Category: visual

“For years, Brancusi made hardly enough money to eat. In 1926, a version of one of his most extraordinary subjects, Bird in Space, was famously held up at the US border because customs officials didn’t think it was art.” In May of 2018, one of his sculptures sold for $71 million. What happened?

Sir Charles Saumarez Smith “will leave at the end of the year and said he was departing at a time of ‘obvious strength and success.’ Just over a million people visited the gallery in 2017, and a £56m redevelopment of the site was unveiled earlier this year.” And then there are the blockbuster David Hockney and Anish Kapoor shows – triumphs for the RA.

Kyungah Ham found a North Korean propaganda leaflet – something she hadn’t seen for decades – in 2008, and that changed her art, and her life. “For a decade, Ms. Ham has been producing designs on her computer that are printed and smuggled into North Korea through intermediaries based in Russia or China. Then a group of anonymous artisans, whom she has never met or spoken to, are paid to convert them into embroideries, using exquisitely fine stitching. With bribes and subterfuge, the works are smuggled back out. Ultimately, they are shown and sold at galleries and exhibitions.”

The area is changing rapidly: “The promise of more light rail and Little Tokyo’s proximity to popular destinations like the Arts District are also increasing construction of market-rate housing that has led to the evictions of long-time residents, including Japanese American artists with ties to the Little Tokyo community.”

The unsigned painting of a woman wearing an outfit with a plunging neckline has been a favorite at the Spencer Museum of Art on the University of Kansas campus for decades. “Over the years, it’s been attributed to a few different artists — first, William Hoare, and then, sometime before the 1980s, to Highmore. But museum curators had never been 100 percent sure of the 1720s-era painting’s true origin, until now.”

“Artsy spoke to insurance brokers, lawyers, gallerists, a conservator, and an appraiser to understand what happens to a damaged work, and how it can find its way back to market with its value intact (or not).”

Dolla Merrillees’ resignation comes in the wake of revelations that the black-tie dinner hosted by the museum in February was a massive loss maker, costing $388,000 to stage, and requiring the museum to chip in $215,209.50 from its own budget. The fundraiser raised $78,000, of which a mere $1050 was raised from supporters on the night.

“The paintings had been stolen in an elaborate scam involving at least eight different con artists, the police confirmed. At least one had posed as a Jewish rabbi with diplomatic immunity and offered the respective gallery owners €26 million for the paintings before stealing them. The theft took place at a rented office in Monza, above the Albanian embassy … on April 20th, 2017.”

“[The London High Court] found that Arts Council England (ACE) was justified in rejecting an application to export [the painting] from Britain to Switzerland. The artwork was brought to Britain by Kathleen Simonis, who purchased it in Florence for about £3,500 in 1990, when it was thought to be an unremarkable 19th-century panel painting. Restoration work led to its subsequent upgrading to one of the most important painters of [the 14th-century Florentine] school.”

The couple, who own the Aun Gallery in Tehran, were arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in July 2016. In January this year, the couple were sentenced to draconian jail terms of 16 years for Neyssari, and 27 years for Vafadari on accusations that have ranged from “assembly and collusion against national security”, “spreading corruption”, “storing alcoholic drinks” and “dealing in indecent art.”