Archive for the 'London' Category
Friday, January 9th, 2009
Uncertainty as London Art Fair Approaches
Nick Walker’s new print, The Empire State, will be released by Black Rat Press
at The London Art Fair.
The London Art Fair opens its doors next week, on January 13th. Many will be keeping a close eye on the second most substantial British venue for art sales (the younger Frieze Fair holds the top position). With the recent slowdown in attendance and sales figures at both Art Basel Miami last month and at the Freize Art Fair this past October, the outlook remains questionable for the first major fair of the new year.
One interesting addition to this year’s convention comes from Black Rat Press, a London print shop and gallery dealing exclusively in urban street art, including some names to have risen to astronomical heights in a very short amount of time. In an interview with Bloomberg, Black Rat director, Mike Snelle, anticipated selling out a new print by Nick Walker (edition of 175 and priced at 475 pounds) within the fair’s first hour.
By this time next week we should know if Snelle’s prediction will hold true, and if the rest of the exhibitors at The London Art Fair will be as lucky.
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
London::Herakut’s Dirty Laundry Aired
Courtesy of our man on the scene, Romanywg aka Jeremy Gibbs, we bring you a look into the highly anticipated Herakut exhibition. Official opening is this week.
28th Nov through to 7th Dec 2008
Preview 27th Nov 6.30pm – 9.30pm (RSVP info@campbarbossa.com)
22 Wellington Street
Opera Quarter
Covent Garden
WC2E 7DD
Monday, November 17th, 2008
London::The Destruction of Atlantis
On View now at London’s Union Gallery is The Destruction of Atlantis, a group show curated by Jesper Elg, of V1 Gallery, Copenhagen. The group show features several V1 artists who use the legend of Atlantis as an analogy for erossion of modern society, and includes Steve Powers (ESPO), Todd James (REAS), Andrew Schoultz, Alex Lukas, Richard Colman, Peter Funch, and others. More pics after the jump
The Destruction of Atlantis w/ Ulrik Crone, Michelle Blade, Wes Lang, Julian Röder, Steve Powers, Todd James, Troels Carlsen, Andrew Schoultz, Jakob Boeskov, Kasper Sonne, HuskMitNavn, Matthew Stone, Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, Alex Lukas, Peter Funch, Jes Brinch and Richard Colman
Oct 1 – Nov. 29
Union Gallery
57 Ewer Street
London SE1 0NR
info@union-gallery.com
Monday, November 10th, 2008
Herakut at Campbarbossa
Campbarbossa is presenting a commission-only show for the European duo, Herakut, in London:
New Works by Herakut
28th Nov through to 7th Dec 2008
Preview 27th Nov 6.30pm – 9.30pm (RSVP info@campbarbossa.com)
22 Wellington Street
Covent Garden
WC2E 7DD
For the uninitiated, Herakut are unlikely collaborative German artists extraordinaire, the cunning confluence of aliases Hera and Akut and the finest artistic alliance of Frankfurt and Efurt the modern art world has to offer. It’s not like we’ve actually researched this part but if there’s a finer alliance we’d like to know. All the works on display are new, pre-commissioned pieces. So this is simply an opportunity to come along, hang out, have a fine time, admire Herakut’s increasingly bold, unique body of work—the strangely beautiful union of Akut’s photorealist spray paint and Hera’s distinctively scratchy, sexualised, everyday world.
Thursday, October 30th, 2008
Market Watch::The London Barometer
Many collectors and investors have been keeping a close eye on London’s recent contemporary auctions, as a sign of how badly the market has been impacted by the ongoing global financial crisis. The Art Market Monitor has published an informative analysis, which indicates a few significant trends. Overall, net proceeds from contemporary auctions of the past year have experienced a significant decline, yet when compared alongside results from 2005 – 2008, the average price for works sold at auction has steadily risen. Lastly, the number of lots sold has continually fallen over the course of the past two years, with a more dramatic decline seen in recent months, between the July and most recent October auctions. Read on for more analysis. Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Say Goodbye to Banksy
London’s Westminster City Council has ordered Banksy’s “One Nation Under CCTV” mural to be removed from the wall it has resided on since appearing last April. The vote was justified by Deputy Council Leader, Robert Davis, who said, “we are not saying the owners need to paint over this mural as we can see it has value in the right location, such as an art gallery…We simply want it removed from this wall and the owner is perfectly entitled to remove it and sell it if they wish.” He went on to add “I take the view that this is graffiti and if you condone this then what is the difference between this and all the other graffiti you see scrawled across the city?…If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London.”
