The Art Newspaper notes that over one third of collectors in the top 20 of the Art News Top 200 Collectors List have opened museums or foundations to manage their collections, counting Bernard Arnault, Peter Brant and Eli Broad among them. (more…)
The New York Times notes the increasing popularity of Athens as a destination for artists in the wake of the country’s financial hardships, noting the increased affordability of studios and opportunities to show work in the city while commenting on the complex financial exchanges the country is currently involved in. “I realized it would be much more useful to have an artistic platform in a city like Athens than another European city,” says Greek curator Iliana Fokianaki. “The crisis kind of boosted our energy to do more things, rather than flee the country.” (more…)
This week, The Guardian looks at the fates of past years’ Serpentine Pavilion commissions, and their destinations after the work is taken down. With most pavilions sold before they are installed, the article offers a look at the shifts in use and context as works appear in the gardens of Indian steel magnates, or used as a beachside restaurant in the Côte d’Azur in France. (more…)
The Art Loss Register, widely considered the authoritative body on looted and missing artworks, is currently involved in a trio of cases involving disputes on works’ provenance claimed by the register to be authentic which were actually contested. “It’s incredibly frustrating because it doesn’t matter what you do,” says one anonymous figure affected by the cases. “You do everything you can to check a painting is clean, and it’s useless. How can you protect yourself? You can’t.” (more…)
The New York Times looks at the recent trend towards smaller and boutique art fairs, where collectors can experience specially selected works and a more nuanced buying experience. The article focuses particularly on London’s Art15 fair, where a focus on international buyers and new investors has defined it as a leader in the growing market. “We deliberately made it smaller,” says Art15 Director Kate Bryan. “We wanted to create a concentrated, boutique-style event. The demographic of London is changing all the time, and we wanted to respond to that.” (more…)
Ibrahim Mahama, Out of Bounds (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
The first open hours have come and gone in the City of Bridges today, and the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures is now open. Welcoming 89 different countries to exhibit in the city, with 29 in the Arsenale, 31 in the Central Pavilion, and an additional 29 spread across in the City itself, the exhibition is a monumental affair, with a number of auxiliary events, openings and parties.
The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow was investigated yesterday after a man with fake provenance was detained attempting to leave the country with a set of works valued at almost $50,000. Initial reports speculate that Russian security may have discovered a plot in which wealthy collectors abroad are paying to smuggle the works with forged documents. “The investigators have already left, and while the investigation is ongoing we will not comment further,” a representative of the gallery told The Guardian. (more…)
With renewed diplomatic activities between Cuba and the United States this year, the Independent forecasts massive interest in this year’s Havana Biennial. “Most of us are expecting that for the Biennial there will be an explosion of American collectors coming to buy,” says artist Mario González. “It should be a stampede.” (more…)
An article in the New York Times notes an increasing trend towards museums deaccessioning parts of their collection in order to cover budget gaps, even in the face of staunch opposition from critics and board members. “If you want to safeguard cultural identity, you cannot sell the best pieces of your collection,” says Marilena Vecco, an assistant professor of cultural economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. “This is the challenge for all museums.” (more…)
The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has announced a major new art prize, to be awarded to “a living artist in recognition of a significant body of work that has had an extraordinary impact on the understanding of the art form.” The winner receives a $100,000 prize, and will be selected by an impressive jury that includes Phyllida Barlow, Okwui Enwezor, and Nicholas Serota, among others. (more…)
Donald Fisher, the founder of Gap clothing, is preparing to unveil a sizable portion of his collection publicly for the first time next month at Paris’s Grand Palais. The collection of 20th century works will be shown next year at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which is currently undergoing major renovations to prepare for it. “I think we will have more works by artists including Richter and Calder on view at one time than anywhere else in the world,” says curator Gary Garrels. (more…)
The Telegraph profiles the immense demands that the month of March place on art dealers and gallerists each year, with three major fairs (TEFAF, The Armory Show and Art Basel Hong Kong) sending them on a tour to cater to buyers around the globe. “Fairs are a necessary evil,” says dealer Ben Brown. “I prefer the quieter contemplation of the gallery, but I sell more at fairs, and I make more contacts.” (more…)
The nation of Luxembourg has opened a new freeport within its borders, where valuables like fine art can be traded and stored without paying any taxes or customs. “There are a lot more transactions in the art market and it has become far more global, with increasing numbers of collectors in Russia, the Middle East and China,” says Arts Economics researcher Clare McAndrew. (more…)
