It’s only getting easier and cheaper to make a music video these days — and all the more important, as artists compete to be heard, largely without the benefit of big pushes from major labels. For those reasons, the music video has undergone something of a mini-renaissance. Every week ARTINFO video editor Tom Chen, photo editor Micah Schmidt, and performing arts editor Nick Catucci will choose five of the most visually engaging music clips from the previous few days, presenting highlights from each in a video supercut, and a slideshow of stills that link back to the full videos.

This week:

Magnetic Fields gender-bend in undies with “Andrew in Drag.”

Die Antwoord find their inner CHUDs (in undies) with “I Fink U Freeky.”

The Darkness complement their catchy cartoon-metal with eye-catching cartoons in “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us.”

Trinity unearth freeky found footage for “True Will.”

Micaela, Augustina and Velodia León abuse cassette tapes in “Lullaby Crocodile.”

Previously: Music Videos From Wilcom, Matthew Dear, Nicki Minaj, Kate Bush, and Mastadon
Music Videos From Shelly in Athens, the Kills, Adrian Younge Presents Venice Dawn, Nat Baldwin, and Black Pus

Looks like Tom Brady won't be the only pretty thing to look at in Indianapolis this weekend. In anticipation of hosting Super Bowl XLVI, this "cold-weather, landlocked, midsize burg surrounded by corn" (description courtesy CNN) has commissioned 46 murals by local and national artists in various neighborhoods around Marion County, Indiana that will be on display just in time for the Giants to take on the Patriots on Sunday. According to mayor Greg Ballard, the "46 for XLVI" initiative is meant to "elevate the arts and culture of the city in preparation for Super Bowl XLVI." It is a true democratic initiative — according to a press release, almost 50 percent of those who applied to paint a mural for the city were accepted. 

So, how's the art, you ask? Is it a touchdown or a... fumble (that's the right terminology, right)? We let you judge for yourself. 

To see a selection of works from  "46 for XLVI," click on the slide show.

Each year, the French Academy in Rome welcomes about 20 artists, writers, and musicians for an artistic residency in the historic Villa Medici, which has housed the academy for over two centuries. Recently, it has also been host to guests of a different, unwanted kind: thieves. On three separate occaisions, intruders have entered under the cover of darkness, stealing several valuable works of ancient and Renaissance statuary from the villa's gardens and vandalizing others. 

According to Agence France Presse, the robbers pilfered several sculptures, including a statue of Apollo from the second century B.C., two Roman marble torsos, two Renaissance marble heads, and two modern copies of ancient heads. "You have to be very well-prepared to conduct a risky operation like this, and to take for example two copies of ancient heads made of plaster and concrete," French Academy director Eric Chassey told AFP. "At this stage, we don't have any concrete leads, and we can't exclude anything.... The people who live here are all shocked and traumatized by what happened." The thieves were certainly bold, stealing from a place that is lived in around-the-clock, and even decapitating an ancient statue right outside Chassey's office.

The stolen sculptures were sawed from their pedestals. The Villa has meticulously collected the remaining pieces in hopes of restoring them after their hoped-for future recovery. The Italian art crimes department has begun an investigation with the cooperation of the French art crimes department, the French interior ministry, and the French culture ministry. (French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand was director of the villa from 2008 to 2009, so, as they say, this one's personal.)

Chassey said that there had been thefts in the past but that he had strengthened security measures after his arrival in 2009. In 2011, the villa had a security budget of €300,000 ($394,000). Now, extra measures have been taken, such as nighttime surveillance using dogs and spotlights, while access to the villa outside regular hours has been limited. Still, the French Academy has expressed that it doesn't want to make the villa an impregnable fortress, as this would compromise its very mission: to be a place of artistic exchange.

MELBOURNE — Art Series Hotel Group, owners of three art-themed boutique hotels each inspired and dedicated to a different Australian contemporary artist, has managed to drum up a storm of publicity by offering an irresistable challenge to wannabe art thieves, daring them to steal a work of art by Banksy from one of their hotels. From the December 15, 2011 to January 15, 2012, paying guests were encouraged to try their hand at pilfering signed and authenticated work by the street art legend. If the aspiring crook could sneak the piece past hotel staff and out of the hotel without getting caught, it was theirs. But budding bandits had first to find the work of art — which was moved between the three hotels to make a heist even trickier.

