| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Thursday, November 11, 2021 |
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| | Q3 2021 Market Report | |
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FRANK STELLA (b. 1936), Scramble: Green Double/ Left N, Right 8, 1977. Acrylic on canvas, 69.375 x 138.25 in. Estimate: $3,500,000 - $5,000,000, ARTBnk Value; $4,802,225. Sold: $4,255,000 Sotheby's New York September 30, 2021.
NEW YORK, NY.- ARTBnk analyzed 696 works from sales held at Sothebys, Christies, and Phillips in July, August and September to evaluate the state of the fine art market today. Within this analysis, well break down how these works performed across market sectors by utilizing presale fair market valueARTBnk Valuefor each individual work of art, determined through ARTBnk's unique AI valuation methodology which combines thousands of quantitative and qualitative data points. The 570 lots sold totaled $61,046,300 in sales, 7.6% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $56,759,902, and 11.6% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $54,714,653. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day The Warehouse museumâs exhibition CHINA: Then & Now - Jan Serr showcases photographs by Jan Serr alongside Chinese objects and artifacts from their permanent collection. Encouraging contemplation of time, this immersive exhibition employs large-scale installations to transport visitors from the modern streets of China (New World City) to its quaint historic neighborhoods (Old Town). Photo Credit: Robb Quinn.
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| Tears, dance as Benin welcomes back looted treasures from France | | London's Courtauld to reopen after three-year revamp | | More than $200 million sold on first night of New York fall auctions | 
Benin's President Patrice Talon looks on during a press conference with French President at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on November 9, 2021. Bertrand GUAY / AFP.
by Josue Mehouenou
COTONOU.- With drums, dancing and tears, Benin on Wednesday welcomed back nearly 30 royal treasures looted from the West African state during France's colonial rule more than 130 years ago. The artefacts, some considered sacred in Benin, arrived in the economic capital Cotonou by plane before being transported in three trucks, escorted by horses, to the presidential palace. The return of the artefacts comes as calls mount in Africa for Western countries to hand back colonial spoils from their museums. Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany have also received requests from African countries to return lost treasures. In Benin on Wednesday, hundreds of people from all over the country thronged the streets to watch the treasures arrive. Adults and children, mostly dressed in ... More | | 
The Bloomsbury Room at The Courtauld Gallery. Photo © Jim Winslet.
LONDON.- London's Courtauld Gallery, shut since 2018 for renovation works, reopens its doors later this month after what it said was the largest transformation project in its history. The gallery, located in Somerset House, a listed building on the banks of the River Thames, has undergone a multi-million-pound renovation and restructuring. "The Courtauld has one of the great collections in the UK," gallery director Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen told AFP on Wednesday. "What we wanted to do was marry it harmoniously to this important historic building. So the two things come together and work beautifully." Among the major works carried out is the complete overhaul of the Great Room -- the oldest exhibition space in the British capital and home to the Royal Academy's summer exhibitions from 1780 to 1836. The gallery has kept the exact cost of the renovations under wraps but it has involved financing from the LVMH Foundation. Its world-renowned collection of Impression ... More | | 
The auction was led by the monumental canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Guilt of Gold Teeth, 1982, achieving USD $40,000,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2021.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christie's first in-person auction in New York since the pandemic began netted more than $200 million on Tuesday night, with paintings by Basquiat and Banksy going under the hammer. In a sign of the vitality of the current art market, all forty lots found a buyer in the '21st Century' sale at the Christie's auction room in the Rockefeller Center, which was open to the public for the first time since March 2020. But it took place in a hybrid format, where it was possible to bid physically from New York or connected real-time bidding rooms in London and Hong Kong, as well as online. The auction's total sales were $219 million, with bidders registered from 27 countries, Christie's said. The most anticipated piece was "Guilt of Gold Teeth" by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a 1982 painting on a large-scale canvas that went for $40 million. The piece "depicts Baron Samedi, a spirit of ... More |
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| Virtual tour of Greece's ancient Olympia goes live | | Gagosian to open an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Mark Tansey | | Whose writing is on the wall at the museum? It could be yours. | 
The Greek culture ministry, which assisted US software giant Microsoft with the Ancient Olympia Common Grounds app, in a statement said the monuments were "as faithful to their original form as possible".
