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Slideshow: A Sneak Peek at VIP Art Fair


RIP Steven Leiber, Independent Curator Known for His Passion For Artist's Archives

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RIP Steven Leiber, Independent Curator Known for His Passion For Artist's Archives
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Steven Leiber (b. 1957), a private art and art book dealer as well as a dedicated bibliophile in the esoteric realm of printed art ephemera, died in San Francisco on January 28 after a long illness at the age of 54.

With an unusual academic background, including an art history degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. in law from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, Leiber entered the art world in the late 1970s as the director of the now-shuttered Simon Lowinsky Gallery, also in San Francisco.

Known for his work as an independent curator, Leiber organized the important artist publication and exhibition “Extra Art: A Survey of Artists’ Ephemera, 1960-1999” at the California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco, in 2001. Accompanied by an authoritative, hard-cover catalogue of the same title published by Smart Art Press, the project offered a comprehensive overview of some 1,500 pieces of fascinating ephemera. The collection ranged from Alighiero Boetti’s gorgeous 1967 exhibition announcement card from Galleria Christian Stein in Turin to Lynda Benglis’s infamous, bare-assed announcement card from the Paula Cooper Gallery in 1974 (the photo of the artist was shot by Annie Leibovitz).

Leiber’s longterm obsession with printed matter made him a world-class expert in appraising such collections, including the archives of the General Idea collective (comprised of artists A.A. Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal), Art Metropole, Claes Oldenburg, Allan Kaprow, and Avalanche Magazine.

Leiber was especially noted for his publication of some 40 scholarly sales catalogues offering art, artist’s books, multiples, and art documentation of practically every post-war stripe and nuance since 1992. The catalogues are currently on view at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, in the museum's Library & Archives, through April 27.

The art historian's work can also be seen online at his Web site Steven Leiber Basement, named after the location of his unrivaled archive stored in the lower part of his San Francisco home. Since 2000, Leiber taught curatorial practice as an adjunct professor at CCA (California College of the Arts). He is survived by his wife, Leigh Markopoulos of San Francisco, his parents Arlene and Paul Leiber, and siblings Mitchell Leiber and David Leiber, the latter a partner in New York’s SperoneWestwater Gallery. 

by Judd Tully,Contemporary Arts

Clint Eastwood Leaves Smithsonian Starstruck, Qatar's Huge Art Buy, and More Must-Read Art News

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Clint Eastwood Leaves Smithsonian Starstruck, Qatar's Huge Art Buy, and More Must-Read Art News
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– Clint Eastwood, Patron of the Arts: The director and former Dirty Harry made the Smithsonian Institution's day by paying a visit to the Museum of American History in Washington to help inaugurate the new 264-seat Warner Brothers Theater dedicated to presenting Hollywood history (the film studio donated $5 million to the project). For the event, which also saw Eastwood honored with the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal for his contributions to film, the star was joined by Warner Brothers CEO Barry Meyer and Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, who sits on the Smithsonian's board of regents.  [LAT

– Qatar Pays Big For Cezanne. Really Big:  The Middle Eastern sovereignty of Qatar has been revealed as the purchaser of Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players," Vanity Fair reports. The price paid in the private sale — $250 million — makes it the single most expensive work of art of all time. Check ARTINFO later today for a full report on the momentous transaction. [ITA

– Netherlands Returns Nazi-Looted Paintings: The Dutch government will return two paintings that were looted more than 70 years ago by Nazi mastermind Hermann Goering. Goering's art advisor seized Theobald Michau's 18th-century landscape and an anonymous 16th-century portrait after a Jewish antiques dealer sent them to Paris for safekeeping during the Nazi invasion. "During a war, everybody loots a little bit,” Goering once said in an interview. [Bloomberg]

Art Treasures in Italian Shipwreck: Jewelry, cash, fine wines, and even a series of 300-year-old Japanese woodprints by the legendary Hokusai all sank with the Costa Concordia, and the sunken cruise ship could soon become a prime target for treasure hunters. "As long as there are bodies in there, it's considered off base to everybody because it's a grave," said veteran diver Robert Marx. "But when all the bodies are out, there will be a mad dash for the valuables." Treasure seekers, be warned: the objects still belong to the passengers and anyone attempting to loot the ship is subject to arrest. [AP]

– Occupy Wall Street Comes to Hyperallergic: The OWS Arts & Culture Working Group has begun a two-month residency at the Williamsburg HQ of the art blog Hyperallergic. The residency, titled "Spatial Occupation," "offers the group an opportunity to explore ideas in a physical space." (Hope it works out better than Occupy Artists Space!) [Hyperallergic]

– Johnny Cash's Daughter Plays the Rubin: She may not have much connection to Himalayan art or Tibetan Buddhism, but folk singer Rosanne Cash has become the Rubin Musuem's unofficial musician-in-residence. Friday marks her 12th appearance since the Chelsea institution opened in 2004. [NYT]

– Helsinki Gugg Has a Long Way to Go: Though the Guggenheim's proposal to build an outpost in Helsinki has been well received, the Social Democrats of Helsinki have raised concerns that the project is moving too fast. They may have a point: funding for construction is supposed to be approved this week, but the feasibility study for the project hasn't even been translated into Finnish yet. [Der Standard via Artforum

– MoMA Acquires Works by Feminist Artists: The New York museum has acquired important selections of work from the '60s and '70s by feminist artists Martha Rosler and Valie Export, including Rosler's seminal Vietnam-era collage series "Bringing the War Home." [NYT]