With any luck, the 23 foot high piece will get painted over, and not excavated and auctioned. Let’s hope Mr. Banksy takes care of it himself….
Source: The Independent / Images: Mail on Sunday
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
London::Jose Parla at Elms Lesters
Brooklyn based artist Jose Parla’s first London solo show, Adaption / Translation, opens this Friday, Oct. 10th, at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms. To accompany the exhibit, the gallery has published a catalog. Parla will be signing copies Saturday, Oct. 11, from 11am-1pm. Here’s a nice bit excerpted from the press release:
“Jose Parla creates a visual narrative of his experiences in different cities. Through the multilayered, psycho-graphical, calligraphic nature of his work he embeds these stories in his paintings and invites the viewer to discover his visions of the environment. Parla is therefor not just a painter, but a new kind of novelist; a modern storyteller who uses wall gestures, the writing on the wall, and found advertising to reconstruct complex stories and anatomies”
Jose Parla – Adaption / Translation
Oct. 10 – Nov. 8
Book Signing: Oct. 11, 11am – 1pm
Elms Lesters Painting Rooms
1-3-5 Flitcroft St.
London WC2H 8DH
info@elmslesters.co.uk
Monday, September 29th, 2008
D*Face – London Show
Black Rat Press is sponsoring Apopcalypse Now, a new solo show by D*Face, opening this Thursday, Oct. 2 in London. Print out the invite above or here for opening night entry.
D*Face – Apopcalypse Now
Opens 0ct. 2, 6-9pm
89a Rivington Street
London, EC2A 3AY
info@blackratpress.com
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
It’s Hirstory
Image: Steve Forrest for The New York Times
Excuse the questionable title…Following months of equal parts anticipation and speculation, the results are in on Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, Damien Hirst’s unprecedented auction at Sotheby’s, London. While many forewarned weak results, others hoped the market could somehow insulate itself from a deepening recession and the past week’s global economic crisis.
Recent announcements of the near bankruptcy of financial service provider, Lehman Brothers, the government bailout of AIG, and the impending collapse of mortgage corporations, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac (both are under federal control), have certainly shaken confidence in an already uncertain art market. A Sept. 12th Bloomberg report cited last weeks’ 9% drop in Sotheby’s stock and 40% drop in shares over the past year as a sign of things to come, going as far as quoting one dealer who said, “it’s very simple, Damien Hirst will fail.”
Not all observers were skeptical. According to The New York Sun, art market research company ArtTactic’s poll of 51 market insiders concluded the auction would fare well and close within Sotheby’s published estimates.The report can be viewed in more detail here
When the final hammer dropped on Tuesday afternoon, the 223 lots on the block had grossed a total of $198 million USD (£111.7 million), breaking initial auction house estimates of $116.5 million USD (£65 million), and yielding sales more than 40% higher than anticipated. Some of the biggest successes of the two day sale were Hirst’s spin and butterfly paintings (both of which the artist has announced he will stop producing), and several formaldehyde encased animals, including a tiger shark entitled The Kingdom, which sold for $17,115,756 USD (£9,561,250), shattering its high estimate of $10.885,573 USD (£6 million). However, not all pieces fared as strongly, with some even going unsold or below estimate.
Reporting on the auction’s strong results, The New York Times quoted Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, who stated, “Damien Hirst is a global artist who can defy local economies,” and Hirst’s personal business manager, Frank Dunphy, who said, “I woke up this morning in the teeth of the gale of recession, but we came out as confident as ever.” While Hirst may have defied the odds of a gloomy economic climate and re-solidified his position as a global art juggernaut, time will tell if these astounding results will transfer into a larger resurgence of art buyer confidence.
Read on for detailed results and auction highlights.