulNqQV4hYdBRnX3TioSKJSy-3cBvzkTTq6bj6x4vEv6XpNKJtW_8_ic93oxDvjynWw/s320/IMG_1524.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445768257139551906" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0RPbhpNsVl1bUOxH_yxsO0mCUbGeSo_c4vtj512UMkFmO7jwoX6HstsOYYW3v5-WpyAtqnjo4sthiea2YXSJZQofmyCEBAILrQwtKQzBcBIoOZh4TckKtgRFmyVPRcKMe0wEZFEGx0LB/s1600-h/IMG_1535.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0RPbhpNsVl1bUOxH_yxsO0mCUbGeSo_c4vtj512UMkFmO7jwoX6HstsOYYW3v5-WpyAtqnjo4sthiea2YXSJZQofmyCEBAILrQwtKQzBcBIoOZh4TckKtgRFmyVPRcKMe0wEZFEGx0LB/s320/IMG_1535.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445768839892097906" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFOoKXlZSNUu2fxQLkqq8hQwWVKOYgCNTu5ADtdxX1_sMsITMGpAt2CVeOcrtPwFEidTJpucVACqUro-KBYMnOfnl_9KMKmPwIQezS3kpdAV7FqvBVkWBl3fuC98jmmvyZk6a1TNAQ1I44/s1600-h/IMG_1523.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFOoKXlZSNUu2fxQLkqq8hQwWVKOYgCNTu5ADtdxX1_sMsITMGpAt2CVeOcrtPwFEidTJpucVACqUro-KBYMnOfnl_9KMKmPwIQezS3kpdAV7FqvBVkWBl3fuC98jmmvyZk6a1TNAQ1I44/s320/IMG_1523.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445768834847527906" /></a>GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-36141901225981767992010-03-07T00:41:00.009-05:002010-03-07T01:00:17.616-05:00Armory Arts Week UpdateIt is not too late for you to be inspired by the volumes of modern and contemporary art being exhibited throughout NYC this week. After attending almost every show, I can summarize what's hot & what's not for you.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfgXjusZ5RPV7osxXF71GMGf0IQbVRqboRioXYjKgd5hQvExYnwe2LQWfzKDk9vNfRnskxBgPRGDE37MXFjDFc997WHeWlTQtWLRlB9US1eL686KOG3K6D8NdoTcQomiJDxombZyai2yHq/s1600-h/IMG_1557.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfgXjusZ5RPV7osxXF71GMGf0IQbVRqboRioXYjKgd5hQvExYnwe2LQWfzKDk9vNfRnskxBgPRGDE37MXFjDFc997WHeWlTQtWLRlB9US1eL686KOG3K6D8NdoTcQomiJDxombZyai2yHq/s320/IMG_1557.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445764126896686434" /></a><br /><br />The Armory Show www.the armoryshow.com at 54th St and West Side Hwy, Pier 92 exquisite world class modern art, Pier 94 edgier, riskier contemporary art. 94 is milder than last year. Both excellent. Paul Morris and his team have produced a world class event. Your most chic, sexy designer outfit and Loboutin shoes for this one. And your feet will ache when you're finished walking the Piers, but you'll look great and that's much more important. Besides...champagne bars throughout to ease the pain of looking so good.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIeq5PFgi83XkXUhX7pKb_YrlWSU2HGaKiE67cUIK5KKDy_DMgaucpl4xgHZkDN0VO2T1UNhX1zOuFLloZeHUU23HCgAA5wgmqHaCUnCGYHsGtNd-duHj9RSD4cdWfQEYldMi85IsEQvvp/s1600-h/IMG_1518.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIeq5PFgi83XkXUhX7pKb_YrlWSU2HGaKiE67cUIK5KKDy_DMgaucpl4xgHZkDN0VO2T1UNhX1zOuFLloZeHUU23HCgAA5wgmqHaCUnCGYHsGtNd-duHj9RSD4cdWfQEYldMi85IsEQvvp/s320/IMG_1518.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445764135652480418" /></a><br /><br />ADAA The Art Show www.artdealers.org at the Park Avenue Armory - American Art Dealers only (must have US Passport to qualify) and among the more high end works of art. Very good. You can do it in under an hour. Upper East Side attire for this one.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUenwvmdEd1lpFxvxeLI-ld1_PXgrpagW5rps3ed0tGCNQtABS0GYqqzymvAOFemRm6dy35m2uDM3RVgvSSyFBbjR3p5DCQAjnANOyWVkBO2G41PF0EhMjF_3HQOxG_YgFcMKNJ1sJUS9/s1600-h/IMG_1573.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUenwvmdEd1lpFxvxeLI-ld1_PXgrpagW5rps3ed0tGCNQtABS0GYqqzymvAOFemRm6dy35m2uDM3RVgvSSyFBbjR3p5DCQAjnANOyWVkBO2G41PF0EhMjF_3HQOxG_YgFcMKNJ1sJUS9/s320/IMG_1573.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445766300126956386" /></a><br /><br />The Scope Art Fair www.scope-art.com held at Lincoln Center half a block from Rosa Mexicana, on 62nd x Ninth Ave. Slightly more affordable art than the Art Show & Armory Shows and has a more "fun" vibe, allocate at least 45 minutes for this one. Attire-casual chic. Food & wine in the lounge and beautiful, affordable Prints for sale from the Lincoln Center archive in the VIP Room in the back.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicYiBR41wAoFuoFQ8khey09ZiwaJRW7oUAeIcW22UO8-rgxL2QhNM1qHMlhU8SXXQK29pQ0S_u7Yd4Tu_SANLr4DsqzyMLuFoMgmKxjbgMkACbUhQOBEWsIkcEOoiiYC5Z5r8FxI1Ui_MO/s1600-h/IMG_1601.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicYiBR41wAoFuoFQ8khey09ZiwaJRW7oUAeIcW22UO8-rgxL2QhNM1qHMlhU8SXXQK29pQ0S_u7Yd4Tu_SANLr4DsqzyMLuFoMgmKxjbgMkACbUhQOBEWsIkcEOoiiYC5Z5r8FxI1Ui_MO/s320/IMG_1601.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445764139933965602" /></a><br /><br />Pool Art Fair - Emerging & unrepresented artists at the Gershwin Hotel. Located next to the Museum of Sex on Madison x 27th St. Here you can find works in the $500 range. There are some "eye opening" "interesting" collaborative works and video art... A very funny and worthwhile aspect of POOL are the audience participatory rooms! Such as one where guests are encouraged to draw a picture of their family (crayons, markers, paper & clipboards provided) you will find yourself laughing aloud looking at these daily creations.<br />There seems to be wine offered in every room, so even if you attempt to race through this fair be prepared, you may find yourself seating down, drinking wine & getting into philosophical conversations here with an artist. Very casual and memorable. Food and drink on the first floor lobby bar.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiExuf3G5-51kXZP8GyP2E3CY9qADwygTWlqXsfB43LOyTaHT0eT0bkl2PBN2ovaEzJ0eoJW5fwfzlxxenIOdMjIzaVBzIOUutY2QfyFvncB0RNwNmrN4A4XYrr73edo4T12QQzA4g-LXdd/s1600-h/IMG_1604.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiExuf3G5-51kXZP8GyP2E3CY9qADwygTWlqXsfB43LOyTaHT0eT0bkl2PBN2ovaEzJ0eoJW5fwfzlxxenIOdMjIzaVBzIOUutY2QfyFvncB0RNwNmrN4A4XYrr73edo4T12QQzA4g-LXdd/s320/IMG_1604.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445764147498376786" /></a><br />Pulse Art Fair www.pulse-art.com located on 330 West St x West Houston. Casual Chic attire and allocate 45-60 minutes. Good galleries, some great galeries. Interesting works, prices from $500-$15K ish. Some of these galleries carry amazing works which aren't being shown here, a handful of "solo shows" and my favorites were the Cuban artists, wow: surprising and thoughtful creations. And hang out with the tall curly blonde Director of Bitforms Gallery. Have him explain some of his works, esp the Pantone colors digital artwork on the flatscreen.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZ5LyR8114MduiMnCNSvtoi9Uh0J0uKKVtgTGB5lmnE26QDiz-DWxFs6yr0Qhej4Jky5E2qaIQbjYzqe8isKCAvJ9k95LI68fHcCMY0fJuSd2QE124k6CDTnPDnifE7ozTVKcUJy-7iCS/s1600-h/IMG_1568.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZ5LyR8114MduiMnCNSvtoi9Uh0J0uKKVtgTGB5lmnE26QDiz-DWxFs6yr0Qhej4Jky5E2qaIQbjYzqe8isKCAvJ9k95LI68fHcCMY0fJuSd2QE124k6CDTnPDnifE7ozTVKcUJy-7iCS/s320/IMG_1568.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445763196828820018" /></a><br /><br />Red Dot Art Fair - George Billis Gallery produces this one and George always does a good job. It was the only fair I attended with free, delicious food. Smaller than the other fairs, and located across the street from Exit Art on 36th at 10th Avenue. Worth a stop in, and don't miss the 5th and 6th floor galleries. Upstairs, I noticed one artist who paints swimmers which sell for $5Kish and look very, very similar to a San Francisco based artist whose works start at $50K. And another young artist who "Andy Warholized" a series of famous American Gangsters. Very funny. We all know someone who should have one or two of the gangsters. Lots of colors. Generally less "apocalyptic" art than some of the other fairs.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_WtYb9MXU5UUISd7NUAKkJKWs9TkV0WLVzrTGzFhEFXOaCi2WtM4i-b5dF-98zvr2a3JRHbfvQbF3LYFCd_ug-7ncPutGCjenekHTjIGgs0GgYIufi0feZnbgKU9PJxzckIe3Dw_o3wMI/s1600-h/IMG_1623.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_WtYb9MXU5UUISd7NUAKkJKWs9TkV0WLVzrTGzFhEFXOaCi2WtM4i-b5dF-98zvr2a3JRHbfvQbF3LYFCd_ug-7ncPutGCjenekHTjIGgs0GgYIufi0feZnbgKU9PJxzckIe3Dw_o3wMI/s320/IMG_1623.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445764131284233458" /></a><br /><br />Others I hear are good are: Fountain Art Fair, Volta Art Fair (7 West 34th) and the New Museum exhibition (BoweryxPrince) and the Whitney Biennial.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-83323542704364000682009-12-22T13:19:00.001-05:002009-12-22T13:20:58.811-05:00Pop Up Exhibition on View at the Empire State Building<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLpXyLZzbG4dsQm81QMrPmbuiIbihPA3yE0LOIqOO_BVwiUco2TF1E9exZGDHwNslggyw03z1YiR8NDtAc-OXR1ilW717s_DUroQPuxHY6Ml3g3R7bljhZoU4s7FrDWZ7tGGL4YtuhkYRF/s1600-h/Pop-2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLpXyLZzbG4dsQm81QMrPmbuiIbihPA3yE0LOIqOO_BVwiUco2TF1E9exZGDHwNslggyw03z1YiR8NDtAc-OXR1ilW717s_DUroQPuxHY6Ml3g3R7bljhZoU4s7FrDWZ7tGGL4YtuhkYRF/s320/Pop-2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418127131798311042" /></a><br />Klari Reis, "Temazepam", 2008. Mixed media and epoxy polymer on floating aluminum panel.