Gavin Turk's New Works Stitched by Prisoners: Inspired by Alighiero E Boetti, Turk's new series of works — to be unveiled at Ben Brown Fine Arts next week — has been hand-stitched by 35 inmates in 29 prisons across the UK. They spent months embroidering the name of the artist in coloured letters using a particular Afghani stitch. "I'm trying to question our contemporary values about authenticity," said Turk. [Independent]

– A Game-Changer for the Art World: L.A. Times critic Christopher Knight pens a profoundly personal appreciation to Mike Kelley, who died earlier this week at 57. "Standard advice circa 1980 to gifted, ambitious young L.A. artists — and every artist I knew also knew that Mike was unique — said, 'Move to New York,'" writes Knight. "He said no." [LAT]

Bulgari to Support New Australian Art Award: The Italian jewelry brand Bulgari has teamed up with Sydney's Gallery of New South Wales to launch the Bulgari Art Award. The $80,000 prize will allow an annual acquisition for the gallery of up to $50,000, while $30,000 will be spent on an artistic residency in Italy. The first winner is to be announced in April. [AMA]

Antwerp's Wide White Space Wins 2012 Art Cologne Prize: The €10,000 ($13,144) prize, awarded in recognition for "outstanding services in the promotion of modern art," will be presented to Anny de Decker on April 19. She ran the gallery with her husband Bernd Lohaus from 1966 to 1976. [e-flux]

ALSO ON ARTINFO:

A Sneak Peek at VIP Art Fair: Does Version 2.0 Take Online Art Commerce Beyond Beta?

France's New Camille Claudel Museum Crosses Boundaries With Public/Private Partnership

Punks Out of the Past: Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, and Destroy All Monsters

RIP Steven Leiber, Independent Curator Known for His Passion For Artist's Archives

Fashion Week Q&A: Designer Kimberly Ovitz Is Inspired by Warriors

11 Weekly NYC Art Picks, From Zimoun's Sound Sculptures to a John Giorno Poetry Reading

VIDEO OF THE DAY: See Destroy All Monsters, the late Mike Kelley's one-time band, perform:

 

Janine "Jah Jah" Gordon Appeals Ryan McGinley Copyright Decision; Defendants Unworried

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Janine "Jah Jah" Gordon Appeals Ryan McGinley Copyright Decision; Defendants Unworried
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Janine "Jah Jah" Gordon, the photographer and rapper who last year sued hipster shutterbug Ryan McGinley for copying her style, has decided to represent herself in a legal appeal challenging the court decision that threw her case out. In August of 2011, Southern District Court judge Richard Sullivan ruled that there was "no substantial similarity" between her work and McGinley's, though Gordon claimed that McGinley stole his subject matter (semi-dressed young people), coloring techniques (saturated hues), and compositions (angled) from her work. 

ARTINFO was able to get a hold of a copy of Gordon's appeal. "The District Court improperly dismissed my law suit because it did not apply the copyright law correctly," it reads. The court "exhibited a lack of intrinsic comprehension of art, and its expression or intended expression," it continues. Gordon claims that the court ignored the copyrightable elements of her work and that its judgement rested on the content rather than the stylistic decisions of her photographs: "the District Court’s focus on the similarity in subject matter, which was only part of my artistic choice, was a great error."

Gordon's appeal also argues that judge Sullivan may have had a conflict of interest in officiating the case, as he had worked in the past with Levi Strauss (the company is McGinley's co-defendant in the case, along with Team gallery, fashion house Agnes B., and others). Sullivan was an associate at the law firm that handled the merger and acquisition of Levi Strauss and Co. and was the chief in-house litigator at management firm Marsh & McLennan companies, “which is also associated with Levi Strauss,” the appeal reads.  

The defendants, however, seem confident of the original ruling, and are pressing on with a previously filed countersuit against Gordon for legal fees. "It is unfortunate that she is forcing the defendants to brief this issue, but Ms. Gordon insists on plodding ahead with what we view to be a frivolous appeal," Jack A. Gordon (no relation to Jah Jah, he clarifies) of Kent, Beatty & Gordon, LLP says in a statement to ARTINFO. Though Janine Gordon claims poverty and likely wouldn't be able to pay fees, "an order awarding costs to the defendants is about all we can hope for in these unfortunate circumstances."

"After all," the lawyer continues, "the courts are available to everyone, even those with no lawyers and no viable claims."

 

 

by Kyle Chayka, Julia Halperin,Contemporary Arts

Nelson-Atkins Museum Will Pay Homage to World's Fairs With a Phalanx of Solar-Powered Shipping Containers

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Nelson-Atkins Museum Will Pay Homage to World's Fairs With a Phalanx of Solar-Powered Shipping Containers
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Sun Pavilion Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

In the futurist spirit of World’s Fairs, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has commissioned the “Sun Pavilion,” the eco-friendliest of temporary structures, to sit in the Kansas City Sculpture Park during their forthcoming design exhibition, “Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World's Fairs, 1851-1939." Not only is the “Sun Pavilion” made of shipping containers, its most interesting feature is its fragmented canopy of solar panels, a result of Kansas City-based Generator Studio architects' collaboration with LA-based artist Tm Gratkowski.

"Tm likes to use found materials. His artwork uses an approach of layering many different components to make one big gesture, which influenced the unfolding of the canopy," head architect Mike Kress told ARTINFO. (Gratkowski is well-versed in refuse reuse, too — he frequently works with what he calls “reclaimed” paper, a.k.a. garbage.) With a tight budget of only $20,000, a short timeline to build, and rigid restrictions on how much they could alter the site, shipping containers seemed to be the perfect solution to the parameters set by the design competition, and their corrugated surfaces add a raw, deconstructivist look to the strucutre. A jury that included NAMA curator and AIA Gold Medal-winning architect Steven Holl selected what they believed was the most innovative of designs submitted to their competition.

