Art is in the third eye of visual artist

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York University arts professor might not have eyes on the back of his head, but he’s coming pretty close.

Wafaa Bilal, a visual artist widely recognized for his interactive and performance pieces, had a small digital camera implanted in the back of his head — all in the name of art.

Bilal said last week that he underwent the procedure for an art project that was commissioned by a new museum in Doha, Qatar, in the Persian Gulf.

Titled “The 3rd I,” it is one of 23 contemporary works commissioned for the opening of the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art on Dec. 30.

The exhibition is titled “Told/Untold/Retold.”

“I am going about my daily life as I did before the procedure,” the Iraqi-born artist said in a statement.

Bilal, who is teaching three courses this semester at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, will wear the camera for one year. It is 2 inches in diameter and less than an inch thick.

The project will raise “important social, aesthetic, political, technological and artistic questions,” he said.

He declined to say when the camera was implanted or other details of the art installation, saying it “will be revealed to the public as part of the museum preview on Dec. 15” and on a website to be launched on the same day, http://www.3rdi.me.

He said he chose to have it put in the back of the head as an allegorical statement about the things we don’t see and leave behind.

How it all fits together is still a bit of a mystery.

The camera will capture his everyday activities at one-minute intervals 24 hours a day and then be transmitted to monitors at the museum, said curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented, who commissioned Bilal on behalf of the museum.

“He doesn’t have to alter his lifestyle or what he does. In principle, he’s moving on with his life,” Bardaouil told the Associated Press from Doha. “It will be a three-dimensional, real space-and-time experience. Once the piece is revealed, you’ll realize that the camera is only one aspect of the work and there are aspects as important that will be experienced.”

The project has raised challenging questions for NYU, the nation’s largest private school with about 44,000 students.

“As a school of the arts, a school whose mission is to educate artists, we place a high value on his right to free expression in his creative work as an artist,” NYU said in a statement.

“We also take seriously the privacy issues his project raises, its impact on our students, and the importance of preserving trust in the pedagogical relationship between a faculty member and students.”

NYU said it has had numerous “constructive and productive” conversations with the artist and was continuing “to discuss with him the right mechanism to ensure that his camera will not take pictures in NYU buildings.”

But a number of students said they were not overly concerned about their privacy being violated.

“I don’t really know what you would be protecting them (students) from, what would be happening in the classroom that couldn’t be shared,” said Erin Wahed, 22, who graduated in May with a degree in photography but did not take any of Bilal’s classes.

Seth Mrocska, who was friends with some of Bilal’s students but did not have him as a professor before graduating in May, agreed, saying, “It’s not that there’s much to hide in the classroom.”

However, he said he wasn’t OK with the images being transmitted to another country and “shared across a media platform to be stored for all to view.”

Bilal said “The 3rd I” builds on his other body of work that combines performance art, digital and body art and photography “into a unique conceptual piece.”

Many of his previous works have invited debate and controversy.

In a 2007 online installation, “Domestic Tension” in 2007, virtual users could shoot a paintball gun at Bilal 24 hours a day. The Chicago Tribune deemed it “one of the sharpest works of political art to be seen in a long time” and named him Artist of the Year that year.

A 2008 video game piece, “Virtual Jihadi,” was censored by the city of Troy, N.Y., where it was shown. In it, Bilal inserted an avatar of himself as a suicide bomber hunting then-President George W. Bush. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a claim against the City of Troy for closing the arts center showing the work.

The artist has said the work was meant to shed light on groups that traffic in hateful stereotypes of Arab culture with video games like Quest for Saddam.

In a recent live performance piece titled “... and Counting,” Bilal had his back tattooed with a borderless map of Iraq covered with one dot for each Iraqi and American casualty. Bilal, whose brother was killed by a missile at an Iraqi checkpoint in 2004, used the piece to highlight how the deaths of Iraqis are largely invisible to the American public. The dots for the Iraqis were represented by green UV ink visible only under black light, while Americans were represented by permanent ink.

This article is from: http://inspiredhomeomaha.com/article/20101128/ENTERTAINMENT05/711289969

Nigerian art market suffocates artistic creativity says Nnenna Okore

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By McPhilips Nwachukwu
Educated at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, Nnenna Okore, an Assistant Art Professor presently the Chair of Art at North Park University, Chicago has emerged as one of the most significant visual art voices of her generation.

Sourcing her compositional materials from clay, recycled paper and other discarded materials, Okore has imbued in her art a new energy that bristles with the aesthetics of fashion, climatic upheavals among other socio-cultural issues.

According to an internet source profile, “Okore enriches her work with layers of meaning through familiar processes. Both in her home country Nigeria and United States, she relies on the use of flotsam or discarded objects, which are transformed into intricate sculpture and installations through repetitive and labor-intensive techniques.”

A widely exhibited artists both in Nigeria and oversears, the United States based artist also happens to be among the privileged artists, whose works met the ArtHouse Contemporary auction currently going on Lagos.

In this e- interview, Okore, who has participated in all  the three editions of the auction shares her experience about the auctions and as well, talked about the emerging African art market.  Excerpt.

Nnenna can you tell us about yourself?

I am an artist and an art professor. I chair the Art Department at North Park University, Chicago and have been widely exhibited in numerous international art galleries and museums. My most recent outings this year were at the Blachere Foundation Art Center, France and the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial, Brasil.

I spent over twenty years living and schooling in Southeastern Nigeria prior to relocating to the United States, which explains why most of my works are deeply rooted in my Nigerian sensibilities and experiences. Generally speaking, my works are inspired by stunning cultural, natural and architectural forms. I employ a wide range of mediums, including but not limited to clay, recycled paper, rope and wax.

You have featured in the three editions of Arthouse Contemporary organised auctions. How  would  you score the performance?

Arthouse has done well in promoting and marketing works selected for their auctions. What sets them apart from others, I believe, is their ability to create and set high standards, which are reflected in the organization, venue, catalogue, etc.  They’ve undoubtedly increased visibility for many artists and more importantly, brought greater value to works by Nigerian artists.

What would you say  are the high points of the exercise?

One of the high points of the auctions has been the exposure of Nigerian artists to an international audience, which I think will force the existing commercial art centers to treat their artists better and reckon with the professional standards set by Arthouse.

Do you think that auctions  meet the conditions required of the practice in the global art market?