The first offering, Banksy’s "No Ball Games," survived for five days before it was successfully nabbed by one Maura Tuohy. Tuohy cunningly fooled hotel staff into thinking she was an employee of an Art Series Hotel agency and was there to move the artwork, valued at AUD$15,000 ($16,100), to another hotel. According to a hotel press release:

“Highly suspicious staff asked for a number to phone in order to verify her story. Tuohy provided the number of her accomplice, Megan Aney, who verified the story. After a dozen more questions she then took the artwork out of the hotel, put it in her car, and returned 15 minutes later to brag about her cunning and guile.”

Art Series Hotels then put another Banksy up for grabs, a print from the artist's "Pulp Fiction" series valued at AUD$4,000 ($4,300). A number of attempts were made to liberate the work, though none were successful. Even tennis star Serena Williams, in Melbourne for the Australian Open, couldn’t score the prize. Williams made her attempt after tweeting: “This Hotel is encouraging people to steal their art!! I Might try... tonight.”

Still, if the Banksy piece wan't stolen, it wasn't for lack of trying. Would-be thieves attempted a range of approaches in the pursuit of "Pulp Fiction": the impersonation of a tradesman; CCTV camera hacking; planting listening devices placed at the reception desk; and, of course, the old-fashioned hit-and-run. Ultimately, however, no one's fingers were sticky enough for the coveted Banksy. Art Series Hotels fittingly chose to donate the work to Crime Stoppers Victoria, a charity devoted to public safety.

Antoni Tapies, the Catalan painter who passed away yesterday at 88, was a pioneering artist whose work moved through several periods. Tapies began his career with collage-based abstract paintings on cardboard, an aesthetic that precipitated the aesthetic of the Italian Arte Povera movement. In 1953 he had his first exhibitions in the United States and saw the work of the Abstract Expressionists, whose gestural strokes and energetic colors were a contrast to Tapies’s own sense of contemplative solitude.

The artist moved towards Surrealism in the 1960s and ‘70s, creating appropriated-object sculptures that suggested the influence of Robert Rauschenberg. The works Tapies is best known for are his sprawling, abstract paintings that at times integrate everyday materials, such as his “Sock” (1971), which features a white men's sock stuck to a canvas.

Tapies’s graffiti-like paintings include gestures that sometimes curl into recognizable figures, letters, and numerals. The artist saw his imagery as reflecting the “writing on the wall” of humanity’s group subconscious — “The dramatic sufferings of adults and all the cruel fantasies of those of my own age, who seemed abandoned to their own impulses in the midst of so many catastrophes, appeared to inscribe themselves on the walls around me,” he told the French dealer and art critic Michel Tapié in 1969.

For a look at Tapies’s work throughout his career, click on the slide show.

The second edition of the world’s first online-only art fair is in its final stretch, closing at the end of the day on February 8. Technical glitches, as you’ve probably heard, are nearly nonexistent — a great improvement on last year’s edition, during which the Web site crashed under the pressure of too much traffic. But as storefront galleries all over the world will tell you, traffic doesn’t equal sales. And while the VIP Art Fair may have won a lot of eyes during its five-day run, it didn’t earn anywhere near as many dollars. 

“The fair has been very disappointing for us,” said Ignacio Liprandi, owner of an eponymous gallery in Buenos Aires, “not only because we sold very few pieces, but also because not too many collectors contacted us. I don't think it was our booth because every colleague I talked to had the same results.” Of the two-dozen galleries contacted by ARTINFO, only a handful had sales to report by midday Tuesday. “Slow, slow, slow,” said Rhona Hoffman, of Chicago’s Rhona Hoffman Gallery, when asked how business was at VIP. “There are just so many fairs that are in the real world, and so many things competing for your attention.” (Hoffman noted, however, that she hadn’t sold anything at this point during VIP last year, either, and then closed a $30,000 sale just before the end of the fair.)

