Category: visual

Sales of Irish art have gone up along with the country’s booming economy. “The rapid rise in prices has triggered demands for the government in Dublin to make more funds available to buy works for public galleries and prevent them being exported.”

The evening set records for 12 artists ranging from David Hockney and Damien Hirst to Richard Prince and Mike Kelley in a sale that totaled $143.1 million, in the middle of its estimate, $113.1 million to $160.2 million.

Art Chicago used to be the top art fair in the US. No more. “Now Art Chicago has been bought by the company which runs the Merchandise Mart, a vast wholesale showroom for furniture, apparel and other companies which also runs a plethora of trade shows.”

A new art exhibition in London purports to show striking parallels between so-called “outsider art” often created by the mentally ill and some of the 20th century’s greatest “insider” artists. A simple enough concept, but it has at least one critic furious: “A show of ‘outsider’ art… is well worth doing. Nor is it wrong to point out that, in the 20th century, mainstream artists have been fascinated by this kind of art. What is objectionable is to present the art of people with severe mental illness alongside the work of Francis Bacon, Joan Miró or Francis Picabia, and then to propose that there is no essential difference between the two, that both are simply different manifestations of modernity. This is post-modernist crap.”

There’s no doubt about it: modern art is in a bull market, with major works being sold for huge sums seemingly every week. “At the moment, there is no evidence that the art market is about to repeat the crash of the early 1990s, which still scars the collective consciousness of everybody involved in it… One reason for optimism is that there is a much wider spread of buyers than there was in 1990.”

“SweaterLodge, Canada’s official entry for the architecture portion of this year’s Venice Biennale, is an enormous tent in the shape of a pullover made from 350 square metres of bright orange polar fleece. The multimedia exhibit is a big, bold, warm and witty commentary on urban culture. The biannual event, which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall, is one of the most prestigious in the world of architecture. So why is our Canadian team receiving such a chilly reception from government funding agencies and potential corporate sponsors?”

The shortlist is out for the UK’s National Portrait Gallery prize, which hands out £25,000 and a commission worth £4,000 to the creator of the best portrait of the year. Painters Angela Reilly of Scotland and Rafael Rodriguez of Mexico will go up against English photographer Andrew Tift, who has been on the shortlist four times. “This year has seen a record 1,113 entries, and 56 portraits will be displayed at the exhibition from June 15 to September 17. The winner will be announced on June 13.”

“A prominent Toronto businessman and his wife are giving $2-million to the Art Gallery of Ontario to endow the directorship of the gallery’s education and public-programming division… The AGO was the first museum in Canada to establish an art department, and yesterday’s announcement coincided with the 75th anniversary of its founding. More than 35,000 students come to the AGO in Toronto each year, while thousands of adults and families take education programs there.”

“Greek detectives arrive in London today for talks with Scotland Yard as Athens steps up its efforts to combat the international trade in smuggled antiquities. After the recent discovery of priceless relics in an Aegean island home, they hope the meeting will not only shed light on the murky business but also illuminate London’s role as a hub for traffickers.”

The Royal Alberta Museum is scrambling to raise $1 million to buy a historic collection of native Canadian artifacts gathered by explorer James Carnegie when they hit the auction block in New York this week. “The museum fears the pieces of Canadian history will be dispersed among private collectors and institutions as the items are sold individually. But the sale is also coming under fire from the Minneapolis, Minn.-based American Indian Movement, which for years has likened Sotheby’s sale of native artifacts to Nazi theft of property from Jewish families during the Holocaust.”