Archive for May, 2007

Birth of the Art Trading Fund: Fine art and finance collide on cutting-edge

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

With the art market reaching new highs, the plague of middlemen taking portions of multi-million dollar sale prices rises, ultimately decreasing the seller’s proceeds (Christie’s typically takes 20% of the first $500,000 and 12% of the rest of the work’s sale price). As a result, a new hedge fund known as the Art Trading Fund was born with hopes of exploiting the art market’s current inefficiencies. Founded by Justin Williams, an investor well-versed in the sale of highly-priced fine art, and partner Chris Carlson, former trader and Deutsche Bank and UBS, the fund hopes to have raised more than $50 million by the end of the summer. (more…)

Coolly Calculated: Is an Art Hedge Fund Realistic?

Friday, May 25th, 2007

In the UK, Justin Williams and Chris Carlson have set up the Art Trading Fund, an investment group aiming to trade art much like a hedge fund. According to their website, they are “focused on 3 to 12 month returns” and “buys and sells art via its global network of dealers, renowned artists, auction houses and galleries.” (more…)

Newslinks for week of 5.21.07

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

via P.S. 1

Dinner with Donner Party: Jim Shaw’s Cannibal Exhibition [P.S. 1 Gallery]

Marianne Boesky and the Big Bad World of Art Business [Portfolio]

First Annual Asian Contemporary Art Fair Coming to NYC

Sunday, May 20th, 2007

With Chinese contemporary art sales through the roof and seeing a burst of Korean and Indian artists breaking through New York City’s contemporary art scene, it’s not surprising that the Asian Contemporary Art Fair is debuting this year.

From November 8-12, about 80 galleries will be showing works from more than 10 Asian countries. Thomas Arnold, a co-director of the fair, tells Crain’s that he estimates more than 25,000 visitors and around $11.5 million for the local economy.

“This will be the first time we’ve actually had so much Asian art from so many different countries under one roof… The interest in Asian art and culture has never been greater.”

New York City is host to Asia Week, organized by the Asia Society, usually in the Spring. Perhaps ACAF NY is trying to avoid becoming a satellite event in the roster of the affluent Asia Week and emerge as a prominent event in its own right. However, they did use the opportunity on March 18th to hold a Fair preview at Sotheby’s.
ACAF NY | Asian Contemporary Art Fair New York
Asian Art Fair Comes to NY [Crain's]

Kate Moss pretzel

Saturday, May 12th, 2007

This month and next, British sculptor Marc Quinn brings his most recent exhibition, “Sphinx,” to New York’s Mary Boone Gallery. Known best for creating busts out of frozen blood and sculptures that depict the limbless, Quinn tackles a new form in Sphinx. Attempting to comment on mortality alongside divinity (each work in the exhibit is titled after a different Greek god or goddess), Sphinx features a collection of sculptures of supermodel Kate Moss, each twisted into a different Yogic position.The piece titled “Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment),” perhaps the exhibitions stand-out work, is unpainted bronze, unlike the majority of painted sculptures, and portrays Moss in a Buddha-like position, complete with robes and an exposed ribcage. Other sculptures feature Moss in a less overtly religious, yet equally posed form. (more…)

Warhol’s “Car Crash” rakes in green

Saturday, May 12th, 2007

On a cloudy day in May, in a drab gray room in Rockefeller Center, three hours ticked by at a normal pace. Within these 3 three hours, nearly $400 million worth of postwar and contemporary art was sold at the Christie’s auction house Wednesday evening. Only one day before, the post-war and contemporary art auctions at Sotheby’s closed at a grand total of $255 million, enabling the two-day total sales in Manhattan alone to surpass a cool half-billion dollars with ease. The undoubted financial star of Christie’s evening was Andy Warhol‘s silkscreen painting “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I).” Inspired by a 1963 Newsweek photo depicting a car crash that impaled one driver on a telephone pole, the painting ignited a heated bidding war between two parties, urging bids to as high as $64 million. (more…)