Those dealers who approached the fair more as a vehicle for exposure are, unsurprisingly, happier with the experience than those who hoped for an immediate financial payoff. Several galleries said they connected with new potential clients from India, China, and  South America, particularly Brazil. “We made contact with a lot of curators, both independent and from museums, who are interested in our artists and our program more globally,” said Thaddaeus Ropac’s Matthieu Lelièvre. (The Paris gallery had one of the most ambitious programs at VIP, presenting an entirely cohesive new booth's worth of art every day. On the preview day, for example, the gallery presented a collection of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs curated by director Sofia Coppola.)

Still, there were some successes. New York’s Postmasters, which presented a solo booth of work by art-world satirist William Powhida, sold a drawing for $4,500, several editions of the large political-themed print “Griftopia” for $4,500 each, and a video chronicling a fake interview between the artist’s alter ego and the New York Times Magazine for $6,000. James Cohan Gallery, which co-founded the fair, sold a sculpture by Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare of a mannequin reclining with a book in the £50,000 - £75,000 ($79,000 - $119,000) range. New York’s Leila Heller Gallery enjoyed one of the most expensive sales at VIP (at least by our poll): she sold a dreamlike, blue-hued triptych on linen by Iranian artist Roya Akhavan for $150,000.

Dealer (and well-known art world commentator) Ed Winkleman, who sold several small canvases by the conceptual painter Christopher K. Ho for $3,200 each, noted that “what’s selling more than just about anything are flat works — paintings, prints, photographs.” He added that a collector expressed interest in one of the gallery’s larger sculptures, but told Winkleman he wanted to see it in person before he purchased it. “He lives in Europe, so that’s not something that’s going to come through immediately."

Whether or not dealers experience a dramatic flood of sales on the last day — which seems less than likely — many say they’d participate in VIP again. “If you realize that taking part in this fair is the same cost as a big ad in Artforum it makes sense, but if you are expecting sales, I think some people are going to be quite disappointed,” said Borkur Arnarson, the owner of i8 Gallery in Reykjavík. (Booth prices at VIP range from $5,000 to $20,000.) “It’s heavy labor for the people doing it,” added Hoffman, “but if there’s brand recognition or a sale, no matter how big or small, it’s worth doing.” 

Click here to see a slide show of a selection of works at VIP, including some of the pieces that sold.  

LONDON — Sparked by a handful of standout offerings, Christie’s kicked off the London auction season with a rock solid Impressionist/Modern and Surrealism sale that tallied £134,999,400, or $213,299,052, easily hurdling pre-sale expectations of £86-127 million. Some 76 of the 88 lots sold, making for an impressively low buy-in rate of just 14 percent by lot and seven percent by value. Four lots made over ten million pounds; six hit over five million pounds; and all together, 28 exceeded one million pounds. In dollars, 40 of the 76 lots that sold made over one million dollars. For comparison's sake, the sale squashed last February’s result of £84.9 million ($136.3 million).

Five artist records were set, including one for the sleeper top lot, Henry Moore’s regal bronze, “Reclining Figure: Festival" (1951), which ignited a bidding war, driving the eight-foot-long figure to over £19 million ($30.1 million) (est. £3.5-5.5 million). Cologne-based dealer Alexander Lachmann, noted for his heavily Russian clientele, calmly outgunned two anonymous telephone bidders.

“It’s a good piece,” Lachmann said in his understated style as he exited the salesroom. Asked about his client, the dealer sharply exhaled, “no comment.”

The evening's price for the Moore crushed the previous record for the artist set by “Draped Reclining Woman” (1957-58), which hauled in £4.3 million ($8.4 million) at Christie’s London, back in June 2008. The storied bronze, from an edition of five (plus one artist proof), was sold by New York real estate magnate Sheldon Solow, a renowned Post-War art collector (as evidenced by the ground-floor gallery showroom of his 9 West 57th Street skyscraper, laden with Moores and Giacomettis). He had acquired “Reclining Figure: Festival" at Sotheby’s New York in May 1994 for a mere (!) $2 million.

A number of dealers present expressed astonishment at the price paid for the Moore, given that another version had been on offer in London last summer at the Masterpiece art fair with an asking price of nine million dollars. “There’s so much money in London,” said New York private dealer Nancy Whyte. “I can’t fathom that price for the Henry Moore.”

