| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Sunday, January 21, 2024 |
| | | Orlando Museum drops legal claims against owners of fake Basquiats | |
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An entrance for the Orlando Museum of Art, in Orlando, Fla., Jan. 10, 2024. (Todd Anderson/The New York Times)
NEW YORK, NY.- The Orlando Museum of Art announced Friday that it was dismissing its legal claims of fraud and conspiracy against five co-owners of paintings who touted them as the creations of art world legend Jean-Michel Basquiat and lent them for a 2022 exhibition. In a statement, the museums board chair, Mark Elliott, said that in an effort to cut its legal costs, the institution would focus its case solely on its former executive director, Aaron De Groft, whom he said had been responsible for hand-picking the paintings and then fast-tracking them for exhibition. The museums 2022 exhibition of the purported Basquiats came to an abrupt end that June with a raid by members of the FBIs Art Crime Team, who seized the works off the museums walls. A Los Angeles auctioneer later admitted to the FBI that he and an associate had themselves forged the paintings, some in as little as five minutes. In its original lawsuit, filed in August 2023, the museum, also ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Nika Kutateladze, They Were Born Together, They Will Die Together, Modern Art Bury Street, exhibition view, 20 January-17 February 2024. Photo: Michael Brzezinski. Courtesy: the artist, Modern Art, London and Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi.
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| Sundance kicks off with Jodie Foster, Robert Downey Jr. and Kristen Stewart | | Demand for numismatic trophies continues at Heritage's $60 million FUN auctions | | Apollo Art Auctions presents aspects of The Prince Collection in Jan. 28 sale of antiquities |
Chris Smith, director of DEVO, an official selection of the Premieres Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
by Alyson Krueger
PARK CITY, UTAH.- On Thursday night, the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, which is celebrating its 40th edition this year, was bustling. Banners hung on snowy Main Street, Leon Bridges was performing at a new music venue and the Eccles Theater was packed for one of the opening films: Freaky Tales. And about 7 p.m., some 500 guests shuttled to a convention center about 20 minutes away in Kamas for the festivals Opening Night Gala, hosted by the Sundance Institute. The organization, which puts on the festival and has the mission of supporting independent filmmakers, held this type of fundraising event for the first time last year. The Sundance Institute brought together a crowd of people, which included film industry players such as Christopher Nolan, who found ... More | |
1855 $50 Kellogg & Co. Fifty Dollar PR64 Cameo PCGS. CAC. Kagin-4, High R.6. Sold on Jan 11, 2024 for: $1,260,000.
DALLAS, TX.- The finest known example of a 1855 Kellogg & Co. Fifty Dollar PR64 Cameo PCGS. CAC. Kagin-4, High R.6 soared to a record $1.26 million to lead Heritages FUN US Coins Auction to $40,522,148 in total sales. That total, along with the $6,845,461 Collection of Walter J. Husak and The Liberty Cap Foundation US Coins Signature® Auction that was part of FUN and Heritages $13,003,338 FUN Currency Signature® Auction, boosted the combined total for the event to $60,370,947. Just when some people thought the marketplace for numismatic trophies might be starting to soften given the flurry of record prices weve set over the last few years, our bidders once again delivered some staggering results, says Todd Imhof, Executive Vice President at Heritage Auctions. We continue to invest a lot of time and money to keep Heritages auction platform ... More | |
Late 4th/3rd century BC Attic red-figure bell krater decorated on one side with Dionysiac scene (Dionysus, Ariadne and satyrs); three male figures wrapped in ritual himatia on other side. Attributed to Telos Painter. Size: 390mm x 380mm (15.4in x 15in); weight: 5.45kg (12lbs). Lengthy British and Continental provenance since 1998. Accompanied by TL report from QED. Starting bid: £8,000 ($10,160).
