February 5, 2010
Filed under: Art Sales — Alan @ 5:50 am
An Alberto Giacometti sculpture broke records at the auction house last night by becoming the highest priced artwork sold via an auction with a stunning final bid of £65m.
The auction took place at London’s Sotheby’s and brought in five times more than its pre-sale estimate of £12 to £18m. It also beat the current record for the top selling auction piece set in 2004 by a Picasso artwork.
Adding to the surprise of course is the fact that the piece sold so well even in the midst of the recession, a fact made more ironic given the fact it was up for auction due to the recession, given it was part of a collection that Dresdner Bank’s new owners chose to sell off.
For buyers the Giacometti auction was extra important given the fact that the sculpture is often considered to be one of his most respected 20th century artworks. This created quite a buzz throughout the auction room with interest in the sculpture clear as people started bidding without prompting from the auctioneer.
Ten bidders competed for the piece in all with two telephone bidders who continued to vie for the piece after it reached past £35m to the astonishment of most in the room.
Co-chairmen of Sotheby’s, Melanie Clore, stated that they were thrilled with the result of the sale which was the highest sale made at a London auction house as well.
For now the auction house refuses to reveal who the telephone bidder was that won the painting.
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 5:42 am
With an exhibition that honours Gandhi, The Saatchi Gallery, London has opened an exhibit titled “The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today” which will be open to the public until May 7th of this year.
When viewers first enter the exhibit they pass through an area that contains 4,479 fibreglass bones that are arranged to spell out a peaceful non-violent plea that was made by Gandhi.
However, as viewers turn the corner the mood quickly chances as the art becomes much darker and almost frightening at times throughout the remaining eleven spaces.
The most shocking piece is possibly the Allah O Akbar by Jaishri Abichandani, which portrays the glory of martyrdom and the rigorous demands of Islam by spelling out ‘God is Great’ with shining green and red whips.
Also frightening is a large figure in a bag with clay hands that emerge resembling the remains of an executed individual in the form of a sculpture by Huma Hhabha.
Another notable installation is the sculpture of a Mumbai child that was created by Jitish Kallat. While the small child is offering books for sale portraying him as a fighter, the mood quickly switches for those who reach out to touch him and find that the statue’s black lead finish will leave a dark mark on their hands.
For the most part, the aim of the gallery is to shock visitors by violently shaking their senses and emotions instead of pleasurably calming them. However, it is a different taste of the world that should not be missed; especially given the fact the gallery is free.
February 2, 2010
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 7:53 am
The fine art world was rocked by the loss of a Rolf Harris painting back in 2005, when the artwork valued at around £100,000 disappeared from a warehouse. The painting titled Lovers on the Seine II is known as one of the best work by Harris.
Since its loss at a Warwick museum, the widow of Dean Hardy, Maxine Hardy, has fought to find out what happened to it.
In June of 2009 Judge Simon Brown once again stirred up scandal when he ruled that the Washington Green Fine Art Publishing company of Birmingham had ‘dishonestly appropriated’ it.
The judge ruled that Udi Sheleg, the managing director of Washington Green, knew where the painting is or knew what had happened and thus was responsible for its loss. After the court case closed Washington Green was fined £135,000 which included £95,000 due to Hardy for reparations.
This Monday however Washington Green challenged the ruling in the London Civil Appeal Court claiming that there was not any evidence that proves Washington Green ever had possession of the piece or that at any point Sheleg may have done something dishonest.
QC for Washington Green, Philip Marshall, attacked Judge Brown’s previous ruling as ‘perverse’ stating that he was so intent at looking for a conspiracy involving Sheleg he overlooked the more obvious fact that a third party may have stolen the painting or it simply may have been lost.
The last time the painting was seen was in October of 2005.
January 29, 2010
Filed under: Art Books — admin @ 6:08 pm
Boston-based artist, Cat Bennett, has written a new book to help adults unlock their creativity through drawing.
In her new book, The Confident Creative: Drawing to Free the Hand and Mind Cat offers simple techniques to develop drawing skills and shows how to work with the mind to dissolve creative blocks, open up to inspiration and grow creative confidence. It’s a book for both experienced and budding artists. But it’s also for every person, artist or not, who wants to bring creativity into their life and work. She believes everyone can unlock their creativity through drawing. She also believes everyone can draw.
Cat’s easy-to-apply techniques were developed through teaching her Saturday morning drawing class. She notes how some habitual thought patterns limit what we do in life, and shows how we can easily become aware of these while drawing, or even doodling, and let them go. Many techniques are drawn from yoga, including the one-point focus where we learn to observe our minds, change our energy to the positive and open up to inspiration. It’s here we find creative connection and expressive confidence – and we can bring this into the whole of our lives.