<br />NEW YORK, NY.- The Cynthia Corbett Gallery presents "Art at the Top in association with Ronnette Riley Architect at The Empire State Building". The exhibition features PHOTOGRAPHY by Tom Leighton, Lluis Barba, Boyarde Messenger & PAINTING by Klari Reis, David Gista, Cecile Chong and Geoff Stein.<br /><br />Featuring in the exhibition will be new series of work by Geoff Stein entitled "Irrational Exuberance" a series of portraits about the credit crunch. These works are acrylic and collage and feature newspaper cutting detailing the events surrounding key events over the last year. The work Madoff, includes reports from the SEC and Dept. of Justice complaints made against Bernard Madoff.<br /><br />The Cynthia Corbett Gallery, an international contemporary art gallery, represents emerging and newly established contemporary artists. The Cynthia Corbett Gallery is a regular exhibitor at major international contemporary art fairs. The Cynthia Corbett Gallery has an annual program of off-site exhibitions which take place in Cork Street, Mayfair and London’s East End throughout the year. The gallery also works with a number of mid-career American, British and European artists whose works have been published and acquired by International museums and institutions. corbettPROJECTS, launched in 2004, focuses on presenting curated projects which address contemporary critical practice and works with emerging curators and artists for site specific installations. These solo and group exhibitions, which are selected by a curatorial panel lead by Director Cynthia Corbett, present an innovative programme of events in a variety of media including photography, painting, sculpture, performance art with particular emphasis placed upon emerging video art. The Cynthia Corbett Gallery also provides an art consultancy service, and works with international Advisors and Curators and well as private Collectors.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-57834169319806041212009-12-21T10:41:00.003-05:002009-12-21T12:21:12.159-05:00At 94, She’s the Hot New Thing in PaintingUnder a skylight in her tin-ceilinged loft near Union Square in Manhattan, the abstract painter Carmen Herrera, 94, nursed a flute of Champagne last week, sitting regally in the wheelchair she resents.<br /><br />After six decades of very private painting, Ms. Herrera sold her first artwork five years ago, at 89. Now, at a small ceremony in her honor, she was basking in the realization that her career had finally, undeniably, taken off. As cameras flashed, she extended long, Giacomettiesque fingers to accept an art foundation’s lifetime achievement award from the director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8C-OM7Awj-VFv7Ka2wDQDYPyKKCPmn1RQjQ9lk8HdYXq2Q0L5L0WjahQekXnMrKNcKT5l0HvnC9TVGRQuJjKHWEgKy3rNTUVnnQjrSzNt5EheXgrRA-XP_SYZRo5xOOW7XEAYPtbussec/s1600-h/CarmenHerrera..JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8C-OM7Awj-VFv7Ka2wDQDYPyKKCPmn1RQjQ9lk8HdYXq2Q0L5L0WjahQekXnMrKNcKT5l0HvnC9TVGRQuJjKHWEgKy3rNTUVnnQjrSzNt5EheXgrRA-XP_SYZRo5xOOW7XEAYPtbussec/s320/CarmenHerrera..JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417740290241245634" /></a><br />Her good friend, the painter Tony Bechara, raised a glass. “We have a saying in Puerto Rico,” he said. “The bus — la guagua — always comes for those who wait.”<br /><br />And the Cuban-born Ms. Herrera, laughing gustily, responded, “Well, Tony, I’ve been at the bus stop for 94 years!”<br /><br />Since that first sale in 2004, collectors have avidly pursued Ms. Herrera, and her radiantly ascetic paintings have entered the permanent collections of institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Tate Modern. Last year, MoMA included her in a pantheon of Latin American artists on exhibition. And this summer, during a retrospective show in England, The Observer of London called Ms. Herrera the discovery of the decade, asking, “How can we have missed these beautiful compositions?”<br /><br />In a word, Ms. Herrera, a nonagenarian homebound painter with arthritis, is hot. In an era when the art world idolizes, and often richly rewards, the young and the new, she embodies a different, much rarer kind of success, that of the artist long overlooked by the market, and by history, who persevered because she had no choice.<br /><br />“I do it because I have to do it; it’s a compulsion that also gives me pleasure,” she said of painting. “I never in my life had any idea of money and I thought fame was a very vulgar thing. So I just worked and waited. And at the end of my life, I’m getting a lot of recognition, to my amazement and my pleasure, actually.”<br /><br />Julián Zugazagoitia, the director of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, called Ms. Herrera “a quiet warrior of her art.”<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCpws3SKxHJyvx2V7Jx9Uq_Nw1VKZxyc5rUk1u4d1j_JZOPxdlJh-mKU0LVBDL0arKGJJH4n0EvjkZxnfKgrnByiU1LAW3VgGgmCXtD1C4zuUPkG3s7lREQ4IVvLmB1pVnZJxOH7TfIig/s1600-h/Herrera2..JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCpws3SKxHJyvx2V7Jx9Uq_Nw1VKZxyc5rUk1u4d1j_JZOPxdlJh-mKU0LVBDL0arKGJJH4n0EvjkZxnfKgrnByiU1LAW3VgGgmCXtD1C4zuUPkG3s7lREQ4IVvLmB1pVnZJxOH7TfIig/s320/Herrera2..JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417740452732132418" /></a><br />“To bloom into full glory at 94 — whatever Carmen Herrera’s slow rise might say about the difficulties of being a woman artist, an immigrant artist or an artist ahead of her time, it is clearly a story of personal strength,” Mr. Zugazagoitia said.<br /><br />A minimalist whose canvases are geometric distillations of form and color, Ms. Herrera has slowly come to the attention of a subset of art historians over the last decade. . Now she is increasingly considered an important figure by those who study her “remarkably monumental, iconic paintings,” said Edward J. Sullivan, a professor of art history at New York University.<br /><br />“Those of us with a passion for either geometric art or Latin American Modernist painting now realize what a pivotal role” Ms. Herrera has played in “the development of geometric abstraction in the Americas,” Mr. Sullivan said.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5aRePEk_1HG6QjNoX-SsykjLGHCcP20X8veUBB0ixNIV7leTlm_XQttX4USjt3e_6Dc-7KNEjVQ8y-HJ9lr9_Tw1zuewM8Xn366RsHCg9tkpOFmiZy8aI-v9N0odENr_3ydcbx2N6Mjh/s1600-h/Herrera3..JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 311px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT5aRePEk_1HG6QjNoX-SsykjLGHCcP20X8veUBB0ixNIV7leTlm_XQttX4USjt3e_6Dc-7KNEjVQ8y-HJ9lr9_Tw1zuewM8Xn366RsHCg9tkpOFmiZy8aI-v9N0odENr_3ydcbx2N6Mjh/s320/Herrera3..JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417740455692047890" /></a><br />Painting in relative solitude since the late 1930s, with only the occasional exhibition, Ms. Herrera was sustained, she said, by the unflinching support of her husband of 61 years, Jesse Loewenthal. An English teacher at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, Mr. Loewenthal was portrayed by the memoirist Frank McCourt, a colleague, as an old-world scholar in an “elegant, three-piece suit, the gold watch chain looping across his waistcoat front.”<br /><br />Recognition for Ms. Herrera came a few years after her husband’s death, at 98, in 2000. “Everybody says Jesse must have orchestrated this from above,” Ms. Herrera said, shaking her head. “Yeah, right, Jesse on a cloud.” She added: “I worked really hard. Maybe it was me.”<br /><br />In a series of interviews in her sparsely but artfully furnished apartment, Ms. Herrera always offered an afternoon cocktail — “Oh, don’t be abstemious!” — and an outpouring of stories about prerevolutionary Cuba, postwar Paris and the many artists she has known, from Wifredo Lam to Yves Klein to Barnett Newman.<br /><br />“Ah, Wifredo,” she said, referring to Lam, the Cuban-born French painter. “All the girls were crazy about him. When we were in Havana, my phone would begin ringing: ‘Is Wifredo in town?’ I mean, come on, I wasn’t his social secretary.”<br /><br />But Ms. Herrera is less expansive about her own art, discussing it with a minimalism redolent of the work. “Paintings speak for themselves,” she said. Geometry and color have been the head and the heart of her work, she added, describing a lifelong quest to pare down her paintings to their essence, like visual haiku.<br /><br />Asked how she would describe to a student a painting like “Blanco y Verde” (1966) — a canvas of white interrupted by an inverted green triangle — she said, “I wouldn’t have a student.” To a sweet, inquiring child, then? “I’d give him some candy so he’d rot his teeth.”<br /><br />When pressed about what looks to some like a sensual female shape in the painting, she said: “Look, to me it was white, beautiful white, and then the white was shrieking for the green, and the little triangle created a force field. People see very sexy things — dirty minds! — but to me sex is sex, and triangles are triangles.”<br /><br />Born in 1915 in Havana, where her father was the founding editor of the daily newspaper El Mundo, and her mother a reporter, Ms. Herrera took art lessons as a child, attended finishing school in Paris and embarked on a Cuban university degree in architecture. In 1939, midway through her studies, she married Mr. Loewenthal and moved to New York. (They had no children.)