I can’t speak much to the practice, having not had much direct experience with auctions myself. But from the much I know, the Arthouse auctions are generating wider national and international interests, which can be viewed as a positive step towards positioning African artists on the global scene.

What is your candid opinion  about the second and third tier visual art markets in Nigeria?

Do you mean the smaller galleries and craft stores?

Well,if you put it that way ?

I think the Nigerian art market, perhaps not intentionally, has generally controlled and suffocated artistic creativity for too long; largely because they have had to sustain and market whatever art styles or mediums that sell well.

As a result, artistic and conceptual originality is almost nonexistent in the Nigerian art culture. Struggling artists are forced to create and sell what these commercial galleries dictate. There’s no question that these dead-end practices have suppressed the progressive art growth in Nigeria, but I am optimistic that the new trends of interests and international visibility enabled  by art centers like, CAA and Arthouse will provide artists with a better platform to compete on a global scale.

Do you think that the present economic climate supports this emerging market?

Who is to say, especially when art sales in the global market have continued to surge. I don’t know how the Nigerian economy will affect this season’s auction, but judging from the outcome of the last Arthouse auction and their ever increasing reputation, I believe they will fare well.

Recently, the national gallery of art in Ngeria proposed a bill to the National Assembly requesting that certain royalties be paid to artists over the acquisition of their works by buyers. What is your take on this move?

I have not followed this too closely, but I can say this: It seems like a good idea, especially in the light of increasing value for art and incuring a better future for the Nigerian artist. However, it’s unclear to me how the royalty will be applied and sustained. With the exception of ‘resale or reprint royalties’, I am not aware that creative artists are entitled to lifelong royalty right like musicians. I think it will be challenging to implement or monitor it since we don’t have an institutionalized art industry and my assumption is that there aren’t high occurrences of resale.

Is this request the global practice?

As far as I know, many European countries as well as Australia have legislated the resale royalty rights; but it’s not as popular a practice as one might imagine. The United States, (with the exception of the state of Califonia), Canada, and New Zealand have yet to adopt any binding act. I think the pros and cons have to be considered carefully to ensure that artists will benefit from it.

If a buyer of work at an auction for instance, is expected to  pay royalties on such works. Don’t you think such a measure will frustrate the growth of the emerging art market?

It could, again depending on the terms of the royalty.

Finally, how do you see the future of African arts in the global arts market?

In all fairness, I don’t think African artists in general have done too badly in the global market. Africans, particularly from North, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa had enjoyed visibility and global attention for many decades and for good reasons: government support and international exposure. I believe Nigerian and West African artists, on the other hand, are beginning to make remarkable advancements on the international stage, and will become a competing force in the near future.

 

This article is from: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/11/nigerian-art-market-suffocates-artistic-creativity-says-nnenna-okore/

French Electrician Reveals Trove Of Hundreds Of Picassos

Picasso's electrician reveals artist's 'treasure trove'

A retired electrician in southern France who worked for Pablo Picasso says he has hundreds of previously unknown works by the artist.



The treasure trove of 271 pieces includes lithographs, cubist paintings, notebooks and a watercolour and is said to be worth about 60m euros (£50.6m).

Pierre Le Guennec, 71, reportedly says Picasso gave him the works as gifts.

But the estate's administrators have filed a case for alleged illegal receipt of the works of art.

According to French newspaper Liberation, the lost Picassos include a watercolour from his Blue Period. Experts say the nine cubist works in Mr Le Guennec's possession are worth 40m euros alone.

Legal battle

The electrician installed burglar alarm systems at Picasso's numerous houses in France, including his villa in Cannes, during the three years before the artist died in 1973.

In September, Mr Le Guennec approached the artist's estate in an attempt to get the canvases authenticated by Picasso's son, Claude.

But Claude Picasso dismissed Mr Le Guennec's explanation about how he came into possession of the art works.

He said his father would never have given so many works to a single person.

"To give away such a large quantity, that's unheard of. It doesn't add up," he told Liberation. "It was a part of his life."

Once the works were authenticated, the family contacted France's specialist art police who have reportedly already raided Mr Le Guennec's home on the Cote d'Azur, confiscating the paintings and interviewing him under caution.

This article is from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11864660

Art Basel Miami - Up Significantly From Last Year

In Miami Beach, a More Daring Art Basel

By ERICA ORDEN

'Educate, Agitate, Organize, 2010' by Andrea Bowers, to be shown at the Andrew Kreps Gallery's Art Basel Miami Beach outpost;

Last December, many dealers and collectors, still reeling from the economic implosion, sat out the most prestigious U.S. art fair, Art Basel Miami Beach.

This year, galleries are back: Booth applications rose by 20% from last year. After robust fall auctions in New York, "we're seeing people back in the market," said Marc Spiegler, co-director of the Basel, Switzerland, fair and its sister event in Miami, now in its ninth year. And after several years of safer, blue-chip offerings in a soft market, dealers are bringing back experimental art.



Opening to the public Dec. 2, this year's four-day event is expected to draw more than 40,000 people. Within the main sector, which has more than 180 galleries, New York-based Skarstedt Gallery will show Jenny Holzer's black granite sarcophagus and LED sign, "Laments: The knife cut runs as long..." Galerie Urs Meile, of Beijing and Lucerne, Switzerland, will show "Kui Hua Zi," a pile of porcelain seeds by Beijing-born artist Ai Weiwei, who has often crossed swords with the Chinese government.

'Athens' by Gilbert & George (to be featured at Bernier/Eliades Gallery)

Among the unconventional works at New York powerhouse Lehmann Maupin will be a printed-vinyl floor installation by multimedia artist Tony Oursler, "Synchronistic Lick." A buyer can customize the dimensions and therefore the patterns of the work, which mixes a gray background, fluorescent colors and photorealistic imagery. Each of three available editions costs $40,000.



Another full-booth installation, by Ashley Bickerton, sold quickly to a major European collector at 2008's fair in Basel, Lehmann Maupin said. But during the last two years of fairs, the gallery presented more conservative choices, like paintings, embroideries and photography, co-founder Rachel Lehmann said, adding: "We feel like this is a moment where we can do it again."



In October, London's Frieze Art Fair saw a return to boom-era big prices for pieces other than "wall works." A formaldehyde-based installation by Damien Hirst, for example, sold at the Frieze's opening for about $5.6 million.