ATHENS.- A virtual tour of ancient Olympia, cradle of the Olympic Games and one of Greece's top archaeological sites, on Wednesday opened to the public, bringing nearly 30 of its temples and monuments to a wider audience. The archeological treasures are rendered in 3D, including the Stadium, the Temple of Hera where the sacred flame of the modern Olympics is lit every two years, and the workshop of master sculptor Pheidias, creator of the Parthenon in Athens. The Greek culture ministry, which assisted US software giant Microsoft with the Ancient Olympia Common Grounds app, in a statement said the monuments were "as faithful to their original form as possible". Among the highlights of the application is the legendary gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus, created by Pheidias. Considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the massive statue is believed to have been destroyed or lost ... More | | 
Mark Tansey, Xing, 2021. Oil on canvas. Unframed: 88 x 60 in. 223.5 x 152.4 cm. Framed: 89 1/4 x 61 1/4 x 2 1/8 in. 226.7 x 155.6 x 5.4 cm. © Mark Tansey. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.
NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian will present an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Mark Tansey, representing more than six years of work. The exhibition at 980 Madison Avenue in New York will feature one new paintingXing (2021)three other recent paintings, and a selection of new drawings made in graphite mixed with oil or water. Working within the stylistic conventions of figurative painting, Tansey pursues a fascination with history by layering imagery derived from an extensive archive of printed ephemera, collages, and sketches, often depicting sublime landscapes punctuated by figures or vessels. In detailed monochromatic scenessince 2004 he has made particular use of bluehe distorts perspective and scale, emphasizing their sensate presence while restructuring our readings of historical period and spatial orientation. Tansey paints using a subtractive process, first priming the canvas with gesso, then painting one section at ... More | | 
Wendy Nalani Ikemoto, curator of the exhibition "Scenes of New York City," at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan, Oct. 21, 2021. Jeenah Moon/The New York Times.
by Julia Jacobs
NEW YORK, NY.- While preparing the wall text for a museum exhibition about New York City, the curator, Wendy Nalani E. Ikemoto, consulted an unlikely figure in the world of contemporary American art: a Central Park carriage driver. She walked up to Nurettin Kirbiyik and his horse at a spot where carriages convene at the southern end of the park and showed him a photograph of a 1945 oil painting by Gifford Beal, Central Park Hack, in which a top-hat-wearing driver commands a regal white horse. Hi, Im a curator at the New-York Historical Society, Ikemoto said in her introduction. Kirbiyik, like his predecessor, wore a top hat. Can I talk to you about this painting? Today his interpretation is emblazoned on the wall of New York Citys oldest museum, next to the painting. This painting reminds me of springtime in Central Park when the leaves are at their ... More |
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| Wadsworth Atheneum announces new leadership model, appointment of CEO and search for new director | | Nationalmuseum acquires painting by Julia Beck | | Marie Antoinette's bracelets dazzle at auction | 
To begin the transition to this new leadership model, the Board of Trustees has appointed Jeffrey N. Brown as the museums new CEO.
HARTFORD, CONN.- The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art announced today that it is transitioning to a distributed leadership model, splitting the roles of the CEO and Director into two separate positions, enabling the institution to better seize opportunities in a changing museum environment, consistent with its evolutionary heritage. In the new dyadic structure, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) will be responsible for the overall leadership, vision, and strategic direction of the organization and its staff. The Director will report to the CEO and will be responsible for the artistic direction of the museum, steering the collection management, exhibitions, and educational programming activities. A search committee formed earlier this year by the Board of Trustees helped define this new model and identify the specifications of each position. Together, the CEO and Director form a leadership ... More | | 
Julia Beck, Autumn Day, 1883 (detail). Oil on canvas. Photo: Anna Danielsson / Nationalmuseum.
STOCKHOLM.- Nationalmuseum has acquired a key work by Julia Beck, the 1883 painting Autumn Day. After a long period of obscurity, Beck has made a comeback in recent years and is now one of the most popular Swedish artists from the late 19th century. The newly acquired painting enables the museum to reflect the breadth and depth of her oeuvre when presenting her art to the public. Over the past decade, Julia Beck has emerged from a century of obscurity in an almost unprecedented way. Her paintings of water lily ponds have fetched high prices at auction, and previously unknown works have been discovered in private collections in France. Beck has also attracted increasing interest from art historians and exhibition organisers. The recently acquired painting, dating from 1883, is one of the most interesting works created by a member of the international artist colony at Grèz-sur-Loing outside Paris in the 1880s. The artists ... More | | 
This picture taken in Geneva on September 6, 2021 shows one of the two bracelets that belonged to French Queen Marie-Antoinette adorned with three rows of 112 old cut diamonds. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP.
