Experts are warning of a surging market in fake prints, as photo reproduction technology gets increasingly powerful.    “In the last few years we have confiscated hundreds of fakes that forgers and dealers said were by Lichtenstein, Georg Baselitz, Picasso, and others, that came from Italy, Spain, and Portugal,” says Elena Spahic, an officer with the Bavarian Police in Munich.
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A group of galleries have written to Art Basel Hong Kong expressing concerns about the current political situation in Hong Kong, and pushing for concessions from the fair on booth fees and other costs.  “VIP registration numbers are consistent overall with previous years—and especially strong from the Asian region, where we have actually seen an increase in VIP registration from mainland China.” reads a reply from global director Marc Spiegler and Adeline Ooi, the fair’s Asia director. “We fully acknowledge that this year is not business as usual, and we are thus doing everything we can to support all the galleries coming to Hong Kong.”
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A piece on Russia’s new culture minister, Olga Lyubimova in the BBC notes her past statements about a sense of disdain for the arts. “I’ve been to the British Museum, National Gallery and a few dozen more European and Russian museums and reckon I wasted my time there,” reads a blog post she wrote years ago.
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