'Piquanteagle' by John Chamberlain (Anthony Meier Fine Arts)

In Miami, the fair's leadership is experimenting in another way: Its sector for emerging galleries, Art Positions, is limiting participating galleries to one artwork per booth. That part of the fair "needed to have a unique identity to it," Mr. Spiegler said. At $10,000, booths for Art Positions are 20% cheaper than last year (booths for the main sector cost $52 per square foot and range from 646 to 1,292 square feet).



Finding the right work was tricky for Simon Preston, owner and director of an eponymous New York gallery selected as one of the 14 Art Positions presenters. The gallery needed to have "the perfect project at the right time for a particular artist." Mr. Preston is showing "Crushed by the Hammer of the Sun," a mechanical sculpture involving a silk skirt, by Los Angeles-based artist Kara Tanaka, who is still in her 20s. The piece is priced at $30,000.



The auction world is showing increasing interest in the fair, with its influx of influential collectors. For the first time, Christie's will host a preview in Miami, showing works by Mr. Hirst, Keith Haring, Richard Pettibone and Antony Gormley, all to be included in the auction house's February postwar and contemporary sale in London.

 

This article is from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575624690309062292.html?mod=WSJ_ArtsEnt_LifestyleArtEnt_2

London Art Critic Suggests Museums Sell Off Work

Art critic Brian Sewell said galleries should sell their paintings to help pay for public services

Council-run galleries should sell off artworks to protect public services threatened by government spending cuts, according to a leading art critic.

Brian Sewell also believes the National Gallery could dispose of up to 800 paintings that "aren't up to scratch".

He singled out the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath for having a £10m collection that was no more than a "lucky dip".

A Museums Association spokesman said a widespread sell-off of art to support public services would be a tragedy.

In storage

Mr Sewell made his comments in response to an investigation by the BBC's Inside Out West programme.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, it found councils in Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire owned 40,506 artworks worth more than £48m in total - with 79% currently in storage.

The £48m does not include the value of 18,000 items owned by Bristol City Council, which refused to reveal any figures.

The council said it would be in breach of the agreement with its insurers if it were to disclose the value of the art it owns.

Mr Sewell said councils needed to consider selling off works of art that had no great national significance.

"I would go further than local museums," Mr Sewell explained.

"If you went round the National Gallery with a really critical eye you might get rid of 800 pictures because they simply aren't up to scratch."

A spokeswoman for the National Gallery said the Museums and Galleries Act 1992 prevented it from disposing of items, other than to other recognised national bodies.



'Inform and inspire'

Bath & North East Somerset Council (Banes) owns 11,700 works of art, of which 9,300 are currently in storage.

Mr Sewell said of Bath's Victoria Art Gallery: "I've seen it described as a lucky dip.

"You might argue that you could take anything from it and no-one would notice."

Jon Benington, manager of the gallery, defended its collection, saying: "The art collections are there to inform, to educate, to inspire.

"Once they're gone, they're gone forever. You can't bring them back."

A Banes spokeswoman said its acquisitions and disposal policy was in line with national guidelines.

"It observes the requirements of nationally accredited status, which entitles us to access grant aid to purchase artwork to improve the variety of our collection and encourage more people to visit our attractions.

"Breaching public trust by selling off parts of our collection could result in accredited status being withdrawn, meaning our ability to improve our range of art to encourage more people to visit Bath would be undermined."

Maurice Davies, of the Museums Association, said: "You should never think of selling something because you are a bit short of money for a couple of years.

"I think it's tragic when short-term reasons lead to the selling of works of art."

This article is from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11837414

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Another Cache of Forged Master Paintings Found, This Time Near Lisbon

An Eclectic Art Fraud in Portugal

Some 130 paintings, together with forged certificates attesting to their authenticity, were seized last month

By DALYA ALBERGE

A recent raid in Portugal has uncovered a large hoard of fake pictures, with police seizing works that were claimed to have been painted by Modigliani, Matisse and Monet among other noted artists.

Some 130 paintings, together with forged certificates attesting to their authenticity, were seized by officers last month. Police suspect that the forgers have been selling the fakes for some years, but police say they have yet to discover whether the forgers were collaborating with any dealers. Previous forgers have had middle-men involved.

The Portuguese Judiciary Police have established a special investigation called "Caverna do Tesouro," or Treasure Cave, to deal with the case, because of the range of faked artists and the specialist knowledge required.

João Oliveira, the criminal investigation coordinator running the probe, said in an interview: "Picasso, Miro, Munch, Toulouse-Lautrec... it's amazing. This is the biggest [hoard of fakes] in Portugal and one of the most important in Europe."

Other 20th-century masters in the hoard include Chagall and Kandinsky. Such was the forgers' confidence that Old Masters like Leonardo da Vinci, whose work needs knowledge of how to artificially age pictures as well as artistic skill, are among the fakes.

Mr. Oliveira described some of the forgeries as "very good," showing a "superior technique."

The fakes could have been sold to unsuspecting buyers for "upwards of €15 million" total, according to one London dealer.

The hoard was found at a house described by police as "small but expensive" in Cascais, a fashionable resort near Lisbon.

A Norwegian married couple is suspected of being involved in the forgery. But, in accordance with Portuguese law, their names are still withheld. Police said the woman, in her 40s, was initially arrested, but has been released pending further investigation. Her husband is still being sought. The woman must report regularly to the police and cannot leave the country.

The forgeries consist mostly of paintings in the style of particular artists rather than direct copies of known works, police said. A forged Kandinsky is an exception, a copy of the painter's Yellow-Red-Blue, a 1925 abstract in the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Portuguese art experts who have seen the forgeries have told police that many are extremely impressive, and indeed beautifully produced.However, other expert views on the quality of the forgeries, based on photographs, were divided. They said that, while leading experts would not be fooled, a secondary market of enthusiasts could have been duped.

On being shown a photograph of a "Leonardo," Jacques Franck, an expert advising the Louvre, said: "It's a beautiful painting. The pose of the head might derive from Leonardo's unfinished drawing of Christ's head... in the Accademia in Venice... It's really a ... handsome execution, but the style...is 18th—century not 16th-century."

Julian Spalding, former director of the Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, said: "There is something odd about this hoard.... Forgers most often specialize in one area of art... This is an odd jumble of very different art. It might be the work of more than one forger. I doubt if any would have fooled a specialist. They are potpourries of familiar elements in an artist's work, not attempts to create an original, unknown conception... much more difficult."