LONDON.- Dr Ivan Bonchev, Director of Apollo Art Auctions, takes utmost pride in announcing a Sunday, January 28, 2024 live and online auction of 560 lots featuring aspects of The Prince Collection, one of the finest and most advanced assemblages of antiquities in the world. The London auction house also plans a separate Monday, January 29 online-only sale focusing specifically on fine Chinese and Islamic art. Formed from the 1990s through 2014, The Prince Collection traverses the entire scope of cultural evolution, with items of peerless provenance and great rarity from the Neolithic, Egyptian, Hittite, Greco-Roman, and Near Eastern civilizations. ... More |
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| Overlooked no more: Beatrix Potter, author of 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit' | | Milestone sets new house record for antique toy auction, closing at $1.3M | | Istanbul Biennial postponed as lead curator resigns |
Beatrix Potter, Illustration from The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, London and New York: Frederick Warne and Co., 1904. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. 87742. Gift of Julia P. Wightman, 1991.
by Jess Bidgood
NEW YORK, NY.- With The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter created what would become one of the worlds best-known childrens book characters. The book, about a cheeky rabbit who steals vegetables from the garden of one Mr. McGregor and loses his coat and shoes in a narrow escape, became a literary juggernaut that has sold more than 45 million copies. It also spawned a merchandising empire and has left an indelible imprint on childrens book publishing. But Potters manuscript was initially dismissed by publishers. The year was 1900, and Potter, then in her mid-30s, had submitted her book, complete with her own intricate illustrations, to at least six publishers, according to her biographer Linda Lear. As the rejections flowed in, she unloaded her frustrations in a letter to a family friend, including ... More | |
The top-selling robot in the sale was this Yonezawa (Japan) 10in windup Diamond Planet Robot, a very rare variation with blue body and red arms and ears. All original and complete, it sold for $34,440 against an estimate of $20,000-$30,000.
WILLOUGHBY, OHIO.- For more than 12 solid hours, bidders across the globe ignored the clock and stayed the course to bid in Milestones January 13, 2024 auction, the Ohio companys first-ever toy sale to cross the million-dollar threshold. Finishing near $1.3 million, the 723-lot offering kept antique toy fans competitively engaged as they vied for extreme rarities and prototypes. In so doing, the current hot market for antique and vintage toys continued its unabated run, revealing which types of toys currently hold most-favored status and which are enjoying a revival of interest. Categories that grabbed the spotlight and brought consistently high prices included robots, space toys, motorcycles, and the ingenious, sometimes humorous, tin toys of pre-WWII Japan that, in decades past, had been underappreciated and thought of as niche collectibles. The ... More | |
Portrait of Iwona Blazwick, 2016. Photo: Christa Holka.
by Alex Marshall
NEW YORK, NY.- The Istanbul Biennial, one of the European art worlds major events, was thrown into disarray Friday when its lead curator stepped down and the event was postponed until 2025. Divisions in the art world over the biennials choice of Iwona Blazwick, a British curator, to oversee the event had made it impossible for the show to open as planned in September, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, which organizes the biennial, said in a news release. A spokesperson for the foundation said in a telephone interview that Blazwick had resigned after reaching the decision to postpone. A furor around the exhibition has been building for months. Before taking on the role of lead curator, Blazwick had been a member of a four-person advisory panel that considered applications for the job and which initially recommended that Defne Ayas, a Turkish curator, should oversee the next edition, its 18th. But the biennials organizers rejected that choice ... More |
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| Hauser & Wirth Institute announces 3 new archival projects | | Someone filled the Chicago rat hole. Residents took action. | | Over 8,000 tennis balls line the walls of David Shrigley's interactive Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange at Triennial EXTRA |
Jesse Murry with John Constables paint brushes, Somerset, England, 1991. Photograph by Richard Constable. Courtesy of The Jesse Murry Foundation.
NEW YORK, NY.- Today, Hauser & Wirth Institute announced three projects for their In-House Archiving Program, working with the archives of organizations The Drawing Center and Dieu Donné, and artist Jesse Murry. The In-House Archiving Program is one of the ways Hauser & Wirth Institute commits to making artists archives more accessible. Through the program, the Institute provides cataloging, preservation and selected digitization of archives as a free service for artists and art organizations. The goal is to significantly increase public access to archival materials. After processing is completed, the archiving partners will either make their archives freely available through their own programs and systems, or donate their archives to a collecting institution that offers robust public access. We all know that arts collectives and small arts organizations do vital work to support artists and bring their works to the public,& ... More | |
To better see the outline, water is poured on the rat-shaped impression that has become a minor social media sensation, attracting coins, a rubber rat, and other memorial offerings, in a sidewalk along Roscoe Street on the North Side of Chicago, Jan. 11, 2024. (Evan Jenkins/The New York Times)
by Sopan Deb
NEW YORK, NY.- Where have you gone, Chicago rat hole? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Life, as German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, is a pendulum that swings between pain and boredom. But Schopenhauer could not account for the elation with which residents of Chicago embraced an unlikely attraction this month: a hole in a sidewalk shaped like a rat. And then Friday morning, the pendulum swung back to pain: The hole was no more. The rat hole was dead. Long live the rat hole. NBC Chicago reported that the hole, which for weeks had attracted amused gawkers to a quiet residential area of the Roscoe Village neighborhood, had been filled in with what appeared to be plaster or concrete. Someone did this, Jonathan Howell told NBC Chicago. Some vandal did this. By Friday afternoon, however, the pendulum had taken another swing as residents banded together to fix the hole in this case by restoring ... More | |
Visitors enjoying David Shrigleys Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange 2023 on display as part of Triennial EXTRA from 19-28 January 2024, a celebration of the NGV Triennial exhibition at NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Tim Carrafa.