<br /><br />Although she studied at the Art Students League of New York, Ms. Herrera did not discover her artistic identity until she and her husband settled in Paris for a few years after World War II. There she joined a group of abstract artists, based at the influential Salon of New Realities, which exhibited her work along with that of Josef Albers, Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay and others.<br /><br />“I was looking for a pictorial vocabulary and I found it there,” she said. “But when we moved back to New York, this type of art” — her less-is-more formalism — “was not acceptable. Abstract Expressionism was in fashion. I couldn’t get a gallery.”<br /><br />Ms. Herrera said that she also accepted, “as a handicap,” the barriers she faced as a Hispanic female artist. Beyond that, though, “her art was not easily digestible at the time,” Mr. Zugazagoitia said. “She was not doing Cuban landscapes or flowers of the tropics, the art you might have expected from a Cuban émigré who spent time in Paris. She was ahead of her time.”<br /><br />Over the decades, Ms. Herrera had a solo show here and there, including a couple at museums (the Alternative Museum in 1984, El Museo del Barrio in 1998). But she never sold anything, and never needed, or aggressively sought, the affirmation of the market. “It would have been nice, but maybe corrupting,” she said.<br /><br />Mr. Bechara, who befriended her in the early 1970s and is now chairman of El Museo del Barrio, said that he regularly tried to push her into the public eye, even though she “found a kind of solace in being alone.”<br /><br />One day in 2004, Mr. Bechara attended a dinner with Frederico Sève, the owner of the Latin Collector Gallery in Manhattan, who was dealing with the withdrawal of an artist from a much-publicized show of female geometric painters. “Tony said to me: ‘Geometry and ladies? You need Carmen Herrera,’ ” Mr. Sève recounted. “And I said, ‘Who the hell is Carmen Herrera?’ ”<br /><br />The next morning, Mr. Sève arrived at his gallery to find several paintings, just delivered, that he took to be the work of the well-known Brazilian artist Lygia Clark but were in fact by Ms. Herrera. Turning over the canvases, he saw that they predated by a decade paintings in a similar style by Ms. Clark. “Wow, wow, wow,” he recalled saying. “We got a pioneer here.”<br /><br />Mr. Sève quickly called Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, a collector who has an art foundation in Miami. She bought five of Ms. Herrera’s paintings. Estrellita Brodsky, another prominent collector, bought another five. Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, also bought several, and with Mr. Bechara, donated one of Ms. Herrera’s black-and-white paintings to MoMA.<br /><br />The recent exhibition in England, which is now heading to Germany, came about by happenstance after a curator stumbled across Ms. Herrera’s paintings on the Internet. Last week The Observer named that retrospective one of the year’s 10 best exhibitions, alongside a Picasso show and one devoted to the American Pop artist Ed Ruscha.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRai_jRUawILXIxp77-QWrQZYddnup93zm1gkOB4JqwOup9bH4wutzBEkj6Ew476KywWPssiq3VaGqUfLXjfkN5NOPoqXdmHpw7O_gi8o0dtFvDuel4qc3-HFzqA6Q-RtyGKQPgnjU8K-/s1600-h/Herreraportrait..JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRai_jRUawILXIxp77-QWrQZYddnup93zm1gkOB4JqwOup9bH4wutzBEkj6Ew476KywWPssiq3VaGqUfLXjfkN5NOPoqXdmHpw7O_gi8o0dtFvDuel4qc3-HFzqA6Q-RtyGKQPgnjU8K-/s320/Herreraportrait..JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417740461397603122" /></a><br />Ms. Herrera’s late-in-life success has stunned her in many ways. Her larger works now sell for $30,000, and one painting commanded $44,000 — sums unimaginable when she was, say, in her 80s. “I have more money now than I ever had in my life,” she said.<br /><br />Not that she is succumbing to a life of leisure. At a long table where she peers out over East 19th Street “like a French concierge,” Ms. Herrera, because she must, continues to draw and paint. “Only my love of the straight line keeps me going,” she said. By DEBORAH SONTAGGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-64589553156006267302009-12-18T14:10:00.002-05:002009-12-18T14:14:39.010-05:00The Collector: Benedicto CabreraVisitors strolling the grounds of Benedicto Cabrera's home will get a quick view of some of the Filipino painter's passions: Plants, sculpture and other remnants of the culture of the northern Luzon region pepper his four-hectare spread in Baguio.<br />Some recent additions to the landscape, such as the bonsai in the garden and carp in the pond, are gifts from admirers hoping to move up the long waiting list of buyers for the work of BenCab, as the famous painter is also known.<br />The artist's new compound, completed earlier this year, includes three contemporary-style concrete and glass structures. There's a hangar-like painting studio -- neat, yet filled with books and small random objects. Across from it is the cottage Mr. Cabrera, 67 years old, shares with his partner, Annie Sarthou. And a few steps away, his extensive collection of contemporary Filipino artworks and tribal art sits displayed in a personal museum that is open to the public. An inveterate collector, Mr. Cabrera says he no longer knows how many pieces he owns.<br /><br />"With collecting you learn," says the perpetually curious artist.<br /><br />Named a National Artist by the Philippine government in 2006 -- the highest recognition given to Filipinos who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts -- Mr. Cabrera owns hundreds of archive-worthy antique materials on the Philippines, including maps and books and old photographs. Some have inspired his paintings, which are prized for their draftsmanship and reflections on Filipino identity. He also owns one of the largest collections of Northern Philippine tribal objects as well as hundreds of Filipino works of contemporary photography, painting and sculpture.<br /><br />"I love looking at them," says Mr. Cabrera. "I find inspiration in them."<br /><br />One of his most-treasured items is a small wooden model made by Arturo Luz (born in 1926) as a prototype for an outdoor sculpture that now stands in Manila. Mr. Cabrera first spied the miniature -- a modern interpretation of a tribal god called an anito -- in the early 1970s, when he visited the London home of Jaime Z[oacute]bel de Ayala, then the Philippine ambassador to the United Kingdom. Mr. Z[oacute]bel, whose family company commissioned the work, noticed Mr. Cabrera's interest in the Luz maquette and gave it to him.<br /><br />Born in Manila, Mr. Cabrera trained at the fine arts department of the University of the Philippines. He moved to London in the 1970s, after meeting and marrying an Englishwoman; they had three children, now grown. He returned to his homeland in 1986, after a divorce, and settled in Baguio, a mountain retreat about a six-hour drive north of Manila.<br /><br />His children, who live in Europe and the U.S., visit him once a year. They share his love for his collections and art. "The middle one, Mayumi, shifted to art now," he says. "She used to model and was taking psychology. But she has been drawing and now taking fine arts in Los Angeles."<br /><br />Mr. Cabrera's own art keeps him busy. He recently had an exhibition at the Andrew Shire Gallery in Los Angeles. Some of his work is part of the Singapore Art Museum's exhibition "Thrice Upon a Time: A Century of Story in the Art of the Philippines," which runs until Jan. 31. Mr. Cabrera also is preparing for a one-man show of his drawings at his museum next year. And in June, he'll begin his second artist-in-residency at Singapore Tyler Print Institute.<br /><br />Why do you have a museum as part of your home?<br /><br />I want to put some of my things in a proper setting. I was inspired by some artists in Bandung [Indonesia]. But I want to display other things aside from my own work for people to admire, so I have tribal art and contemporary art.<br /><br />When did you begin collecting?<br /><br />I started collecting comics when I was young. When I got into the arts, I could not afford to buy books so when I used to come across articles on the arts in a magazine, I would cut it and then have it all book bound. It was a good reference. When I started to make money, in the 1960s, I was introduced to santos [statues of saints that date from the country's time as a Spanish colony, 1565-1898]....Maybe it was my affinity to sculpture that made me collect santos.<br /><br />When I got married we traveled. We went to India, Kathmandu and I started collecting Oriental things like thangkas [Buddhist painted or embroidered artworks] and Buddhas. In the 1970s, when I was living in London, we started dealing in these things....We rented a stall in a flea market. This is where I met other collectors and I started concentrating on Filipiniana. Then you could get maps of the Philippines for cheap. My first map I got in Rome for a dollar. Now it is worth about 35,000 pesos ($755). It dates from 1575.