Whyte actively chased two star lots for clients, falling shy of both, citing the logical reason: “people have a limit.” One was the rather sedate but depressingly compelling Vincent van Gogh landscape, offered from the estate of Elizabeth Taylor, “Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy” (1889), which sold to a telephone bidder for £10.1 million ($16 million), over an estimate of £5-7 million. The history-laden picture was the subject of a lengthy yet unsuccessful legal battle in U.S. courts: A relative of Margarete Mauthner, the one-time German owner, had claimed it was illegally seized and sold by the Nazis and demanded its return. Francis Taylor, Liz’s father and a London-based American art dealer, acquired the work at Sotheby’s London way back in 1963 for a now-modest-seeming £92,000.

Other Taylor entries, including Edgar Degas’s early “Autoportrait” (circa 1857-58) and Camille Pissarro’s resplendently green landscape, "Pommiers a Eragny” (1894), sold well. The former went for £713,250 ($1,126,935) over an estimate of £350-450,000, while the latter fetched a ripe £2,953,250 ($4,666,135), on an estimate of £900,000-1.2 million.

Bigger game animated this marathon evening as a Cubist-styled abstraction by Juan Gris, “Le livre” (1914-15) — appropriately color-charged for current taste — barely squeaked by at £10.3 million ($16.3 million) (est. £12-18 million). It was one of the relatively few overestimated trophies here. The £9.2 hammer price (before the hefty add-on of buyer’s premium) only just barely made the lot's reserve, the secret minimum price a seller is willing to part with the picture.

But the outstanding, though "relined," Joan Miro Surrealist-period painting, “Painting-Poem (le corps de ma brune puisque je l’aime comme ma chatte habillee en vert salade comme de la grele c’est pareil)” (1925) was the true star of the evening. It drew at least four bidders, including New York dealer William Acquavella, powering the price to a record £16.8 million ($26.6 million) (est. £6-9 million). The best part is that it last sold at Christie’s New York back in November 1985 for $770,000, at the hammer.

Who knows what this Miro might have fetched if it was in pristine condition? The relining eliminated important writing by the artist on the back of this word-laden canvas. In any case, it played a large part of the £37 million portion of the "Art of the Surreal" section of Christie's evening, distantly trailed by the large-scaled and wildly provocative Paul Delvaux “le Nu et le mannequin (Le nu au mannequin)” (1947), which went to a telephone bidder for £3.4 million ($5.9 million) (est. £2-3 million). Nancy Whyte was the underbidder.

Though most of the endless evening resembled a primer for astute private collectors, there was plenty of bling-based trophy buying as well, as evidenced by the relatively late and uber-decorative Paul Signac “La Corne d’Or, Constantinople” (1907), which zoomed to £8.8 million ($13.9 million) (est. £4-6 million). It had last sold at Christie’s New York in May 2008 for $6.6 million, arguably at a time near the peak of the soon-to-deflate market. Someone profited handsomely from that astute speculation.

Another bling candidate was the large-scaled Robert Delaunay “Tour Eiffel” (1926), a late date for the artist’s iconic image. It sold to a telephone bidder for a record £3.7 million ($5.9 million) (est.  £2.5-2.5 million).

And finally, at a lesser, though more uplifting scale, the recently deceased Surrealist painter and poet Dorothea Tanning, the widow of Max Ernst who died in New York last week at the age of 102, turned a posthumous record as the small-scaled, exquisite oil, “Le Miroir” (1950) sold for £217,250 ($343,255) (est. £50-80,000).

The evening action for Impressionist and Modern fare resumes Wednesday at Sotheby’s.

To see some of the star lots from Christie's London's "Impressionism/Modern and Surreal" sale, click on the slide show.

Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong’s leading independent, non-profit arts organization, has been awarded a Springboard Grant by the Advisory Committee on Arts Development (ACAD) in Hong Kong. It is the only visual arts organization to receive the grant, which is part of a new support scheme announced by ACAD in June last year.

The new grant scheme is part of the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme, a program built around the development and promotion of "local artists and arts groups."

The Springboard Grant is a matching grant that requires the recipient to provide equal funding, with a minimum one quarter to come from non-government funding.

When announcing the establishment of the grant program Chairman of ACAD, Mr Chung Shui-ming, said, "The Funding Scheme seeks to fund applications that contribute to the objectives of program/contents development, audience building, arts education and capacity development.  It aims to supplement existing funding schemes for the arts and, in particular, to provide new funding opportunities to enhance capacity development for promising arts groups and practitioners, and activities/projects of a large scale and/or of a long time frame."

