Art in America - Most Recent The Market Posts

Birds and Beans

Kimberly Chou — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:30:00 +0100

For two years, multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird and aritst Ian Schneller have been planning a "sonic arboretum" of different-sized horns. "The horns kind of evolved from being more this Victrola aesthetic to more a plant-like shape, some sort of prairie flowers, kind of facing toward the sky," said Bird, in an interview in advance of his performance at the Guggenheim Museum in New Yorl Thursday night. "So I kind of like this idea of possibly modeling different environments through these horns. I'm interested in the acoustics of different environments: If you're in Zion National Park and you're surrounded by these canyon walls and these trees, what kind of sounds fill this space? Or if you're in a field of soy beans, what does that sound like?"

The Lush History of the Lower East Side

Jane Harris — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:40:00 +0100

Lush Life, Richard Price's 2008 novel based on a real unsolved robbery-shooting, is full of all the peculiar inflections of cop talk that made the HBO drama he co-wrote, The Wire, such a hit. Considered by some the Raymond Chandler of our generation, his gritty dialogue and urban characters are tempered by postmodern equivocation. The novel takes place in New York's colorful Lower East Side, and is as much a meditation on that neighborhood's fluctuation as it is a crime story. It's a fascinating read, and for curators Omar Lopez-Chahoud and Franklin Evans, the perfect foil for a multi-venue exhibition to showcase the latest group to call the neighborhood home—the gallery world.

Making Your Market: Baibakov's Moscow Project

Kimberly Chou — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Russian art center owner and heiress Maria Baibakova is racking up frequent flier miles these days, not that she needs them. (Her father is mining oligarch Oleg Baibakov.) The 24-year-old founder of Baibakov Art Projects says she sees similarities between developing art scenes in the places she's visited and in Moscow, a city that's not exactly thought of as a contemporary art destination, though Baibakova would like to make it one. One similarity: a need to cultivate better-informed audiences.

Hit Repeat

Kevin McGarry — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Eight weeks into Greater New York Cinema, P.S.1's 20-week sidebar highlighting the past five years in film and video, comes a reprise of Brooklyn-based Jessie Stead's 2006 "structuralist road movie," Foggy Mountains Breakdown More than Non-Foggy Mountains. The title refers to the blistering 1949 banjo instrumental by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," which is iconic hillbilly Americana, and used as the score to Bonnie and Clyde's car chases. Stead's film is a chase of sorts: the personal pursues the universal, as Stead mixes enigmatic diaristic texts and Super-8 footage of globetrotting dalliances with renditions of the infinitely diffuse song: the original recording; MIDI versions found online; abstracted covers and antecedents, composed and performed by the famous and non-famous alike.

Mess With Texas

Alice Pfeiffer — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0100

Naming an exhibition of young French artists "Dynasty" would seem to suggest a suggest a cynical or sarcastic likening of its content to the children of the 1980s. The current group exhibition in question is held at the Musée d'Art Moderne and neighboring Palais de Tokyo features work by 40 artists who may or may not remember a French-dubbed Alexis and Krystle. Each contributed one piece to each museum: All of them are somewhat French (by birth or country of residence), and under the age of 35. What it has in common with the notorious television series is an interest in the underpinnings of American Empire, and the left-over from its spectacular and ostentatious triumphs.

The Market Pays Homage to Louise Bourgeois

Skate's — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0100

At the time of her death on May 31, Louise Bourgeois was the 16th most valuable living artist based on the combined auction value of her works. Among the 5,000 most valuable works of art ever sold at auction, Bourgeois had nine works. It is often the case with important artists that the market value of their artistic legacies grow consistently after their deaths, because of the sudden jolt of interest and the sudden cessation of the artist's output.

Video Stars at Art Basel

Quinn Latimer — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:00:00 +0100

The 1979 New Wave song "Video Killed the Radio Star" kept running through my head as I made my way around the cavernous maze that is Art Basel 41's intermingled Art Unlimited and Art Statements sections. Unlike last year, when outsize and bombastic sculptures appeared to take Art Unlimited at its name, and minimal, formalist installations seemed to predominate the more discreetly coined Art Statements, this year was a star turn for the filmic medium in every stripe.

The Currency of Russian Portraits

Skate's — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:00:00 +0100

While much of the art world's attention this month is focused on Art Basel and the major upcoming Impressionist and Modern sales, last week's sales of Russian art in London brought impressive results across genres and periods. Alexander Yakovlev's Titi and Naranghe, Daughters of Chief Eki Bondo (1926) was the week's most expensive lot, selling at Sotheby's on June 7 for £2,505,250 ($3,621,840), or more than three times the pre-auction estimate of £700,000–900,000.

Big Family, Big Bargain

Skate's — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:15:00 +0100

Auction houses generally err on the side of aggressive pricing with their pre-sale estimates. It is a rare day that we find a work seriously under-valued when compared with the track records of similar works by an artist. But such appears to be the case with a work by Zhang Xiaogang, The Big Family No. 6 (1997), which will be auctioned at this Saturday's sale of Asian Contemporary Art and Chinese 20th Century Art at Christie's Hong Kong.