The exhibition will include plenty of other gems hailing from 80 years' worth of world's fairs — two centuries-old Baccarat glassware, furniture by Gilbert Rohde, even a papier-mâché piano.

“Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World's Fairs, 1851-1939” is on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from April 14 through August 19. 

 

 

 

Norris Finds New Producer for “Clybourne Park” After Rudin Blowup

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Norris Finds New Producer for “Clybourne Park” After Rudin Blowup
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“Clybourne Park,” Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer-prize-winning drama, is back on the roster of Broadway spring openings. Jordan Roth, the 36-year-old head of Jujamcyn Theatres,  announced this morning  that he would step in as lead producer after a nasty tangle between the playwright and the powerful producer Scott Rudin (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Book of Mormon”) briefly sent the production into limbo.  

Norris, an actor as well as a playwright,  had bowed out of playing the older brother in an HBO pilot production of  Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections,” which Rudin is producing. Rudin,  who is known for his take-no-prisoners style,  launched a retaliatory strike last Wednesday when he informed Michael Riedel that he was canceling not only “Clybourne Park” but also two other Norris plays which he was developing for Broadway. Norris abandoned the pilot after months of protracted negotiations during which, according to a statement from Rudin, Norris made “more and more outrageous demands in the hope we would turn him down, and that he would not have to face the responsibility of reneging on a commitment he made.” Norris responded by saying, “I feel my priority needs to be writing rather than acting.”

That “Clybourne Park” is back on the boards comes as little surprise.  After productions off-Broadway  and London, the drama comes garlanded with rave reviews  and numerous awards. And its small cast of seven, relatively low capitalization ($2 to $2.5 million), and provocative  subject matter make it catnip to producers.  The play is a satirical expansion  on Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal 1959 drama, “A Raisin in the Sun.” The first act, set in ’59, deals with the tensions generated when white residents of a Chicago suburb realize that their neighborhood is about to be integrated. Half a century later,  black residents are resisting the gentrification heralded by a white couple now wanting to buy that same house, tear it down, and build a McMansion. 

The Broadway-bound production of “Clybourne Park”  is now at  the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, where LA Times critic Charles McNulty praised it as “smart, abrasively funny, and fiendishly provocative.” Despite other critical raves,  the  show has not exactly set the Taper  box office afire, maybe due to the cast’s lack of star power (although Frank Wood, Annie Parisse and Christina Kirk are stage veterans). That means  the producers will have their work cut out for them  when the show opens at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 12.

The brouhaha did inspire plenty of media coverage (not to mention bitchy  threads in theater chat rooms). In its details, it also mimicked an upcoming episode of   “Smash,”  the new NBC series  about Broadway premiering on Monday. In a bid  for what its creator playwright Theresa Rebeck calls  “authenticity,” the series features  cameos from a number of  theater personalities playing themselves,  including Roth and Riedel. In episode nine, Anjelica Huston,  playing a hard-nosed Broadway producer,  manipulates  Riedel into printing a scathing column in the New York Post  in order to bring a restive director back into line.

At this rate — following the firestorms over accidents at “Spider-Man” and Stephen Sondheim’s public broadsides against the creative team of  the current revival of “The Gershwins’  ‘Porgy and Bess’” — Rebeck could hardly do worse than to do what “Law and Order” did so successfully: Develop stories ripped from the headlines. 

Slideshow: See artwork from Anthony Papa, author of "15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom"

The Story Behind Mike Kelley's Highly Personal Project for the Whitney Biennial

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The Story Behind Mike Kelley's Highly Personal Project for the Whitney Biennial
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Mike Kelley's "Mobile Homestead"

Critics remember Mike Kelley as an artistic polymath — he was a writer, musician, critic, and artist whose media ranged from felt paintings to stuffed animals to high school yearbook photos. But many in the art community of Detroit, where Kelley grew up, find themselves coming back to one artwork in particular when reminiscing about the artist, who died on Tuesday at age 57: "Mobile Homestead." The unfinished replica of Kelley’s childhood home was to function simultaneously as a public artwork, community center, and private monument. The work is more timely than ever: three documentaries Kelley made to chronicle the life of "Mobile Homestead" will be featured in this year’s Whitney Biennial. Back in Detroit, however, the future of the work — Kelley’s only piece of public art and his only permanent installation in his hometown — is now uncertain.

The project has preoccupied the staff of the Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art for over five years — it was in the works before the museum itself even opened. The idea for "Mobile Homestead" was born on one of Kelley’s periodic visits to Westland, the Detroit suburb where his family once lived. “He came back with this idea that he wanted to do a piece about the house that he grew up in,” said Marsha Miro, a former art critic for the Detroit Free Press and the founding director of MOCAD. After unsuccessfully offering to buy the house from the current tenant, Kelley decided to make a replica of the home instead. Artangel, the influential British nonprofit that commissions large-scale public art installations, agreed to provide the funding. It was that organization's first-ever commission in the United States.

Over the next several years, Kelley worked closely with Artangel and members of the Detroit community to develop the project. "Mobile Homestead" would be reminiscent of many single-floor houses in the Westland neighborhood, which in the '50s and '60s were populated largely by workers for the Big Three automakers. Kelley considered several venues for the finished product, from an abandoned drive-in movie theater to Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Historical Museum, an outdoor space that is home to replicas of the residences of Thomas Edison and Rosa Parks as well as the Wright Brothers’ cycle shop. When neither panned out, Kelley called Miro, who was finalizing plans for MOCAD. “We weren’t even open yet, and he came over and looked around. I said, ‘Why don’t we put it in the back of the museum?’ We had an open lot, and I told him we could use it as a project space. He liked the idea of transplanting a lower-class suburban home into the middle of an urban center.”

