the art collectors

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Christie’s London Post-War and Contemporary Art Auctions

Overall, Christie’s fared well during their latest round of Post-War and Contemporary Art Auctions. With a combined sale of $69,346,950, both evening and day auctions sold within their projected estimates. 158 (63%) of the  249 lots offered sold within or above their estimated range. 49 lots (19.7%) sold below low estimates, and 42 (16.9%) were unsold/withdrawn. While these results fare better than last year’s combined result of $14,486,820 – $12,980,727 (47%) below the low estimate of $27,467,547, the 2009 sales consisted of only 123 total lots.

Read on for our full analysis – Click Lot Numbers for Images and Details Read the rest of this entry »

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Brainwashing Machine: Icons Opens in NY

(All Images © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

“I see this in music all the time,” remarked a close friend upon entering the private preview of Mr. Brainwash’s 15,00 square foot spectacle in New York’s trendy Meat Packing District.  No, he wasn’t referring to the portraits of musicians constructed from record shards, comprising nearly half of the duplex warehouse space rented out by Opera Gallery (surprise, surprise).  Rather, with Icons there is another broken record to behold, and it is stuck in the glossy groove of glitz, irreverent showmanship, and cheap thrills of the now-defunct art bubble.

The manufacture of an art star is what is really on display here. And, like the Monkeys or the Sex Pistols, such artifice isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately what we are served is more the stuff of Simon Cowell than it is Malcom McLaren, leaving very little to remember, aside from the high-heeled socialites who were snatching these “works” up.

(All Images © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)

Mr. Brainwash – Icons
Opening Reception: Feb 14, 3pm
415 W. 13th Street
NY, NY 10014

Read on for more images Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Interview Mag sits down with Whitney Biennial Curators

With the 75th Whitney Biennial two weeks from opening, Interview Magazine has published an insightful conversation between the exhibit’s co-curator, Francesco Bonami (who also curated the 2003 Venice Biennale) and New Museum director,  Lisa Phillips, who has curated six Whitney Biennials herself. As the magazine notes, most of the questions Phillips asks Bonami are the very same ones he had posed to her in 1997 for Flash Art, when she last curated the event.

Accompanying the interview is a fashion photo spread of several contributing artists in their studios, including Tauba Auerbach, Aki Sasamoto, Sosephine Meckseper, George Condo, and others.

LISA PHILLIPS: The 75th anniversary of the Whitney Biennial is quite a milestone. So what was your starting point in making selections for this exhibition?

FRANCESCO BONAMI: When I was asked [to curate the Biennial], they also asked who I wanted to work with, and I chose to work with this young curator, Gary Carrion-Murayari. I started as the head curator—I wanted to make it clear that I was the head, and he was the associate curator. To be safe, I wanted to have refusal and limits. But then the combination worked so well that we actually co-curated the Biennial together. I mean, it was a process of working together—not one where there was a head or a tail curator. But the starting point maybe was the museum itself, the building, and then the collection, because for the first time we are going to use the collection as part of the Biennial. The fifth floor will be devoted to a rehanging of the collection with artists who have been in the Biennial before, and with work that was acquired from past Biennials. So it will show that the Biennial is a kind of bridge toward something else and not just something that is outrageous at the moment that it appears. Edward Hopper was in many Biennials—he was in one in 1963. At the time, Hopper looked conservative compared with what was going on in 1963.

Continue on to the full interview here

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

MOCA Cleveland Hosts Major Survey of Contemporary African American Art

Romare Bearden, Conjur Woman, (Image: © Romare Bearden / R.T. Miller Jr. Fund, 2001 Collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum)

In a critical event, MOCA Cleveland is currently playing host to the first ever public survey of contemporary African American art in the Ohio region. From Then to Now : Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art, features 27 artists, sourced from important regional collections – The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, the Akron Art Museum, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Progressive Corporation, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Kara Walker, Untitled, 1998, (Image © Kara Walker / Collection of the Progressive Corporation)

Beginning with works from pioneering figures of the 1970s and 80s, such as Romare Bearden and Alma Thomas, From Then to Now continues to the present, with prime examples of works by artists including Lenardo Drew, Alison Saar, Willie Cole, David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, René Green, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley.  TAC applauds MOCA Cleveland and curator Margo Ann Crutchfiel for presenting this unprecedented exhibition.

Kehinde Wiley, Passing/Posing, (Image: Collection of the Progressive Corporation, Mayfield Village, OH.)

From Then to Now : Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art
Jan 29 – May 9, 2010
MOCA Cleveland
8501 Carnegie Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Paul McCarthy’s Pig Island

Out now, is Paul McCarthy’s Pig Island, a 164-page project released with ArtReview magazine. The publication, which documents the past five years of the prolific artist’s work, is being sent to all print subscribers and is also available for purchase online and at newsstands accompanying the magazine’s January/February issue. The issue also features a profile on McCarthey and is available in a fantastic and free digital format (as well as back issues to 2006) here.

Check the videos below and watch McCarthy video works on the invaluable UbuWeb

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Hilter Takes on Deitch

By now, most of us have grown accustomed to the ever expanding list of Hilter parodies appearing on YouTube. Taking on everything from Obama health care to Kanye and Conan, the former führer has vented his ever growing contempt for all things pop culture. There’s even Hitler getting angry over his own parody videos. Now, “Mein Curaror” breaks into rage after learning that Jeffrey Deitch will take over as the new director of LA MoCA.  With Hitler denouncing “that fucking Eli Broad, dandy suits and cheesy glasses, Barry McGee’s bid sad heads, Vanessa Beecroft’s tit parade” and  “little Shepard Fairey’s ripoff propaganda,” this one is a real gem.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Dual European Exhibits for Lawrence Weiner

(All Images © EACC)

With his early influence in the Conceptual Art movement, and with the written word having established a popular presence in Contemporary Art (Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holtzer and Tracy Emin to name a few), Lawrence Weiner’s continuing contributions are as vital today as they have ever been.

