| | Sotheby's Establishes Highest Total for Any Sale of Contemporary Art Ever in London
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The Duerckheim Collection, the greatest offering of German Art of the 1960s and 1970s ever to come to market, realised £60,401,650 /$96,666,801 / €67,130,189 – almost doubling the low estimate of £31.8-45.9 million. Photo: Sotheby's.
LONDON.- This evening, Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Evening Sale brought the extraordinary total of £108,803,550 / $174,129,201 /€120,923,897 – in excess of pre-sale expectations (estimate: £74-105 million) and establishing the highest total ever achieved for any sale of Contemporary Art in London. Buyers from 14 countries participated in the auction, which achieved remarkable sell-through rates of 89.8% by lot and 93.9% by value and established five new artist records. Twenty-nine works sold for over £1 million, and 45 lots sold for over $1 million. The Duerckheim Collection - the greatest offering of German Art of the 1960s and 1970s ever to come to market - realised £60,401,650 / $96,666,801 / €67,130,189, almost doubling the low estimate of £31.8-45.9 million, with almost every lot contested by multiple bidders. A further 25 lots from the collection will be offered in tomorrow’s Contemporary ... More |
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Ossuary Belonging to a Daughter of the Caiaphas Family of High Priests Discovered
A worker of the Israel Antiquities Authority shows a 2,000-year-old ossuary in the IAA offices at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, Wednesday, June 29, 2011. Israeli scholars said Wednesday they have confirmed the authenticity of the ancient ossuary bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas of the New Testament. The ossuary bears an inscription with the name "Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri." AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner.
JERUSALEM.- Three years ago the Israel Antiquities Authority Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery acquired a decorated ossuary bearing an engraved inscription. The ossuary was discovered by antiquities robbers who plundered an ancient Jewish tomb of the Second Temple period. During the course of the investigation it was determined that the ossuary came from a burial cave in the area of the Valley of ’Elah, in the Judean Shephelah. To check the authenticity of the artifact and the significance of the engraved inscription, the Israel Antiquities Authority turned to Dr. Boaz Zissu of the ... More | | Mexican Archaeologists Find Probable Prehispanic Maya Cemetery in State of Tabasco
Archaeologist Ricardo Armijo shows one of the whistles found at the site. Photo: DMC INAH. H. MONTANO.
MEXICO CITY.- In the surroundings of Comalcalco Archaeological Zone, Tabasco, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) found 116 burials that are more than 1,000 years old; 66 of them were deposited in funerary urns while the other 50 were placed around them. The finding represents the greatest skeleton sample found in this Maya region, suggesting it could be a Prehispanic Maya cemetery. Funerary deposits were located under 3 soil monticules worn out by agricultural activities. “It is possible that skeletons found in the urns, 66, correspond to members of the Maya elite, while the other 50, placed in different positions around the pots, were their companions”, commented archaeologist Ricardo Armijo, coordinator of archaeological salvage at Comalcalco, Tabasco. Associated with the burials, ceramic whistles and rattles representing animals and splendidly attired men and women; dozens of flint and obsi ... More | | Christie's Announces Sale Dates and Global Tour of The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor
Christie's announced that the tour will begin in September and include stops in Moscow, London, Dubai, Geneva, Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. AP Photo/Christie's.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christie's announced the official dates for a landmark series of public exhibitions and special events leading up to the sale of the collection of Elizabeth Taylor, the celebrated film star, fashion icon, and humanitarian. In tribute to this amazing woman and her legions of fans worldwide, Christie's has arranged for an international, three-month tour of highlights from her expansive collection that starts in September 2011 and includes stops in Moscow, London, Los Angeles, Dubai, Geneva, Paris, and Hong Kong. The tour will culminate in New York in early December with a special ten-day, museum-quality exhibition of Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry, fashion, accessories, decorative arts and memorabilia, followed by four consecutive days of auctions. For this pivotal event, slated for December 3 to ... More |
Federal Researchers Use Sonar Technology to Map Civil War, World War II Shipwrecks
An image of the Civil War ship CSS Florida on the floor of the James River. AP Photo/Brock Vergakis.