Before constructing the entire model, Kelley decided to build a mobile home bearing the façade of his childhood residence. The trailer would travel throughout the surrounding neighborhoods, most of which are now filled with abandoned houses and dilapidated buildings. The idea was for Mobile Homestead to enact a reversal of the “white flight” that took place in Detroit after the inner city race riots of the 1960s. If the community responded well, Kelley and MOCAD would proceed with the entire replica. To date, only the trailer is complete. “He had approved all the construction drawings, we had an agreement that was signed, and we were supposed to break ground on the rest of the house in April,” said Miro. Because the property is still registered in Kelley’s name, Miro says she doesn’t know what will happen to the project now.

The main floor of the house was to reflect Kelley’s home exactly — the same size kitchen, bedrooms, and garage — but there would be very little furniture to allow space for public programming. “Mike very much wanted a social component to it — he thought we could use it for blood drives, and all sorts of things,” said Miro. Other ideas tossed around included neighborhood barbeques and a weekly barbershop that offered free haircuts. Miro thought the space might also be able to function as a permanent mailing address for the area's homeless.

Below the ground floor, Kelley designed two private floors for artist studios. “He called them the ‘underground artist floors,’” said Miro, “punning on that stereotype of the underground.” Maze-like, the high-ceilinged rooms had no doors, only ladders providing a link from one floor to the next. “It played with the idea of this being his house and reflecting the stages of consciousness and repressed desires,” said Miro. Kelley planned to use the space as his own studio when he visited the city. “Who knows the demons he was battling, thinking about this deep, underground space as his own.”

While Kelley was preparing the trailer portion of "Mobile Homestead," he created the documentaries that will be included in the Whitney Biennial. He traveled along Michigan Avenue, which stretches from downtown Detroit out to suburbs like Westland, interviewing the characters he found along the way. The videos attempt to capture the people that line the route "Mobile Homestead" was to take on its maiden voyage from MOCAD to the site of Kelley’s childhood home in the suburbs. “It’s a fascinating thing, because Detroit is full of people who have been left behind in so many ways,” said Miro. “He edited the video very carefully to reflect all the flavors he saw in the city.”

For many, "Mobile Homestead" is a symbol of Kelley’s deep connection to Detroit. “He may have lived in California, but he never left Westland,” said Julia Reyes Taubman, a longtime board member at MOCAD. “He always thought of himself as a blue collar worker from Westland, even when Larry Gagosian was representing him.”

Shortly after the trailer portion of "Mobile Homestead" was complete in 2010, Miro and Kelley prepared to send it off on its first public sojourn down Michigan Avenue. “He wanted to have a big county fair where we would all send the trailer off,” said Miro. The Michigan poet John Sinclair gave an invocation, and crowds gathered for the send-off. Though "Mobile Homestead" had made the journey successfully in a trial run, the hitch inside the trailer wasn’t quite right this time, and it got a flat tire. “It fell over before it even got downtown — it was just the beginning,” said Miro.

“It made Mike so sad, it broke my heart. I don’t even want to think about it because it made him so sad,” she said. “Everyone was excited because off it went down the street, and people were watching and cheering. And then, it didn’t make it all the way.”

by Julia Halperin,Visual Arts, Contemporary Arts

What You Need to Know About the World's Most Powerful Contemporary Art Collector: the State of Qatar

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What You Need to Know About the World's Most Powerful Contemporary Art Collector: the State of Qatar
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Sheikha Al Mayassa

News leaked Thursday that the al-Thani's, the royal family of Qatar, purchased Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players" (1895) for a record $250 million in a private sale sometime in 2011 — the highest reported price ever paid for a single work of art. This isn't the first major painting that the clan has scooped up in the last few years. In fact, their modern and contemporary art buying spree prompted the Art Newspaper to dub them last July the "world's biggest buyer in the art market," reporting that they are the faces behind some of the art world's most high-profile sales in the last six years. ARTINFO brought together all the facts you need to know about this powerful group of oil magnates-cum-art collectors.

WHO

The Emir's 28-year-old daughter Sheikha Al Mayassa has widely been reported as the mastermind behind the tiny emirate's contemporary art shopping spree. After graduating from Duke University in 2005 and a brief stint as an intern for the Tribeca Film Festival (which she later brought to Qatar), she became the head of the Qatar Museums Authority, where she has been in charge of creating Qatar's now-world-class art collection in just a few years.

But she hasn't done it alone. She has made several high-profile hires in the last few years to help her out. She hired the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Mandle, to help direct the authority early in her tenure. In 2011, after the Emir failed in a bid to purchase Christie's auction house, the QMA poached its chairman, Edward Dolman, instead. He now serves as the QMA's executive director. For the family's art-collecting needs they often work with the notoriously discreet G.P.S. art dealership, which consists of Franck Giraud, Lionel Pissarro (grandson of Camille), and Philippe Segalot. In addition to G.P.S., former head of Impressionist and modern art at Christie's Guy Bennett was reportedly involved in the Cezanne sale.

WHAT

The Qataris have been linked to some very expensive purchases in the modern and contemporary categories over the last few years. They were the reported buyers of 11 Rothko paintings from the collection of J. Ezra Merkin, who was forced to sell after the Madoff scandal; $400 million worth of art from the Sonnabend estate (Koons and Lichtenstein works among them); the $72.8 million "Rockefeller Rothko" purchased at auction in May 2007; and Andy Warhol's "The Men in Her Life," which they picked up for a cheap $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury in November 2010.

