Category: visual

Sotheby’s had a rough time of it this past week when it attempted to auction off an impressive array of still lifes and landscapes from the house’s “old masters” department. “Only half the offerings sold, bringing in a total of $5 million, below the $7 million-to-$10 million presale estimate. This was, however, only a small portion of two days of back-to-back old-master auctions at Sotheby’s, Thursday and yesterday, which brought more than $70 million.” So what makes one auction a success and another a failure? It’s about far more than the quality of the art.

As prices for contemporary art sold at auction have spiralled out of control, the number of major art heists has been rising as well, and there’s a very real connection between the two events. “Art is often stolen for use as collateral in arms and drugs deals or as a commodity that can be exchanged between criminal organisations… Art works often circulate in criminal networks… for years, only turning up by chance when police raids aimed at other illegal activities uncover them. But it is not uncommon for insurance companies to pay a ransom for the return of valuable works, and this underpins their value as illicit goods.”

New Getty Museum director Michael Brand has this week’s reopening of the Getty Villa on his plate. But he’s not in LA. He’s in Italy meeting with Italian culture minister Rocco Buttiglione to discuss contested items in the Getty’s collection. “The Getty’s objective is to develop a fuller sense of all the evidence available regarding the objects in question. We want to be in a better position to continue our dialogue with the Italian government.”

Scientists are about to test a theory to raise Venice 30 cms by pumping water back into the soil. The idea is to pump water down 700 metres. “We have calculated that if we pump in 18 million cubic metres of clean sea water 24 hours a day for 10 years, we will raise Venice 30 cms.” Critics aren’t so sure: “This is science fiction. It is too difficult and expensive to find out what the layers of the subsoil are really like at that depth, and raising the city would not be the same as the city subsiding; it would behave quite differently and could rise unevenly, doing untold damage.”

An anonymous buyer goes on a spending binge at Sotheby’s Thursday, spending “$4.27 million for a much-watched Rembrandt portrait and another $1.87 million for a Jan Steen and a Gerrit Dou.”

The owner of a Jackson Pollock painting stolen a few months ago from Sranton’s Everhart Museum has given the FBI the name of a person he believes took the painting. “The thief or thieves who broke into the Everhart on Nov. 18 swiped two artworks: an oil by Pollock that could be worth millions of dollars and a less valuable silkscreen by Andy Warhol.”

“Police have seized a burnt Australian flag that was displayed as part of a Footscray art exhibition in Melbourne. The move came as Prime Minister John Howard declared yesterday that while burning the Australian flag was offensive, it should not be made a criminal offence.”

The Detroit Institute of Art “went to court Tuesday to protect what museum leaders say is its rightful ownership of an 1889 painting by van Gogh worth at least $15 million, by one estimate. The DIA took the action after failing to resolve a long-simmering dispute with the heirs of a Nazi-era Jewish collector, who claim that the painting, which has been in the DIA’s collection since 1970, belongs to the family.”

A leading archaeologist is against Britain returning the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. Even loaning them. “It is not an option. What are we going to do — send in the SAS to bring it back? If we loan it, it is not going to come back.”

“The concept of a sizable museum devoted solely to the art of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria (the region of modern Tuscany and Umbria) is inspired. For one thing, the modern notion of an art museum as a place of public enlightenment grew, like America itself, from the 18th century European revival of classical ideals. Ours is likewise an era when nothing succeeds like ostentatious displays of power. Expect the remarkable Getty Villa to be an enormous popular hit.”