GENEVA.- Two diamond bracelets once belonging to Marie Antoinette and imbued with her "glamour, glory and drama" according to Christie's auction house, sold for more than $8 million on Tuesday. It was the first time that the bracelets, made up of 112 old-cut diamonds, had ever gone under the hammer. Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France before the French Revolution, was guillotined in Paris aged 37 in October 1793. "Her style defines the unique aesthetics of Versailles: opulent and regal, yet youthful and romantic. A tastemaker extraordinaire, then and now," said Christie's Europe chairman Francois Curiel. "Their royal provenance is impeccable; not only is their line of heritage unbroken and traceable from 1776 onwards, but the bracelets have been featured in two famous historic paintings," said Curiel. "These bracelets travelled through time to recount ... More |
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| Literary star Viet Thanh Nguyen on the roots of identity politics | | Christie's Paris announces highlights included in the Exceptional Sale | | France's Azoulay re-elected as UNESCO chief | 
In this file photo taken on June 28, 2017 US novelist, 2016 Pulitzer prize winner for Fiction, Vietnamese-born Viet Thanh Nguyen poses during a photo session. Martin BUREAU / AFP.
PARIS.- By offering up a new perspective on US and French imperialism, Viet Thanh Nguyen has become a literary star. But the Pulitzer-winning author insists that reducing everything to identity politics misses the point about the horrors of the past, and how to move forward. "I'm often called a Vietnamese-American writer, which I don't have a problem with," Nguyen told AFP. "But I do have a problem with it when other writers are just called 'writers'. "My books are not only speaking about Vietnamese issues. They are speaking about France, the US, and global issues like colonialism, racism and imperialism." Nguyen won international acclaim for his million-selling 2015 novel "The Sympathizer" about a half-Vietnamese, half-French double agent during the Vietnam War, who later remains embedded among exiles in the United ... More | | 
A gold and enamel snuffbox from 1753-1754. Estimate 250,000-350,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2021.
PARIS.- Christies announced The Exceptional, its annual sale dedicated to outstanding pieces with unique provenances and stories to take place live at Christies Paris on 23 November 2021. It will feature 37 lots with a variety of backgrounds and origins. Spanning disciplines and travelling from the Forbidden City in Beijing to the Château de Versailles, the sale includes precious scientific memorabilia as well as masterpieces. Each lot of the sale is a rare historical testimony of its own time and culture, such as a rare Imperial throne carpet woven to adorn the Ming emperors palace (Estimate 3,500,000 - 4,500,000) or a unique manuscript by Einstein and Michele Besso (Estimate 2,000,000 - 3,000,000). A superb selection of French decorative arts will be led by a sumptuous commode designed for the private apartment of the Kings son in Versailles (Estimate 400,000 - 600,000). The overall estimate for ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on October 27, 2021 Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Audrey Azoulay poses during a photo session in Paris. JOEL SAGET / AFP.
