Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Art Market

Bonus Post: What You’d See If You Were Going To Maastricht

MaastrichtOpeningAlas, I am not going to Maastricht this year for TEFAF, the best art fair in the world, in my opinion. Last year was the 25th edition, and it was spectacular. If you have time to read this, instead of looking at the art on view, you’re probably not there either.

But though Maastricht is known for its Old Masters, it has more to offer — lots of 20th century work, for sure, and some from the 21st century. Presumably, this breadth is why those entering the fair, which begins tomorrow to invited guests and on Friday to the public, will see this piece of contemporary art at the entrance.

VillearealEntitled Mary Poppins, and pictured at left, it’s the largest contemporary art work for sale at TEFAF. Made by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, “Mary Poppins’ six protective elongated arms of 7 meters (7,65 yards) calls to mind the magical nanny popularized by P.L Travers’ children’s novels. Mary Poppins is made from pre-existing materials and mass-produced objects along with other hand-made crochet and knitted fabrics, collected by Joana on her travels with textiles originating from the UK.” It’s supposed to appear weightless, floating in space.

Just for fun, I’ve also got a picture of last year’s contemporary “welcoming” installation — a light piece by the artist Leo Villareal, at right.

Triple Threat To Chelsea Galleries — And Artists

Chelsea, meet Cork Street. Just as that London gallery district is under threat from developers, Chelsea, too, is having its difficulties this winter. And not a double whammy, but a triple whammy.

First, Sandy hit last fall. Many galleries have cleaned up and are back in business, but many also took hits to their inventory. Where works could be salvaged, there were conservation costs.

All along, partly because of the success of the High Line, developers have had their eyes on properties down there, and many of those who haven’t built already are planning to do so. They’re building commercial and residental buildings. 

Now, as Bloomberg recently reported, rents are soaring, forcing many dealers who don’t own their building to consider moving out. Magdalena Sawon, of Postmasters Gallery, says she is headed back downtown 15 years after leaving Soho — because her rent is about to double. “The mid-range galleries are going to just vanish from Chelsea,” she told Bloomberg, adding “that ‘anything radical or experimental’ will become rarer as dealers seek to cover expenses by staging more-predictable shows that do well commercially.”

This post is about more than real estate – as we’ve been seeing, the mega-dealers are getting bigger and the smaller and mid-sized dealers who help emerging and mid-list artists are getting squeezed out.

Those that do not close will go to the Lower East Side and maybe to Brooklyn (if that’s still cheaper). I happen to think that have one big gallery district is better than a lot of smaller ones, but that doesn’t look like it’s happening.

 

 

Save Cork Street?

_63473384_corkstreetFor some time now, London art dealers have been trying to save their Cork Street galleries from developers. It all started last summer, when a parcel of land was sold to a developer who wants to construct luxury apartments there. Then, another landowner decided to follow suit. Many galleries would be forced to move. I learned about it when someone started a petition to the Westminster Council on Change.org. As I write this, about 13,250 people have signed it, and there’s a website called Save Cork Street, and protesters held a rally last fall.


CorkStreetGalleryIf you go to the website, you’ll get the basics, some of which I excerpt here:

For almost 90 years, Cork Street in Mayfair has been one of the most famous streets for art galleries in London…The history and atmosphere of Cork Street, as well as its close proximity to the Royal Academy of Arts, make this a unique place to visit for collectors, art enthusiasts, students and tourists alike.

The careers of many prominent British artists – Barbara Hepworth, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Lynn Chadwick, to name a few – have been closely related to Cork Street.
…20 independent art dealers operate out of Cork Street and the recent proposed property developments, by The Pollen Estate and Native Land, threaten to force out over half of these historic local art businesses.
In August 2012 seven galleries on Cork Street (Adam Gallery, Alpha Gallery, Beaux Arts, Mayor Gallery, Stoppenbach & Delestre, Waterhouse & Dodd and Gallery 27), were given notice to leave their premises in June 2013.  Their landlord, the British insurance firm Standard Life Investments, has finalised a £90m deal with property developer Native Land.  This could result in the demolition of 22 to 27 Cork Street – part of a 7,700sq m (83,000sq ft) redevelopment of a site that stretches right through to Old Burlington Street.
The Pollen Estate has submitted an application to redevelop numbers 5-9, on the opposite side of Cork Street, home to another four of Cork Street’s long standing art galleries, which if approved would start in 2015.