Looking at photographs, John Myatt, a British artist who was sentenced to a year in prison in 1999 as a forger of Monet, Matisse and Giacometti, described a Portuguese Modigliani as "quite convincing"—"I'd have gone for that," he said. He also thought the Botero looked "quite credible."

But he dismissed a Chagall as missing "the essence" of the artist—"he wasn't that untidy," he said—and a Leonardo as a "pastiche of an 18th century painting". He observed that it was foolhardy to forge Leonardo: "There has been an accepted body of his work with provenance and exhibition history over 400 years. To come along with a new Leonardo is just stupid... A new Kandinsky at least makes some sense."



At top left, the Chagall wedding scene fake, with a real Chagall painting below it. At top right, a fake reclining nude by Botero; at bottom right, a real Botero.

Feminist Art From Saudi Arabia (Yes, It Can Happen)

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Women of Saudi Arabia Emerge on the Bosporus

By SUSANNE FOWLER

ISTANBUL — A quiet evolution is taking place here inside a vast warehouse near the Bosporus and at an inland convention center where rarely seen Saudi Arabian art — including some with feminist themes — is on display.

In the warehouse known as Sanat Limani, or Art Port, the creative movement based in London and Jidda called Edge of Arabia has organized “Transition,” a collection of works from 22 Saudi artists that touch on issues of faith, culture and identity. On display through Dec. 26, “Transition” coincides with Contemporary Istanbul, an international art exposition that runs through Sunday.

At Art Port, across a parking lot from the Istanbul Modern, the photographer Manal al-Dowayan documents real Saudi women in their real jobs, from computer scientist, to doctor, to teacher, to petroleum engineer. In her “I Am” series, the engineer wears a hard hat and a uniform with a “safety first” label on her chest, but Ms. Dowayan has added a face veil heavily decorated with beads and coins.

“A lot of people don’t like that one,” said Ms. Dowayan, 37. “They say, for example, that the place where she works doesn’t require a veil and she is allowed to work as a petro-engineer fully.

“But I put it there because it looks so awkward. The feeling you get when you look at the image is the point I want to make. It doesn’t match. It doesn’t look right. Restrictions are awkward, especially when they don’t make sense.”

Ms. Dowayan, who was born and raised in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and works full time as an artist, addresses still other restrictions in her ongoing project, “The Choice.”

Those photos include pictures of women in activities they are not allowed to pursue — driving, athletics, voting — “different things that I think have been taken over, choices that women should make themselves, like whether to drive or not, whether to vote or not: Choices that have been taken away.”

“Movement,” she continued, “is a very big issue for Saudi women, the idea of transportation and moving from Point A to Point B. So I explore the idea of driving because women are not allowed to drive in Saudi. Other images address women’s sports in schools, which are not allowed. This is not something I am bringing up for the first time: this is a dialogue that exists within the community, in the media, in the elite class, in the lower class. But I portray the contemporary scene within the general discussion in Saudi Arabia.”

She is striking a theme that is common in Muslim countries. “There’s this whole dialogue about whether the rules are based on religion or tradition,” she said. “It’s a thin line that’s hard to find.

“I add jewelry to their work portraits as a link to tradition,” she explained. “Yes, the jewelry is beautiful, and tradition is beautiful, but when it’s imposed in the wrong place, it becomes strange and awkward and might cause a negative reaction.”

Another artist in the “Transition” exhibition, Hala Ali, is also showing a piece at Contemporary Istanbul. Organizers of the fair at the Istanbul Lutfi Kirdar Convention & Exhibition Center in the Harbiye neighborhood say that art valued at €25 million, or $34 million, from 14 countries is on display.

Aya Mousawi, the assistant curator of the “Transition” show, which is part of Istanbul’s European Capital of Culture celebration, explained the crossover: “Contemporary Istanbul is a young art fair and it’s attracting a lot of people from the Gulf, the international world. We want to support our artists and help them showcase themselves on these types of platforms. Because we’ve got our main exhibit in Istanbul, it only makes sense that we also have a collaboration with the country’s leading art fair.”

Ms. Ali’s work, “The Girl’s Room,” is one such collaboration. One wall of the installation is covered with text that Ms. Ali described as having “an overtly feminist tone” creating “a kind of feminist manifesto: It’s humorous sometimes, facetious sometimes, kind of ironic.”

When an automated blacklight comes on, all the masculine words within the text pop out in fluorescent colors, she said, as a commentary on “subtext and underlying meanings not visible to naked eye.”

Audiences sometimes interpret the piece as a political statement on the oppression of women, she said: “This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve executed this piece. Many people think it’s some kind of criticism of a patriarchal system, but actually the only system I’m criticizing is language. Structurally speaking, words are extremely loaded. And the way language functions is not as black and white as it may seem.”

That her work is being displayed in two venues in Istanbul is an accomplishment for the 24-year-old artist. Born in Saudi Arabia, Ms. Ali grew up in London and moved to Dubai with her family when she was 15. She abandoned her studies of applied linguistics and was just months away from finishing a fine arts degree at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi art, she conceded, is not well known globally.

“And I have to take responsibility for the fact that I was basically ignorant of Saudi art. I never saw it, never understood it,” she said. “It’s not as mainstream as people like to think and it’s not a completely booming society, but it does exist.

“This is only my second international show. The first was in Berlin, and yes, there was a bit of a surprise factor,” she said. “A lot of people thought I was commenting on issues in Saudi, which I wasn’t, but I understood where that inference came from. I had to correct a few people: I am not talking about internal Saudi policy here.”

Ms. Ali’s other piece, showing at Art Port, is a video commentary on Turkish-Arab relations and the power of media and language to soothe over dislike and suspicion. In it, she shows the final episode of the Turkish television soap opera “Gumus” that drew 80 million viewers after being dubbed in colloquial Arabic.

Ms. Dowayan, the photographer, sees an even wider potential audience for Saudi art.

“Right now there’s a renaissance of a sort,” she said. “People are really curious about Saudi Arabia and as always, art is a window to the soul of a community. When you can view a collective of 20 contemporary artists from Saudi, you get a little window into what’s going on there.

“People are very surprised. The reaction you get: Really, is that how it is? But people really embrace the colors in these works, or how forward some of the statements are, and how delicate are others.

