Over the past couple of years Russia's new wealthy have made some big moves in the art world. Most recently, as my colleague Jared Paul Stern reported that Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich will be bankrolling a major Francis Bacon exhibition at his girlfriend Dasha Zhukova's new Moscow art gallery in 2010. Now auction house Phillips de Pury has been sold to Mercury, a Moscow-based luxury goods group. Phillip's founder Simon de Pury will still remain as chairman and will have a share in the company. This isn't Phillips's first spin with a luxury conglomerate, it was was briefly owned by LVMH. For Phillips, the new owners will provide a big influx of capital so that Phillips can continue adding to their contemporary art auctions and it will also likely bring some important auctions to Moscow.
Christie's has announced it will offer one of the two Lucian Freud portraits of Francis Bacon in its Post-War and Contemporary Art auction in London this October. Pilar Ordovas, Christie's Head of Post-War and Contemporary art, calls it an "intimate portrait" that is a testament to the relationship between arguably the two "most important British artists of the 20th century."
The piece is estimated to reach bids of up to £7 million, though if last May's sale of Freud's Benefit Supervisor Sleeping is any indication, it might go for more -- that painting sold for $33 million.
Bernard Arnault (right), the billionaire chairman of Louis Vuitton parent LVMH and France's richest man, plans to open a $140 million art museum in Paris within the next 2-3 years despite the grim economic forecast. "It's a way of showing that luxury, which often has an arrogant, elitist, egotistical image, can be generous," Arnault's arts advisor Jean-Paul Claverie tells Bloomberg.
Dubbed the Louis Vuitton Foundation and designed by Frank Gehry, the luxury goods kingpin has high hopes for the museum in Paris's Bois de Boulogne on the site of a former bowling alley, which will display LVMH's extensive art collection. "Mr. Arnault often says that as many people will visit the building as will go see the Eiffel tower,'' Claverie says.
British artist Marc Quinn's $2.7 million life-size solid gold statue of Kate Moss, which we told you about last month, just went on display to the public, and Quinn says the supermodel's thrilled. Said to be the world's largest gold statue made since the days of Ancient Egypt, the piece was unveiled at the British Museum in London and has drawn large crowds.
"When I showed Kate the statue, she told me she loved it," Quinn says of the piece, entitled Siren. "She modeled for me for a day or so - but she didn't pose for me like that." Noting that Siren is about "trying to live up to impossible dreams or immortality," something Moss apparently contends with on a daily basis, he says, "For Kate, she thinks it lifts her into a mythic level. I think she very much loved it because she appreciates the difference between her image and herself."
Absolut, which has a history of supporting art projects has created a new online virtual "gallery" showcasing Helmut Lang's "Alles Gleich Schwer". The online gallery will exist for three months at Absolut.com/HemultLang. In the gallery you can zoom in on pieces and look at them from different angles. From the site you can also download and print exhibition posters. It's an interesting experiment and it seems suited to Helmut Lang's first solo institutional art exhibition which showcases the same lean, angular and industrial aesthetic seen in his fashion lines.
Posted Oct 3rd 2008 4:01PM by Tracy Chait Filed under: Art
In 1996 Liza Lou became an immediate art world fixture for her millions-of-beads approach to the suburban kitchen. She proceeded to hand-bead her way through all kinds of Americana, including a six-pack of Bud and a few presidential portraits.
In short order she won a MacArthur (the "genius grant"), moved to South Africa and didn't show in New York for six years. Now her latest installation, Maximum Security Fence, is drawing maximum criticism. Charlie Finch at artnet called it derivative, soul-less and a "politically correct commodity."
Maximum Security Fence is priced at $1 million and will be on display at Lever House (390 Park Ave. at 53rd) until November 29. The installation coincides with an exhibition of Lou's recent work at L&M Arts, which will run through November 15.
Pictures don't do the work justice but check out the gallery for examples of Lou's work over the years.
Ukranian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk has revealed he was a major buyer at Damien Hirst's record-breaking $200 million Sotheby's sale last month, but has declined to say exactly what he purchased. Pinchuk, who's worth an estimated $5 billion, has his own museum in Kiev, the first private institution of its kind in the former Soviet Union, which already houses works by Hirst, Jeff Koons and Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami. He says he plans to display his new Hirst acquisitions at the Pinchuk Center in the spring.
"Victor Pinchuk is having a great impact on the [art] market," Simon de Pury, chairman of auction house Phillips de Pury & Co., who credits him with starting the oligarch art collecting trend, tells Bloomberg. "The contemporary art market in both Ukraine and Russia has really taken off in the past two years, and I expect this growth to continue." Earlier this year Pinchuk paid a record $150 million for a house in London, the world's most expensive at the time.