Since its founding in 1996, Para/Site has established itself as a leading voice for alternative cultural development in the region, representing Hong Kong in the 50th (2003) and 53rd (2009) Venice Biennale as well as the 4th Gwangju Biennale (2002.)  The institution is responsible for bringing influential artists to Hong Kong such as Ai Weiwei, Dennis Oppenheim, Franz Ackermann, Tsang Kin-wah and Vito Acconci.

Speaking to BLOUIN ARTINFO Hong Kong Para/Site executive director/curator Cosmin Costinas said “the Springboard Grant allows us at Para/Site to continue to remain faithful to our promise to the Hong Kong public to be one of the leading independent art institutions in Asia.”

The ACAD has awarded HK$2.8 million to Para/Site which Costinas says will go into “the development of the structural integrity of the institution, funding the development of all the components that are not exhibition based such as conferences, books and research projects.”

Para/Site will be eligible to apply for the grant again this year with a possible HK$4.5 million available in funding. There is a maximun funding period of three years with a HK$7.5 million cap.

Although clearly pleased with the support Costinas did sound a note of caution: "the Hong Kong Government needs to be clear that matching funds are great but they cannot provide this high level of funding and then just pull out completely. There must be an understanding on both sides about sustainability."

The British Museum has just unveiled the first extensive exhibition dedicated to Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca all Muslims are compelled to make at least once during their lifetime. Mecca is Islam's holiest city, the site where Prophet Mohammad received his first revelations in the early 7^th century, and host to the Ka'ba, the black cube structure to which Muslims direct their prayers.

"Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam" is the third in a series of exhibitions dedicated to sacred journeys, with previous exhibitions showcasing the Egyptian Book of the Dead and medieval Christian pilgrimages. But with "Hajj," the museum is dealing with something as significant to the contemporary world as it was to the historical. According to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, over 1,800,000 foreign pilgrims visited Mecca last year, more than doubling the entire city's population. "We realized very quickly that this would be quite a different kind of exhibition for us because the Hajj happens now and has a very long history going back even before Islam," exhibition curator Venetia Porter told ARTINFO. "How do you tell that story across time, and with the present very much there?"

Working in partnership with the King Abdulaziz Public Library Riyadh, Porter has gathered more than 200 pieces related to Hajj, ranging from medieval paintings to ritual implements, and contemporary artworks. She comments on five key objects for ARTINFO.

For images from the exhibition accompanied by quotes from Venetia Porter, click the slide show.

Jean Dujardin, known to U.S. audiences for his role in the Oscar-nominated film "The Artist," has a new comedy coming out in France February 29, "Les Infidèles" ("The Unfaithful Ones"). Somewhat surprisingly (this is Paris, after all, not Des Moines), posters featuring Dujardin and co-star Gilles Lellouche in sexually explicit positions with women have been taken down for not observing "respect for decency."

In the ad campaign, Dujardin and Lellouche are both pictured in business suits with cell phones held up to their ears. Dujardin holds a woman's outspread legs at the level of his shoulders while the tagline reads "I'm going into a meeting." As for Lellouche, the back of a woman's head is pictured in front of his crotch while he says on the phone, "I'm losing you, I'm going into a tunnel." When they appeared recently in the Paris subway system and on large advertising columns across the city, the ads provoked a great deal of debate on the Web, and the French advertising regulation authority received two complaints from the public.

Last week, the advertising authority asked billboard company J.C. Decaux to "immediately cease this campaign and to renounce any future use of these visuals." In a statement, the authority said that "these two posters...are contrary to the recommendations of the Advertising Regulation Authority, particularly the clauses relating to respect for decency and the image of the human person in advertising, even though they are connected to the subject of the movie, i.e., a comedy about adultery."

According to Le Figaro, J.C. Decaux removed the posters February 3, even before receiving the advertising regulation authority's letter. Le Parisien asked Dujardin, who is currently in California, if he had heard about the poster controversy. "I've heard about it, yes," the actor replied. "But all this is for laughs. So I don't really understand this fuss."

