Category: visual

A Chinese-American collector has announced plans to sell a well-known official portrait of Chinese leader Mao Zedong at auction in June, where it is expected to fetch at least $120,000. The pending sale has sparked a furor in Chinese internet chat rooms, with many observers saying that the portrait belongs in a national museum, not a private collection.

Officials in Los Angeles are having preliminary discussions about mounting a major biennial art show in the city. “[County] commissioners held a private ‘informational’ session earlier this month to consider the possibility of staging an international contemporary art exhibition on the L.A. waterfront at an estimated cost of $5 million.”

“Compared with the epic works that have made his name – the shark in formaldehyde, the bisected cow – Damien Hirst’s work in progress is a small, delicate object: a life-size human skull. Not just any skull, mind, but one cast in platinum and encased entirely in diamonds – some 8,500 in all. It will be the most expensive work of art ever created, costing between £8m and £10m.”

Say you’re a high roller in the world of art auctions, and you’ve just landed a Picasso or a Monet for the tidy sum of several million, plus commission. Now, how exactly are you planning to get the thing home? “You don’t hear a lot about the fine-art moving business, because it generally shuns publicity and rarely advertises… Clients in this realm tend to treasure discretion as much as art, which, for anyone with a Rembrandt in the den, makes a lot of sense.”

“Although Tadao Ando is not yet a household name in England (a public square in Manchester is his only UK project to date), in his own country, and indeed throughout the ranks of his profession, this former boxer is revered. His studio gives a clue as to why.”

“In the spring of 2005, when a professor and a group of students at Marymount Manhattan College made waves by creating their own, unauthorized MP3 audio tour for the Museum of Modern Art, few art institutions were even exploring the idea of podcasting as an alternative to official audio tours, created by companies like Acoustiguide and Antenna Audio. But in the short time since then, museum podcasts — both do-it-yourself versions and those created by museums themselves — have taken off, changing the look and feel of audio tours.”

“In the world of art and antiquities, millions of dollars are at stake for museums and private buyers, depending on the date or ownership of an object. Disputes are increasingly common, and sometimes escalate.”

Glass artist Dale Chihuly is suing a former member of his team, alleging the glassblower has been making Chihuly’s designs in violation of Chihuly’s copyright. Now the glasblower has countersued. “The countersuit alleges Chihuly is trying to claim ‘a monopoly on any and all glass art that is curved, nested or uses certain kinds of colors. [Chihuly] cannot use copyright registrations to protect an idea or process that is so elementary that it would preclude any other glass artist from working or creating any glass art at all’.”

“Another art market world record is expected to be broken when one of David Hockney’s most significant works comes to auction. Sotheby’s yesterday announced it will sell The Splash, painted in 1966, with an estimate of£2.2m-£3m. That should easily beat the world record set for a Hockney last week when A Neat Lawn went for £1.9m in New York.”

The National Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC, has admitted copyright infringement and agreed to pay two Edouard Vuillard scholars $37,500 for publishing a catalogue that uses their research without authorisation or acknowledgement.