<br /><br />What happened to the santos?<br /><br />I sold them [in the 1960s and 1970s before moving to England].<br /><br />Do you miss them?<br /><br />I do. I wanted to focus on maps, books and prints. I have travel books from as early as the 1630s. When I came back to live in the Philippines, I sold some of my maps to start life again....I was forced to sell because I didn't have much money. I have been attracted to Japanese ukiyo-e, woodblock prints. I started collecting and stopped....The price of the maps went up. You learn, and then you have to part with it sometimes.<br /><br />How did you build a collection about the Cordilleras (the northern Philippine mountain region with tribal cultures from precolonial times)?<br /><br />The postcards, photos and maps I came across in London. There were whole albums. These objects I started collecting when I was making money from my paintings, so this was in the late 1980s to early 1990s. But even before that I was already interested. I used to come across nice pieces but I could not afford them in the early days.<br /><br />What attracts you to Cordillera art?<br /><br />The sculptural quality and the culture that goes with it. They use [these objects] for rituals. I am also attracted to the patina. You can feel if it is old. In London I met a lot of dealers in tribal art. I was attracted to pieces from Benin and Nigeria. I said, "Filipinos also have tribal art."<br /><br />Is tribal art-collecting popular in the Philippines?<br /><br />Yes. There was a good collection that Imee Marcos [Ferdinand and Imelda's eldest daughter] bought. There are a number of collectors. But not everyone likes them. Some, because they are Christian, have to sell because it is considered "idolatry." But for me it is art.<br /><br />What are your favorites in your collection of works by Filipino masters?<br /><br />I like the Luz. And the Jos[eacute] Joya. The Cesar Legaspi. Early Lee Aguinaldo. Because of the stories behind them and because they were our first abstract paintings. They were done in the 1960s, at the height of abstract expressionism. This was when painters were painting not for buyers. At that time it was hard to sell works. Now many of our artists are [sold] at international auctions.<br /><br />How did you become interested in the work of younger artists?<br /><br />The pieces in my collection have some affinity to my work and what I'm interested in. Most of them are figurative. I go to exhibitions, particularly when it's their first, the works are still reasonably priced.<br /><br />What attracts you aesthetically?<br /><br />Skill: That is what is missing now. A lot modern art now is mostly conceptual. It is sloppy. I'm old school. I look for good composition...and I like artists who are innovative.<br /><br />Name some young Filipino painters you like.<br /><br />Roland Ventura is very skillful. He just draws so well. Some thought he made digital prints because his work is so fine. Elmer Borlongan paints from memory. He doesn't base it on photographs, which a lot of artists do now. Even I do it sometimes. I also like Mark Justiniani.<br /><br />And photography?<br /><br />I love photography. When I worked as a layout artist for [Manila's] Sunday Times magazine in the early 1960s, I got my first camera. Romy Vitug is in his 70s now. He's a cinematographer but he is very good at photography. I learned techniques from him, he learned composition from me. I like Emmanuel Santos and his narrative approach to photography. He uses a traditional film camera. I also have a collection of 60 pictures by [the late Filipino photographer] Eduardo Masferr[eacute]. He was selling them as postcards. I used to buy them for 2.50 pesos (about 13 cents) and they are original photos. Now reproduction prints are $300. He made images of the [indigenous Filipino] tribes in the 1950s and early 1960s.<br /><br />Why are you purchasing some of your old paintings?<br /><br />There was a time when I could not afford to keep my own work. I don't have any early work of my own. It was a struggle before, so I was able to buy a few back recently.<br /><br />One you bought back was an early painting of a "Sabel," a female figure draped in rags. What does Sabel represent?<br /><br />Sabel started as a symbol of the oppressed and conditions of the country where we have a lot of poor people. In the beginning, she was social commentary. I've used it to make a very Japanese style or almost abstract. It became my icon.<br /><br />Why do you like plants?<br /><br />In London I had very little space. With bonsai you can have many trees in one small space. You can bring it in and admire it. I train it and all that. I make the time. But now I have a forest so I don't add bonsai anymore....One collector realized I like bonsai. So he said: "I'll give you bonsai from China." He gave me 14. Wow. It's the Filipino utang na luob, where you have to return the favor. He got two paintings last year.<br />—Alexandra A. Seno is a writer based in Hong Kong.<br />Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights ReservedGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-10476132953350489952009-12-07T11:23:00.001-05:002009-12-07T12:08:42.720-05:00Miami Mania 2009The long days are those that start the night before. So let’s begin in the dark, at a just-assembled picnic table on the back patio of the new "pop-up" Max Fish bar in a creepy Wynwood neighborhood rife with crackheads and whores and only a half-block away from the Ice Palace, abandoned this year by the NADA Art Fair and soon to be taken up by Helen Allen’s Pulse art fair.<br /><br />Max Fish proprietor Ulli Rimkus had been lured to Miami by Al Moran, who publishes artist’s books (the latest by Don Attoe) and runs an art gallery named O.H.W.O.W. (and who himself plans to invade NYC with a bookstore at Waverly Place and East 7th Street in the Village in February 2010).<br /><br />A Brooklyn artist named Krink was using old-fashioned fire extinguishers to spray long loopy swaths of yellow and blue paint on the tall whitewashed walls of the Fish building, the spray arcing over the roof (toward the cop car parked out front?) and running down the back façade like a living thing. "He’s famous for making fat writers," Ulli said, in reference to graffiti markers that draw a thick line (I think).<br /><br />Inside the Fish, the bar surface was decorated with a giant print of a snow-covered tree by Seton Smith, which had been coated with a thick layer of epoxy and looked rather like marble, and the walls decorated with geometric wallpaper and a large assortment of artworks, including a striking dual portrait of Dash and Agathe Snow. <br /><br />Sitting and gossiping at one of the picnic tables, Rimkus and I drew the attention of some 20-somethings, who pronounced us a "perfect couple" and took some pictures. I always wanted to grow up to be a curiosity for the party set.<br /><br />The next morning’s schedule started at 10 am, and included an unveiling by Shepard Fairey of a street-long mural project on NW 2nd Avenue in Wynwood (missed it), a press conference in the "collector’s lounge" at Art Basel Miami Beach (missed it), and the preview for Ink Miami 2009 at the Suites of the Dorcester Hotel, which I made my destination.<br /><br />On the way I ran into Robert Lynch, Nora Halpern and Katherine Gibney of Americans for the Arts, down in Miami to lobby the assembled art lovers -- they still want artists to get tax deductions for donating their own works to nonprofits -- and to huddle with Miami cultural affairs chief, Michael Spring, who is a boardmember.<br /><br />The night before they had attended the Art Miami opening gala, which featured a Los Angeles band named OK Go performing on guitars decorated by Fendi with neon and feathers. Very Vegas.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWFQ38KZ8Nl03jaQntQ1hiuOTuidsx3MIn48RE3rIe47mfHfvelTbVKUKhrWhlYbkGaVdO7Hx5Q-DilMcOaiiJ9gJpVgiJLJ-xkbDSxDt7nR43_h5xarcFLYqBPuKfmj0q43s1c_RdXn2E/s1600-h/Art+Basel..JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWFQ38KZ8Nl03jaQntQ1hiuOTuidsx3MIn48RE3rIe47mfHfvelTbVKUKhrWhlYbkGaVdO7Hx5Q-DilMcOaiiJ9gJpVgiJLJ-xkbDSxDt7nR43_h5xarcFLYqBPuKfmj0q43s1c_RdXn2E/s320/Art+Basel..JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412542224781435346" /></a><br />On the way I stopped at the Catalina Hotel, home to the Verge art fair --but all was quiet, as the event debuted the next day.<br /><br />For its part, Ink was up and running with its brunch, giving away iced cans of Illy Cappuccino along with the pastries. Energy drinks, often in small "booster" sizes, turned out to be a leitmotif of Miami art week events and gift bags. A jittery art dealer is a good art dealer.<br /><br />Ink’s dozen or so print dealers include Glenn Dranoff from New York, who frankly noted that "of 50 things I have only six are prints." This included a suite of four Jasper Johns color etchings from his 1987 "Seasons" portfolio, priced at $150,000. "It’s ready to go into a collection," he said.