ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Record price set for Chinese contemporary art

Bloomberg / April 3rd, 2011

A triptych painted by Zhang Xiaogang fetched HK$79 million with fees, an auction record for a contemporary Chinese artist, at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. This early work by Zhang, "Forever Lasting Love," more than doubled its estimate. The April 2 sale, part of 3,600-lot series, netted HK$427.2 ...

Sales surge at TEFAF Maastricht

Guardian / March 22nd, 2011

This week's rarefied bazaar of art and antiquities at TEFAF in Maastricht is truly an international affair that has proven the upper-end of the market remains strong in many categories, from antiquities to contemporary art.  Early on, a group of Chinese buyers snapped up Japanese art from ...

DeCordova Museum goes for the Goldsworthy

Boston.com / March 15th, 2011

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Mass., is looking to raise $1 million, specifically to commission a work by British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. In an effort to upgrade the collection of its 35-acre sculpture park, the museum wants to acquire the work of this well-known ...

Art Summit at ADAA Art Show

artnet / March 6th, 2011

“Transparency in the Art Market” was the panel topic in The Art Newspaper's "Art Industry Summit,” held March 3 at the Park Avenue Armory in conjunction with the Art Dealer’s Association of America (ADAA) Art Show, Mar. 2-6, 2011. An auction house rep and two dealers sparred over art market ...

WSJ's Guide to the Armory Show

Wall Street Journal / March 3rd, 2011

Each year the Armory Show attracts 60,000 visitors to both ogle and buy modern masters and contemporary art. Combined with other art shows across Manhattan, the Armory week should generate more than $40 million in economic activity in the city, according to Mayor Bloomberg's office. The Wall ...

Warhol, Richter pop to the top in London sales

Mutual Art / February 17th, 2011

A recently rediscovered 6-by-6 foot Andy Warhol self-portrait doubled its pre-sale estimate to fetch £10.8 million pounds ($17.4 million) at a London auction on Wednesday. Christie's evening sale of Post-War and Contemporary art brought in a total £61.4 million ($99 million), well ...

Successful Sotheby's auction unfettered by "Orgy of the Rich" protest

artinfo / February 16th, 2011

A band of activists invaded a contemporary art evening auction at Sotheby's London on February 15. Amidst the action-packed sale that sent 54 of 59 lots to a total $71,051,252 (£44,359,900), far exceeding the $48.7-68.9 million presale estimate, the group of protestors made a disturbance with ...

Google Art Project could be a game-changer

Huffington Post / February 7th, 2011

Introduced last Tuesday, Google's Art Project is a new kind of interactive online showcase that allows users to virtually browse through some of the world's greatest museums using a Google Street View-like interface. From London's Tate to New York's Met, 17 renowned museums can be viewed inside ...

New York Observer's Top 50 Art Collectors

New York Observer / February 3rd, 2011

From stockpiles of Matisses to flocks of duck decoys, early works by Koons to ravishing Rothkos and Renoirs and rooms full of Chippendale and Biedermeier furniture, or even Damien Hirst's infamous shark, New York's leading collectors have amassed a wide array of art and antiques. View the New ...

Verdict still out on virtual VIP Art Fair success

Wall Street Journal / January 25th, 2011

The launch last weekend of the new VIP Art Fair, a week-long and online-only event, drew visitors from 130 countries who viewed artwork on the website more than 3.3 million times. That amount of traffic also slowed the site, frustrating some users, and causing techinical difficulties which ...

New online art fair tests the waters

Wall Street Journal / January 14th, 2011

Next weekend, the VIP Art Fair, an online-only event where collectors can browse through blue-chip modern and contemporary art by the likes of Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois, Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst, will debut as the first-of-its-kind internet art show. About 140 top-tier galleries ...

Shepard Fairey, AP settle over Obama poster

mediabistro / January 13th, 2011

A settlement has been reached between artist Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press over a contested Obama image. The AP had asserted that Fairey infringed on their copyrights by using an AP photograph as the basis for his now iconic poster rendering of Obama. While Fairey believed he was ...

Dennis Hopper's bullet-ridden Warhol nets $302,500

KEYC / January 12th, 2011

An Andy Warhol portrait of Mao Zedong from 1972---which "Easy Rider" star and director Dennis Hopper shot two bullet holes through---went for $302,500, more than ten times the high estimate, at a Christie's auction this week. Warhol later called Hopper a collaborator on the piece. The late ...

Artistic rights to balloon dog up in the air

mediabistro / January 10th, 2011

A small San Francisco store and gallery, Park Life, was served a cease-and-desist letter from Jeff Koons's lawyers for selling a set of bookends that resemble the artist's large, metallic “Balloon Dog” sculptures. The store removed the bookends from its inventory, posting on its blog, "...Jeff ...

Broad museum plans revealed

huffington Post / January 9th, 2011

Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and the Broad Art Foundation unveiled architectural renderings for a new gallery showcasing contemporary art (which will be known as The Broad) planned for Downtown Los Angeles. The site is across from the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Museum of ...

Controversy puts Smithsonian's "Hide/Seek" exhibit in full view

Washington Post / December 29th, 2010

The Smithsonian's Nov. 30 decision to remove an AIDS-related film from its National Portrait Gallery exhibition titled "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" has provoked a month-long fury of controversy and accusations of censorship. After one Washington Post writer called ...

Successful sales, turn-out for 14th Boston International Fine Art Show

Antiques and the Arts / December 15th, 2010

Attendance and sales were strong for the fourteenth edition of the Boston International Fine Art Show, held at Boston's Cyclorama from Nov. 18 to 21, and beginning with a benefit preview party for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Forty international dealers exhibited historic to contemporary art, ...

Museum of Contemporary Art whitewashes antiwar mural

Los Angeles Times / December 13th, 2010

A mural recently commissioned by the the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has been whitewashed. The Italian street artist known as Blu painted an image of military style coffins draped in giant dollar bills for an upcoming exhibition. With a Veterans Affairs building and a war ...

Sales highlights from Miami art fairs

ArtfixDaily / December 6th, 2010

The December art fairs in Miami, along with their accompanying revelries, wound down on Sunday. This year, following the more deflated tone of 2009, a record number of art enthusiasts, collectors and museum representatives attended and they were in a serious, yet cautious spending mood, according ...

Miami art fairs, events set to sizzle

ArtfixDaily / November 30th, 2010

Miami Arts Week is in full swing through Dec. 5. Among the fair highlights, model Kate Moss has curated a collection of fashion photographs (of herself), with prices starting at $75,000, at PULSE; 20th-century Cuban modernists anchor the booth of Cernuda Arte, a new exhibitor at Art Basel Miami ...