“Saudi is getting closer and closer to Turkish culture through television, the soap operas,” Ms. Dowayan said. “So you have so many Saudis very interested in Turkish culture because suddenly they realize, ‘Oh they’re just like us.’

“They’re not, but they are,” she added. “I love how art and media and things are working to bring two different cultures even closer. A few years ago there wasn’t any link. The only barrier is the language and sooner or later, that barrier will fall, too.”

 

This article is from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/arts/25iht-M25CART.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Peter Greenaway's Light Show on Leonardo's Last Supper

An Art-House Film Director Takes On 'The Last Supper'

Artists have been riffing on Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" for decades, from Salvador Dali's 1955 painting to Brazilian artist Vik Muniz's chocolate-syrup version. Now, Peter Greenaway has joined them



Mr. Greenaway is best known as the director of such art-house films as the well-received "The Draughtsman's Contract" (1982) and "The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover" (1989), which featured graphic sex and cannibalism. But he started out as an art student. This installation, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, recreates the refectory of Milan's Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of da Vinci's masterpiece.

For 16 minutes, a series of cinematic projections and an accompanying original soundtrack will play over a copy of the painting that, through the use of high-resolution 3-D scanners, faithfully reproduces the original. It's the first time Mr. Greenaway has shown any of his installation art in the U.S.



Mr. Greenaway projected images on the original in Milan for one night in 2008, then on a nearby replica in an exhibit that drew 55,000 visitors. "The Last Supper" was selected because of its iconic status and because of its increased popularity following the novel "The Da Vinci Code." Through the artist's manipulation of light, at various times the figures in "The Last Supper" can appear three-dimensional, and the time of day seems to change.



The installation was part of a series made on classic works of art, beginning with Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" in Amsterdam and continuing with a reproduction of Paolo Veronese's "The Wedding at Cana" at the 2009 Venice Biennial.



Mr. Greenaway, who spoke by phone from Europe recently, said the idea of the series is to draw people back to the classics via modern technology. "There is a feeling around that the laptop generation believes there is no painting before Jackson Pollock and no cinema before Tarantino, and we have to prove them wrong," he said.



Besides his art career, Mr. Greenaway started writing operas in the 1990s and more recently has traveled around the world as a video jockey, doing light shows in various venues.



The Park Avenue installation will have a prologue, showing in its own room and featuring projections focusing on Italian architecture, and an epilogue including scenes from "The Wedding at Cana." Mr. Greenaway says one might characterize the "Last Supper" installation as "immersive cinema." Then he added, "But that sounds a bit pedantic. It's not a very catchy phrase."

—Katherine Bindley

This article is from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575630820785837664.html

'Museum of Broken Relationships' Opens in Zagreb

The Croatian capital is home to an unusual new museum



IF IT is the shards of ancient Greek pots or oodles of romantically bulging female flesh that interest you then head around the corner to Zagreb’s venerable Klovicevi Dvori gallery. The most exciting addition to the Croatian capital’s cultural scene offers something different, and is a break with tradition. It is a collection of items that everyone can actually identify with. They are housed in the Museum of Broken Relationships, whose entire collection is made up of objects remaining in the wake of failed relationships, or in some cases, after death.

The museum is the brainchild of two artists, Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic. They went out together between 1999 and 2003, and when they broke up they did not know what to do with all sorts of treasured items that meant something only to them, for example their wind-up, hopping bunny, which they had wanted to take pictures of around the world. The only solution? “We should set up a museum,” they laughed.

Three years later Mr Grubisic called Ms Vistica. He said: “You know that idea we had…?” So, the pair set to asking their friends to donate objects that had been left behind after break-ups. To their surprise, they did. The first exhibition opened in a container. Since then the idea has taken off. Lugging everything from garter belts to garden gnomes around in suitcases they have taken their ever- expanding collection all over the world. Last month they opened the museum’s first permanent gallery, in Zagreb’s old town.

If they were just showcasing old boots, airsickness bags and fluffy toys then the collection would amount to nothing more than meaningless bric-a-brac. But the sometimes heart-rending tales or even just simple sentences accompanying each item bring it all to life. For example, alongside a French identity card a Slovene has written: “The only thing left of a great love was citizenship.” One woman, who gave an axe, recounts how she used it to chop her girlfriend’s furniture into tiny pieces when she left her. The ex collected the remains and “the axe was promoted to a therapy instrument.”

From Switzerland someone has donated an unopened packet containing a candy G-string. “He turned out to be as cheap and shabby as his presents.” Among the most moving of all the items, inevitably, are some related to the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia. One is a love letter written by a boy to a girl he met in a convoy of vehicles while being evacuated from Sarajevo under siege in 1992. He never got to give it to her but he never forgot her either. Another is a prosthetic foot given by a man who lost his own one during the Croatian war. He fell in love with the social worker who helped him obtain certain things he needed but comments, “the prosthesis endured longer than our love. It was made of sturdier material!”

International Museum Directors: Museums Selling Art For Cash Is Wrong

International move to curb disposals

UK position weakened, leading to calls for greater safeguards against rash sales

 

LONDON. Leading international museum directors have restated their opposition to the financially motivated sale of works of art from public collections when the proceeds are used for “anything other than acquisitions or the direct care of the collection”. The call comes at a time in the UK when the pressure to sell works is increasing and concerns are rising at the lack of obstacles to ill-conceived sales.

Manuel Borja-Villel, the director of the Reina Sofía museum, Madrid, speaking as president of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (Cimam)—whose board includes Neal Benezra, the director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Sheena Wagstaff, chief curator, Tate Modern, and Kaspar König, the director, Ludwig Museum, Cologne—said Cimam was concerned by cases when money from sales was diverted to “things that had little do with collections, such as expansions”.

Cimam, which is a committee of the prestigious International Council of Museums, said museums risk suspension if they break this principle.

“It is important to restate that a public collection is different from a private collection,” said Borja-Villel. “The public collection has an element of memory—we must respect what colleagues have collected before us.” He added decisions need to be made by directors, “not by politicians or just managers”.

This follows the hardening of the US Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) opposition to deaccessioning to raise funds for operating expenses and expansion projects. In June, Kaywin Feldman, director of the AAMD, said: “No exceptions will be made.”

