Sotheby’s has announced a partnership with Drake, welcoming the rapper to partner with the auction house during an exhibition and private sale of works by black artists in the coming months. The artist will select music to play during the exhibition, part of Sotheby’s increased focus on private sales. (more…)
Following up on the claims for serious market contention made by new chief Edward Dolman, Phillips has landed a major private collection for sale in the coming months, valued at nearly $35 million. The works, which include a Brice Marden estimated at $8 million to $12 million, and a Ed Ruscha valued at $2 to $3 million, will be sold at the auction house’s Contemporary Evening sale in May, with some others being reserved for a special photography sale. “They were interested in art of their time,” says advisor Allan Schwartzman, who helped build the collection. “There is a lot of abstract work and work where the imaging is involved with the natural world.” (more…)
The art collection of late film executive Samuel Goldwyn will go to auction at Sotheby’s in the next few months, spread across nine sales in New York (including May’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale) and estimated at a total value of $25 million to $30 million. “To me, these film pioneers and these artists had the same spirit and energy,” says Sotheby’s Simon Shaw. “The art had to be bold, I suppose, to hold its own in that house.” (more…)
The New York Post details the intrigue and deception surrounding dealer Yves Bouvier’s arrest this past month in Monaco. Bouvier recently sold an Amedeo Modigliani, Nude on a Blue Cushion, for hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen to Dmitry Rybolovlev, allegedly charging the Russian $118 million when Cohen had only received $93.5 million from the sale, sparking an investigation that ultimately led to his arrest. (more…)
MoMA has acquired the iconic Jasper Johns’s work Painted Bronze, a work that has sat in the Philadelphia Museum of Art for three decades, and which was purchased recently by collectors Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis. Kravis, who serves as MoMA’s Board President, gifted the work shortly after purchase directly from the artist’s personal collection. “It’s not easy to convince someone who’s kept something for himself for more than 50 years,” says dealer Matthew Marks. “It’s a big deal for him, emotionally. And one can imagine all the people over all the years who have asked, all the institutions, all the collectors who have been told no, since I was a kid.”
Prominent German dealer Helge Achenbach has been sentenced to 6 years behind bars for his role in 20 counts of art fraud, allegedly overcharging clients on a number of sales. The dealer also currently owes over €20 million to the Albrecht family in damages, but is unlikely to pay after his companies insolvency. (more…)
Ebay has launched a new section of its website this week, making good on its long-hinted-at art sales collaboration between the auction giant and Sotheby’s. The site will stream all sales from the auction house save its major biannual sales. Early highlights include an offering modern and contemporary photographs by Man Ray, Paul Strand and László Moholy-Nagy on April 1st. (more…)
Daniel Arsham at Galerie Perrotin, via Art Basel
Following a hectic weekend of events and openings, today caps the final day of Art Basel Hong Kong, bringing strong sales and attendance at the sixth edition of the massive Asian market event. (more…)
Aaron Curry, Vertical Wood Sculpture (2013), via Almine Rech
Just one week after The Armory Show closed its doors in New York, the sixth edition of Art Basel Hong Kong is preparing to open halfway around the world, with many familiar names vying to court collectors from Asia, Oceania and abroad. The fair, which shuffled its calendar this year in response to the Venice Biennale opening in early May, is presenting something of a scaled-back experience this year, running just three days from Sunday to Tuesday, but should nevertheless prove successful as one of Asia’s largest art fairs. (more…)
A Mark Rothko painting from 1958 will lead Christie’s Contemporary and Post-War Auction in New York this coming May, the New York Times reports. Estimated at $30 to $50 million, competition is expected to be fierce, and initial indications hint that the work may near the artist’s $87 Million record. “There’s a perception that these kinds of paintings come and they come regularly, but in reality they’re becoming more and more rare,” says Christie’s Contemporary and Post-War Chairman Brett Gorvy. “The year 1958 was probably Rothko’s all-time high as a recognized artist.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal notes a growing trend towards participation in art funds, where a group of investors pool money to buy art, and split the profits from the work’s sale years later. This method of investing dates back to 1904, when Paris-based financier André Level pooled a group of investors to buy a selection of classic works by Picasso, Matisse and others, selling them several years later at a major mark-up. (more…)
