ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Art Basel Miami Beach returns with high expectations

Wall Street Journal / November 28th, 2010

Buoyed by confidence stemming from recent strong sales at New York's contemporary art auctions, dealers clamored to exhibit in the current edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. Booth applications rose by 20% over last year. There will be blue-chip 20th-century art offerings, but dealers are also ...

Steve Martin's "An Object of Beauty" debuts Nov. 23

New York Times / November 18th, 2010

Mega art dealer Larry Gagosian and legendary 20th-century artist Maxfield Parrish figure largely in a new novel by actor-writer-musician-comedian Steve Martin. Set to be released on Tues., "An Object of Beauty" is a sketch of the New York art world inspired by Martin's own experience while ...

Autodesk aids sculptors in art-making

ArtfixDaily / November 18th, 2010

Today's sculptors may have an advantage over Michelangelo. CAD technology can provide a hidden tool in the production of art. The result is an art object with no hint of its machine-assisted background. The artist benefits from the ability to make virtual mistakes without wasting precious ...

Houston to host new international art fair in 2011

Houston Chronicle / November 17th, 2010

Organizers of art fairs in the Hamptons, N.Y.; Aspen, Colo.; and San Francisco have selected Houston, Texas, as their next venue. Hamptons Expo Group hopes to draw about 10,000 visitors for the inaugural Houston Fine Art Fair to be held Sept. 15-18 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. ...

Record-breaking Lichtenstein leads $272 million Christie's sale

ArtfixDaily / November 10th, 2010

Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie's Nov. 10 evening sale in New York garnered an impressive total of $272.8 million for 75 lots (5 passed). Pop Art from the 1960s secured the hefty prices realized. The leading lot of the night was Roy Lichtenstein's (1923-1997) comic-style painting ...

Contemporary art totals $222 million at Sotheby's; Louise Bourgeois' Spider among stars

ArtfixDaily / November 9th, 2010

Several intruiging works, not neccessarily the top billed lots, soared above estimates at Sotheby's Nov. 9 evening sale. Contemporary Art brought in a sizable $222.4 million total for a small auction of 55 lots. Five lots went unsold. One surprise performer was a sculpture that questioned the ...

New York auction series may reap record $2 billion

ArtfixDaily / November 1st, 2010

Perhaps emboldened by two over $100 million prices for modern masters in the past year, the upper echelon of the art market is seemingly far removed from the global recession. Impressionist, modern and contemporary art sales scheduled over a two-week period in New York City this November may ...

ArtMiami returns to lead Miami Art Week in Dec.

ArtfixDaily / October 24th, 2010

Art Miami (www.art-miami.com), Miami’s longest running contemporary art fair, will once again electrify the city from December 1 – December 5, 2010. As the anchor art fair to the city of Miami, the fair will return with a compelling array of modern and contemporary artwork from over 100 ...

Property of artist Ben Shahn featured in Rago auction, Nov. 14

ArtfixDaily / October 18th, 2010

Ben Shahn (1898-1969) was one of the most popular artists of the 1940s and 1950s. His graphic brilliance, visual and emotional realism, and social conscience attracted an international audience.   The children of Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda, chose Rago Art and Auction Center, in ...

$5.6 million Hirst, other sales warm up Frieze

ArtfixDaily / October 13th, 2010

London's Frieze Art Fair started off on a high note with a number of swift sales. The VIP preview opening on Oct. 13, featuring $375 million worth of art by contemporary artists, attracted high-profile collectors from hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen to Greece's Dakis Joannou, among others, ...

Early 20th c. decorative arts soar at Rago auction

ArtfixDaily / October 8th, 2010

Rago Arts and Auction Center totalled a strong $5.6 million for 1,380 lots in its 20th c. Design sale, from October 1 to 3. Pieces dating from the early 20th century, including Roycroft furniture and metalwork, which completely sold-out, elicited fierce bidding "at levels not seen since 2007," ...

Adobe debuts virtual museum

ArtfixDaily / October 7th, 2010

Adobe Museum of Digital Media is a new, all-digital museum showcasing digital art and media.  A VIP launch party held in New York at The Standard Hotel on Oct. 6  unveiled the inaugural exhibition "Valley" by American artist Tony Oursler which was guest curated by Bard College’s Tom ...

$80 million contemporary art auction to launch new Phillips de Pury space

ArtfixDaily / September 28th, 2010

Auctioneer Phillips de Pury & Company will open its landmark space at 450 Park Avenue in New York on October 30 with a preview of its new Carte Blanche and Contemporary Art Part I evening sale. The auction on Nov. 8 will feature a blockbuster set of artworks with a low estimate of ...

Steve Martin pens art world novel

ArtfixDaily / September 27th, 2010

Publisher's Weekly interviews comedian/actor/writer/musician Steve Martin about his latest novel, An Object of Beauty. The book centers on the art trade in New York City during the "gold rush" days around the new millenium. It's the end of an era. The main character, an ambitious art dealer ...

Ex-banker's artwork returned to Brazil

ArtfixDaily / September 22nd, 2010

The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York returned two seized paintings to Brazil on Tuesday. Part of a large collection smuggled into the U.S. in 2006, Roy Lichtenstein's "Modern Painting with Yellow Interweave"  and "Figures dans une structure" by Uruguayan artist ...

Chinese art, modernism transform Biennale

ArtfixDaily / September 19th, 2010

Smaller, and with a many more stands focused on 20th century art, the dazzling 25th Paris Biennale on view at the Grand Palais through Sept. 22, has taken a giant leap into a new aesthetic in 2010. The New York Times' Souren Melikian calls this year's show "a watershed in the history of Western ...

Let them eat (Thiebaud) cake: SFMOMA coffee bar offers artful desserts

Huffington Post / September 12th, 2010

If you ever wanted to lick the thick and alluring frosting (brushwork) of a Wayne Thiebaud cake painting, or deconstruct Mondrian's abstractions with a fork, the time has come. The coffee bar within the new rooftop sculpture garden at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is making edible ...

Photographer Massimo Vitali exposes people at play

ArtfixDaily / September 1st, 2010

Massimo Vitali's unique views of the rites and rituals of modern-day leisure are on display in his third exhibition at M+B in Los Angeles, from September 11 to October 16, 2010. Featuring new work from 2009 and 2010, the exhibition includes eight large-scale color photographs from Austria, ...

Clyde Aspevig wins Maynard Dixon Country Artist Choice Award

ArtfixDaily / August 30th, 2010

Each August the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts hosts the Maynard Dixon Country, an art show, gathering and sale of work by thirty-forty of America's premier artists. This year's Maynard Dixon Country Artist Choice Award for the best body of work went to Clyde Aspevig (b. 1951). Aspevig ...

Art dealers expose their personal collections

ArtfixDaily / August 25th, 2010

Collectors sometimes suspect that dealers keep the best stuff for themselves. Recently, notable dealers have unabashedly revealed their personal tastes, which at times mirror their gallery's specialities, in exhibitions and as inventory for sale. This fall New York dealer Larry Gagosian will be ...