<br /><br />Next door was Jim Kempner Fine Art, where his gallery director Dru Arstark was touting delicate stipple-pen portraits, done with a Bic, of everyday African-Americans by Craig Norton -- "I bought one myself!" (they’re $3,500). Norton is doing an 88-figure installation of Civil Rights images for a benefit at the Museum of Television and Broadcasting, now known as the Paley Media Center, in February 2010.<br /><br />Arstark was also enthusiastic about a new suite of color photos by Steve Giovinco, her husband, depicting the two of them as an alienated couple. A fiction, one suspects. "I put the camera on a ten-second delay," Giovinco said, "so I never know what’s going to happen." They’re $2,500, in editions of five.<br /><br />Next door I met Margaret Miller of GraphicStudio at the University of South Florida in Tampa, the largest school-based print program in the country. It was GraphicStudio that produced those unique cyanotypes by Christian Marclay, bluish x-ray-looking grids of stacked cassette tapes or tangles of loose recording tape. Collectors love ‘em, and they’re selling like hotcakes at $14,000 and $30,000 -- buyers include the Boston MFA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan and the Whitney.<br /><br />Marclay is holding back a suite of 14 new images for his 2010 show at the Aldrich Museum of Art, and is also working with GraphicStudio on a 50-foot-long scroll-score, based on the "zap and pow" sound effects of Japanese comics, for a show at the Whitney next spring. It will be performed by a voice choir.<br /><br />Also on hand was David Norr, curator of the USF’s museum, which is officially named the Institute for Research in Art, for public-private-partnership-type reasons that escape me, even though Miller explained it all in detail. Norr’s current show, "New Weather" -- it’s about "the atmosphere in the studio," he said -- includes Diana Al-Hadid, who has showed in New York with Perry Rubenstein Gallery and who is doing a project with GraphicStudio as well.<br /><br />After idling away the morning at the print fair, I directed my feet toward the Convention Center for Art Basel Miami Beach, which was having a day-long preview. The show seems larger than ever, and presents, as everyone knows, an all-but-endless spectacle of art and money. Funny, there’s so much art that it seems almost random, while the money is invisible, though it’s why everyone is there. We all construct our own narratives as we go, like picking out messages in alphabet soup.<br /><br />I had just decided to plumb the mysterious appeal of painterly painting via large works by Emilia and Ilya Kabakov and Georg Baselitz at the booth of Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac when I came upon Curt Marcus, who I first met 30 years ago when he worked at Grace Borgenicht Gallery. Marcus was genuinely psyched, not least because he had just returned from a trip to Marrakesh and the hip nightclubs of London with his 19-year-old musician son.<br /><br />One definite change for the better at ABMB: the fair has given up on the shipping-container village at the beach, and instead placed the young dealers in booths around the square center of the convention-floor proper. Here was much interesting young work, including a working (electronic) piano made from barn wood by Brent Green, an artist from Central Pennsylvania, though when I started to play chopsticks he stopped me, saying that dealer Andrew Edlin promised to make any such two-fingered virtuoso buy the thing (it’s $35,000).<br /><br />I spotted an unfriendly art-blogger dogging my steps, and hastened away, stopping further along at a booth filled with large raucously colored bobblehead constructions -- a giant fried egg with a pair of oversized Jockey shorts, a papiér-mâche King Kong climbing the Empire State Building while surrounded by mouse balloons -- works by Agathe Snow, presented by Lower East Side dealer James Fuentes. They’re $12,000-$17,000, and financier Asher Edelman has already spoken for the sculpture with Homer Simpson’s head.<br /><br />I jumped in my rented Dodge Charger -- the smallest vehicle available, honest -- and headed across the causeway to Miami proper, in search of Scope and Art Asia. Ever thorough, when several byways beckon, I’ll be sure to take all the wrong ones first, and instead I found the sprawling building in Wynwood rented, for the fourth year now, by Pierogi from Brooklyn and Hales Gallery from London.<br /><br />Four young art dealers were sitting in a row of chairs in front of the door -- funny, but not an artwork -- and I had the large exhibition all to myself. Very impressive, including the works by the 52-year-old Hew Locke, a London-based artist who grew up in Ghana, where he became fascinated with the trappings of empire. Thus, a vast portrait of a "puppetmaster" made of beads and gold braid on black wool, adorned with images of samurai swords, the Scottish lion and a griffin ($50,000), and smaller, densely tinsel-and-plastic-jewel-encrusted portraits of the Queen ($16,000).<br /><br />After driving around several blocks several times, I found Scope and Art Asia, which share space in another sprawling, many-roomed facility. At the entrance was veteran journalist Anthony Haden-Guest, who promised performances of his inflammatory verse at the Standard Hotel every night at 8 pm. "Just don’t call it poetry," he said.<br /><br />Right inside the front door was the booth of Jonathan LaVine, whose artists -- he specializes in exceptionally accomplished illustrators like AJ Fosik, Jeff Soto and award-winning comic-book cover artist James Jean, whose images were adapted by Prada for its fashion line -- have an enviable surfeit of skills. The thing about illustrators, they can draw anything (while Mark Rothko could just make those big squares of color).<br /><br />Nearby, Jacob Karpio, the madcap dealer from Costa Rica, was highlighting a video of "surfing in Cuba" -- cars driving down flooded streets with kids hanging onto their bumpers -- and the serene poured-paint abstractions of L.A. surfer artist Andy Moses. "I’ve sold two," said Karpio, referring to the surfing video, which goes for $8,000. As for Moses, his painting is $22,000 -- and has been featured in Surfer’s Journal magazine.<br /><br />Scope has enlisted the efforts of several curators this year, and before I got much further, Scope director Jeffrey Lawson called one of them on his cell and arranged an impromptu tour of "Truly Truthful," a show of pan-Asian art -- 30 artist from 15 countries -- assembled by the estimable Leeza Ahmady, an Afghanistan-born curator who lives in New York and works for Asia Society.<br /><br />"Truly Truthful" suggests a quest for a deeper honesty, and listening to Ahmady’s impassioned remarks made me realize that not only are curators charged with finding new art, but they also must buttress their discoveries with words. One of Ahmady’s choices, a black-and-white video of a Western bicycle that its Afghan owner had set on fire, she described as emblematic of resistance to civilization via colonization.<br /><br />I couldn’t help but waste her time, but eventually her waiting companions came and dragged her away to go to the ABMB vernissage. Me, I was hearing the siren call of a whole list of publicist-abetted events at swanky hotels along Collins Avenue, including something involving Bruce High Quality Foundation promoted by Vito Schnabel, but I couldn’t find a parking place.<br /><br />Better luck was had at the Delano Hotel, where you couldn’t even go inside unless you were on a guest list. Something called AnOther Magazine was throwing a party on the roof, with a buffet, alcoholic punches and a DJ. I beat it out of there in short order, but not without collecting copies of the mag, which is quite thick and published in male and female versions. Wonder which one to open first?<br /><br />WALTER ROBINSON is editor of Artnet Magazine.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-49545960253699554482009-12-07T10:42:00.001-05:002009-12-07T12:09:57.985-05:00U.S. Marshals seize art from Swiss art dealerDec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- A dozen U.S. Marshals and police officers were among the first visitors to the Art Basel Miami Beach fair yesterday as they seized paintings by Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, Edgar Degas and Yves Klein following an insurance dispute between two dealers.<br /><br />Late this afternoon the feuding dealers said that they had tentatively resolved their dispute and that the seized paintings would be back tomorrow. They would not discuss the terms of the proposed settlement.<br /><br />The paintings were confiscated from the fair at the convention center in Miami Beach, Florida, about 90 minutes before the V.I.P. opening at noon yesterday for thousands of invited guests including casino mogul Steve Wynn, billionaire investor Wilbur Ross and designer Calvin Klein. The fair opened to the general public today and ends on Sunday.<br /><br />The works had hung in the booth of Zurich-based Galerie Gmurzynska among paintings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso, Robert Indiana and actor Sylvester Stallone.<br /><br />Artworks have never been seized by authorities in Art Basel Miami Beach’s 8-year history, said Sara Fitzmaurice, a fair spokeswoman.