A recent article in Forbes analyzes current taxing strategies in the UK and Mexico, which allow fine artists to pay part or all of their taxes with their work. Called “Acceptance-in-Lieu,” the program offers a tax alternative that allows governments to grow their national collection while collecting a higher percentage of owed tax. “You have to admire the simplicity of it,” says contributor Robert Wood. “Say an artist sells one to five pieces of art in one year. He then donates a work of equal value to the state. The more you sell, the more you hand over for taxes.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal profiles curator Okwui Enwezor this week, the head of next year’s Venice Biennale, tracing his early move from Nigeria to New York City, and his monumental impact on the global state of contemporary art today. “The art world was very Eurocentric and very westerncentric, and it needed strong curators to change it,” says Els van der Plas, the general director of the Dutch National Opera & Ballet. “Enwezor positioned several projects in a very strong way, which gave a different view of the world and different views on the history of post-colonialism, of what Africa contributed to the world’s development and of how different countries in Africa are positioned in the world debate.” (more…)
The Bronx Museum is reportedly in talks with the organizers of next year’s Havana Biennial in Cuba to plan a possible exhibition during the event, which would make it the first major show by a US museum in the country. The talks are also centered around a possible show of Cuban artists at the New York Museum. (more…)
An Henri Matisse painting stolen 10 years ago from a Venezuelan museum has been returned to its home in Caracas. Odalisque in Red Trousers was recovered in Miami Beach in 2012 after a couple tried to sell it to undercover FBI agents for $740,000. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal notes the growing trends for bidding at major auctions to move towards phone and online bids, leaving auction rooms looking much less filled out, even at some of the biggest sales of the year. “People are busy, they’re working. They don’t want the expense of flying here, waiting four or five hours for their lot to show up,” says Paul Minshull, COO of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. “They can sit at home in their underpants and bid by phone.” (more…)
The New York Times notes an increased trend for galleries around the world to embrace unique exhibition spaces and showing rooms, favoring houses, industrial spaces and other new spaces over the traditional gallery. “A house feels more exclusive and private than standing around in a gallery,” said Stuart Lochhead, the director of Daniel Katz Ltd., which recently set up shop in a 5-story townhouse in London . “Someone would feel comfortable in a space like this after stepping off a G5 from Los Angeles.” (more…)
Writer Georgina Adams takes another look at the thriving auction market in The Financial Times this week, and questions just how long the currently astronomical prices at auction for contemporary works can sustain themselves. Adams, the author of Big Bucks – The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century, offers a cohesive study of the current state of the market, from the art fair explosion to the influence of powerful new international economies, not to mention the role of the new independent curator. “Their influence on what is good art today has to an extent replaced the artistic agenda once set by museums and art critics,” she writes.
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A Delaware judge has rejected Daniel Loeb’s lawsuit seeking to overturn Sotheby’s shareholder rights plan, which had prevented activist investors from owning more than 10% of the company. “I find that the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that they have a reasonable probability of success on the merits of their claims,” Judge Donald Parsons wrote in his decision. “Therefore, I deny the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction.” (more…)
Sotheby’s saw impressive results this weekend at its Modern and Contemporary Asian Art auction in Hong Kong, with total sales topping $86 million. World Record prices were achieved for 8 artists up for bidding that night, including a $12.1 price tag for Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline: Big Family No. 3. (more…)
Rankin, A. Galerie, Paris, all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed
Launched in 1998, the Art Paris fair has charted a course of its own through the increasingly glutted calendar of sales events internationally, sitting squarely between the behemoth proceedings of New York’s Armory Show and the bustle of Hong Kong’s recent Art Basel edition. This past weekend saw the 2014 edition of the Art Paris Art Fair come and go, as 140 galleries set up shop in the Grand Palais for several days of strong sales, and an impressive attendance count of 58,387, up 10% from last year. (more…)
Considering a recent figure counting a total of 278 art fairs happening each year around the world, the New York Times looks at the successes of Arco in Madrid this past weekend, and the fair’s increasingly global focus in attempt to sidestep a struggling Spanish economy. “We sell mostly to museums and foundations at Arco,” said Galeria Vermelho director Marina Buendia. “We’ve been at Arco for six years and things are getting better.” (more…)