Concern is rising in the UK at the lack of safeguards to rash, financially motivated sales from regional collections at a time when pressure on local authority finances will increase following the coalition government’s austerity drive.

Stephen Deuchar, the director of the Art Fund, said: “We are implacably opposed to councillors pointing to a Picasso and seeing a short-term solution to a funding crisis. Deaccessioning is not a sin but it has to be very carefully undertaken.”

Current safeguards are voluntary and depend largely on moral persuasion. The UK Museums Association (MA) has relaxed its ethical stance from a hard-line presumption against disposal to one that accepts that works of art might be sacrificed for the greater good of a collection. “The basic principle of museums in exceptional circumstances liquidating their collections is a principle that we have embraced since 2007,” said Maurice Davies, the MA’s head of policy, “and the world hasn’t come to an end.”

The MA did not protest when this year the Royal Cornwall Museum sold two paintings including Ernest Normand’s Bondage, 1895, which had been in the collection for 90 years and was considered important enough for Tate Britain to borrow for its reopening in 2001. The painting failed to meet its reserve at Christie’s in June and was then sold privately for just over £1m to build an endowment.

When in 2009 councillors in Southampton proposed selling a painting by Alfred Munnings and one of two sculptures by Rodin to help fund a maritime museum, it caused disquiet. “The MA thought the basic idea was OK,” said Davies.

One proposal for greater regulation is to create an expert panel that would review proposed deaccessions, an idea explored in detail by Edward Manisty and Julian Smith in the journal Art Antiquity and Law. Such a panel would act along the lines of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art (see box below).

Minister for culture Ed Vaizey, who is due to deliver a keynote speech at a seminar at the National Gallery in London next May to discuss deaccessioning, said: “It is primarily for museum professionals to navigate through these complex issues, but Government has an interest in the wider public policy context.”

So is an expert panel needed? Maurice Davies thinks not: “The last thing we want is another committee. And it would require legislation.” Diane Lees, the director general of the Imperial War Museum, who is also due to speak is also doubtful. “Arbitration is more helpful than a big mechanism for exceptional examples.”

Bendor Grosvenor, another planned speaker at the seminar, who is a director of Philip Mould and a former advisor to the Conservative Party on museums, supports the idea: “Government would be well placed to look at setting up an expert panel,” he said, adding: “If you had a panel it could help regional museums make decisions—and to get best value for sales.”

Fred Hohler, who set up the Public Catalogue Foundation to document the nation’s collection of paintings, said: “These collections are assets and they could be economic assets [to cities] if they were enhanced.” He also warned: “It’s not just the Titians, Veroneses and Botticellis, it is the ‘unimportant’ paintings [that should be protected] that are going to become increasingly important as a visual record of the world before photography—even more so when you add watercolours and drawings.”

This article is from: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/International+move+to+curb+disposals/21815

Making College Art Programs Safe For Students

Art Programs Stress Studio Safety

By Daniel Grant



How does one judge a collegiate art program? It might be on the basis of average class size, or if students get their own studios, or whether the equipment is state of the art, or the prestige of the faculty, or how successful the alumni are. All quite valid. But what about whether it will threaten your life?

A growing number of art programs are making studio safety an integral part of both the curriculum and facilities. They are improving the air quality, reducing exposure to potentially hazardous materials, and increasing the safety training that students and faculty receive.

“We’ve increased the number of technicians to help in safety training,” said Carl Powell, director of environmental health and safety at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla. These technicians monitor how students use art supplies and equipment. Additionally, “at the beginning of the school year, I give students a safety orientation that covers proper ventilation, safe use, storage and disposal of chemicals, and the kinds of safety equipment students need for their own personal protection, such as goggles, dust masks, and gloves.” Students are required to sign an agreement stating that they will abide by safety guidelines.

Faculty members are also required to complete a safety-training seminar. “If they don’t complete the training, they don’t get a contract,” Powell said. “I got administration support on that.”

Since the fall of 2008, art students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have signed a safety contract after attending a one-hour training session from the Department of Environmental Health and Safety at the beginning of each semester. That was instituted when a new $28-million studio-art building was opened, bringing together disciplines that had been scattered around the campus. The former sculpture facility had been a wood-frame building that burned to the ground after an accident with the forge furnace, while the ceramics program had been housed in a 19th-century structure whose only source of ventilation was open windows and doors (weather permitting).

In contrast, the new facility has a separate spray room for spray paints and fixatives, portable sinks in which wastewater is collected and disposed of rather than emptied into the water supply, numerous showers and eye-wash areas for students in contact with dust, and locked storage cabinets for flammable materials in each undergraduate and graduate studio. There are various ventilation systems: dust collection in the wood shop, vapor extraction in the print-making and photography studios, and fume extraction in rooms where kilns and welding are found.

William Oedel, an art historian and chairman of the art department, noted that environmental health and safety staff make weekly inspections of the studio-art building and dispose of all wastes according to state environmental guidelines. “They’re pretty strict about that,” he said.

Other programs have become stricter, too, sometimes prodded by government. In 2001, Boston University was fined $253,000 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and required to spend $518,000 in cleanup and other environmental projects after the EPA discovered a slow, chronic leak into the Charles River of various oils from an underground storage tank. At about the same time, the University of Rhode Island was forced to spend approximately $800,000 in fines and cleanup for environmental contamination caused by the art and other departments.

Learning from this, art programs have become vigilant about waste disposal. “We’re always telling students, ‘Don’t wash your brushes in the sink, only in the brush-washing area,’” Oedel said. They require close monitoring in that, he said, because they “always want to get done quickly.” At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, students are required to label everything in their studios—even their mineral spirits or bottled water—“for their own safety and so that the wrong things don’t get poured down the sink,” said Pat Wasserboehr, an associate professor in the art department.

Programs are also substituting less-toxic supplies for those that are more expensive to store, ventilate, and dispose of. “We’ve banned turpentine here,” said Mark Knierim, facilities and technical coordinator in the art department of the University of Minnesota, because the concentration of harmful vapors in the air is three times higher than for mineral spirits, requiring more expensive ventilation.

Similarly, the Rhode Island School of Design works with the two on-campus stores and academic departments to encourage the use of less-toxic materials, such as “replacing acetic acid with citrus acid, turpentine with Gamsol”—odorless mineral spirits—“and resins with mercury with resins that don’t contain mercury,” said Alan Cantara, RISD’s environmental health and safety manager. He noted that the department of environmental health and safety, which was formed in 2000, assumed responsibilities that had been handled by three different campus offices (fire safety, public safety, and physical plant). His department takes on the responsibility of reviewing new products and equipment before they are introduced into studio classes.