What prompted me to write this now is an article in the Style section of Time about the situation — it adds some comments from the dealers — a bit inflammatory, imho — and concludes that culture will probably lose out to commerce at least “for the short term.”

Maybe. But once as many as the ten or so galleries involved move, there may not be a critical mass in Cork Street. On the other hand, there are other gallery district in London, and I’d guess that few galleries that left Soho for Chelsea years ago are looking back in anger.

Still, I don’t want to see ugly modern buildings in Mayfair — and that’s what we’re likely to get. You might want to sign that petition.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Save Cork Street

More Evidence Of Market Insanity

Botticelli-MadonnaI just can’t help myself. The juxtaposition of two auction sales is simply too tempting.

In tomorrow’s New York Times, Steve Wynn announces that he’s the one who bought Tulips, by Jeff Koons, last November for $33.6 million, a record for a piece by Koons at auction. He had to admit it at some point, because he put it on view in the Wynn Theater rotunda in Las Vegas  a few days ago, and eventually he’ll move it to a hotel-casino he’s building in Macao.

The paper also mentions another record — this one set this week — for a Botticelli. On Wednesday, Christie’s sold that painting, of a Madonna and child once owned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., for $10.4 million, his highest auction price. 

I’m pasting them both here. You decide.

KoonsTulips

Columbia University’s Big Mistake? Or Misconceptions About Deaccessioning?

Writing on The Nation‘s website, Jon Wiener outlines the tale of how Columbia University stupidly sold a Rembrandt in 1974 that’s now worth multiples of the price it got. Right from the start, though, he generalizes, saying the story “has many lessons, starting with the folly of universities selling art to make money.”

But hold on a minute.

RembrantManArmsAkimboThe painting in question is Man with Arms Akimbo, from 1658. at left. Columbia sold it for “more than” $1 million to a private collector, which in today’s dollar’s, Wiener says, would be a little over $4 million. Yet it carried a price tag of $47 million at Maastricht last year, and dealer Otto Naumann is currently offering it at his gallery. Go here to see the painting in higher-res than this website, as well as its provenance.

The painting was given to Columbia by George Huntington Hartford II in 1958. Columbia sold it to “Harold Diamond, Inc., New York, from whom [it was] acquired by John Seward Johnson (1895 – 1983).” It passed “By inheritance to his third wife, Barbara (“Basia”) Piasecka Johnson (b. 1937),” who consigned it to Christie’s where it sold in December, 2009. “A private collector in the United States” bought it there — said by Wiener to be Steven Wynn, who paid $33 million for it. Naumann bought it from him.

At Columbia, the painting hung in the president’s office, which was in the administration building, which was occupied in 1968 by students protesting the Vietnam War (and called barbarians). They,  however, protected the painting. So Wiener writes:

A painting that should have been on display disappeared from public view for the next forty years—in exchange for which the university got $1 million. So who were the real barbarians?

Universities selling art made headlines in 2009, when Brandeis announced it would sell off the paintings in the university’s Rose Art Museum, including works by de Kooning, Warhol and Lichtenstein, to make money for the school. Outraged protests from the university community and the art world led the trustees to back away from the decision. Columbia’s 1975 sale provides an early example of the practice.

Later he says, as another lesson:

Also: selling old masters eventually makes the seller look foolish, because the prices always go up.

Actually, Wiener looks a bit foolish himself. Old Master prices, as you know, do not “always go up.”

He forgets, too, that Columbia doesn’t have an art museum — unlike Brandeis and his other generalized colleges. Perhaps that’s because it’s located in NYC, where art museums are plentiful and great and likely to outshine anything Columbia could have put together.

He forgets, too, where that painting was as a result — in the president’s office. Hardly on public view.

Did Columbia make a bad deal? Perhaps. But I’d have to see what other Rembrandts were selling for in 1974 — comparables are what counts, not current prices.

More important, as far as I can tell from his story, Columbia’s tale has little relevance to other colleges and universities, with art museums, and deaccessioning. Rather than shed light, Wiener has simply confused the issue. The issue needs light, not heat.