In the past, any denunciations of sexual images in French advertising were usually motivated by  religious concerns expressed by extremist groups and were largely ignored. But debates on the Web over this campaign have been focused on its depiction of women. Interestingly, back in 1982, an ad for the movie "Paradise Pour Tous" ("Paradise For All") showing its star in the same position as Dujardin was not censored.

"Les Infidèles" tells several different stories of male infidelity, directed by seven different directors. Dujardin, who, before "The Artist" was known as a comic actor, directed one of the segments himself, as did his co-star Lellouche. Only one of the filmmakers involved, Emmanuelle Bercot, is a woman. She does not usually make comedies, but has previously treated sexual themes in her films, describing troubled relationships between adolescents and adults.

– Kusama's Polka at Hirst: On the eve of her Tate retrospective, Yayoi Kusama joined David Hockney in taking a dig at Damien Hirst for his "spot painting" extravaganza. The Japanese artist, who has been painting spots since before Hirst was born, told reporters, "I have done all the work myself, not assistants. That's why I'm in a wheelchair. I've been doing it physically — it's hard labour — throughout my life." [Guardian]

– Met Plaza Gets a Makeover, Courtesy Koch: An ambitious plan is in the works to transform the plaza in front of the Metropolitan Museum into a more efficient and environmentally friendly space, with new fountains, greenery, and seating areas. The makeover is made possible by a $60 million donation from notorious billionaire David H. Koch, the man New York magazine once called the "Tea Party's wallet." [NYT]

– Oldest Artwork Ever?: Maybe it won't be an insult to call someone a Neanderthal anymore. Researchers have discovered six 42,000-year-old paintings of seals, the only known images produced by the Neanderthal man — and potentially the oldest artwork ever discovered. They were found in the Nerja Caves, 20 miles east of Malaga in the Spanish province of Andalucía. [Daily Mail]

– Droit de Suite Win: Collector Dean Valentine settled the lawsuit brought against him by artist Mark Grotjahn, who claimed that Valentine failed to pay him the five percent royalty required by California law after reselling his work. The settlement could be bad news for the auction houses, who are busy fighting a class-action lawsuit for evading paying royalties in California. [ITA]

– Internet Titan Sells More of his Art Collection: Software magnate Peter Norton will consign 45 works to Christie's for its contemporary art auction next month. An earlier group of works from Norton's collection fetched more than $30 million at Christie's in November. [Reuters]

– Zaha Hadid's Business Hit Hard: Profits at Zaha Hadid Architects more than halved last year as the Arab spring brought several major projects to a halt, including an office complex in Cairo and a conference hall in Tripoli. Profits slumped to £1.8 million, compared to a mighty £4.1 million the year before. [Guardian]

– Shepard Fairey Ruminates on New Mural Laws: Street artists Fairey and Saber were among the panelists at a public meeting last night on a proposed ordinance that would legalize some street art in Los Angeles. Earlier this year, Saber hired skywriters to leave a smoke trail of words reading, "Art is not a crime." [LAT]

– Cattelan's App Judged One of the Best: The Sunday Times has included the app produced on the occasion of the artist's Guggenheim New York retrospective, which featured his art hanging from the cieling, in its top 500 apps list. "Even if you’re not a die-hard Cattelan fan, this app heralds a promising trend for augmenting art exhibitions with custom-made content," writes the British newspaper. [Press Release]

– Art Funding Anger in Chile: In Santiago, Chile, the National Council for Culture and Arts announced the long-established Mori Center as the recipient of this year's FONDART award, only to be accused of favoritism towards large institutions. The head of the Department for Public Works dismissed the claims but admitted that changes were needed. [Santiago Times]

– Water-Powered Floating Band On the River Tyne: "Flow" — an artwork by Owl Project and music producer Ed Carter commissioned by the UK Arts Council in the lead up to the Olympics — will be installed in Gasteshead next month. The piece contains an array of handmade instruments, which will automatically play in response to the river's daily changes. [Journal Live]

– Shortlist for the UK's Museum of the Year: Ten museums are in the running for the £100,000 ($158,869) Art Fund Prize 2012, which will reward "excellence and innovation in museums and galleries in the UK for a project completed or undertaken in 2011." Candidates include the National Museum of Scotland, Turner Contemporary, and Watts Gallery. [Press Release]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