By: Brock Vergakis, Associated Press
NORFOLK (AP).- World War II shipwrecks off North Carolina and Civil War shipwrecks in Virginia are being analyzed with sonar technology so sophisticated that the public could one day view near photographic images in detail even better than diving at some of the sites could provide. Federal researchers are using sonars to gather data that will result in vivid, three-dimensional images of the shipwrecks that will likely end up online, in museums and as part of other programs designed to promote American maritime heritage. "Not everybody dives, and so that's why we embrace technologies like this that are cutting edge, cost effective and give you a three-dimensional sense of that ship on the bottom," said James Delgado, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Maritime Heritage Program. "The kinds of imagery — it's almost photographic." Shipwrecks are often ... More | | Sir Terence Conran Makes Major Gift to the Design Museum for New Development Project
Terence Conran. Photo: Neil Wilder, John Parkinson Agency.
LONDON.- The Trustees of the Design Museum announced today a major gift by Sir Terence Conran towards the museum’s new development project. This will help to create the world’s leading museum of contemporary design and architecture in London. Sir Terence Conran’s donation consists of a cash gift of £7.5m and the value of the sale of the lease of the current Design Museum building at Shad Thames valued in the region of £10m. This gift will bring Terence Conran and the Conran Foundation’s support for the museum, and its predecessor, the Boilerhouse over the last 30 years to £50m. Sir Terence Conran, who celebrates his 80th birthday in October this year, met the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Culture Jeremy Hunt at 10 Downing Street today in recognition of his continued support for the Design Museum and this exciting new project. The Design Museum plans to relocate from its current home at Shad Thames to the former Commonwealth Institute building, giv ... More | | Charismatic Art Historian James Fox Explores British Masters for New Series on BBC
Fox explores why, during the 20th century, British painters were often dismissed for being old-fashioned.
LONDON.- In a major re-calibration of 20th-century British paintings, art historian James Fox argues that British painting from 1910 to 1975 was an extraordinary flowering of genius. He predicts that art historians of the future will rank the period alongside the Golden Ages of Renaissance Italy and Impressionist France. Drawing upon the work of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney, among others, Fox explores why, during the 20th century, British painters were often dismissed for being old-fashioned. He reveals how these artists carefully reconciled tradition and modernity, providing a unique creative tension that now makes the period seem so exciting. Over the course of the series, Fox presents his theory that this period of artistic excellence was closely linked to a dramatic shift in Britain's fortunes. He suggests that the demise of the British Empire, as much as the two world wars, defines Britain's unique take on modern art: a dete ... More |
Cy Twombly and Nicolas Poussin: Arcadian Painters at the Dulwich Picture Gallery
Nicolas Poussin, Venus and Mercury (c. 1627/1629) © By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery.
LONDON.- Dulwich Picture Gallery presents a revelatory exhibition of the work of Cy Twombly and Nicolas Poussin. Organised to celebrate the Bicentenary of the Gallery, this major show explores, for the first time, the unexpected yet numerous parallels and affinities between the two artists. The exhibition draws upon the world-class permanent collection of works at Dulwich Picture Gallery by Nicolas Poussin, alongside other works from major collections around the world by both Poussin and Twombly. In 1624 and 1957, the two artists, aged around thirty, moved to Rome. Nicolas Poussin and Cy Twombly subsequently spent the majority of their lives in the Eternal City, and went on to become the pre-eminent painters of their day. Rather than recent exhibitions that have sought to compare and contrast old masters with contemporary artists through superficial visual appearances, this groundbreaking show will instead jux ... More | | Recent Paintings and Sculptures by Takashi Murakami at Gagosian in London
Takashi Murakami presents new works using his distinctive "Superflat" style.© Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Photo: Muir Vidler/Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.
LONDON.- Gagosian Gallery presents recent paintings and sculptures by Takashi Murakami. In his distinctive "Superflat" style, which employs highly refined, traditional Japanese painting techniques and formats to depict a charged mix of historical subject matter, Pop, animé and otaku content within a flattened representational picture-plane, Murakami moves freely within an ever-expanding field of aesthetic issues and cultural inspirations. Parallel to his distinctive toonish formulations of utopian and dystopian themes, he has recollected and revitalized religious and secular narratives of transcendence and enlightenment favoured by non-conformist Japanese artists from the Early Modern era, commonly considered to be counterpart to the Western Romantic tradition. By situating himself within their legacy ... More | | Mother India at Metropolitan Museum Features Depictions of the Goddess in Indian Painting
Y. G. Srimati (Indian, 1927–2007), Kali, New York, 1990. Watercolor, graphite underdrawing, 28 x 20 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Michael Pellettieri, in memory of Y. G. Srimati, 2009 (2009.211) Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
NEW YORK, NY.- Devi, the Indian goddess, is the omnipresent embodiment of power and wisdom given expression in all of India's ancient religions. From the beginnings of figurative representation in early India, she has been the frequent subject of sculpture and a favored subject in later devotional painting. Mother India: The Goddess in Indian Painting, to be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 29 through November 27, 2011, will feature 30 works from the Museum's collection that depict Devi in all her various aspects. Perhaps the most widely worshipped deity in all India, Devi stands alongside Shiva and Vishnu in the first rank of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain pantheons. The exhibition will present enduring images of the feminine in Indian art from the first ... More |
Walter and Brigitte Kames Donate Lithographs by Honoré Daumier to Museum in Munich
Honoré Daumier, Soul en enfant de Choeur [Soul as a choir boy] 1833 Lithograph 306 x 224 mm Delteil 0139 Inv.-Nr. GVS 1414. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München.