WHERE

Qatar, near the southeastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, is in somewhat of a cultural arms race with its neighbor Abu Dhabi, which is just 200 miles away across the Persian Gulf. In 2008 Qatar it unveiled the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art, in 2010 it opened Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, and in 2014 the Qatar National Museum will reopen in a newly-designed building by architect Jean Nouvel. Abu Dhabi is building its own slew of art museums, including outposts of the Louvre and the Guggenheim, on Saadiyat Island — though those projects have been started, stopped, restarted again because of construction woes.

WHY

The short answer to why they are splurging on art is because they can. It is a little more complicated to that though. $250 million is a lot of money for most of the world — even most art collectors. But it's small change compared to some of the other investments that the Qataris have made over the last few years. Qatar has become of the largest property owners in London — a designation that doesn't come cheap. Their British real estate investments over the last few years are rumored to total £10 billion ($15.8 billion). That's a Cezanne 60-times over. In 2010 the Emir bought Harrods for £1.5 billion, and a Qatari investment group is funding Renzo Piano's under-construction Shard London Bridge building as well, at a price reported to be in the £2 billion range.

Also, it is important to note that two other dealers — Acquavella Gallery and Larry Gagosian — were reportedly interested in the painting, and rumored to have just underbid the al-Thanis. The Art Market Monitor blog has already pointed out that dealers don't buy for themselves, but for other clients — meaning there are probably at least two other collectors out there willing to pay a similar amount (dealers would hike up the price after purchase, of course). As astronomical as the sum is, it isn't inconceivable that Qatar bought the work as an investment. In ten years it could be worth $350 million to the right person.

HOW

The tiny state contains fewer than a million people (850,000 at last count), and half of them live in the capital, Doha. It's awash in oil and gas resources, making it the country with the highest per capita GDP (PPP-adjusted) in the world at $102,700, coupled with the lowest unemployment, which is at a barely-there 0.4 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Because it is so rich (and so employed), Qatar's ruling family has not experienced the social unrest that many other countries in the region have had to overcome in the last year. On the contrary, Qatar played a major role in pushing the Arab League to assist Libyan rebels, and has denounced the Syrian government for violence against its people. Politically stable with a wealthy population, Qatar's government is free to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a Cezanne without anyone looking up.

 
by Shane Ferro,Market News, Collecting

Sushi Shop, From Paris to Madison Avenue

Fashion Week Q&A: Jeremy Laing Designs With Mothers and Daughters in Mind

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Fashion Week Q&A: Jeremy Laing Designs With Mothers and Daughters in Mind
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Jeremy Laing

Name: Jeremy Laing
Age: 32
City: Toronto, Canada
Show Happening at... Metropolitan Pavilion, February 12 at 11 a.m.

Describe the person you’re designing for.
I design with mothers and daughters in mind. You know something is right when they both think it's cool.

How are you preparing for fashion week?
In preparation for fashion week my studio is an endless stream of patterns, cutting, sewing, and fitting.

What was the inspiration for your fall/winter 2012 collection?
The genesis for the fall collection is a system of proportions inspired by rational simplicity.

What are the fabrics, shapes, and color palettes of your fall/winter 2012 collection?
The palette is dark and brooding. Prints are achieved with a discharge medium that bleaches away color. Shapes are based on a ratio of length and width, and are tailored towards the masculine.

What are your fashion week vices?
There is little time for vices come fashion week! Or in the month leading up to it.

What is the first thing you’re going to do once your show is over?

After the show is over I'm spending a day at the spa, and then will sleep for another day.

Click HERE for more fashion week coverage.

Slideshow: Inside the Hyatt Regency London's Art-Packed Saatchi Gallery Suite

Guy Wildenstein Owes $330 Million in Back Taxes to France

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Guy Wildenstein Owes $330 Million in Back Taxes to France
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guy wildenstein

The French internal revenue service is demanding a gigantic €250 million ($330 million) in back taxes from Guy Wildenstein, the scion of the powerful French art-dealing clan, who has been accused of undervaluing the estate of his father, Daniel Wildenstein. This sum is part of a staggering total of €600 million ($789 million) that Daniel Wildenstein's heirs as a group owe in back taxes. The Wildensteins plan to appeal the decision.

According to French news magazine Le Point, which broke the story in yesterday's print edition, the state's investigation determined that part of Guy Wildenstein's inheritance was stashed away in trusts in Jersey, the Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands. Taxes seem to have been underpaid both after Daniel Wildenstein's death and during his lifetime. Daniel died in 2001, and his estate has been estimated at €4 billion ($5.3 billion). But in 1998 he declared a monthly income of 870 francs (roughly $175).

Accusations of tax evasion were first levied by Guy Wildenstein's stepmother, Sylvia Roth, in 2009. Roth sued Wildenstein for fraud, claiming that he cheated her out of her fair share of his father's estate — while simultaneously cheating the French tax authorities — by hiding huge amounts wealth in offshore trusts. She died in November 2010, but her lawyer is still pursuing the case. Guy Wildenstein was a generous donor to Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign, and there were concerns that the French president's influence would stall the budget ministry's investigation, but now that process is complete.

Meanwhile, in addition to his late stepmother's lawsuit, Wildenstein faces two other legal challenges. In July 2011, he was accused of possession of stolen goods and breach of trust after 30 artworks described as "missing or stolen" were discovered during a police search of the Wildenstein Institute. In December 2011, his brother Alec's widow, Liouba Stoupakova, also sued Guy for breach of trust, claiming that he had dissuaded her from withdrawing funds from offshore trusts so that he could lend her money and be reimbursed from the same trusts, thus evading taxation. 

The Wildenstein family's assets are vast, including numerous 19th-century paintings, a private island in the Virgin Islands, and a Kenyan ranch where "Out of Africa" was filmed.