Complete with over 100 illustrations, The Confident Creative offers a wealth of visual inspiration including examples of art from professional artists who have pushed the boundaries of drawing into creative expressions. It shows how to draw in 3 different ways – Making Marks (to explore free and symbolic expression); Drawing What We See; and Drawing From Imagination. And it offers ways to change our minds to be expansive and confident.
Says Cat: “It doesn’t matter how much art experience we have, not at all. We might think we have no talent and that, too, doesn’t matter. We can all draw, as children do. If we dream of doing something wondrous and don’t know how; the wondrous will come to meet our desire if we honour it and keep working with an open mind.”
January 28, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 5:39 am
Apparently, all it takes is one second to ruin the worth of a classic painting as a clumsy lady learned at the New York Metropolitan Museum.
The woman tripped against a Picasso painting that was formally worth around £80m and brought down its value to around £40m after causing a six inch tear.
Experts stated that while they can fix the painting, which by the way is Picasso’s The Actor, it will never again be worth what it was unharmed.
Professional appraiser Gerard van Weyenbergh stated that reducing the painting by only half of its value is being generous because at an auction one of the first things that people are concerned about is the condition of the painting and if any restoration work has been done of the piece.
The Picasso piece features a male in a pink costume and dates back to 1905. At the time of the incident was on display at the Met’s second floor gallery of Picasso works. Museum officials refused to name the woman who tripped, but did generously state that she was not injured in the incident.
Since then, the painting has been taken off display and moved to the conversation studio to be assessed and repaired. Luckily enough, due to the fact that the tear occurred in the lower corner of the painting, the repair should not drastically alter the appearance of the painting.
It was originally donated to the Met in 1952 by the daughter of Chrysler’s founder, Thelma Chrysler Foy.
January 27, 2010
Filed under: Art News, Exhibitions — admin @ 7:21 pm
UK street artist, Sickboy presents Logopop Bristol, a solo exhibition of new limited edition work and a site-specific installation in Bristol this February. It will be Sickboy’s second Logopop show in the UK, and hs is returning to Bristol where he established himself as a graffiti artist. The month-long exhibition is taking place at the Friend & Co gallery.
According to the PR:
“Sickboy recreates the lysergic symbolism that underpins much of his work, presenting a new collection which unravels the relationship between the artist’s complex and imaginatively-detailed artworks and his signature simple, bold and raw urban interventions. In addition to original artworks, the artist presents his Logopops series – artworks available in various sizes which can be interconnected to create bespoke, one-off compositions of Sickboy art.”
For further information, please visit: http://friend-and-co.com
Friend & Co: 24 Park Row, Bristol, BS1 5LJ, UK
Open to public: February 6-27, 2010.
Opening times: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00
Sickboy’s website: http://www.thesickboy.com/
Filed under: Art News, Exhibitions, Photography — admin @ 9:15 am
A Manchester-based photographer and digital artist has found growing interest in his work from the Far East. Andrew Brooks, whose work has been exhibited at URBIS and CUBE Gallery, has been creating quite a stir in Japan, Taiwan and China.
Brooks was unaware of this popularity until he saw a magazine article published in the Popular Photography magazine praising his talent and futuristic style. After that it wasn’t long before huge numbers of visitors nearly crashed his website all of them coming from Japan, Taiwan and China. This was followed quickly by features on gigazine.net and fengniao.com as word of his work began to spread.
“It seems like it was one of those things that happened just through people seeing my photographs on my website as I’d never really targeted it as a potential market for my work,” says Brooks – who last year had his Hidden Manchester show named as one of the URBIS gallery in Manchester’s most popular exhibitions. “The coverage clearly sparked a lot of interest in my work and it’s been incredible to see all these visitors and offers of work coming in from the East. I know that there’s another eight-page feature in a Taiwanese magazine coming up, so I’m just getting ready to deal with the surge of interest that could create!” says Brooks.
At the end of 2009 late last year Brooks was invited to the prestigious China Pingyao International Photography Festival in the province of Shaanxi and a meeting with the one of China’s leading exhibition curators Teng Haolong who discussed the potential for a British photographer to become big in the East. Brooks as he was able to spend some time capturing cityscape images of some of China’s supercities as well as landscapes of the countryside and temples out East, before returning home to Manchester.
As he says, “I’m thrilled that there’s so much interest in my work from the East and fortunately there’s still a huge demand for my work in the UK, so with any luck it looks like I’ll be kept busy this year!”