Open now through March 28, 2010, are two European exhibitions by Weiner. BAK (Utrecht, Netherlands) presents Dicht Bij, a solo exhibit that continues FORMER WEST, the institution’s long-term research and educational initiative commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by exploring the impacts the event has had on the arts in the Western half of Germany. An edition, produced in a limited number of 300, is on sale at BAK for €8.

Simultaneously, the Castellón Center for Contemporary Art is hosting Weiner’s Under the Sun, comprised of a new exhibit and permanent public sculpture in the city’s El Pinar park.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Keep the Fire Burning: SFMOCA to House Fisher Collection for Next Century

Gerhard Richter, Two Candles, 1982. (Image © Doris and Donald Fisher Collection/Gerhard Richter, courtesy SFMOMA via Chez Namastenancy)

This past September SFMOMA announced it had reached an initial agreement to house the collection of GAP founders, Doris and Donald Fisher (Mr. Fisher past away days after the announcement). While early reports speculated a 25 year arangement, exact terms were not revealed until late last week.

Eclipsing initial estimates, SFMOMA will become the official home of the Fisher collection for the next  100 years. The museum also announced that an additional $250 million in endowment funds have been raised (largely a result of donations from the Fisher family, trustees and museum chairman, Charles Schwab), and that a new wing would be built to house the 1,100+ piece collection which currently resides in GAP corporate headquarters.

Donald Fisher at Gap headquarters (Image: Mike Kane/The San Francisco Chronicle)

The century long partnership will kick off June 25, when the museum opens Calder to Warhol: Introducing the Fisher Collection. The exhibit, part of SFMOMA’s ongoing 75th anniversary celebration, is slated to feature some 160 pieces from the Fisher’s astounding contemporary art collection, including works by Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, Philip Guston, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, and Brice Marden to name a few.

David Hockney – Interior With Sun and Dog. (Image © David Hockney/Doris And Donald Fisher Collection, via SFGate)

Brice Marden – The Sisters, 1991-93. (Image © Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society/Doris & Donald Fisher Collection, via MuseumViews)

More at the Wall Street Journal, SF Gate and LA Times

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Has Market Confidence Rebounded?

A new quarterly report from ArtTactic announces that the researchfirm’s Confidence Indicator for US and European contemporary art markets has significantly rebounded since reaching a low point in November 2008. The Indicator now stands 4% higher than the autumn 2007 reading, shortly after the first signs ofthe credit crisis emerged. However, while short term analysis seems hopeful, sustainability remains uncertain.  47% of industry professionals surveyed believe the market has already rebounded, or is likely to do so within a year. On a positive note for collectors, speculation risk remains subdued, with no signals that speculators are returning to the market.

The full report may be purchased from the ArtTactic website.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Tomokazu Matsuyama at Frey Norris, San Francisco

(All Images via Frey Norris Gallery)

Around the turn of the century 20th century, the U.S. embarked down a road of increasingly restrictive immigration policies, including the Chinese Exclusion (1882) and Emergency Quota Acts (1921, 1924). Such foreign policy effectively stifled the influx of immigrants, while appeasing growing nativist concerns. Included here was the Gentleman’s Agreement (1907), a mutual arrangement whereby the U.S. would not extend such restrictions to Japan, as long as the island empire agreed to cut off all further emigration to the U.S.  And while the goal was partly to cool relations between the two nations, competing imperialistic hungers eventually reignited tensions that sparked the Pacific front of the Second World War. By 1942 FDR had signed Executive Order 9066, forcibly relocating over 100,000 Japanese-Americans to internment camps. It was only in 1988 that the federal government acknowledged the prejudice of its past policy, paying over $1.5 billion in reparations.

With In Case You’re Lost, Tomokazu Matsuyama not only works towards reconciling the cultural tensions of his own Japanese-American identity, but addresses larger issues of nationalism and global relations. Here is a complex mix of autobiographical and socio-political commentary.

Surrounded by new paintings are the show’s centerpieces – two large-scale sculptures that contemplate notions of cultural heritage and nationalism, flip-flopping symbols of American and Asian identity. Wherever I Am, a life-size reworking of Frederick Remington’s Bronco Buster, recasts the famed late 19th century American sculpture with a Japanese-pop sensibility, replacing the iconic cowboy rider with a Playmobil character. Chogen, based off the original 13th century Japanese treasure,  substitutes the praying monk’s prayer beads for beer cans and cigarette butts, and his original meditative state, for a glazed-over drunken one.

Speaking of the new sculpture, Matsu notes, “I wanted to keep that rigourous, very expressionistic feature but flip to an American context, so what I did was I made him an alchoholic – like a drunk man in a sports bar…From a distance, he looks somewhat fanatic like its original. Close up, you’ll see his eye focus is gone and he’s just drunk. The eyes are actual glass eyes, made of gold leaf inside with the addition of my painting color scheme of neon pink and dark brown. The sculpture looks aged and few centuries old but the material used to paint it looks like 70s auto paint…[colliding] aged with the contemporary art material.”

Tomokazu Matsuyama – In Case You’re Lost
Frey Norris Gallery
456 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94102