MUNICH.- The collectors Walter and Brigitte Kames are handing over their collection containing over 3000 lithographs by Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) to the ‘Collective Foundation of Bavarian State Museums’. The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, which already has some 700 lithographs and woodcuts by the artist, is then likely to preside over more prints by Daumier than any other museum in Germany . The quality of this collection stems not merely from its scope and the good condition of the sheets. What makes this donation so especially valuable is the fact that the lithographs include numerous series in their entirety, whereby Daumier pursued a subject over several sheets. An extensive exhibition of the collection will be held from 1.12.2012 to 24.2.2013 at the ... More | | FLAG Art Foundation Opens Exhibition of Sculpture and Photography by Roni Horn
Roni Horn, Double Mobius, 2009. Fine Gold, 2.5 x 30 x 2” (overall). Photo: Roni Horn Studio © Roni Horn.
NEW YORK, NY.- The FLAG Art Foundation presents two exhibitions: One, Another, a group exhibition curated by Stephanie Roach on the 9th floor and Roni Horn, Double Mobius an exhibition of sculpture and photography by Roni Horn, on the 10th floor. The exhibitions will be on view from June 29 through September 2, 2011. Through painting, sculpture, photography and installation, One, Another explores coupling and interconnectedness in the realms of love, nature and spirituality. Historically one another is an abbreviation of the one the other and in that form was used only for two people. The clauseone another reflects this reciprocal relationship and action between them. The separation of the two words by a comma emphasizes the distinction of a whole and its parts. Emanating from the painting The Lovers completed in 1963 by Remedios Varo, the exhibition incorporates reoccurring motifs of mirrors, nature, cosmos and exis ... More | | Abstract Expressionism and Its Discontents at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Lee Krasner, Untitled, 1968-83 (detail). Oil on canvas. Courtesy of PAFA.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Abstract Expressionism and its Discontents, a new installation at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) on view through August 28, 2011, revisits the post-World War II art movement to include artists historically not associated with Abstract Expressionism. When in 1946 New Yorker critic Robert Coates identified an expressive, gestural and subjective approach towards abstract painting in American art, he inadvertently gave the name to a style popularly known as "Abstract Expressionism." Although it has come to describe spontaneously-composed abstract painting, the label encompassed an extraordinarily diverse array of approaches, ranging from Jackson Pollock's dizzying high-energy poured paintings to Mark Rothko's hovering rectangles of meditative color. While critics celebrated Abstract Expressionism's stylistic diversity, its written history remained that of a "boys' club" ... More |
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 'Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs' Exhibition Opens at the Asia Society MuseumNEW YORK, NY.- Asia Society Museum presents an exhibition of 227 photographs taken by Ai Weiwei, capturing the history, culture, and atmosphere of 1980s New York from his unique perspective. The exhibition marks the first time Ai Weiwei’s New York Photographs series is being shown outside of China. Before Ai Weiwei became internationally recognized as an artist and activist, he lived in a tiny apartment in New York’s East Village, and was a prominent member of a community of expatriate Chinese artists and intellectuals in the neighborhood’s then burgeoning avant-garde scene. Throughout those years, from 1983 to 1993, the artist used his camera to document his life and work, his surroundings, and the atmosphere of the time. The photographs document a distinct era in New York, as seen through Ai Weiwei’s eyes, tracing the beginnings of his conceptual art practice. They depict East Village poetry ... More Harun Farocki: Images of War (at a Distance) Marks the Artist's First Solo Exhibition in a U.S. MuseumNEW YORK, NY.- Harun Farocki: Images of War (at a Distance) marks the first comprehensive solo exhibition of Berlin-based artist Harun Farocki (b. 1944, German-annexed Czechoslovakia) in a United States museum, and features the U.S. premiere of Serious Games I-IV (2009-10), a four-part video installation at the center of the exhibition. The exhibition reflects a recent large-scale acquisition—realized as a joint effort by MoMA's Department of Media and Performance Art and Department of Film—of 36 artworks, a body of work spanning four decades and including nearly all of Farocki's videos, video installations, and films in video format. On view from June 29, 2011, to January 2, 2012, in The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Media Gallery, Harun Farocki: Images of War (at a Distance) is organized by Sabine Breitwieser, ... More Significant New Acquisitions to Tate's Collection on View at Tate Britain's GalleriesLONDON.