Category: visual

“In ‘Islamic Art’ sales this week, pieces at the top of the market rose to extravagant heights, while the intermediary market is on the verge of extinction.”

“Singapore is offering state-owned properties in prime locations at reduced rent to encourage art collectors to open private museums in the city-state.”

Jay Merrick decries “the sugar-rush appetite for architectural icons” – “Is your town a bit frayed? No problem: just commission a piece of ‘iconic’ architecture. Is your city perceived as not quite remarkable enough? Ditto.”

“Damien Hirst is the most powerful figure in the world of contemporary art, according to magazine ArtReview. Hirst, who topped the list in 2005, retakes the top spot after a recent sale of his work which made £111m. … Kathy Halbreich, an associate director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, becomes the first woman to make the top 10 in her own right.”

“Saw-toothed glass dances in a conga line above leaping arcs of metal roof at the Peter B. Lewis Science Library at Princeton University. The signature hand of Frank Gehry is unmistakable. But where are the books? … The New Jersey university, with Gehry Partners LLC, has embarked on a difficult task: to reinvent the library for an age when information largely takes on electronic rather than print form.”

“Auction houses are guaranteeing prices of some top works in this week’s London art sales, which coincide with the worst financial crisis since the Depression. The sales … have a total minimum price tag of 107 million pounds ($187 million). Sotheby’s has more than half of its total lot value guaranteed; Christie’s International guarantees 38 percent, meaning both promise fixed prices to vendors whether the art sells or not.”

“Contemporary Fine Arts, a Berlin gallery that represents artists such as Peter Doig and Georg Baselitz, has made profit at every art fair the past five years. The winning streak may end this week at Frieze, London’s largest art fair, which is taking place during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.” Dealers and other industry professionals are sounding grim.

“Roland Berger, founder and chairman of the German management consultancy that bears his name, expects the art market to ride out the current financial turmoil as wealthy Russians, Indians and Chinese buoy sales. … ‘A new tier of collectors has stabilized the market. Just because the financial markets collapse today doesn’t mean art prices will drop tomorrow — at least not for good-quality art.'”

“An artwork at St Pancras station that portrayed a commuter falling in front of a train driven by the Grim Reaper has been rejected at the last moment after the head of the company that commissioned it deemed it unsuitable.”

The museum is reduced public hours, “using compact fluorescent lighting where possible, decreasing pump and fan speeds as appropriate, and setting the boilers differently to lower gas usage. The changes were made to reduce operating costs, which the museum hopes to lower by 2 percent.”