Category: visual

Prices soared at contemporary art auctions this summer, and aggressive dealers seized the opportunity to turn the market upside down: “Gallery owners complain that the extravagant prices achieved recently at auction have prompted speculators to buy artists’ latest works in galleries, then flip them at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, or Phillips for a quick profit, inflating the fragile careers of artists the galleries have painstakingly nurtured.” – New York Magazine

Online art auctions are making a play for a piece of lucrative business. “What’s for sale online? You can find everything from landscape paintings by little known contemporary artists for $1,000 or less, to a $50,000 Tiffany lamp or a $3.5 million oil painting by French painter Maurice De Vlaminck.” – MSNBC

Daniel Terra’s jingoistic promotion of American art was difficult to take. And the reputation of his small museum of American art suffered in the museum world for his antics and boasts. But now that his widow wants to take the museum out of town (Chicagoans don’t appreciate it enough, she says) a feeling of community pride wells up in those who want it to stay. – Chicago Tribune

It’s fashion week in London. “Fashion, the cuckoo of popular culture, has been using an assortment of modern galleries and London museums as venues for the drunken wastages of resources that are known as fashion launches. A few artists have gone to some of these parties. This is all the evidence it takes for a shower of journalistic Sloane-brains to put one and one together, and arrive at three. But art and fashion are not growing closer together.” = The Sunday Times (UK)

Three mobsters planning to pass off fake Picassos and Chagalls were caught be police. “Prosecutors said the defendants planned to sell the fakes through an upscale Manhattan gallery for $32 million. Federal agents, using wiretaps and an informant, disrupted the alleged scheme and no paintings were sold.” – CNN

Most movies about artists are high on the corn factor, with few capturing the sense of the person or the understanding of their work. Ed Harris’ new movie of Jackson Pollock is different. “What we’re witnessing isn’t a succession of exploding cars, but an utterly convincing release of pure feeling deployed with the concentration and discipline of a natural athlete executing an unparalleled feat after years of preparation. There’s also an added element of magic, of conjuring, as something emerges out of nothing, and the blank canvas at Pollock’s feet is transformed into a thickening, swirling, emotionally charged tangle of color.” – New York Times

Fiberglass cows and moose and even corn invaded the streets of American cities this summer. “Yet all the colorful animals and vegetables and cartoon characters are raising questions on the nature of public art, with critics branding the new works as kitsch that avoids controversy. Still, the works are drawing more praise than censure, and the trend continues to grow.” – Christian Science Monitor

The city of Tel Aviv has approved a program to restore 1,100 buildings in the city’s historic center to their original condition – not the splendor of ancient Israel, but the Bauhaus style that has made Tel Aviv a modern architectural attraction. “White Tel Aviv” was recently recognized by UNESCO as a cultural asset worthy of protection. – Haaretz (Israel)

Berlin will begin a $5 million cleaning of the Brandenburg Gate. “The monument survived two world wars but has straddled a major traffic axis since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and has been afflicted by pollution.” – New York Times (AP)

Giotto has been considered the father of modern painting But anewly discovered fresco by Pietro Cavallini in Rome could rewrite the arts history books. “The crucial thing is to determine whether it was done before 1288, when work began in Assisi on the Cycle of St Francis, or after. If it was before, it means that it was Cavallini who was the master, and thus the father of modern painting. If it was painted afterwards, then it will still go down as a beautiful and very important work of art to be discovered – but nothing more.” – The Telegraph (UK)