A New Promised Art

Alice Pfeiffer — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:10:00 +0100

Parisian house Pierre Bergé & Associé seems determined to introduce the nation of France to Israeli contemporary art, through a series of multiple efforts: On May 6, the house held France's first ever Israeli-dedicated sale, featuring 70 artists and 150 works, all made in the past decade. This also marked the launch of a branch of operations dedicated to art from that country, to be followed by a second Israeli department at their Brussels branch in 2011. Fabien Béjean-Lebenson, director of contemporary art at Pierre Bergé & Associé and founder of the Israeli Department, talks to Art in America about the emergence of the country in the international art scene, Tel Aviv's golden age, and gender equality.

Purple Craze for Warhol

Mary Lapides — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:00:00 +0100

Last night Sotheby's demonstrated the enduring ability for the auction houses to sell high-powered art, and sell it well. Sotheby's had a tightly edited 53-lot sale; only three lots failed to sell. Several lots were hotly contested. Warhol had another big evening, particularly in the case of Self Portrait (1986), a nine-foot-tall painting of Warhol wearing his now-famous fright wig was the star lot. Tom Ford owned the impressive painting, which is from a series of five. At least five bidders chased it until the bidding slowed at around $25 million. The contest narrowed to three bidders until the work was hammered at $29 million ($32.6 million with premium) to a Sotheby's phone bidder. The pre sale estimate was $10–15 million.

Auction Thriller

Mary Lapides — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:30:00 +0100

Christie's did it again last night, this time as the famed Michael Crichton collection spearheaded its evening sale of Post war and contemporary art. The quintessential American sale was exciting, with brisk bidding both in the room and on the phone.

Which Johns Flag to Salute?

Skate's — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Less than two years has passed since the bestselling author Michael Crichton lost his unfortunate battle with throat cancer. Famous worldwide for his science fiction and medical thrillers, Crichton's love of modern and Contemporary art was less well known—but not that less well known, as attested in the auction catalogue by LACMA's Michael Govan and Steven Spielberg. This evening Christie's will auction 31 lots from his collection, including works by such masters as Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and his long-time friend, Jasper Johns.

Good Impressions at Sothebys

Mary Lapides — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:00:00 +0100

The dust has safely settled on one of the biggest weeks that Christie's and Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern sales has seen in some time. And while Christie's dispensed with the most expensive art work ever sold at auction, even without a big name estate, Sotheby's posted solid results at their May 5 evening sale.

A New World

Mary Barone — Sat, 08 May 2010 09:00:00 +0100

This week, Creed opens his third solo exhibition at Gavin Brown's Enterprise (GBE), and inaugurates the gallery's newly expanded space. His site-specific installation remakes the entire gallery floor with a horizontal arrangement of more than 100 types of marble sourced through a foundry in Carrera, Italy. Creed says he likes to think of the confluence of variable stones in the piece as "the whole world," recalling the words he permanently installed in 2003 to inaugurate the GBE space when it relocated from 15th Street to 620 Greenwich Street. Work No 300: the whole world + the work = the whole world is a black painted text that wraps around the corner of the GBE building's while brick façade as a manifesto declaring that artistic gesture is part of—rather than beyond—everyday life.

Inside Christie's Auction Record

Mary Lapides — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Some news you've probably heard already: Picasso's Nude Green Leaves and Bust (1932) sold for $106.5 million, overcoming the previous auction record for the most expensive work sold at auction. The iconic Picasso and 69 other Impressionist and Modern works were sold Tuesday evening at Christie's Rockefeller center auction room. The now famous Picasso was part of the also famed collection of Mrs. Sidney F. Brody, a Los Angeles philanthropist.

Matisse's Two Nudes, Two Different Prices

Skate's — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:00:00 +0100

Since the fall of 2008, the market for Impressionist and Modern art has thrived amidst a general decline in the greater market for fine art, especially contemporary art. And although contemporary art has begun to show signs of a recovery in emerging markets like China and is poised to see major sales next week at Christie's and Sotheby's, tonight and tomorrow evening will witness a major test of whether Impressionist and Modern art can continue to generate strong demand.

BRIC's Art is Back, Especially for China

Skate's — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:00:00 +0100

In many ways, this past weekend's auction of contemporary art from the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) at Phillips de Pury London passed without any great surprises. As predicted in numerous media reports and the auction house's own presale estimates, Russian artist Erik Bulatov's ENTRANCE—NO ENTRANCE (1995) was the top lot with its final sale price of £713,250 ($1,095,480), including buyer's premium. Unsurprisingly, works by Russian and Chinese artists sold well, vastly outperforming the limited number of works by Brazilian and Indian artists (three and eight works, respectively).

Track Mentality

Michael Slenske — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:10:00 +0100

In 1975, the French racecar driver Hervé Poulain commissioned his friend Alexander Calder to paint the BMW 3.0 CSL he was set to drive that year at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. Though Poulain didn't finish, 35 years later the Bavarian automaker who supplied his car is still following his lead. Yesterday in New York they introduced Jeff Koons's technicolor design for the 17th edition in their ever-intriguing Art Car series. For Koons, the performance of his #79 vehicle, which will be shown at the Centre Pompidou June 1 (as Lichtenstein's was in 1977), is just as important as the aesthetics.

A Dancer's Market

Skate's — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 08:30:00 +0100

It wasn't a big event by any stretch. This past weekend's sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie's London brought a mere $1,855,077 for the 108 lots sold. To put matters in perspective, this total sale represents less than one third of the price paid for the 1,000th most expensive work of art ever sold at auction.