MELBOURNE.- From today until 28 January, the National Gallery of Victoria invites visitors to trade their own tennis balls for one of over 8,000 new balls lining the walls of Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange, a participatory artwork by leading British artist David Shrigley. This large-scale and evolving installation at the NGV is making its Australian premiere and is presented as part of the free, late-night Triennial EXTRA program, 19-28 January 2024. Visitors to Melbourne Tennis Ball Exchange have the opportunity to contribute to this ever-changing artwork by exchanging a pre-loved tennis ball for a new one. Shrigley hopes that visitors can consider the joy that can be experienced through trading everyday goods, even when the goods are of equal value. A previous presentation of this work Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange premiered in London in 2021 at Stephen Friedman Gallery and saw thousands of people engage with the work over three months. ... More |
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| Leonard Rickhard died 3 weeks before the opening of his solo exhibition at Astrup Fearnley Museet | | Rare Athens 1896 Olympics Silver 'First Place' winner's medal sold for $111,960 at auction | | Alec Baldwin is charged, again, with involuntary manslaughter |
Leonard Rickhard at Bergen Kunsthall in 2009. Photo: Thor Brødreskift.
OSLO.- Shortly before the opening of his major solo exhibition, the Norwegian artist Leonard Rickhard passed away on January 7th, 2024, after a short illness, aged 78. With his passing, Norway lost one of its leading artists. The exhibition is my artistic goal, Rickhard frequently said during the three-year preparation period for Between Construction and Collapse, which will open as planned on January 25th. He often made new paintings with an upcoming exhibition in mind, and Between Construction and Collapse is no different. Individual works were made using the planned display at Astrup Fearnley Museet as a guide. Only in the exhibition did the paintings achieve their full potential for Rickhard, and only after a long period of development at his studio in Arendal. Colors that resonate with several paintings in a room, the relationship between the architecture and the materiality of the paintings, the dimensions and the sculptural design of the frames ... More | |
Athens 1896 Olympics Silver 'First Place' Winner's Medal. Sold For: $111,960 (w/BP) Estimate: $100,000+.
BOSTON, MASS.- An elusive Athens 1896 Olympics Silver 'First Place' Winner's Medal sold for $111,960, according to Boston-based RR Auction. The inaugural modern Olympiad witnessed first-place winners adorned with silver medals, making this specific medal a true embodiment of the origins of Olympic excellence. Notably, during the 1896 Olympic Games, there was no third-place award, adding to the rarity of any winner's medal from this historic event. Any winner's medal from the historic debut of the 1896 Olympic Games remains exceedingly rare, and this marvelous example is one of the finest encountered. "This Athens 1896 Olympics Silver 'First Place' Winner's Medal is a magnificent and historic artifact that captures the essence of the birth of the modern Olympic Games. The impressive price achieved reflects the immense significance collectors place on these rare and iconic pieces of sporting ... More | |
Alec Baldwin rehearses shortly before the fatal shooting on the set of Rust. (The New York Times)
by Julia Jacobs
NEW YORK, NY.- A grand jury in New Mexico indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on a charge of involuntary manslaughter, reviving the criminal case against him in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film Rust more than two years ago when a gun he was rehearsing with went off. The indictment, which came exactly one year after the first involuntary manslaughter case against him was announced, was the latest reversal of fortune for Baldwin. The local district attorneys initial case fell apart and the initial charge against Baldwin was dismissed in April. But a new prosecution team, Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis, decided to present the case to a grand jury, which indicted Baldwin on Friday. In New Mexico, an involuntary manslaughter conviction on a charge like the one Baldwin faces can carry up to 18 months in prison. We look forward to our day in ... More |
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Painters on Painting: Allison Katz
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Sleater-Kinney, out of the woods, for better or worse