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Ai Weiwei Reteams With His "Bird's Nest" Buddies Herzog & de Meuron for Serpentine Pavilion

Band of Outsiders's Scott Sternberg on Working With Ed Ruscha and His Fall/Winter 2012 Collection

Epidemic of Art Theft Despoils Rome's Storied Villa Medici

How's VIP Treating You? What Collectors, Dealers, and Artists Have to Say About the Online Fair

“Boardwalk Empire” Crumbles as the Brilliant Paz de La Huerta Exits

Remembering Antoni Tapies Through His Art: See a Selection of Works by the Late Master

Paying the ultimate homage to late Italian design great Joe Colombo (not to be confused with Mafia mastermind Joseph Colombo), purveyor of high-end plastic furnishings Kartell presents a “re-issue” of sorts: a plastic version of Colombo’s classic 4801 Armchair, the only Kartell piece ever to be made of wood. The iconic seat, which has, through the years, made its way through the MoMA, V&A, and Pompidou, is a symbol of Colombo's renowned relationship with materials. First crafted in 1964 from molded plywood (the material of the moment), the chair came in lacquered shades of white, green, orange, and black, veneered to resemble glossy plastic, since technology at the time wouldn't allow for the real thing. In 1968, Colombo designed the 4867, or "Universale" chair, the first all plastic seat ever, still sold by Kartell today. Serving as a pivotal point in design history, Colombo's work sat at the cusp of new and old technology.  

For those who want a peek at a piece of design history in person, New York's R 20th Century gallery will feature Colombo’s entire body of work for Kartell — the ten pieces of furniture, lighting fixtures, and accessories that he designed between 1964 until his untimely death in 1971 — through Friday.

Sommelier-turned-art-thief Mark Lugo became infamous after he strolled out of San Francisco’s Weinstein gallery with a $200,000 Picasso drawing, and was later found to be harboring a stash of stolen art at his Jersey apartment (his “collection,” valued at more than $430,000 included works by artists ranging from Basquiat to Yoshitomo Nara.) Yesterday, he at last pleaded guilty to art theft in New York. 

After serving time in California for the Picasso theft, Lugo has now confessed to taking a sketch by Ferdinand Leger from the lobby of New York’s Carlyle Hotel last June, valued at some $350,000 (He had previously pleaded innocent, back in December.) The sommelier will be sentenced on February 28 with an expected punishment of one to three years in prison. Lugo’s New York lawyer, James Montgomery, told the New York Times that Lugo “could be released in less than a year if he completes a prison program.”

Lugo has indicated that his bizarre string of art thefts, all of which took place within a relatively short period of time last year, was not motivated by the possibility of selling the work — it was, apparently, simply out of a refined aesthetic sensibility and enjoyment of the finer things that the sommelier took the artworks (Lugo is also thought to have pilfered three bottles of Château Petrus Pomerol, valued at a total of $6,000, from a Jersey wine store last spring). His California attorney Douglas Horngrad told ARTINFO in August 2011 that his months-long crime spree suggested he was “having some psychiatric episode, some compulsion, some mania.”

SALE: Contemporary Art at Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips de Pury, and Bonhams

LOCATION: London, U.K.

DATES: February 13-16 (See detail below)

It will be another hectic week of sales in London as Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips de Pury, and Bonhams vie for the attention of the art world. The offerings are dominated by a troika of European contemporary artists: Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon, and Lucien Freud. Yet while the European names top the estimates, it wouldn't be worth having a contemporary sales week without the big American post-war war horses, so the auction houses have also hunted down a few Warhols and Lichtensteins, as well as the first major Mark Rothko painting to hit the auction block in a decade, according to Christie's.

The Christie’s sale has the highest estimates by far. For weeks the auction house has been promoting its two most valuable works, Bacon’s "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes" (1963) and Rothko's orange-hued "Untitled." Estimates for both are "on request," and according to Christie’s in the region of £18 million for the former and £9-12 million for the latter. The Bacon work is one of seven large paintings he executed in the year after his breakthrough Tate show in 1962. It features a woman reclining on a pristine white bed, surrounded by vibrant red and purple in the background. The auction house also has high hopes for one of the many of Richter's "Abstraktes Bild" series to go under the hammer this week. The 1994 canvas blends blues, greens, and purples into dreamy abstraction.