PARIS.- The UN cultural agency UNESCO on Tuesday re-elected France's Audrey Azoulay as its director-general for a second mandate, with the former French culture minister hailing a new confidence and unity in the organisation. UNESCO had been riven by divisions when Azoulay took office in 2017 with both Israel and the United States exiting the agency over accusations of anti-Israeli bias. Unchallenged, Azoulay won her new mandate at UNESCO's general conference with 155 votes in favour, just nine against and one abstention. "I see this result as a sign of regained unity within our organisation. Over the last four years, we have been able to restore confidence in UNESCO, and in some respects this has also been about restoring UNESCO's confidence in itself," she said. ... More |
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Ominous Land: Philip Guston's Striking Depiction of Injustice
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 Vans x MOCA launch artist-inspired collectionLOS ANGELES, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art, in partnership with Vans, the action sports footwear and apparel brand, presents limited-edition lines of footwear and apparel featuring art by California artists Judy Baca, Brenna Youngblood, and Frances Stark, as well as designs inspired by MOCAs iconic logo. Launching for Holiday 2021, all Vans x MOCA products will be available on November 12, 2021. Born and based in Los Angeles, Dr. Judy Baca (b. 1946) is a muralist whose public works have shed light on the lives and hardships of disenfranchised communities for more than 40 years. Her best-known work, The Great Wall of Los Angeles (1974-1984), is a half-mile-long mural in the San Fernando Valley, completed in collaboration with more than 400 local youth and their families. Bacas Vans x MOCA Old Skool shoe features a design inspired by her work Hitting the Wall, ... More  The superheroes from House of Slay are here to stayNEW YORK, NY.- One evening, just before Halloween, a party was held at Chinese Tuxedo, a trendy Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Attendees entered through a back alley lit by yellow lanterns, past graffitied walls covered in posters of superheroes. Inside they sipped Champagne while Asian drag queens, West Dakota, Panthera Lush and Dynasty, writhed around the restaurants poles. The evenings invitation had dictated: Dress to Slay. That was not because guests were about to get bloody, however. They were celebrating the birth of a new kind of superhero. Forget Shang-Chi. Forget the Eternals. The most unexpected supe debut is happening this week online, courtesy of House of Slay, a web comic book series about five Asian best friends who fight the God of Darkness. And who also happen to be real. Or at least are based ... More  U.S. Holocaust Museum says China 'may be committing genocide' against UyghursNEW YORK, NY.- The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said in a report issued Tuesday that China had escalated its crimes against the Muslim community of Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang and that it was gravely concerned that the government may be committing genocide. The report, To Make Us Slowly Disappear: The Chinese Governments Assault on the Uyghurs, builds on a March 2020 announcement made by the museum that there was reasonable basis to believe that the Chinese government had perpetrated the crimes against humanity of persecution and of imprisonment against the Uyghurs. Based on compiled evidence, the report issued Tuesday found there was now reasonable basis to believe that the crimes include forced sterilization, sexual violence, enslavement, torture, and forcible transfer. In a statement, Tom Bernstein, chair ... More  In her Met debut, a conductor leads a fresh 'La Bohème'NEW YORK, NY.- Giacomo Puccinis beloved La Bohème, with its lyrically rich and deftly written score, has the makings of a surefire opera. Yet the music is full of traps for a conductor, especially when it comes to pacing and rhythmic freedom; give singers too much expressive leeway, and things can easily turn flaccid. Even in a good performance of this well-known staple, its hard for a conductors work to stand out against the singers voices, which usually claim our attention. But Tuesday, when Bohème returned to the Metropolitan Opera in Franco Zeffirellis enduringly popular production and with an appealing cast in place the star of the evening was the conductor, Eun Sun Kim, in her Met debut. Last month, Kim made history at the San Francisco Opera as the first female music director of a major U.S. opera company. And at the Met this week, she did the job with musicianly ... More  UT Austin's Briscoe Center acquires photo archive of Christopher LittleAUSTIN, TX.- The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas is pleased to announce the donation of the Christopher Little Photographic Archive, an important addition to the centers internationally significant photojournalism collections. Littles archive spans his career as an esteemed photojournalist and comprises an expansive photographic portfolio of public figures and international subjects. He is best known for his 21 years with People magazine (19802001). His work also has been published in such major magazines and newspapers as Life, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, Architectural Digest, Town & Country, National Geographic World, and Paris Match. Christopher Littles collection is a rich and fascinating compendium of public figures and historic moments. We are thrilled he has chosen to donate his lifes ... More  Daylight Books to release 'Viewing Distance: Remixing the Archives of the Military-Industrial Complex'NEW YORK, NY.