NEW YORK, NY.- Nearly 20 years ago, when Sleater-Kinney released its towering seventh album, The Woods, there was a convincing case to be made that the trio was the most vital, and underrated, working American rock band. Born of the fervent feminist spirit of the riot grrrl movement and the Pacific Northwests fertile DIY scene, the group spent the second half of the 90s releasing increasingly sophisticated punk albums and eventually, on its righteous 2002 release One Beat, maturing into one of the few indie-rock bands making meaningful protest music in the aftermath of 9/11. On The Woods, Sleater-Kinney managed to kick things into an even higher gear. The twitchy electricity of Carrie Brownsteins guitar, the embodied howl of Corin Tuckers vocals and the earth-quaking force of Janet Weiss drums collided in a glorious ... More
What drives Kaveh Akbar? The responsibility of survival
NEW YORK, NY.- When Kaveh Akbar was drinking, he would regularly wake up to find new bruises or gashes on his body, or to find that he had lost his glasses, his wallet or his car. When he opened his eyes, he might find himself in an alley instead of in his apartment. Once, he got out of bed and realized he couldnt walk. He had broken his pelvis. There was nothing in his life at the time, he said, to indicate it would turn out terribly well. But he got sober, and in the years since, he got married, found a job as a creative writing professor at the University of Iowa and wrote poetry that won him an armful of awards. And on Tuesday, Knopf will publish his first novel. Eleven years ago, I was pissing the bed, he said. And now Im living this life. Akbars novel, Martyr!, follows Cyrus, a young Iranian American man who grows up with the story of his mothers ... More
'Our Class' review: A town's horrific past chillingly brought into the light
NEW YORK, NY.- A simple staging idea can have a devastating affect. As audience members file into BAM Fishers Fishman Space and wait for Our Class to start, a man can be seen writing names in white chalk on a massive blackboard. It looks like a supersize version of the kind that might be in a classroom, but the list of names here are followed by birth and death dates. We are immediately, chillingly aware of each characters life expectancy. So when we are introduced to Zygmunt (Elan Zafir), for example, we know that he was born in 1918 and lived to see 1977. On the other hand, Jakub (Stephen Ochsner) will die when hes about 22, in 1941. That last year is the tragic turning point of Tadeusz Slobodzianeks play, which premiered in London in 2009 and, under the direction of Igor Golyak, is finally making a belated New York debut ... More
After 7 decades of television stardom, she's ready for 1 more
TOKYO.- Pushing a walker through a television studio in central Tokyo this week, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi slowly climbed three steps onto a soundstage with the help of an assistant who settled her into a creamy beige Empire armchair. A stylist removed the custom-made sturdy boots on her feet and slipped on a pair of high-heeled mules. A makeup artist brushed her cheeks and touched up her blazing red lipstick. A hairdresser tamed a few stray wisps from her trademark onion-shaped hairstyle as another assistant ran a lint roller over her embroidered black jacket. With that, Kuroyanagi, 90, was ready to record the 12,193rd episode of her show. As one of Japans best-known entertainers for seven decades, Kuroyanagi has interviewed guests on her talk show, Tetsukos Room, since 1976, earning a Guinness World Record last fall for most ... More
Vale M.J.M Carter AO: A lifetime of giving
ADELAIDE.- The Art Gallery of South Australia mourns the loss of one of this nations most significant philanthropists to the arts, M.J.M. Carter AO. His generosity to AGSA and to the arts began in 1966 and continued passionately throughout his life. Max was committed to expanding the scope and quality of the Gallerys collections. He was dedicated to sharing its remarkable stories with the people of South Australia and beyond and aspired to ensure his home state remained at the forefront of cultural engagement and excellence. Today, the Gallerys collections are a testament to the potent and transformative power one individual can have on art and society. Today AGSA Director Rhana Devenport ONZM paid tribute to Max Carter: The Art Gallery of South Australia expresses its heartfelt condolences on the passing of the outstanding ... More
'Terce' review: How the other half prays, in a re-imagined mass
NEW YORK, NY.- When Ive had the opportunity, as a wandering Jew, to visit the houses of worship of friends, Ive never felt much in danger of conversion. But if I did, it would surely be the music that got me. Thats also been true for me when visiting the church of Heather Christian: Im not sure what faith shes selling, but Im a sucker for the way it sounds. In Terce: A Practical Breviary, which opened Sunday at the Space at Irondale in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she offers a new installment in what is evidently a plan to remake the Catholic Mass of her childhood in egalitarian if cryptic new terms. Shes doing so one rhapsodic service at a time. In 2020 she offered Prime, her version of the 6 a.m. liturgy. Terce, produced by Here as the centerpiece of this years Prototype festival, advances three hours ... More