Website: http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com
January 26, 2010
Filed under: Art Software — admin @ 9:40 am
Serif (Europe) Ltd, has released a new version of its digital scrapbooking title, Digital Scrapbook Artist 2. It is full of advanced digital scrapbooking techniques in a fun and easy-to-use program, making it a great creative arts available to a wide range of PC users.
The latest version of the software now offers more crafting tools and more advanced scrapbooking techniques like professional-quality blending, which has never been seen before in dedicated scrapbooking software. A huge range of natural brush strokes and photo-realistic materials, embellishments, scissors, stitches and more make beautifully crafted scrapbooks more realistic than ever, and now with a built-in PhotoLab, users can make sure their photos are picture perfect without needing to buy any other software.
Serif MD, Gary Bates said “Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 offers a fun, affordable way to become a digital scrapbooker regardless of experience or artistic ability, and with a huge range of crafting tools and techniques, Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 makes digital scrapbooking even more realistic!”
Some of the key features of Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 are:
• Scissors and Punches – users can choose from heaps of different decorative scissors blades, just like in a craft store, and punch out designs from any material or embellishment.
• Image Cutout Studio – removing distracting or unwanted backgrounds, to give subjects total focus with just a few quick brushstrokes, is easy using this handy imaging tool.
• Blending – a wonderful new feature for seamlessly blending an object or photo with textures and materials. In just a simple click photos will take on the appearance of any material!
• Stencils – a lovely range of brand new stencils will enhance scrapbook designs or alternatively users can easily create their own using objects and embellishments.
• Realistic brush strokes – brush on photo-realistic paint, glitter, beads, stitches and more to create authentic, natural-looking scrapbook pages.
• PhotoLab – Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 now comes with its own powerful built-in photo editor for fixing and enhancing digital photos from within the software.
• Help when needed – with instant access to video tutorials, on-screen prompts and a comprehensive User Guide, help is always available whenever it’s required.
• One click sharing – scrapbooks can be uploaded to DaisyTrail.com with just a click of the mouse, sent as an attachment via email, exported to PDF for professional printing and as any popular picture file type including JPG, PNG, GIF, and more.
• Scrapbooks and more – users can be more creative than ever using Digital Scrapbook Artist 2, which offers the flexibility to create not just digital scrapbooks, but greetings cards, wedding invitations and much more!
Digital Scrapbook Artist 2 is compatible with Windows 7 and will retail at around £29.99.
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 5:51 am
Over 100 fake works valued at a few million pounds will go on public display all the items come from police-seized t forged art.
The works range from Barbara Hepworth sculptures to Lowry paintings and will make up an exhibition premiering at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The collection, which includes fakes of works by Banksy and Thomas Moran would be valued at around four million according to experts, if they were real.
The display is set up to look like the garden shed of Shaun Greenhalgh, who was captured in 2007 by police and jailed for a little over four years after police discovered his wide array of forged works outside in his Bolton cottage garden.
Among the fakes that Greenhalgh created was Roman silver tableware, Lowry pastels, Egyptian statues, and a supposedly ‘lost’ duck sculpture by Barbara Hepworth.
Forged work by Robert Thwaites and John Myatt will also be part of the exhibit.
The head of the Met’s art and antiques unit, Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, stated that art crime affects more than just the famous and rich, due to the fact most forgers focus on works that are less than £10,000, as they are not likely to be checked as thoroughly, and do not receive as much attention.
Rapley also stated that art fakery still remains a popular underground business. He continued to say that the display will help show that art crime is not just a historical problem, because it will show that the crime occurs often and will help the public learn what to look out
January 19, 2010
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 7:24 am
The Real Van Gogh: the Artists and his Letters, is the new exhibit at the Royal Academy and its attempt to combat the common myth that Van Gogh was a madman blessed with genius, as it instead chooses to portray him as a professional artist.
The attempt starts with a stroll through the first gallery in which viewers see that Van Gogh wrote in order to voice his needs and thoughts in a clear fashion. What is interesting is that the voice that is portrayed in the letters discusses how to actually paint and draw by informing friends and his brother about how he is learning to create art with new brushes or pencils. A significant fact to notice is that the letters are not outcries of suffering or depression.
Although it may seem as if this would make for a boring gallery, the actual effect is anything but, with the 30 drawings and 65 paintings that surround the exhibit which is a remarkable collection complied from loans and displayed in their full glory.
Some may enjoy the fact that the letters give significance to the painted works, while others may simply see the letters as art on their own as Van Gogh’s delicate instructions are an inspiration for any aspiring artist.
The most intrinsic aspect of the exhibit however is that by reading the letters Van Gogh wrote about his paintings before studying them the viewer gets the rare opportunity to see each painting through the actual artist’s eyes, which is the real charm of the entire show.
Next Page »