On Wednesday, Lucien Freud gets his own dedicated sale at Christie's. The auction house will sell 44 of the artist's etchings, with estimates ranging from £6,000-70,000.

Later Wednesday, the action at Sotheby's begins. The top-end of estimates are not nearly as high as at Christie's, but as last November's New York sales showed, that could be an advantage. According to the pre-sale calculations, there may not even be a work that breaks the £5 million mark. Another "Abstraktes Bild" (1992) by Richter featuring stripes of black and white pulsating across the canvas is estimated to fetch £3-4 million. The fate of the sale really rests on the buoyancy of Richter's market, as the top five include three other paintings by the German: a red "Abstraktes Bild" (1991), estimated to sell for £2.5-3.5 million, the photorealistic 1981 canvas "Eis (Ice)" (est. £2-3 million), and the 1989 "Kind (Child)" (est. £2-3 million), which features colorful globs of paint dripping down a pure white background.

The only non-Richter painting to break into the Sotheby's top five is the colorful and lively "Orange Sports Figure" by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1982). However, the Sotheby's catalogue seems to have subtly higher hopes for the Basquiat than its modest estimate, drawing comparisons to "Shot Orange Marilyn" (1962), which almost quadrupled its presale estimate in 1998 to reach a then record of over $17 million.

Bonhams and Phillips are both having small sales with less than 40 works each. At Phillips, look out for the Lucio Fontana's 1960 work that once was in the private collection of Andy Warhol, "Concetto Spaziale, Attese." At Bonhams, the most valuable offering of its fledgling contemporary department is Frank Auerbach's 1960 charcoal piece, "Head of Lucian Freud."

CONTEMPORARY SALES:

Sale: Contemporary One Evening Sale
Location: Bonhams London
Date: February 13, 7 p.m.

Sale: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Location: Christie's London
Date: February 14, 7 p.m.

Sale: The Painter's Proof: Etchings by Lucien Freud
Location: Christie's London
Date: February 15, 10 a.m.

Sale: Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Location: Sotheby's New York
Date: February 15, 7 p.m.

Sale: Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Location: Phillips de Pury London
Date: February 16, 7 p.m.
 

OTHER INTERNATIONAL SALES:

Sale: Fine Furniture and Decorative Arts
Location: Leslie Hindman Chicago
Date: February 12-14, 12 noon (each day)

Sale: Dogs in Show & Field: The Fine Art Sale
Location: Bonhams New York
Date: February 15, 10 a.m.

NEW YORK — It was Fashion Week's eve last night in New York, which meant the stylish international set had probably just touched down at JFK. What better timing then, for a party! Jet-setting playboy, art dealer, and curator Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, whose longstanding fashion week goals have been to make art openings more accessible to a broader audience, and of course “a lot more fun,” invited the well-dressed and smartly coiffed to toast the opening of "Ouattara Watts: Vertigo."

The setting was an industrial space (so industrial, the potties were portable) on the very edge of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which guests entered through a side entrance resembling a loading dock. After passing through an eerily soundproofed dark tunnel, we emerged into a bright gallery space, packed to the gills with model types sipping glasses of white wine.

We found the artist mingling in the periphery of the room, standing in the shadow of his large-scale works in paint and collaged fabrics, pigments, and papier-mâché he’s found shopping in flea markets and during his travels.

"The material’s got to speak to me first,” he told ARTINFO. And what was his thought process putting them together? "People got to be healed.”   

In high spirits, he entertained an endless line of well-wishers, which included quite a few fashionable French women (not the least of whom was former French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld), and a pair of excited ladies who rushed to give him two simultaneous kisses on each cheek. Fashion Week fixtures Diane von Furstenburg, Jen Brill, Richie Rich, and Waris Ahluwalia were among those present, as were the less fashionable Salman Rushdie, and oddly, at least two children. After snapping a photo with Watts, Rushdie left quite early in the evening. Is this the year he becomes a Fashion Week fixture, too? We'll make sure to keep an eye out for him at the next party. 

To see pictures of the partygoers at the opening of "Ouattara Watts: Vertigo," click on the slide show, or click here for more of ARTINFO's fashion coverage.