 

 

Can the BMW Guggenheim Lab's Relocation Win Over Berlin's Socially Engaged Art Scene?

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Can the BMW Guggenheim Lab's Relocation Win Over Berlin's Socially Engaged Art Scene?
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The BMW Guggenheim Lab is rethinking which neighborhood it will land in when it comes to Berlin this spring, and the calculations behind the move are fascinating to guess at. From May 24 to July 29, the mobile think tank will now be located in an 8,400 square meter (2.07 acre) empty lot across from the Artitude Kunstverein on Kreuzberg’s Cuvrystrasse in Kreuzberg, instead of it . Previously, the lab’s “traveling toolbox” designed by Japan’s Atelier Bow-Wow was slated for the Pfefferberg complex, a multi-purpose venue in Prenzlauerberg, near its border with Mitte, in Prenzlauer Berg.

The announcement cited the Kreuzberg neighborhood’s “engagement with social action and public art” as the main reason for the move. Political engagement is Berlin’s exhibition trend du jour, as evidenced by other major events on this year’s cultural calendar, such as the Berlin Biennale. The move, then, may be a means of gaining further traction in a city where major corporate sponsors tend to arouse suspicion. Already the buzz about the Lab on the ground has become more conciliatory ("Oh, they get us.")

While Prenzlauer Berg was once known for its artistic activities, the district has evolved (or devolved depending on who you ask) into a sort of yuppie paradise, replete with children’s cafés, boutiques, and ladies who lunch. On the other hand, though Kreuzberg has certainly seen its fair share of gentrification — rents in both neighborhoods have become largely comparable — it has maintained its May 1 rioting and artist squatting heritage as a central feature of its contemporary cultural fabric.

The Guggenheim Lab’s Berlin programming features four main series: “Empowerment Technologies,” “Dynamic Connections,” “Urban Micro-Lens,” and “SENSEable City,” each developed by one of the Berlin edition’s team members: José Gómez-Márquez, Carlo Ratti, Corinne Rose, and Rachel Smith. Together, they will focus on a different aspect of making urban environments work for their inhabitants in both individual and collective capacities while maintaining a focus on sustainability. 

 

 

It’s Surreal: Diane von Furstenberg’s Spring Campaign Borrows Heavily From Famous Painters

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It’s Surreal: Diane von Furstenberg’s Spring Campaign Borrows Heavily From Famous Painters
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Diane von Furstenberg's Spring 2012 campaign

Does this photograph remind you of anything? The blue, cloud-streaked sky calls to mind René MagritteSalvador Dalí, and Max Ernst, while the ground and composition are a little Dalí, a little bit Giorgio de Chirico. The model hints at the work of Dorothea Tanning (who passed away Tuesday). The oval mirror covering the face? To us, it’s part Magritte and part John Baldessari (who was inspired by Magritte).

The tagline: “Be the woman that you want to be.” The ad, part of Diane von Furstenberg’s spring campaign, uses the mirrored mask to invite females to see not only the California sky, but themselves. “I like the idea of being focused on the product but in an airy way,” von Furstenberg told WWD. “I like that you can see yourself in these images. [Spring] for me is all about new beginnings.”

Who’s behind this surrealist hybrid? Photographer Camilla Akrans, working with creative agency Laird+Partners, who conceived of the image, and credit the work of Surrealist painters for inspiring it. 

 


From Delvaux's "Breakfast" to Beetle Collages, Belgium's BRAFA Fair Was Laden With Highlights

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From Delvaux's "Breakfast" to Beetle Collages, Belgium's BRAFA Fair Was Laden With Highlights
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1:7 scale work by Franck Maieu that depicted Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye, Magritte, J

The Brussels Antiques and Fine Art Fair (BRAFA) is known for an eclectic range of exhibitors, who bring paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects spanning several centuries and several continents. The fair wrapped up last weekend with a record attendance of 46,000 and tales of strong sales and a friendly atmosphere. "What makes the difference here is the family aspect, with dealers aided by their children, who like to answer questions from the public, and who know each other well," Beatrix Bourdon, BRAFA director, told us.

Bourdon also said that BRAFA has received more and more applications from contemporary art galleries, but that the fair would continue to emphasize antiques and older artworks. This year, "we saw a lot of interest in silver and in 18th-century furniture," she added. The clientele was younger than might be expected. "During the two VIP openings, I was surprised to see so many young people, age 30 or so," Bourdon observed. "If they were there, it was because they had already purchased something at a previous edition of the fair."

Many dealers reported sales of smaller, less expensive objects — a sign of continuing financial uncertainty — though some big-ticket items were also purchased. London's Aktis Gallery sold five drawings by Jules Pascin, an early-20th-century Parisian artist originally from Bulgaria, for prices between €10-40,000 ($13-52,000) to Belgian, French, and Russian buyers. Dealer Iana Kobeleva said that "it was important for us to show him, because Pascin was more important during his lifetime than all his friends whose work sells for millions at auction today."

Newcomers Futur Antérieur (Brussels), Victor Gastou (Paris), and Oscar Graf (Paris) brought 20th-century decorative art objects to the fair, and this period seemed to be very popular with visitors. Victor Gastou displayed neoclassical pieces by André Arbus alongside the 1970s creations of Paul Evans and Belgian designer Ado Chale, who is very popular with Belgian collectors. Parisian gallery Steinitz, which specializes in antique wood paneling and décor, set up elaborate scenes which gave their booth the aura of a museum. An immense rosewood and glass cabinet by Edouard Lièvre, with a very modern appearance for its 1880 execution date, was offered for €500,000 ($656,000) but did not find a buyer.

