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Category: contemporary art
Peter Brant's pricey "Puppy" maintenance and alimony
Connecticut Post / November 3rd, 2009
"Puppy," a supersized sculpture by Jeff Koons, adorns the 53-acre Greenwich, Conn., estate of the Magazine Antiques owner Peter Brant. He pays maintenance of the sculpture of between $75,000 and $100,000 a year. Such are the sordid details emerging from the divorce case of Brant and his wife, ...
Failed Bank Provenance Boosts Auction: Lehman Bros. collection sells out
Wall Street Journal / November 2nd, 2009
Call it the Lehman premium: The first in a series of auctions at Freeman's, expected to bring in around $750,000, brought in a surprising $1.34 million, with all 238 lots of modern and contemporary art finding buyers. The star of the failed bank's art assets was a late-period Roy Lichtenstein ...
No Money Back Guarantee: Beijing woman loses suit against art dealer
Law.com / October 27th, 2009
A woman who worked in art galleries in Beijing and relied on an art dealer's valuation of a painting by contemporary artist Julian Schnabel cannot recoup the $290,000 she paid for the work, a Manhattan judge has ruled. Najung Seung claimed she was misled by art dealer Mary Dinaburg into believing ...
"Looking East": Exhibit of young Chinese artists touches on cultural discord
Kansas City Star / October 22nd, 2009
Kansas City art dealer Byron Cohen sold more than $1 million worth of contemporary Chinese art at last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach art fair. Now, his gallery's “Looking East,” an exhibit of seven artists from China, includes works that address discord in contemporary Chinese culture. In three ...
Lawyers Not Amused: Shepard Fairey changes story on Obama poster source
Unbeige / October 20th, 2009
Just when we thought we had a firm grasp on Shepard Fairey's legal wrangling with the Associated Press comes a new and confusing development: Fairey has changed his tune on what photo he used as the source material for the iconic HOPE poster that is at the center of the legal dispute, which ...
Frieze is Over: Art collectors step up, but demand discounts at London fairs
Bloomberg / October 19th, 2009
London’s contemporary art and design fairs closed Sunday with many dealers upbeat after achieving more sales than last year, even though buyers were taking their time and pressing for discounts. Among the browsers was Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. While collectors passed on a $9 million ...
David Hockney in New York: The celebrated artist exhibits his English works
New York Times / October 19th, 2009
In 2005 David Hockney left Hollywood, where he had lived full time since 1978, to transform the manicured slopes, woods and farmland of the East Yorkshire landscape into spare, quickly worked compositions charged with pink, orange and violet. In the next two weeks 28 of these paintings will go on ...
"No Love Lost": Damien Hirst's return to painting
AP / October 13th, 2009
Damien Hirst has made a fortune and become an art-world brand by peering at life's dark side. Rows of skulls stare sightless from deep blue backgrounds in a new exhibition by the man who turned pickled sharks and rotting cows' heads into multimillion-dollar works of art. The most striking thing ...
Koons on Koons: For sale at Frankfurt Book Fair
New York Observer / October 13th, 2009
Uber-popular artist Jeff Koons and the British curator Norman Rosenthal are working on a book together that the Wylie Agency is currently shopping to publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The book will be called The Confessions of Jeff Koons, and will take the form of an extended conversation ...
Market Expansion: Hirst's butterflies soar again in Asia
AFP / October 7th, 2009
HONG KONG — A monumental work by British artist Damien Hirst fetched more than 17.22 million Hong Kong dollars (2.21 million US) in an auction held on Wednesday, making it his most expensive art piece sold in Asia. "The Importance of Elsewhere -- The Kingdom of Heaven" broke the record set by ...
Sophisticated, Historical: What the Obamas like
Guardian / October 7th, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Obamas are decorating their private spaces with more modern and abstract artwork than has ever hung on the White House walls. Pieces by contemporary African-American and Native American artists are on display. Historical works by George Catlin and artifacts such as a ...
Building a Taste for Contemporary: Seoul auctioneer aims to corner art market in Asia
Reuters / October 1st, 2009
SEOUL - South Korean auction house Seoul Auction is hoping to interest Chinese and other Asian collectors in modern Western and contemporary art, with the lofty aim of beating Sotheby's and Christie's in the region. The 11-year-old auction house, which earlier this year sold British artist Damien ...
The 'Lost Ed Ruscha' and other Tales: Remembering Henry Hopkins
LA Times / September 30th, 2009
When he was director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Henry T. Hopkins gave the green light to the first major retrospective of Ed Ruscha's paintings. The show was instrumental in securing Ruscha's reputation as a critically important artist -- both for Los Angeles, where he began to ...
Scarlet Splatters: Museum mess made by Anish Kapoor on view
Bloomberg / September 29th, 2009
LONDON - Anish Kapoor is certainly making a mess of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Every 20 minutes, a cannon goes off in one gallery and shoots a projectile of red wax into a second space. What’s more, this brilliantly colored detritus looks beautiful. The Turner exhibition at Tate Britain ...
Sharing Andy's Art: Michelle Obama visits Warhol Museum with G20 spouses
Journal-Sentinel / September 28th, 2009
PITTSBURGH - While their husbands were off attempting to address the world's problems, Michelle Obama and the G20 spouses lunched at the 7-story Andy Warhol Museum. The museum holds the largest collection of work by Warhol, a Pittsburgh native. Some of the spouses donned aprons and tried Warhol's ...
New Video: Artists recall birth pains of contemporary Chinese art
Reuters / September 28th, 2009
HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Just over 30 years ago, not long after the death of Mao Zedong, a group of young Chinese artists staged an exhibition that pushed back on a decade of tyranny and helped pave the way for Chinese art's global rise. Artwork was hung outside Beijing's National Art Gallery ...
Sellers Hold-Out: Contemporary art auction values dip 81%, volumes low
Bloomberg / September 27th, 2009
LONDON - The estimated value of London’s October contemporary-art auctions is down 81 percent from 2008 as prices and lots on offer decline amid the financial crisis. Sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s International and Phillips de Pury of “Part I” works during the week of the Frieze Art Fair are ...
Donald Fisher Dead: Gap co-founder, art collector, dies at 81
Huffington Post / September 27th, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO - Donald Fisher, 81, passed away at his San Francisco home on Sunday, Sept. 27. The Fishers' personal art collection is renowned and includes some of the 20th century's most well-known artists, including Richard Diebenkorn, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning. The ...
Today at Bloomsbury Auctions: Quirky, intruiging celebrity self-portraiture for sale
Artinfo / September 23rd, 2009
NEW YORK—A self-portrait collection assembled without spending a single dollar will be sold off at Bloomsbury Auctions on Sept. 24. The house estimates that the sale — which includes pieces by artists Jamie Wyeth, David Hockney, and Robert Motherwell as well as names like Maya Angelou, Muhammed ...
Art Moscow Opens: Russian art fair hopes billionaires will be back buying
Bloomberg / September 22nd, 2009
Russia’s biggest contemporary-art fair opens tonight, trying to lure billionaire collectors after a year in which they reduced purchases as their wealth declined. Art Moscow, showing works from 40 Russian and international galleries, was postponed from May by its organizer, Expo Park Exhibition ...