RISD still permits potentially harmful materials in studio classrooms, such as cadmium and cobalt paints, which are associated with certain cancers, but their use is restricted, in large measure because of the cost of disposal and the worry that some may find their way into the Narragansett Bay. More and more, programs are switching from nitric acid to ferric chloride for etching, cleaning printmaking presses with vegetable oils rather than with solvents, replacing lead solders with lead-free solders in sculpture, and solvent-based marking pens with water-based ones in drawing classes.

“There are a lot of new products coming out that don’t require solvents in cleanup,” said Monona Rossol, an industrial hygienist who was a consultant in the design of the studio-art building at the University of Massachusetts. “Like water-washable oil paints, in which the ventilation rate is practically nothing. Pregnant women can take the course.”

Even with the new, less-toxic materials, creating art is by no means a risk-free endeavor, and many programs tack up copies of Material Safety Data Sheets. Some programs also require students and faculty to undergo training in the steps that should be taken in the event of an emergency. At Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, casting and welding classes are kept relatively small—10 students, compared with the more customary 16 to 20—to limit the number of people who might be hurt in an accident or even back into something because the room is crowded.

The visual-arts department at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., does not allow the use of certain metal- and woodworking equipment unless a supervisor is present. Chemicals and acids are stored in locked rooms, only available to students when an instructor (with a key) is available and can control what is used and how.

But large institutions are able to afford vent hoods and dust collectors, while artists elsewhere may only be able to crack open a window in the part of the house or apartment that has been designated as a studio. Properly disposing of wastewater, solvents, dusts, clays, and even the scrapings off a painter’s palette is time consuming and expensive. So the question remains whether artists will carry crucial lessons on safety and the environment with them after graduation and into their professional practice.

This article is from: http://chronicle.com/blogs/arts/arts-programs-stress-studio-safety/28017

UC Berkeley to Go Ahead With New Museum Despite Budget Woes

UC Berkeley vows to build museum despite finances

Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross

Even as financially strapped UC Berkeley is preparing to raise tuition 8 percent next fall, it has pledged to spend as much as $20 million in campus funds to help build a $96 million art museum.

Just where $20 million will come from, however, remains unclear - with campus spokesman Dan Mogulof saying only that it will depend on what pot of money is available when the time comes.

Mogulof insisted, however, that there will be "no tuition, no student registration fees and no state-allocated funds used."

It's been more than a decade since the 40-year-old, bunker-like UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on Bancroft Way was declared seismically unsound.

In 2001, the university dismissed the idea of a $70 million retrofit as being more costly than it was worth.

Instead, officials decided to build a replacement museum on a university-owned site in downtown Berkeley, and four years ago picked hot-shot Japanese architect Toyo Ito in hopes of attracting major donors.

However, as the economy tanked, so did the museum's fortunes.

When the museum found itself $100 million short of its fundraising goal, planners said goodbye to the $11.8 million they'd already spent - and opted for a more modest makeover of the old UC printing plant on Oxford Street.

The problem is, the university has pledges for only about half the $96 million needed to build and furnish the new museum.

And while UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary insists the university has a robust fundraising effort in place, last spring he told the UC regents that the school was prepared to kick in as much as $20 million if donations came up short.

Campus officials cite a range of possible funding sources - everything from investment and endowment income to various campus programs that generate revenue.

"Ideally, money for such an activity would be primarily from private philanthropic sources," Academic Senate Chair Fiona Doyle said when asked about the university's $20 million pledge.

But then Doyle, who is an engineer, added, "I don't feel it's my place to tell (art department) colleagues ... that their own intellectual areas aren't as valued as others. ... I would need a lot more information to comment."

Meanwhile: The San Francisco Asian Art Museum is vowing to keep its doors open, despite the absence of a deal to end a financial crisis that has threatened to send the Civic Center institution into bankruptcy.

A letter of credit from lender JPMorgan Chase backing the museum's $120 million loan is set to expire Dec. 21. If that happens, the Asian Art's loan payments could skyrocket beyond the museum's ability to pay and its insurer could be hit with tens of millions in losses.

City officials plan to meet with all the parties this week to try to break the impasse.

"We are working to get this resolved," Mark McLoughlin, the Asian Art's chief finance and operating officer, said Friday. "The museum is not contemplating anything other than staying open for business and a vibrant future."

Let's hope so.

This article is from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/21/BA4N1GETOH.DTL#ixzz16gQNqtgc

Chelsea Museum Gets One More Year in Foreclosed-On Building

Chelsea Museum End Near

Building Sale Approved; New Home for Art Collection Must be Found in a Year

By CRAIG KARMIN And ERICA ORDEN

A long-running saga surrounding the Chelsea Art Museum moved toward its conclusion after a bankruptcy court paved the way for a $19.35 million sale of the museum's building to a New York developer.

The sale would allow the museum to continue operating at its West 22nd street site, rent-free, until the end of 2011, according to terms of the agreement with Albanese Development Corp.

After that date, the museum would likely have to find a new home to continue operating. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York approved the sale on Friday.

The agreement would also reduce the amount of debt owed by the building owner, a company controlled by the museum's director and founder Dorothea Keeser. The lender, New York fund manager Hudson Realty Capital, has agreed to settle the debt for $13 million, down from its previous claims for about $14 million, according to court documents.

Ms. Keeser responded to an email inquiry about the situation by saying she would not open another museum in New York.

"It's always been our objective to be paid what we are owed, and this accomplishes that goal," says Renee Lewis, a Hudson Realty managing director.

Christopher Albanese, a principal for the purchaser, said he expects to close on the property in approximately two weeks.

A sale likely marks the end years of drama over the fate of the eight-year old museum. The museum's permanent collection features paintings and prints by abstract artists such as Jean Arp, Sam Francis and Joan Mitchell.

Mr. Albanese said his firm intends to lease the building to one or several art galleries once the museum vacates at the end of next year. "It's a prime location and it's a beautiful building and that area continues to get better and better," he said. "We saw it as a good opportunity."

The fate of the museum's permanent collection, worth about $2.5 million, according to Ms. Keeser, remains unclear.