Steinitz also displayed Louis XV natural wood panels which, unlike most panels of the period, were not painted. The panels were priced around €1 million ($1.3 million). Although several visitors expressed interest, they did not sell during the fair. A series of Japanese silk panels representing the family of the last Shogun was another rare find that did not find a buyer, though the gallery did sell several furniture pieces and other decorative objects.

Harold t'Kint de Roodenbeke said that he sold 80 percent of the contents of his booth, including "Breakfast," a painting by Paul Delvaux, which sold for €150,000 ($197,000), and sketches and preparatory studies by the artist that went for €6-10,000 ($7,900-13,000) apiece. The sketches came from the collection of Delvaux's doctor, which Roodenbeke purchased recently. The gallerist set up his booth with a "body portrait" theme, featuring artworks by Sam Francis and Marcel Marien. Going back along the art historical timeline, De Backker Gallery sold a medieval nativity scene on wood panel for a price between €300-400,000 ($393,000-525,000) as well as a painted bust of a Madonna for about €150,000 ($200,000).

African art dealer Patric Didier Claes (whom we interviewed before the fair began) sold his flagship piece, a Nigerian Ekoi monolithic statue, for an undisclosed sum to a Belgian collector. Claes has a special affinity for the piece: "I kept it at home for three years before selling it." He said that he sold several smaller pieces as well, such as miniature ritual masks from the early 20th century for €2,500 ($3,300) each. On the last day of the fair, he had only two or three pieces left in his booth.

In terms of contemporary art, Guy Pieters Gallery showed several large-scale works by Jan Fabre that were collages using thousands of scarab beetle carapaces. The series, called "Homage to the Belgian Congo," referenced Belgian colonial history with a heavy dose of irony. Images of Congolese wealth, such as cacao and diamonds, took their place next to a portrait of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first elected prime minister of the country who was executed in a Belgian-assisted coup in 1960 (Belgium issued an official apology for its actions in 2002). The beetles, which are a luxury item in Asia today and were once symbols of eternity to the ancient Egyptians, create a blue-green palette that undergoes subtle changes in the light. Pieters sold several of the works for €200,000 ($262,000) apiece.

Belgian dealer Marc Michot, who specializes in Chinese antiques, said that he sold 80 percent of his booth, approximately half to European buyers and the other half to Chinese clients. He sold a Qianlong vase for €30,000 ($39,000) and a rare famille verte vase depicting concubines preparing for war for an undisclosed sum. Michot summed up the fair in these words: "If you can't make things happen here, then you should change careers."

 

 
by Grégory Picard, ARTINFO France,Art Fairs

The Best and Worst of the India Art Fair 2012

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The Best and Worst of the India Art Fair 2012

The fourth edition of the India Art Fair closed last Sunday, leaving both success and disappointment in its wake. On the success side of the ledger: the event drew a huge number of art world luminaries — collectors and art professionals alike — over its four-and-a-half day run, and some 80,000 visitors passed through its halls. This was down on last year’s extraordinary 138,000, but impressive nonetheless given a new and remote location for the fair this year. But despite its success d’estime, the event was a disappointment in purely commercial terms.

Commerce was slow and a number of galleries, from high-profile international fly-ins to established local outfits, reported no sales at all. High-value transactions were so scarce that the same ones were cited over and over: a Bharti Kher sold for around $250,000 through Hauser & Wirth, Lisson moved a Marina Abramovic photograph for €70,000 and a Daniel Buren was sold by Galleria Continua for €55,000. In addition, a few local galleries reported good business, with Delhi galleries Latitude 28 and Seven Art Limited, for example, almost selling out their booths, albeit at relatively modest prices.

Expectations were high going into the Fair and theories about the commercial chill varied, with many placing the blame on timing. Late January certainly guarantees relatively mild and settled weather in Delhi, but the clash with both the World Economic Forum in Davos (where many Indian industrialists, and occasional collectors, were reportedly sojourning) and the Chinese New Year holiday was certainly unfortunate, even though the latter did nothing to deter prominent Indonesian Chinese collector Budi Tek. Other observers pointed to India’s economy, which is slowing after years of stellar growth.

But the real explanation may lie in something simpler: the market. After a boom in Indian contemporary art prices during the last decade which had many touting the country’s art scene as the Next Big Thing, the bubble burst some six months ago, and many international players left the field to a relatively small number of local collectors. Fortunately this group did show significant support at the fair, with Delhi-based Kiran Nadar for example, who collects both personally and for her private museum, buying a range of modern and contemporary Indian works across a range of galleries. It was notable too that the market for international art in India is still in its infancy, at least on the evidence of this edition of the fair.  

The irrepressible director and founder of the fair, Neha Kirpal, remains upbeat. She stressed the “big step up in quality” in the event this year, praised the energy and engagement on display and pointed to the support shown by international art-world professionals for the event, in particular from museums like the Tate, which reportedly now plans to launch a dedicated acquisition committee for Indian art. Kirpal also highlighted what she saw as the increasing sophistication of the Indian market, with hitherto unregarded art forms such as video and installation receiving attention from local collectors. Kirpal summed up her aspiration for the Fair going forward as being to “grow the event qualitatively,” increasing its global reach while keeping its distinctive local character.

Below, ARTINFO brings you our impressions of the Best and the Worst of the India Art Fair 2012.

BEST

Feisty director Niha Kirpal, who in just four years has established the India Art Fair as a vital point of access to a rich local art scene, impressing international and local art professionals and collectors alike.

WORST

The complicated array of Indian taxes, from duties on imported works to a hefty 12 ½ percent tax on sales imposed in New Delhi, which acted as a significant brake on the market.