Constantin Brancusi, via Art Observed
Set up across town, fittingly enough, in the Park Avenue Armory, the ADAA Art Show offers a yearly counterpoint to the bright lights and dizzying stream of booths that occasionally plagues its cross-town sister on Piers and 94, incorporating a more carefully curated emphasis into the art fair booth format, and encouraging a certain degree of adventurousness among the attendant galleries. (more…)
Mark Flood at Peres Projects, via Art Observed
Taking up the full 4 floors of Center 548 in Chelsea, the Independent NY fair returns for another year of its annual exhibition offering a slightly smaller, more cohesive take on the fair experience. (more…)
The Armory Show 2015, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
The doors are open and the 2015 edition of The Armory Show in New York is underway, kicking off the first major fair week in NY this spring. Collectors and artists wound throughout the booths, perusing the works on sale and chatting with dealers. Director George Lucas could be seen examining several works, as was Maurizio Cattelan, both of whom seem to be enjoying their respective retirements. (more…)
The Armory Show, via The Armory Show
The first week of March signals another year for Armory Week in New York City, as locations around the city prepare for the annual influx of galleries, artists and collectors that mark the first major art fair events in New York City for 2015. Building on the Armory Show’s increasingly popular public stature, week offers a wide range of events for both collectors and visitors alike. (more…)
Marina Abramovic is in Bloomberg this week, reviewing her current market value, and the difficulties in selling her works despite her immense recognition as an artist. “There is this contradiction,” says Abramovic. “I’m very high on every art list or whatever, but as for market value, I’m less than any mediocre, how do you call it, young art.” (more…)
The annual figures by Artprice have placed 2014 as another record year in the art market, with $15.2 billion in works sold at auction in the past year, including a record 1,679 sales worth $1 million or more. “More museums were created between 2000 and 2005 than during the entire 19th and 20th centuries,” says Wang Jie, president of Artprice.com and Artron group. “A museum needs a minimum of 3,000 to 4,000 quality works to be credible… (and) is not meant to get rid of its acquisitions.” (more…)
The Art Market Monitor has published the letter from investor Mike McGuire of Marcato Capital to Sotheby’s, in which he lays out a plan for a stock dividend and increased returns. “Despite our dialogue with you and other members of the board, a substantial portion of Sotheby’s invested capital continues to earn a poor return or worse yet, earns noreturn at all,” he writes. (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…)
An article in Bloomberg this week looks at booms and busts in the art market as tastes change, and the real impacts speculation and economic strength has on artists’ careers. “There’s even more speculative buying and more gamblers than ever,” says collector and dealer Adam Lindemann. “But they’re not going to want to buy the artists that busted. They’re going to want to buy the deals today. They want to move on.” (more…)
Mark Bradford, Biting the Book (2013), via Phillips
Following a pair of major auctions the previous evenings, the Phillips Contemporary and Evening Sale in London has concluded the first Contemporary market week of the year, capping a 30-lot sale at the auction house’s new 30 Berkeley Square to the final result of £17.7 million, with only five of the works going unsold.
Francis Bacon, Study for a Head (1955), via Christie’s
Another night of sales has come and gone in London, following the conclusion of Christie’s Contemporary Evening Sale, a somewhat textbook outing that saw the auction house forego a reliance on high-achieving works in favor of a series of strong selling works to reach a final tally of £117,142,500. (more…)
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (1983), via Sotheby’s
The Contemporary Evening sale at Sotheby’s has concluded, following a sale of works that was fairly by the book in comparison with past auctions, with the exception of a massive new auction record for artist Gerhard Richter just one day after his 83rd birthday. Despite a lack of exceptionally competitive bidding, the 77-lot sale still brought in impressive returns, finishing at a tally of £123,515,250. (more…)