Category: visual

“Think of it as the art world’s ‘new math.’ A new generation of collectors, dealers and financiers have come to treat art as a highly sophisticated financial instrument: tradable, globally recognizable, in demand and liquid around the world. Suddenly, some of the most prized names in contemporary art are the more prolific ones, those with signature images (like Damien Hirst’s ubiquitous “spin art” paintings), since inventories can be traded much like currency.”

Franklin Kelly, who is 54 and holds a PhD in art history from the University of Delaware, has been a curator at the National Gallery for 21 years.

“It was so big that several exhibitors who were disappointed in their sales speculated that the fair’s giganticism meant that the pie of the collector’s spending power was cut into too many slices.”

All around downtown Orlando, art is turning up in public places — baroque statues in front of the Plaza, an abstract aluminum sculpture next to City Hall, a series of narrow aluminum panels in blocks of mustard, orange and red…

Over 32 years, Alanna Heiss built P.S. 1 into one of the city’s most refreshingly unpredictable venues for contemporary art, drawing crowds of young, aggressively hip visitors to see its exhibitions and join in its boozy summer dance parties. But when P.S. 1 was merged into the Museum of Modern Art in 2000, it became an open question how long its idiosyncratic impresario would remain at the helm. Now she’s leaving…

“Several weeks ago, the diminished Polaroid Corporation announced it will, in 2009, quit the instant-film business. Of course, it’s hard to argue with the ease of digital for the lion’s share of see-it-now picture-taking. Nevertheless, a lot of photographers are vehement about what they’re losing.”

“Olafur Eliasson, the Danish-Icelandic inventor and engineer of minimalist spectacle, is so much better than anyone else in today’s ranks of crowd-pleasing installational artists that there should be a nice, clean, special word other than “art” for what he does, to set him apart. There won’t be.”

“Although there is a great deal of discussion about the concept of creativity, and about intellectual property as an exploitable resource, surprisingly the role of the visual arts in advancing this has been marginalised during the past decade. While other disciplines and professions have adopted the concepts of creativity and innovation, and used those words with tedious frequency, the visual arts sector has stepped back from the plate with the result that others have taken guardianship of these concepts.”

“Qatar’s ruling Al-Thani family is the mystery buyer of Mark Rothko’s White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), 1950, which sold at Sotheby’s New York on 15 May 2007 for $72.8m–setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a work of post-war art at auction. The painting was consigned by David Rockefeller.”

“Photography, the family historian, court painter, official scribe and crusading journalist of the 20th century, has penetrated the 21st century in ways that Kodak founder George Eastman himself could hardly have dreamed.”