BEST

The rich local gallery scene which from venerable players like the Delhi Art Gallery to tyros like Experimenter of Calcutta contributes far more than would normally be expected of commercial operations to the development of the Indian art world.

WORST

The small clutch of local galleries who dented the otherwise high-level professionalism of the fair. The most egregious example? The booth jockey who interrupted my perusal of a painting to ask whether I was interested in buying pashminas at his cousin’s store instead.

BEST

The Fair’s venue, which featured generously sized tents that managed to absorb the 80,000-plus visitors over the course of the event without too much fuss and which were mesmerizingly decked out by local set designer Sumant Jayakrishnan with an optically engaging façade of multi-colored thread.

WORST

The Fair’s location, a characterless industrial zone one hour out of the center of the city by taxi — on a good day.

BEST

GALLERYSKE from Bangalore, which under the directorship of Sunitha Kumar Emmart pursues an invigorating program featuring some of India’s most fascinating artists, including the winner of this year’s Skoda Prize for Indian contemporary art, the eccentric and brilliant Navin Thomas.

BEST

The quality of discussion at the Fair, from the official Speaker’s Forum to the gallery tents, which gave a vivid sense of both the richness and the engagement of the Indian art scene.

WORST

The scary number of guns being toted by the various security personnel around the venue.

BEST

The gun being toted by one security guard who took this correspondent under his wing to make the long wait for a taxi on the darkening street outside the gates of the fair a little less scary.

by Madeleine O'Dea, ARTINFO China,Art Fairs

Week in Review: Gioni Takes Venice, MoMA Design Store Picks, and the OK Go Blues

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Week in Review: Gioni Takes Venice, MoMA Design Store Picks, and the OK Go Blues
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Our most-talked-about stories in ArtDesign & Style, and Performing Arts, January 30 - February 3, 2012:

ART

ARTINFO was sad to report that legendary artist Mike Kelley died, an apparent suicide. We told the story behind Kelley’s upcoming project in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, while Anthony Papa described how the inclusion of his painting in one of Kelley’s projects helped free him from a 15-to-life prison sentence.

 In a lengthy feature, Julia Halperin explored how the pro-copyright ruling of the Richard Prince v. Patrick Cariou lawsuit is impacting artists and the possibilities of making appropriation-based work.

‑ Japanese art star Takashi Murakami spoke about his plans to make a monster movie for kids.

‑ Star curator Massimiliano Gioni, associate director of the New Museum and director of the critically acclaimed 2010 Gwangju Biennale, will curate the 2013 Venice Biennale.

‑ ARTINFO market reporter Shane Ferro reported on Andy Warhol’s upcoming BNY Mellon-sponsored trip to Asia, a career-spanning retrospective that will travel for two years.

FASHION & DESIGN

‑ Style editor Ann Binlot showed us the art spaces that New York City’s Fashion Week will be taking over in the coming days, from the Pace gallery to the Rubin museum.

Janelle Zara picked six fun objects from the MoMA Design Store’s Spring/Summer season, including a USB laptop pal and a modernist alarm clock.

‑ We analyzed the best and worst of Paris Couture Week, calling out the good, the bad, and the dress that looks most like a swamp monster.

‑ A pier in St. Petersburg, Florida is getting a space-age facelift from architect Michael Maltzan.

‑ The big trend at this week's New York International Gift Fair were design items that riffed off of children's toys, from a robot made of measuring cups.

PERFORMING ARTS

‑ Performing arts editor Nick Catucci called out indie pop band OK Go for their “rote mediocrity” and attention-seeking stunts, also pointing out that the group will be featured during the Super Bowl this Sunday.

‑ Comedian Louis C.K. talked about his new sitcom pilot for CBS, and why it’s directed at  “the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots.”

‑ ARTINFO film correspondent Graham Fuller told us about “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a magical-realist feature that he calls “the most evocative movie yet” to depict the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.

‑ We analyzed the trailer for “Game Change,” a forthcoming HBO movie about the 2008 presidential race featuring Julianne Moore's vivid turn as Sarah Palin.

‑ The list of art-related features at the 19th South by Southwest festival include movie portraits of photographer Gregory Crewdson and artist Wayne White, as well as a protest in favor of the art of making glass pipes — commonly viewed as just drug paraphernalia.

Slideshow: See Some of the "46 for XLVI" Murals for the Super Bowl

Dorothea Tanning, Surrealist Painter, Dies at 101

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Dorothea Tanning, Surrealist Painter, Dies at 101
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Dorothea Tanning's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"

Tuesday saw the passing of Dorothea Tanning, an artist who was among the most admired figures of the Surrealist movement.

Born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1910, Tanning made frequent visits to the Art Institute of Chicago as a child and aspired to become an artist from an early age. Her first encounter with Surrealism took place on a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in 1936, impelling her to seek a master among the leading figures in the European avant-garde. In 1942, she met the German artist Max Ernst at a party in New York. The two fell in love and married in 1946, in a double ceremony with the artist Man Ray and Juliet Browner.

Tanning’s early work was characterized by its playful scenes of figures and objects in unexpected arrangements and combinations. Frequently depicting female symbols and personages, her approach stood in noticeable contrast to the macho culture that saturated Surrealist painting at the time. Her spooky sensibility was typified by her famous painting, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” which shows a pair of young girls passing each other in a dark corridor, their cryptic, tangled features complemented by the presence of an enormous sunflower.

Tanning applied her talents to numerous other media. She wrote and illustrated children’s books, dabbled in architecture, and served as costume designer for the ballet under the auspices of George Balanchine. Later in life, she devoted more of her time to writing, publishing a memoir, a novel, and several volumes of poetry.

 

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