Category: visual

Alfredo Martinez was jailed in June 2002 for faking drawings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and and he’s serving a sentence of three years. “But that has hardly affected his artistic productivity: The work he has made in the pen has been in four shows, including solo exhibitions in New York and Paris…”

Sir Timothy Clifford, director of the National Galleries of Scotland, has found what he believes is a work by the 16th century artist Francesco Maria Mazzola, known as Parmigianino in the vaults at the Louvre in Paris…

It wasn’t too long ago that old picture frames were regarded as junk with little or no value. “Today the same frames that dealers once gave away sell for $10,000 to $35,000. (The record for a single sale is $947,000, for a 17th-century amber frame auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1991.) Eli Wilner & Company has grown to 17 employees and does roughly $3 million a year in business. His collection has expanded to 3,000 frames, mostly 19th-century, but some dating back to the 1600’s.”

Most countries have a cultural center, where the major business of art is conducted. “Germany, however, has several centers. From north to south, these are Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne and Munich. This situation has disadvantages, since there is no “scene“ in which everything culminates. However, the decentralized country also has its advantages, because its auction locations live with and from their respective clienteles and their mentality, which is also reflected in their art purchases. Similarly, the international public, which focuses its attention on art auctions in Germany, (still) follows these paths.”

“Many conservators no longer restore objects to approximate their original condition as fine arts museums do, preferring instead to maintain the way they looked when acquired. The aim is to extend their life while retaining the evidence of what made them important, even if it means presenting tattered artifacts with blood stains, bullet holes and burnt edges. Now new techniques and a new emphasis on less varnished truth in history museums are transforming the staid exhibitions of the past.”

London has not always been good about preserving its best buildings. As a consequence, “London’s older buildings are often invested with associations that do not belong to them. For instance, there is a 17th-century house just upstream of Shakespeare’s Globe that is commonly said – on no evidence at all – to have been the home of Sir Christopher Wren while St Paul’s Cathedral was being built across the water…”

“A top public servant, rather than a scientist or curator, is tipped to replace Mike Archer as the director of the Australian Museum. Professor Archer finished his controversial four-year reign at the Australian museum on Friday. This followed an ICAC investigation into the loss of thousands of valuable items in its collection.”

Ten years ago, Italy’s museums were run haphazardly and were difficult to navigate. Then someone got the idea that m useums should be run more like businesses. “When I got here the idea was that money is dirty, art is sacred and the two things should not be mixed. It took a while, but that attitude has changed.”

“Sotheby’s Canada returned to the top of the heap in 2003 as the country’s premiere live auctioneer of fine Canadian art, grossing a total of almost $11-million from sales it held in May and November in Toronto. In recent years the company, which has run a Canadian operation for more than 30 years, has ceded its pre-eminence to the other two big players in the fine-art resale market, Toronto’s Joyner Waddington’s Auctioneers and Appraisers and Vancouver-based Heffel Fine Art… Sotheby’s return to form flows out of the decision by its New York parent in early 2001 to bring two high-powered Canadians into its Toronto office.”