Columbia University MFA Show: Growing Pains

Thursday, May 10th, 2007

With a cluttered presentation sprawled over two floors of Midtown space, the Columbia University MFA show comes across as energetic, adventurous, but undeniably student-y work; heck, at times it’s slightly muddled, unfinished, and, yes, even downright messy. Who’d ever have thought this would amount to a good thing? But, I must admit, it was all surprisingly refreshing. Over the last couple of years, Columbia has consistently met the challenge of its increasingly high profile, pumping out art stars in the making with graduate presentations as smoothed and polished as anything Chelsea might throw at you. Last year’s class’ offering in Dumbo was no exception: a cavernous space, filled with pristine pieces, thoughtfully arranged into a compelling exhibition which gave the Whitney Biennial “Day for Night” (on view at the same time) more than a run for its money. As expected, a new set of rising stars was ushered in, such as Tamy Ben-Tor and Julieta Aranda, who have already garnered pretty major accolades (and with good cause). (more…)

Spring 2007 Auction Schedule

Monday, May 7th, 2007

Spring auction season is here in New York and in this heated seller’s market collectors are cleaning out their storage spaces to make room for large loads of cash.

Here is the schedule for those ready to wield a paddle and get spanked by an often much more than six figure invoice.

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale – Session 1: Tuesday, May 15th, 7:00 pm

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Day Sale – Session 1: Wednesday, May 16th, 10:00 am

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Day Sale – Session 2: Wednesday, May 16th, 2:00 pm

Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale – Wednesday, May 16th, 7:00 pm

Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Morning Session – Thursday, May 17th, 10:00 am

Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Afternoon Session – Thursday, May 17th, 2:00 pm

Rita slams Keys, stirs fear in Gulf

The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY) September 20, 2005 | Michelle Spitzer Rita strengthened into a hurricane today as it lashed the Florida Keys with heavy rain and strong wind, threatening the island chain with a storm surge of up to 6 feet and sparking fears the storm could eventually bring new misery to the Gulf Coast.

Rita became a Category 1 hurricane with sustained top wind of 85 mph, said meteorologist Michelle Mainelli at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Thousands of residents and tourists have fled the Keys in advance of Rita, which forecasters said could dump up to 8 inches of rain on parts of the low-lying island chain. category1hurricane.com category 1 hurricane

Rita is expected to strengthen as it crosses the warm Gulf of Mexico later this week headed for a weekend landfall, most likely in Texas although Louisiana could end up in the path of what could become a major hurricane.

“Right now, we expect that Rita will remain a Category 1 hurricane as it affects the Keys,” said Chris Sisko, a meteorologist at the hurricane center. “Further out, we do anticipate further strengthening up to Category 3, or major hurricane status.” Category 3 storms have maximum sustained wind of 130 mph.

Officials in Galveston, Texas — nearly 900 miles from Key West – – were already calling for a voluntary evacuation. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco urged everyone in the southwest part of the state to prepare to evacuate.

Hurricane warnings were posted for the Keys and Miami-Dade County. Residents and visitors were ordered to clear out of the Keys; voluntary evacuation orders were posted for 134,000 Miami- Dade residents of coastal areas such as Miami Beach. here category 1 hurricane

Cuba evacuated 58,000 people from low-lying areas along the northern coast, the National Information Agency reported.

Meanwhile, parts of U.S. 1, the highway linking the Keys, were flooded and impassable.

Roads were nearly deserted in Marathon, about 45 miles northeast of Key West, and virtually all businesses were closed.

Wind and rain also were being felt north of the Keys in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where more than 13,000 customers were without power. Most schools and government offices were closed.

In the Bahamas, Nassau International Airport reopened today after the storm passed, and schools reopened. The strongest parts of Rita did not hit the Bahamas, where the wind peaked at just 40 to 55 mph, the Bahamas Weather Service said.

“We came out of this one relatively all right — some broken branches, some erosion to a road exposed to the sea, and no reports of flooding,” said Great Exuma Island commissioner Everette Cooper.

Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. Six hurricanes have hit Florida in the last 13 months.

The last hurricane to directly hit Key West was 1998’s Hurricane Georges, which slammed the city with 105 mph wind, damaging hundreds of homes.

Crude-oil futures rose above $67 a barrel Monday, in part because of worries about Rita, but fell today after OPEC agreed to make available 2 million extra barrels of oil a day starting Oct. 1.

Chevron and Shell began evacuating employees from offshore oil- and gas-drilling platforms in the gulf. Other companies were watching the storm’s track but had not yet begun evacuations.

“These storms are pretty big and broad sometimes, so you take no chances,” said Chevron spokesman Mickey Driver.

About 56 percent of the gulf’s oil production was already out of operation Monday because of Katrina’s damage, the federal Minerals Management Service said.

Michelle Spitzer