Archives for 2008

At least the online headline is accurate, but even Carol Vogel, who in her NY Times post mortem emphasized the positive aspects of last night's so-so results at Christie's Impressionist/modern sale, could not possibly have agreed with the editors' headline (above) on Page B2 of today's newspaper:Sale Results of Impressionist and Modern Art Exceed Expectations at Christie'sAs … [Read more...] about NY Times Auction Report: Shoot the Headline Writer

Top Lot: Monet, "Le Pont du Chemin de fer à Argenteuil," 1873, $41.48 millionLast November's anemic results at Sotheby's evening Impressionist/modern sale in New York did little to dampen the art market's overall ebullience. So I won't go so far as to say that Christie's lackluster performance tonight signals a market correction. But even though it gave itself an exceptionally … [Read more...] about Is the Art Market Still Hot? At Christie’s, Not

Francis Bacon, "Triptych," 1976, on exhibition at Sotheby's After attending Sotheby's annual stockholders meeting  this morning (as a journalist, NOT an investor), I prowled the Sotheby's showroom, watching auctioneer Tobias Meyer adroitly woo clients in front of Bacon's "Triptych" (above): "I've been waiting a long time for this," he told one Bacon admirer with whom he … [Read more...] about Pondering Pre-Auction Imponderables: Weak Dollar, Emerging-Market Trophy Hunters

One of the scholarly offerings at the Metropolitan Museum's "Superheroes" bookshopIt's too bad that Philippe de Montebello's successor couldn't have been in place by now. Then PdM's record for excellence wouldn't have been marred by his Director's Forward for the catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum's Superheroes show, opening Wednesday. Extolling "the influential reach of … [Read more...] about “Superheroes” Catalogue Intro: Did Philippe Have to Write This?

Sotheby's ad for fashion platesWe impecunious art-market scribes are a bearish bunch. Most of us can't afford a square inch of a van Gogh, so we may enjoy a certain charge of schadenfreude from envisioning the eventual comeuppance of those who can pay for the whole painting. As Marion Maneker recently wrote, in an astute article for Slate:How can you tell that it's nearly … [Read more...] about Auctioneers Gone Wild? Unfair “Fair Market Value”

Chic for a Sheikh? Mark Rothko's $72.8-million "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," 1950While we're waiting for some contemporary art auction records to be set later this month, The Art Newspaper claims to know the names of big winners of auctions past. Sarah Thornton reports:Ever since their culture minister, Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al Thani, was arrested and … [Read more...] about Oligarch and Sheikh: The Art Newspaper Names Buyers of “Rockefeller Rothko” and Koons “Heart”

Not quite ready for prime time: Some of Christie's Impressionist/modern wares at yesterday's press previewSo is the art market getting shakier, as we head into the next two weeks of big evening auctions in New York? Kelly Crow in today's Wall Street Journal describes the jitters in tentative terms:With a weak American economy and global fears over rising fuel and food costs, … [Read more...] about Recession Obsession: Have Auction Houses Tightened Up on Guarantees?

Renzo Piano's design for the new downtown WhitneyCourtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Cooper, Robertson & Partners In a press release dated today, the Whitney Museum misleadingly said that it "today released plans" for its "new six-floor, 185,000-square-foot building" in downtown Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Actually, it released those plans earlier than … [Read more...] about Westside Whitney: Fortress Mentality?

Sandro BondiAccording to Louis Godart, advisor on culture to Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, Sandro Bondi (above) is likely be named that country's new minister of culture, succeeding the high-profile activist, Francesco Rutelli. Bondi is head of Forza Italia, the political party of Silvio Berlusconi, the recently elected prime minister.Rutelli is not only losing his … [Read more...] about Berlusconi Crony: Is This Italy’s New Culture Minister?

Thomas Eakins, two sketches for the 1888 painting "Cowboys in the Badlands" Maybe it's time for the Association of Art Museum Directors to trash its "Criteria for Deaccessioning and Disposal." These published guidelines are being conspicuously and repeatedly ignored by institutions eager to acquire works that they believe they can't pay for without selling other works … [Read more...] about What’s Gross About the “Gross Clinic” Deaccessions

Mary BeardI was once enshrined on the "Worst of the Web" list of another art blogger (who shall remain nameless). So just at the moment when I've decided to slow down (have I done that yet?), it was nice to make the "excellent blog" list of a colleague I greatly admire, Mary Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge, classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and the … [Read more...] about Vote of Confidence: Blog Slogger Makes British Prof’s Top-10 List

Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl," 1918 (unfinished) E. Randol Schoenberg, the lawyer who obtained restitution from Austria to the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer of five works by Gustav Klimt (including the famed "Adele Bloch-Bauer I"), informs me that the Austrian Supreme Court last week rejected the heirs' appeal of a 2006 arbitration decision against the return … [Read more...] about News Flash: Austrian Supreme Court Rejects Bloch-Bauer Heirs’ Appeal for Sixth Klimt

Architect's rendering of 80 South Street, Santiago CalatravaGeorge Howe's and William Lescaze's model of unexecuted proposal for the new Museum of Modern Art, 1930, on recent display at MoMABy Guest Blogger Martin FillerFor superstar architect Santiago Calatrava, the cruelest month has indeed been April, which witnessed the demise of one of his headline-making New York City … [Read more...] about Calatrava Trauma: Bird Man Gets His Wings Clipped in Manhattan

As if the U.S. News & World Report college rankings weren't bad enough, now we've got the Chronicle of Higher Education's 2007 Art History and Criticism Productivity Index [via Art History Newsletter]. The index "compiles overall institutional rankings on 375 universities that offer the Ph.D. degree." (I'll give you one guess as to which school is Number One.) Yardsticks … [Read more...] about Art History Productivity Index: Rankled by Another University Ranking

As much as I appreciate them, I don't usually post the many "love your blog" comments that hit my inbox, since my egotistical vanity is already amply in evidence in this space. But my semi-valedictory Middle-Aged Blog Slog post evoked such an outpouring of warm responses that I felt I should gratefully acknowledge them by adding a few (with permission) to the end of that essay, … [Read more...] about Cult of CultureGrrl: Readers’ “Blog Slog” Comments Posted