<br /><br />“We were there to execute a private federal court order,” said Barry Golden, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshal Service, Southern District of Florida. “Artworks were seized.”<br /><br />Art Basel Miami Beach hosts over 250 galleries from 33 countries. About 10 satellite fairs coincide with the bigger show, which is the largest and most prestigious modern and contemporary art fair in the U.S. in terms of exhibitors.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwFcCsIFzM9NdmQNYAUE_v52HHmmKkP_1M7EJfrqlH4MhSLIcnDwIp8mKH_fqX4axR3fzB8GFGRe7DJSqm3bP1ex6Wt9cDHcTOPh9_MSIYFbRW8j-l3xqo04rnuXoQHYPAu66V8Ffgg__i/s1600-h/Art+News+Miami..JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwFcCsIFzM9NdmQNYAUE_v52HHmmKkP_1M7EJfrqlH4MhSLIcnDwIp8mKH_fqX4axR3fzB8GFGRe7DJSqm3bP1ex6Wt9cDHcTOPh9_MSIYFbRW8j-l3xqo04rnuXoQHYPAu66V8Ffgg__i/s320/Art+News+Miami..JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412542550652817058" /></a><br />The seizure was connected to a lawsuit filed in New York Federal Court on July 13 by Edelman Arts Inc. as assignee of XL Specialty Insurance Corp. Edelman Arts is a New York gallery run by former Wall Street investor Asher B. Edelman.<br /><br />Edelman, in conjunction with XL Specialty Insurance, which assigned its claim to Edelman in exchange for moneys owed, sued Galerie Gmurzynska over a damaged Robert Ryman painting. Ryman is known for his white minimalist surfaces.<br /><br />The lawsuit alleged that in 2007 Edelman consigned Ryman’s 1985 “Courier I” to Gmurzynska for sale at Art Basel Miami Beach and was insured for $750,000. The work was returned with a “deep indentation,” or “gouge” according to the lawsuit, and the defendant refused to pay the insured value.<br /><br />‘Reprehensible Motives’<br /><br />The suit claims an additional $250,000 for “willful conduct of defendant” and “reprehensible motives and such wanton dishonesty as to imply a criminal indifference to civil obligations.” The suit resulted in a default judgment for the plaintiff for about $765,000.<br /><br />“We had a judgment against Gmurzynska for damages done to a work of art and executed the judgment on behalf of the insurance company,” Edelman said in a telephone interview from his booth at the Art Miami fair across town.<br /><br />Edelman accompanied the marshals. The Ryman work was not on display at Gmurzynska. The seized artworks, which are not owned by Edelman, reflect about 10 times the value of the judgment, the standard amount confiscated for auction, he said.<br /><br />Assisting Marshals<br /><br />“I was assisting the marshals by valuing the paintings,” said Edelman, who also made time at the convention center to buy an Agathe Snow sculpture featuring cartoon character Homer Simpson from Lower East Side dealer James Fuentes.<br /><br />Gmurzynska’s lawyer, Peter R. Stern of McLaughlin & Stern LLP, declined to discuss ownership of the seized artworks, and it is unknown whether they are gallery inventory or works on consignment.<br /><br />“The gallery was totally surprised by the events that occurred,” said Stern. “Edelman Arts, unbeknownst to the gallery, obtained a default judgment against my client without warning. The marshals appeared. The gallery is attempting to clarify the matter.”<br /><br />Edelman said the artworks would be auctioned by the U.S. Marshals to pay XL, Edelman Arts and lawyers’ fees, with any surplus going to Galerie Gmurzynska.<br /><br />The four paintings are valued at more than $6 million, according to sources familiar with the works. Comparable works by Degas alone have recently sold at auction for about $7 million. The confiscated Degas painting depicts jockeys on horseback.<br /><br />Resolved Dispute<br /><br />“The parties have in principle resolved the dispute,” said Stern this afternoon. “The paintings are expected to be back on the walls of the gallery space tomorrow.”<br /><br />“In principle they have offered to pay what they owe and at that time I will release the paintings,” said Edelman. The seized artworks are being held in a Miami storage facility, according to Edelman. “My intent is simply to get paid what is owed to my insurance company.”<br /><br />Edelman said he expects payment on Friday.<br /><br />Gmurzynska’s booth attracted even more attention as the fair opened. Gallery consultant Princess Michael of Kent, clad in a lavender suit, chatted with clients and visitors at the booth.<br /><br />Stallone held court in the back half of the stand, where his colorful expressionistic paintings hung on a wall. It is the actor’s first gallery show.<br /><br />As photographers’ flashbulbs exploded around the stand, the Los Angeles-based Stallone discussed his work, admitting he was intimidated to exhibit in close proximity to his artist heroes like Colombian artist Fernando Botero.<br /><br />“I wouldn’t exactly say I have a following,” Stallone said in an interview. He said he usually gives his paintings as gifts to relatives, but two paintings had sold by the afternoon, each priced between $40,000 and $50,000.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-19546592196872042412009-12-07T10:25:00.002-05:002009-12-07T10:30:04.601-05:00The Party Returns to Art Basel Miami BeachIn the early throes of the recession last year, Art Basel dialed down the partying—but this year the bacchanalia appears to be coming back.<br /><br />Art collectors, dealers, celebrities and hangers-on have a dizzying number of social events to choose from, with everyone from art dealer Larry Gagosian to cyclist Lance Armstrong throwing dinner gatherings and parties. (Sleep is apparently optional, with many starting as late as 11 p.m. and a few winding down as the sun is coming up.) A year ago, with galleries and artists stressed about a sales downturn, the mood was more subdued, veterans say.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGtb_uGztTdOCktSKuV5HXqhkKZUd2RiEDLJ8ze1SdDjDHkqEpqsLiu_vUHGBqG8QkGBhkfte-dD8gAR3dW-5cn-rnpvAyIlw-KDmKm-YijZcM7WQoB3aBn_uITukHNpdhi53P22R66b9/s1600-h/Miami-Deitch..jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGtb_uGztTdOCktSKuV5HXqhkKZUd2RiEDLJ8ze1SdDjDHkqEpqsLiu_vUHGBqG8QkGBhkfte-dD8gAR3dW-5cn-rnpvAyIlw-KDmKm-YijZcM7WQoB3aBn_uITukHNpdhi53P22R66b9/s320/Miami-Deitch..jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412516721462062658" /></a><br />Guests watch Santigold perform at an event hosted by Jeffery Deitch at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach.<br /><br />Late Wednesday night, singer Santigold, in a sparkly top and silver pants, performed underneath al fresco chandeliers at the Raleigh Hotel in South Beach at a bash thrown by New York art dealer Jeffrey Deitch. Throngs of partiers sat at VIP tables or stood in the sand underneath palm trees, holding their stiletto heels and sweating in the late-night humidity while sipping pink Campari cocktails. "There's no compromise," said Mr. Deitch of his annual Art Basel fetes, which always feature an up-and-coming musical act. "We go all the way with parties."<br /><br />Earlier that evening, guests like Scott Stapp, lead singer of rock band Creed, and hip-hop/fashion mogul Russell Simmons posed for photos at a party on a balcony at the Mondrian South Beach Hotel.The host, Mr. Simmons, who collects works by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Barbara Krueger, was raising money for his charity, Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. He said he'd been inundated with calls from friends wanting to know where the cool events were this year. "I get a lot of young-party-people emails," he said.<br /><br />Also there was Morgans Hotel Group CEO Fred Kleisner, who said that unlike in 2008, his hotels, including the starkly designed Mondrian, are fully booked for Art Basel, with more dinners and parties scheduled.<br /><br />Wandering through Convention Center on Wednesday afternoon, magazine publisher Jason Binn scrolled through his BlackBerry calendar ticking off the half dozen parties he'd RSVP'd for that evening, including one hosted by rapper Dr. Dre and another by Sylvester Stallone. "I can't even eat dinner while I'm here, there's too many parties," he said. This year feels different than last year, he said, with more exclusive and VIP-studded parties.<br /><br />One of his magazines, "Ocean Drive," hosted a guest-listed affair at the Sunset Island home of fashion photography collector Gert Elfering. On Wednesday morning, at least a dozen workers hung artwork and rearranged furniture in the collector's minimalist home, once owned by the late Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees. As they hung artwork—including a wall-sized face relief sculpture of Buddha made of a cow's hide—Colombian artist Efren Isaza put the final dabs of paint on his digitally altered photographs, which depict models with elongated features. His images, along with several live models dressed in origami sculpture outfits that he designed, would be the centerpiece of the party, with one standing on a platform in the middle of the home's ocean-view infinity pool. "Everybody has a Damien Hirst," said Mr. Elfering. "I want to do something no one's ever seen before."