Category: visual

“But skyrocketing prices do not guarantee a financial bonanza for indigenous artists. The sale of Earth’s Creation has again focused attention on the exploitation of indigenous artists and the vexed issue of whether they should receive royalties from secondary sales of their work.”

After months of intense discussions, negotiations between New York antiquities collector [Shelby White] and the Italian government have bogged down over a demand that she never be pursued by Italy again, several people close to the talks say.”

“New York architect Steven Holl’s quietly brilliant new addition to the already distinguished Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art here wisely departs from this self-indulgent norm. It is a work of subtlety, not spectacle, though, in truth, it packs some unexpected wow.”

The hapless Bellevue Arts Museum, outside Seattle, is the victim of embezzlement. “BAM, formerly the Bellevue Art Museum, closed its doors in October 2003. When it reopened in 2005 as the Bellevue Arts Museum, it was as a craft museum. Last year its annual budget was $2.6 million. This year it’s $3 million, said director Michael Monroe, who affirms that he won’t let the missing $200,000 turn into a big problem for the museum.”

“The average contemporary work cost $715,144 this year at Sotheby’s in New York, five times as much as in 1998, the auction house said.” So when will the fall come (and it will).

The Venice Biennale used to sell art but discontinued the practice in 1968 over concerns the Biennale was not “tainted with commerce”. But now the idea is raised again. “A new art fair, Cornice, which takes place in Venice from 7 to 10 June to coincide with the opening of the biennale will include 60 dealers–80% of them international names. It has raised the whole question of sales again.”

The painting looks like a LeWitt. But “LeWitt did a diagram for the painting? the reporter asked. Ms. Cho paused. Well, he did a diagram afterward, she explained. In fact, she continued, her husband came up with the idea for the painting himself and executed it. When LeWitt saw it, he liked it so much he decided to bless it as one of his own.”

“The National Portrait Gallery in London is planning to stage its first exhibition devoted entirely to pop art. The display will feature works by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Ray Johnson, Sir Peter Blake and David Hockney.” Portraits of Marilyn Monroe will get their own room. Yes, really.

“The total sales figure, which includes a 15-per-cent premium charged to buyers on the purchase price, easily surpassed the conservative estimate of a $12-million to $16-million sale, and nearly doubled the previous $12.5-million record, also set by Heffel, at its semi-annual sale in Toronto in November, 2005.”

Dinosaurs cavort with cavemen in a new Creation Museum in Kentucky. There is much “sheer weirdness and daring of this museum created by the Answers in Genesis ministry that combines displays of extraordinary nautilus shell fossils and biblical tableaus, celebrations of natural wonders and allusions to human sin. Evolution gets its continual comeuppance, while biblical revelations are treated as gospel.”