Tanya Berezin, behind-the-scenes off-Broadway force, dies at 82
NEW YORK, NY.- By the mid-1980s, Tanya Berezin had gone far as a New York stage actress. She had collected glowing reviews for her off-Broadway performances over the years, and she had won an Obie Award for her role in Lanford Wilsons play The Mound Builders in 1975. Even so, she was growing weary of the hustle. When youre in your 40s it seems really sort of inappropriate to be waiting for telephone calls from people to ask you to do a job, she said in a 1993 interview. It just feels really uncomfortable and childish. Her budding career crisis turned out to be an opportunity. In 1986, Berezin turned her attention from the stage to a highly influential behind-the-scenes role in the theater world: artistic director of the Circle Repertory Company, a storied off-Broadway incubator of talent that she had helped found in 1969. Berezin died on Nov. 29 at the home of he ... More
TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund announces recipients of this year's TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund
MAASTRICHT.- The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) has announced that the National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland) and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Connecticut, USA) are the recipients of this years TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund (TMRF), an annual grant created in support of the international art communitys vital work to preserve artistic and cultural heritage. The National Gallery of Ireland has received funding from TEFAF to restore Ludovico Mazzolino's (c. 1480 - c. 1530) The Crossing of the Red Sea (1521), which has been part of its collection for over a century. This biblical artwork is remarkable for its size and rarity and because it departs from the conventional rules of perspective. In its current fragile state, the painting cannot be safely displayed; with severe delamination of the paint layer and soiling ... More
Nika Kutateladze opens exhibition at Modern Art, Bury Street
LONDON.- As part of its participation in Condo London 2024, Modern Art announced an exhibition of new work by Nika Kutateladze. This exhibition is organised in partnership with Artbeat, Kutateladzes gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia, and it is Modern Arts second showing of Kutateladzes work in London. Through the mediums of painting and installation, Kutateladzes work studies the nuances of relations between people who live as neighbours in rural environments. Having himself spent time living in remote mountain regions in Georgia, Kutateladze takes these small communities as a starting point to meditate on how people both rely on one another and struggle to live together. All Kutateladzes recent works derive from his observations of the few inhabitants of a single, depopulated mountain village. His paintings all made with oil ... More
Peabody Essex Museum elects new Board Chair, Jennifer M. Borggaard
SALEM, MASS.- Today, the Peabody Essex Museum announces the election of Jennifer M. Borggaard as its next Chair of the Board of Trustees. Borggaard, who currently serves as Secretary and Chair of the Governance Committee for PEMs Board of Trustees, succeeds Stuart W. Pratt who dedicated nearly 40 years of service to PEM and its predecessor organization, the Essex Institute. This is the first time since PEMs founding in 1799 that the executive director and board chair positions are held by women. Borggaards service as board chair commences on July 1, 2024. Pratt stated that, Jenn Borggaard brings considerable nonprofit board experience and a deep commitment to PEM as she becomes board chair at a dynamic and promising juncture in the museums history. Working in concert with PEMs Rose-Marie and Eijk ... More
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PhotoGalleries
Gabriele Münter
TARWUK
Awol Erizku
Leo Villareal
Flashback On a day like today, fashion designer Christian Dior was born January 21, 1905. Christian Dior (21 January 1905 - 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior, which is now owned by Groupe Arnault. His fashion houses are now all around the world. This file picture taken on July 3, 2017 shows a man adjusting a dress prior to the opening of the Dior exhibition that celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the Christian Dior fashion house, at the Museum of Decorative Arts (Musee des Arts Decoratifs) in Paris. 708 000 people visited the exhibition dedicated to Christian Dior from July 5, 2017 to January 7, 2018 in Paris.
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