- Significant new acquisitions to Tate’s Collection by some of Britain’s most innovative contemporary artists are on display at Tate Britain. Presented in a newly re-hung suite of contemporary galleries, works by artists including Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Enrico David, Cathy Wilkes and David Musgrave are being shown for the first time at Tate Britain. They form part of an atmospheric installation, entitled Has the film already started?, which highlights the role of scene-setting and performance in British Art from the 1970s to the present day. Highlights among the new acquisitions include Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s groundbreaking Partial Eclipse 1980–2006, for which there will be a weekly live performance every Saturday afternoon at 15.00, and Cathy Wilkes’s (We are) Pro Choice 2008, a large-scale installation which brings together discarded everyday objects to create an unsettling tableau. A fu ... More Bonhams Offers Rare Wine Collection with Label Designs by Famous Artists of the DayLONDON.- A rare collection of fifty-nine bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild will be offered in the Fine Wine Sale on the 7th July at Bonhams New Bond Street. The bottles are estimated to sell for £40,000 – 50,000. Spanning from 1945-2005, each bottle has been designed by a famous artist of the day. Until 1924, as in every vineyard in the Médoc, Château Mouton Rothschild wine was sold in casks to a merchant in Bordeaux who became responsible for maturing, bottling, labelling and marketing the wine. With no rights over the finished product, the owner took little interest in the appearance of the bottle. In 1924 however, Baron Philippe de Rothschild made a decision that was revolutionary at the time, to bottle the entire harvest before it left the property. With the Liberation of France, Baron Philippe conceived the idea of dedicating the vintage of 1945, to the “Year of the Victory”. He commissioned the young pa ... More Top Cartoonist Barry Fantoni to Sell Times Archive at BonhamsLONDON.- Barry Fantoni is selling his archive of 3,500 original Times cartoons at Bonhams Modern Picture sale in Knightsbridge on 19 July. Fantoni produced cartoons for the paper every weekday from 1983 – 1990, summing up the burning issues of the time with a few strokes of his pen. Some of the drawings are very much of their era - a cartoon about the Polish Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, for example, depends on having been around at the time - but others show how, nearly 30 years later, we’re still worrying about the same issues - the future of Trident, for instance, or concerns over lenient sentences for rapists. Fantoni got the job by chance. The Times resident pocket cartoonist, Marc Boxer, had resigned suddenly and Fantoni, who was already contributing general features to the newspaper, was invited to take over. He was contracted to produce a cartoon every day for six days. After scouring ... More Sahara in Vegas Donating Sign to Neon Museum By: Oskar Garcia, Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP).- Owners of the closed Sahara hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip say they're donating one of the property's iconic signs to the Neon Museum, a collection of Sin City's historic markers. SBE Entertainment officials tell The Associated Press that the donation is part of celebrating the cultural significance of the casino that closed last month after 59 years. The sign faced Sahara Avenue at the back of the casino, near a porte-cochere. Neon Museum Chairman Bill Marion says the sign is a classic example of Las Vegas' storied past and the historic art form of neon signs. The museum, also known as the Neon Boneyard, is often referred to as the place where neon signs go to die. The donation comes as SBE mulls what to do with the space. ... More British Creative Force and Renegade Artist Launches Her Neon ArtworkLOS ANGELES, CA.- Amanda Eliasch has added another string to her creative bow by crafting a series of artworks in neon for an exhibition at the Leadapron Gallery in Los Angeles. Gallerist, Jonathan Brown presents “Peccadilloes”, showcasing Amanda’s new neon works based on the cartoon drawings of her by close friend and art patron, Kay Saatchi. Amanda has humorously lent herself as an example of the declining trajectory of modern morals. One approach to art is to take something measurable and make it immeasurable through the prism of one’s imagination. Amanda Eliasch has flipped this notion and taken something immeasurable and made it measurable. She is using neon, a noble gas, as her material. Though common in the universe, it is quite rare on earth. Her subject, sin, is again a flip - common on earth, but supposedly clarified once reaching the heavens. Being no stranger to the art world, ... More |
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