- Evan Hume first began filing Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain declassified photographs and documents when he was still a graduate student at George Washington University. Years later, his study of and subsequent archive of incomplete, redacted, "historical fragments" fills the pages of Viewing Distance. Time passage between when an image is taken and when it is viewed, and partial truths revealed as a result of obscured or redacted elements, combine and result in speculation and implication. It is within this space that Hume explores in this project with images that link decades and speak to the changing role of photography as a historical document. In the twentieth century photography became a more pervasive and essential tool in the international political landscape, utilized for reconnaissance and surveillance, both on the ground and aerial. ... More  Christie's presents Magnificent Jewels and Jewels Online & Colorful Whimsy: Jewels by Michele della ValleNEW YORK, NY.- Christies New York announces the December 8 auction of Magnificent Jewels and the concurrent Jewels Online & Colorful Whimsy: Jewels by Michele della Valle sale from November 23 December 7. The auction will offer over 200 lots, highlighted by renowned private collections, noteworthy diamonds and colored gemstones, and an impressive assemblage of important signed jewels by Bvlgari, Cartier, Graff, Harry Winston, JAR, Jean Schlumberger, Suzanne Belperron, Tiffany & Co., and Van Cleef & Arpels. An exhibition by appointment will be held at Christies New York from 3-7 December. The Magnificent Jewels auction is led by three important colored diamonds including: a rare fancy vivid orangy pink diamond ring of 5.38 carats, VS2 clarity ($2,200,000-3,200,000); an important fancy vivid yellow diamond pendant of 70.19 carats, VS2 clarity ... More  Triumphant return for ART X Lagos LAGOS.- A rich programme of curated and interactive projects, talks and events took place including ART X Live! ART X Lagos staged a triumphant return to the Federal Palace in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria with the first in-person art fair to take place anywhere on the African continent since the pandemic struck in 2020. The physical fair closed on Sunday 7 November amid reports of strong sales, enthusiastic collector attendance and gallery satisfaction across the board while the online edition will continue via ARTXLAGOS.COM until 21 November. Tokini Peterside, ART X Collective Founder & CEO said: This years ART X Lagos created a place for artists, gallerists, collectors and curators to come together and celebrate the vibrant African art scene. The response to our first physical fair in two years has been astounding - demonstrating the critical role that the fair plays in Africas ... More  Rivich brings designer fashion and American standards to auction, Nov. 17-18CHICAGO, IL.- Widely known as the Midwests favorite source for artsy, outside-the-box antiques and estate goods, Chicagos Rivich Auction has just posted its online catalogs for an exciting November 17-18 sale with selections to please every holiday shopper. Day one will focus exclusively on vintage fashions from Chanel, Gucci and other premier designers, while day two offers a selection of Western to Mid-Century art, furniture and many quirky but cool items that even the savviest person shopper would never find in brick-and-mortar stores. More than 120 lots of high-end designer clothing from an estate on Chicagos prestigious North Shore will be offered on November 17. Its a stylish mix of 1970s through 1990s daywear, after-five dresses, and outerwear, with many garments displaying the labels of such coveted brands as Chanel, Gucci, Oscar de la Renta and Christian ... More  How a murderous poet inspired one of Dostoevsky's masterworksNEW YORK, NY.- The truth about Fyodor Dostoyevsky has proved to be as mysterious and inexhaustible as the enigmatic figures he wrote about, drawing the attention of novelists (Leonid Tsypkin, J.M. Coetzee) and any number of biographers (Joseph Frank, Leonid Grossman). In Dostoevsky in Love, published this year, Alex Christofi combined genres, plucking lines from Dostoyevskys fiction and training them across a trellis of biographical fact. The endless revisitation suggests something that Dostoyevsky himself may have appreciated. As Oliver Ready observes in the introduction to his superb translation of Crime and Punishment, knowing the facts is not the same as knowing the person a notion that happens to align with Dostoyevskys own objections to the fixation on mere data. So Kevin Birmingham has set out to offer something more interpretive and ... More  Don Maddox, last survivor of a pioneering country band, dies at 98NEW YORK, NY.- Don Maddox, the last surviving member of the Maddox Brothers & Rose, the lively sibling band that helped give rise to West Coast honky-tonk, rockabilly and early rock n roll, died Sept. 12 in an adult care facility in Medford, Oregon. He was 98. His death, which was not widely reported at the time, was confirmed by his wife of 11 years, Barbara Harvey-Maddox, who said he had been suffering from dementia. Hailed in the 1940s and 50s as Americas most colorful hillbilly band, the Maddox Brothers & Rose were renowned for their exuberant fusion of barnyard twang and gutbucket R&B, as well as for their uproarious antics onstage. The fringed, embroidered costumes they wore designed by Hollywood rodeo tailor Nathan Turk were equally dazzling, a harbinger of the Western resplendence sported by Buck Owens in the 1960s and later by Gram Parsons ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
RIBA 
The Kingâs Animals 
DOMENICO GNOLI 
Karlo Kacharava
Flashback On a day like today, French painter Paul Signac was born November 11, 1863. Paul Signac (11 November 1863 - 15 August 1935) was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style. In this image: Esther Lausek from Hungary takes a look at the painting "The Jetty at Cassis" by Paul Signac that is on display at the exhibition "The nicest Frenchmen come from New York City" in Berlin, Wednesday, May 30, 2007.
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