<br /><br />Thursday night's options included an event hosted by Lance Armstrong to celebrate the opening of "Stages," an art exhibit to raise money for his cancer foundation, which was expected to draw guests such as Nike CEO Mark Parker. There was also a Tequila Casa Dragones brand launch party to take place aboard a sailboat. For the first time this year, the Box, a Manhattan burlesque club and celebrity hot spot, moved its operation down to Miami's Nikki Beach nightclub for the week, bringing body painters, aerialist acrobats and "a divine chanteuse." (Basel VIPs received jewelry-box invitations that cooed seductively when opened.)<br /><br />Basel regulars said that smaller, more intimate dinners and cocktail parties were more prevalent this year. Heiress and designer Nadja Swarovski hosted a dinner and after-party at the W South Beach. Collectors Aby Rosen and Peter Brant also hosted a dinner there, with an after-party thrown by 23-year-old art dealer Vito Schnabel, son of artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel. Friday night at the W: the Sex Pistols.<br /><br />The most conservative hosts this year may be Art Basel's corporate sponsors, which include UBS, NetJets and Cartier. For the past couple of fairs, Cartier constructed a freestanding geodesic dome for VIPs across from the Convention Center. This year, the luxury jeweler hosted a dinner and a cocktail party, but built their lounge inside the Convention Center, with a large gold and bejeweled column designed by architect Alessandro Mendini. UBS also has a lounge for VIPs at the fair but says it's cut back on parties this year. NetJets isn't having a big bash, either.<br /><br />Write to Candace Jackson at candace.jackson@wsj.com<br />Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights ReservedGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-41136334065154256242009-10-16T12:14:00.001-04:002009-10-16T12:14:29.287-04:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCr0DpYos_RdeEMix0TSQVwxCV1slJUcMTG_Nxv7ISBk8GbkOlIfaezFsz-C74vbttWnc5BhL68Mf00xaARJvAA2yeCLfJZpKWZpWNxPj39uUqK13yhNMwTNB6vkVW_Tu0yaJzlgd2Zmgz/s1600-h/78.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 137px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCr0DpYos_RdeEMix0TSQVwxCV1slJUcMTG_Nxv7ISBk8GbkOlIfaezFsz-C74vbttWnc5BhL68Mf00xaARJvAA2yeCLfJZpKWZpWNxPj39uUqK13yhNMwTNB6vkVW_Tu0yaJzlgd2Zmgz/s320/78.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393231934748061058" /></a>GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-43963480060811994582009-10-16T12:08:00.002-04:002009-10-16T12:12:53.110-04:00Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUVXRlbgCe72cnFBlGOz0fuYiIUrxwVIqqYcbjFFK_H0bc0L9Ok0ipjf9ThG7psPVDi3ob3zeS3SQhgQl-j8hctd0go0-RSES07d1gv-q1noW6CH50kAGSDjsrXONnoz7ZAKcuhw9Ufj2/s1600-h/oped190.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 167px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUVXRlbgCe72cnFBlGOz0fuYiIUrxwVIqqYcbjFFK_H0bc0L9Ok0ipjf9ThG7psPVDi3ob3zeS3SQhgQl-j8hctd0go0-RSES07d1gv-q1noW6CH50kAGSDjsrXONnoz7ZAKcuhw9Ufj2/s320/oped190.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393231318066177586" /></a><br /><br />ART’s link with money is not new, though it does continue to generate surprises. On Friday night, Christie’s in London plans to auction another of Damien Hirst’s medicine cabinets: literally a small, sliding-glass medicine cabinet containing a few dozen bottles or tubes of standard pharmaceuticals: nasal spray, penicillin tablets, vitamins and so forth. This work is not as grand as a Hirst shark, floating eerily in a giant vat of formaldehyde, one of which sold for more than $12 million a few years ago. Still, the estimate of up to $239,000 for the medicine cabinet is impressive — rather more impressive than the work itself.<br /><br />No disputing tastes, of course, if yours lean toward the aesthetic contemplation of an orderly medicine cabinet. Buy it, and you acquire a work of art by the world’s richest and — by that criterion — most successful living artist. Still, neither this piece nor Mr. Hirst’s dissected calves and embalmed horses are quite “by” the artist in a conventional sense. Mr. Hirst’s name rightfully goes on them because they were his conceptions. However, he did not reproduce any of the medicine bottles or boxes in his cabinet (in the way that Warhol actually recreated Brillo boxes), nor did he catch a shark or do the taxidermy.<br /><br />In this respect, the pricey medicine cabinet belongs to a tradition of conceptual art: works we admire not for skillful hands-on execution by the artist, but for the artist’s creative concept. Mr. Hirst has a talent for coming up with concepts that capture the attention of the art market, putting him in the company of other big names who have now and again moved away from making art with their own hands: Jeff Koons, for example, who has put vacuum cleaners into Plexiglas cases and commissioned an Italian porcelain manufacturer to make a cheesy gold and white sculpture of Michael Jackson and his pet chimp. Mr. Koons need not touch the art his contractors produce; the ideas are his, and that’s enough.<br /><br />Sophisticated gallery owners or curators normally respond with withering condescension to worries about the lack of craftsmanship in contemporary art. Art has moved on, I’ve heard it argued, since Victorian times, when “she’d painted every hair” was ordinary aesthetic praise. What is important today is not technical skill, but skill in playing inventively with ideas.<br /><br />Since the endearingly witty Marcel Duchamp invented conceptual art 90 years ago by offering his “ready-mades” — a urinal or a snow shovel, for instance — for gallery shows, the genre has degenerated. Duchamp, an authentic artistic genius, was in 1917 making sport of the art establishment and its stuffy values. By the time we get to 2009, Mr. Hirst and Mr. Koons are the establishment.<br /><br />Does this mean that conceptual art is here to stay? That is not at all certain, and it is not just auction results that are relevant to the issue. To see why works of conceptual art have an inherent investment risk, we must look back at the whole history of art, including art’s most ancient prehistory.<br /><br />It is widely assumed that the earliest human art works are the stupendously skillful cave paintings of Lascaux and Chauvet, the latter perhaps 32,000 years old, along with a few small realistic sculptures of women and of animals from the same period. But artistic and decorative behavior emerged in a far more distant past. Shell necklaces that look like something you would see at a tourist resort, as well as evidence of ochre body paint, have been found from more than 100,000 years ago. But the most intriguing prehistoric artifacts are much older even than that. I have in mind the so-called Acheulian hand axes.<br /><br />The earliest stone tools are choppers and blades found in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, from 2.5 million years ago. These unadorned tools remained unchanged for thousands of centuries, until around 1.4 million years ago when Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and other human ancestral groups started doing something new and remarkable. They began shaping single, thin stone blades, sometimes rounded ovals, but often in what to our eyes are arresting symmetrical pointed leaf or teardrop forms. Acheulian hand axes (after St.-Acheul in France, a site of 19th-century finds) have been unearthed in their thousands, scattered across Asia, Europe and Africa, wherever Homo erectus roamed.<br /><br />The sheer numbers of hand axes indicate a rate of manufacture beyond needs for butchering animals. Even more curious, unlike other prehistoric stone tools, hand axes often exhibit no evidence of wear on their delicate blade edges, and some are in any case too big for practical use. They are occasionally hewn from colorful stone materials (even with decoratively embedded fossils). Their symmetry, materials and above all meticulous workmanship makes them quite simply beautiful to our eyes. What were these ancient yet somehow familiar artifacts for?<br /><br />The best available explanation is that they are literally the earliest known works of art — practical tools transformed into captivating aesthetic objects, contemplated both for their elegant shape and virtuoso craftsmanship. Hand axes mark an evolutionary advance in human prehistory, tools attractively fashioned to function as what Darwinians call “fitness signals” — displays like the glorious peacock’s tail, which functions to show peahens the strength and vitality of the males who display it.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFckXSGS8au7iGhwjSy3x6dOancE5S0qDUYcIOQoBcQgbhUyuelG75-KSz1Ouf0MPFqgPpl9fk3DU5XfGDPDezzpd-vAIEQL8bRa8q_pq7ishtv6OnVZ5yNTRHbYgu84YFuapU5H7KAJ-L/s1600-h/d5074053l.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFckXSGS8au7iGhwjSy3x6dOancE5S0qDUYcIOQoBcQgbhUyuelG75-KSz1Ouf0MPFqgPpl9fk3DU5XfGDPDezzpd-vAIEQL8bRa8q_pq7ishtv6OnVZ5yNTRHbYgu84YFuapU5H7KAJ-L/s320/d5074053l.