A group of 13 highly covetable artists including John Baldessari, Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns and Richard Serra have donated print editions of their work to raise funds for Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Los Angeles-based print publisher Gemini G.E.L. commissioned the group of artists to create what they're calling the "Artists for Obama" portfolio, a set of prints in a limited edition of 150 (not including Jasper Johns's iconic Flag, at right). Art lovers looking to acquire the rare set of prints must donate a minimum of $20,000 to the campaign.
Banksy, the British graffiti artist who remains semi-anonymous, had five of his works at a Lyon and Turnbull auction in London over the weekend. None of them sold.
Part of the problem stemmed from Banksy's refusal to claim the work as his own. Banksy has a history of stating that street art should remain in its places of origin, and this group of pieces had been moved. In the past the controversial artist's work has earned double the expected auction price.
Know what? Your local art gallery wants you to come look at the art. It's not all about money. You don't have to be a prospective buyer. Most art is made to be seen and digested by the public.
While an invitation to, say, the Louvre's special exhibition opening party might be hard to procure, your local art gallery is probably advertising their next opening in your newspaper or event magazine, and it is probably free!
Art openings often include free wine and free hors d'oeuvres, and always include mingling with interesting arty people and, best of all, the ART.
So, go to art gallery openings.
It's just another easy way to make life more lux for cheap or free.
anThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has been the recipient of some big gifts lately by people eager to get their name on the door. First we had the Eli Broad's new building now comes the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. The Resnicks, who own both the Fiji Water and Pom Wonderful brands will give $45 million for new LACMA pavilion designed by architect Renzo Piano. They will also give about $10 million more in artwork. The LA Times notes that Lynda Resnick has a long history with the museum, she has served on LACMA's board of trustees since 1992 and is chair of the museum's acquisitions committee. The new pavilion is expected to open in mid-2010.
Playboy is auctioning off some of their historic archive of art commissioned for the magazine on October 15. The auction, called "Playboy: The Art of Beauty" will take place at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, and online. There will be 17 pieces up for sale including drawings and photographs which focus on a celebration of beautiful women. The pieces by 11 artists include two by Alberto Vargas, one from LeRoy Neiman, two works by Patrick Nagel and a set of four comics by "Little Annie Fanny" artists Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. The pieces date from 1956 to 1985 and are priced more modestly than some other art you might find at fall sales, the highest being an estimate of up to $60,000 for a Vargas blonde. You can check out the entire auction at the Heritage Auction site (nsfw).
Our friends at Kempt spotted Dasha Zhukova, Russian oligarch / Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich's gorgeous 27-year-old girlfriend, partying with supermodels and movie stars at an A-list art gallery opening in Moscow the other night. Zhukova (right) rubbed elbows with the likes of Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova (left), sexy star of several ad campaigns, at the opening for megabucks art dealer Larry Gagosian in a former chocolate factory. As we reported recently, Abramovich has bankrolled a new Moscow art gallery for Zhukova, which will mount a major Francis Bacon exhibition in 2010. At the Gagosian show, works by the likes of Jeff Koons and Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami were on display.
Swiss sculptor and mixed media artist Sylvie Fleury has turned her talents to a pair of limited edition crystal wine glasses for Dom Pérignon. Each glass is marked with a seductive hand-painted lipstick stain, hence the title "Stolen Kisses." Each pair is signed and numbered and comes with a bottle of Dom Pérignon's Rosé Vintage 1998.
Produced in a limited edition of 999, these are bound to disappear quickly, unlike Fleury's beguiling statement. The set will be available in November for $600.
The fallout from the big spenders that were part of Lehman Brothers continues. Blogging Stocks leads us to an article in the Wall Street Journal on the art sales of chairman and CEO Dick Fuld. Fuld and his wife Kathy have been avid collectors of modern art for years. Now some of their collection will be sold at Christie's as part of their modern art sale on November 12, during the New York fall auction season.
The piece above "Study for Agony I" by Arshile Gorky is one of 16 postwar drawings owned by the Fulds that have been consigned. It is estimated at $2.8 million. The estimated total is between $15 and $20 million and the WSJ reports that the sale is guaranteed meaning that the Fulds will receive money whether the pieces sell during the auction or not.
Fuld's net worth has fallen along with Lehman's stock prices but his savvy collector wife might be bringing him a nice profit. Kathy Fuld is a a longtime collector and Museum of Modern Art trustee with an eye for the undervalued pieces. A piece the couple is selling Willem de Kooning's 'Woman' is estimated to bring in up to $4 million at Christie's in November and sold for half that in 2001.
Don't feel too sorry for the Fulds they still have enough art to fill their homes which include a Greenwich, Connecticut mansion, a Park Avenue co-op and a Sun Valley, Idaho vacation home.
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Banksy
Know what? Your local art gallery wants you to come look at the art. It's not all about money. You don't have to be a prospective buyer. Most art is made to be seen and digested by the public.
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