"Figure Painting": New Art Blog at Portfolio Magazine

Another new entry in the art blogroll from the mainstream media: Figure Painting, started earlier this month by Portfolio, the new Condé Nast "business intelligence" magazine. It's by Callen Bair (above), whose prior journalistic credentials, according to her profile, appears to be limited to student work at the Daily Princetonian, "where she covered a variety of subjects and co-edited the arts, style, and entertainment section." Her art credentials: a stint working at Matthew Marks Gallery.

Here's a recurring feature that you can judge for yourself:

As the November auctions approach, we'll be regularly updating a feature we call "Pop." Aggregating hedge fund activity, the health of global markets, and fluctuations in the exchange rate, we'll assign the [art] market a low risk of tanking (BLUE), a medium risk (YELLOW), a high risk (ORANGE), or an almost certain risk (RED).

Her current informed assessment?

We still have no idea where the subprime crisis is going, which leaves us feeling a little shaky about the health of the art market. So today we're setting the bubble burst threat level at: YELLOW.

Most of her posts contains this sort of conventional wisdom, rather than fresh information or insights. But Callen's just gearing up (and she has linked to CultureGrrl), so we'll rate her blog: YELLOW (cautious optimism).