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393231313532379746" /></a><br />Hand axes, however, were not grown, but consciously, cleverly made. They were therefore able to indicate desirable personal qualities: intelligence, fine motor control, planning ability and conscientiousness. Such skills gained for those who displayed them status and a reproductive advantage over the less capable. Across many thousands of generations this translated into both an increase in intelligence and an evolved sense that the symmetry and craftsmanship of hand axes is “beautiful.”<br /><br />Aesthetically pleasing hand axes constitute an unbroken Stone-Age tradition that stretches over a million years, ending 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, about the time that their makers’ African descendants, now called Homo sapiens, started to become articulate speakers of language. These humans were probably finding new ways to amuse and amaze one another with — who knows? — jokes, dramatic storytelling, dancing or hairstyling. Alas, geological layers do not record these other, more perishable aspects of prehistoric life. For us moderns, the arts have come to depict imaginary worlds and express intense emotions with music, painting, dance and fiction.<br /><br />However, one trait of the ancestral personality persists in our aesthetic cravings: the pleasure we take in admiring skilled performances. From Lascaux to the Louvre to Carnegie Hall — where now and again the Homo erectus hairs stand up on the backs of our necks — human beings have a permanent, innate taste for virtuoso displays in the arts.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSDXB0NbW-UxOfCQ7GngY4Aj3kx8Cgh6HLBq1WoA9MBZ4ymxrzfWIoBVftcaLXlFaTfOtS7rXWaZB1fSd_rr121IQiz5RprCMlEQUiWZEarFLbDXyAtEuYGxIfIUosJVpw2MDLPMXFdebd/s1600-h/d5250602l.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 216px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSDXB0NbW-UxOfCQ7GngY4Aj3kx8Cgh6HLBq1WoA9MBZ4ymxrzfWIoBVftcaLXlFaTfOtS7rXWaZB1fSd_rr121IQiz5RprCMlEQUiWZEarFLbDXyAtEuYGxIfIUosJVpw2MDLPMXFdebd/s320/d5250602l.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393231323724213890" /></a><br />We ought, then, to stop kidding ourselves that painstakingly developed artistic technique is passé, a value left over from our grandparents’ culture. Evidence is all around us. Even when we have lost contact with the social or religious ideas behind the arts of bygone civilizations, we are still able, as with the great bronzes or temples of Greece or ancient China, to respond directly to craftsmanship. The direct response to skill is what makes it possible to find beauty in many tribal arts even though we often know nothing about the beliefs of the people who created them. There is no place on earth where superlative technique in music and dance is not regarded as beautiful.<br /><br />The appreciation of contemporary conceptual art, on the other hand, depends not on immediately recognizable skill, but on how the work is situated in today’s intellectual zeitgeist. That’s why looking through the history of conceptual art after Duchamp reminds me of paging through old New Yorker cartoons. Jokes about Cadillac tailfins and early fax machines were once amusing, and the same can be said of conceptual works like Piero Manzoni’s 1962 declaration that Earth was his art work, Joseph Kosuth’s 1965 “One and Three Chairs” (a chair, a photo of the chair and a definition of “chair”) or Mr. Hirst’s medicine cabinets. Future generations, no longer engaged by our art “concepts” and unable to divine any special skill or emotional expression in the work, may lose interest in it as a medium for financial speculation and relegate it to the realm of historical curiosity.<br /><br />In this respect, I can’t help regarding medicine cabinets, vacuum cleaners and dead sharks as reckless investments. Somewhere out there in collectorland is the unlucky guy who will be the last one holding the vacuum cleaner, and wondering why.<br /><br />But that doesn’t mean we need to worry about the future of art. There are plenty of prodigious artists at work in every medium, ready to wow us with surprising skills. And yes, now and again I walk past a jewelry shop window and stop, transfixed by a sparkling, teardrop-shaped precious stone. Our distant ancestors loved that shape, and found beauty in the skill needed to make it — even before they could put their love into words.<br /><br />Denis Dutton is a professor of the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the author of “The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution.”GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-24409686127419745802009-10-08T12:09:00.003-04:002009-10-08T12:10:42.930-04:00Michael Anderson at Marlborough Gallery<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTc1RFMZ0DNKsdi4e1PTyQI3DMqfFwfiQO_7vLT9wz2mZfodaexr0TtZVHOtgVmVYaFZ9NZkDlqL4Vl3kuBCzOeRIiYHvgZatZDwWJh2FyEDibZEUa_l4s6IXa0dcHVtk_e6Mti6P_uQxy/s1600-h/michael+anderson+003.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTc1RFMZ0DNKsdi4e1PTyQI3DMqfFwfiQO_7vLT9wz2mZfodaexr0TtZVHOtgVmVYaFZ9NZkDlqL4Vl3kuBCzOeRIiYHvgZatZDwWJh2FyEDibZEUa_l4s6IXa0dcHVtk_e6Mti6P_uQxy/s320/michael+anderson+003.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390262266797388274" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHAeky39GcNZDE6YZDAyVKBwZE7GgsGElJZFF4ZaGiknqc1yTViNwFaUSoc4yIgbVX8A20vPv705HUhQkQ_VAErcDrFwjjNCQMAD7QkNfPmthrlJuBRaD5nhZGmts1jiEM9XEbYWkIOIWF/s1600-h/michael+anderson+002.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 247px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHAeky39GcNZDE6YZDAyVKBwZE7GgsGElJZFF4ZaGiknqc1yTViNwFaUSoc4yIgbVX8A20vPv705HUhQkQ_VAErcDrFwjjNCQMAD7QkNfPmthrlJuBRaD5nhZGmts1jiEM9XEbYWkIOIWF/s320/michael+anderson+002.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390262263066293106" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhStY6dCBXHoBMDNLqp3ClKoYz4njuYk2snE47KSYL3Gtazddst_pMNaT-nXZArVtHZv4sjfko6SCsRbYu4fh6qfjGsKDJTtbZOXS_RbpXCu6-ueGj3_k0qYLWjKzaDWyYZJ_FoW1EQ0P/s1600-h/michael+anderson+001.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhStY6dCBXHoBMDNLqp3ClKoYz4njuYk2snE47KSYL3Gtazddst_pMNaT-nXZArVtHZv4sjfko6SCsRbYu4fh6qfjGsKDJTtbZOXS_RbpXCu6-ueGj3_k0qYLWjKzaDWyYZJ_FoW1EQ0P/s320/michael+anderson+001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390262178506102866" /></a>GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-47978113443282139052009-10-07T10:09:00.001-04:002009-10-07T10:10:16.260-04:00Enrique Chagoya<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpKfQ9OTPatBEq_S6LkNPfsGgiMh7zJWVPrugLjVj1Rdb7J-8dhuMpxTeVaIR2L6zd38BwS9Df2fk42FUk4mGLDVt6aH1D1tb-9yS7VR1xkiiaRfv-m9tLC2NG2k7dMMhNfHHZgEGLERC/s1600-h/chagoya_press072806.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpKfQ9OTPatBEq_S6LkNPfsGgiMh7zJWVPrugLjVj1Rdb7J-8dhuMpxTeVaIR2L6zd38BwS9Df2fk42FUk4mGLDVt6aH1D1tb-9yS7VR1xkiiaRfv-m9tLC2NG2k7dMMhNfHHZgEGLERC/s320/chagoya_press072806.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389860156425278530" /></a><br />Enrique Chagoya also seeks to describe alternative cultural histories: “I integrate diverse elements: from pre-Columbian mythology, Western religious iconography, ethnic stereotypes, ideological propaganda from various times and places, American popular culture, etc. Often, the result is a non-linear narrative with many possible interpretations.” Working on amate bark paper, in the tradition of ancient codices (pictorial histories from pre-Colonial Central America) Chagoya creates current historiographies, depicting contemporary political happenings and figureheads engaging in symbolic battles. His multimedia works serve as humorous and incisive critiques of the cultural and political power-struggles taking place on the American continents, while referencing both ancient and contemporary aesthetic traditions. In Pyramid Scheme , Chagoya re-imagines Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans as a delectable collection of “Cannibulls” flavors like “Freddie Mac n’ Cheese” and “Mergers, Acquisitions and Lentils,” while in a codex titled Illegal Alien’s Guide to Political Theory political power brokers portrayed as self-absorbed superheroes frolic alongside traditional depictions of indigenous peoples.GlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526308158529394430.post-18340388103469986182009-10-05T22:15:00.001-04:002009-10-05T22:16:32.492-04:00Take Home a Nude<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYr2t19uTMlxtXZdgiYfeQnE_dLUK1hPocKKSZNFyUANBU64_jbrLlxN56ZDzbVAE5yoC1j0CDXaQfnI1bdM_Et12AzZZW-IL4muFdaPTsn6mAV5bYXfgwtKjM-5HrzvPxwqDGTMUkzrqF/s1600-h/than.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYr2t19uTMlxtXZdgiYfeQnE_dLUK1hPocKKSZNFyUANBU64_jbrLlxN56ZDzbVAE5yoC1j0CDXaQfnI1bdM_Et12AzZZW-IL4muFdaPTsn6mAV5bYXfgwtKjM-5HrzvPxwqDGTMUkzrqF/s320/than.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389305075298354082" /></a><br /><br />The 18th Annual Take Home a Nude ® Art Auction & Party<br /><br />Wednesday, October 7, 2009<br /><br />at Sotheby's<br /><br />An evening honoring John Currin<br /><br />6 - 9 pm silent & live auction<br /><br />9 pm dinnerGlobalArtWorldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463010354400980231noreply@blogger.com0