In August, Ms. Keeser said she had pledged the entire collection as collateral for a separate, $350,000 loan to make an interest payment on the mortgage. That move could violate regulations of the state Department of Education's Board of Regents, which supervises and grants charters to museums.

A spokesman for the department didn't respond to a request for information on its review of the matter.

Hudson Realty refinanced the mortgage for the building in 2008 with an $11 million loan. The terms called for Ms. Keeser's company to pay a portion of the interest until January 2009, when the principal and balance were due.

That deadline came and went without payment. In April 2009, Hudson Realty agreed to extend the loan for 18 months, making payment of the principal due in July 2010. That deadline was also missed and in August, Ms. Keeser's company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Write to Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com and Erica Orden at erica.orden@wsj.com

This article is from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575631012994652750.html

Tom Krens Off The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project

Krens is off Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project

“Leadership role” appears to have passed to foundation’s director

ABU DHABI. Thomas Krens, the former director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation who oversaw the development of the Guggenheim Bilbao, is no longer working on the project to build the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, The Art Newspaper has learned.

Krens was the foundation’s senior advisor for international affairs, a position created when he stepped down as director in February 2008 after 20 years in charge. At the time he was described as assuming a “leadership role” in developing the new Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, a key part in the Tourism Development and Investment Company’s plan to create a cultural complex on Saadiyat Island including the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Rumours of his departure have been circulating since the Abu Dhabi Art fair last month after Krens, whose profile had been high in the region, was not present. By contrast, Richard Armstrong, the director of the Guggenheim, was highly visible, as was Nancy Spector, the museum’s chief curator, and Suzanne Cotter, the Guggenheim’s curator of exhibitions for the Abu Dhabi project.

Krens created a consultancy, Global Cultural Asset Management in 2008 and it is this company that has been advising the Guggenheim. The foundation’s latest tax returns show the Guggenheim paid $816,000 in fees to this consultancy last year. The returns also record that last year Krens was paid the second instalment in his $2m severance package (as director of the foundation).

Krens’ vision for the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim, which is set to be 30% larger than its Bilbao counterpart, also designed by the architect Frank Gehry, included a centre for contemporary Middle Eastern art. To develop the idea he invited independent curators from countries including Turkey, Iran, and the Lebanon, to form an expert panel. The Art Newspaper understands that this has been disbanded.

A spokeswoman for the Guggenheim foundation confirmed by email that Krens is no longer working on the Abu Dhabi project. On the subject of the curatorial panel, she added that: “No formal group was ever officially formed. The Guggenheim is in conversations with experts from around the world who are knowledgeable about Middle Eastern art and culture and who will be called upon for their expertise.”

Krens did not respond to requests for a comment and neither did his consultancy.

 

This article is from: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Krens+is+off+Guggenheim+Abu+Dhabi+project/21932

Yale University Agrees To Return Machu Picchu Artifacts

Yale Will Return Machu Picchu Artifacts

Alan Garcia, president of Peru, announced on Friday that Yale University has committed to return a collection of artifacts from Machu Picchu in early 2011 -- possibly ending years of negotiations and legal threats over the pieces, which were taken by a Yale team that excavated the area a century ago. Peru has long disputed Yale's assertions that the artifacts were taken legally. While some of Peru's past statements about Yale have criticized the university, Friday's announcement contained some praise. "The Peruvian government welcomes this decision and recognizes that Yale University preserved these artifacts, which otherwise would have ended up scattered in private collections around the world or would have even disappeared. We also acknowledge the studies that have been made along all these years," the statement said.

Yale issued a statement Sunday night in which it confirmed the agreement. "Yale University is pleased and proud to have reached an accord with the Government of Peru which is now in the stage of being formalized. Under it, as an expression of good will and in recognition of the unique importance that Machu Picchu has come to play in the identity of the modern Peruvian nation, Yale will return, over the next two years, the archaeological materials excavated by Hiram Bingham III at Machu Picchu nearly a century ago. Those pieces suitable for museum display will be sent in time for the centennial celebration commemorating the scientific discovery of Machu Picchu by the Yale-Peruvian Scientific Expedition of 1911."

The statement continued: "Yale is particularly pleased that President Alan Garcia has requested the University of Cusco to receive and be the depository of the objects, and in that way it will serve as the new academic home and context for the collection. Yale looks forward to concluding an agreement with the University of Cusco to establish the collaborative arrangements for a new museum and research center that will carry out programs of research, educational exchanges, and public exhibitions. This collaboration will ensure that Yale's values in conserving the collection, studying the material and disseminating new knowledge will be extended in a new phase, and in a spirit of friendship with the people of Cusco and the nation of Peru."

 

This article is from: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/22/qt/yale_will_return_machu_picchu_artifacts

Yale University Agrees To Return Machu Picchu Artifacts

Chinese Art Prices Soar, Signalling A Shift In Taste

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Art sales: the great haul of China

China's young millionaires have driven this new trend in Asian porcelain sales, says Colin Gleadell.

The phenomenal prices being paid for Chinese works of art provides a fascinating insight into the tastes of China’s new rich who are driving the market. Traditional western preferences were for older and more subtle workmanship, a fusion of aesthetic and academic values. Now, Chinese buyers are investing most in later works, particularly in 18th century porcelain made for the Emperor Qianlong, such as the record £53 million vase sold at Bainbridge auctions in Ruislip this month, which has been described as ‘gaudy’ and ‘flamboyant’ by critics. Chinese collector and TV personality, Ma Weidu said: “Really it is pretty, but that’s all.” The Emperor Qianlong, who reigned from 1736 to 1795, is seen as the last great Emperor of China, and his style is back in fashion with a vengeance.

The previous record for a Chinese work of art was set last month by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong when a Qianlong double gourd shaped vase with an imperial seal under its base, denoting its use in the emperor’s palace, sold for $32.4 million. It had been bought in 1971 for £1,680 ($4,200) by a New York based Chinese dealer who could never sell it. The buyer, Shanghai born Hong Kong collector, Alice Cheng, said: “As long as you like something, even if it’s expensive it’s worth it.” According to the Hurun Report, a rich list compiled by Shanghai based accountant, Rupert Hoogewerf, there are an estimated 875,000 millionaires and 110 billionaires in China, the majority of whom are aged in their 30’s and 40’s. Typically, says the report, they will own three houses, and spend their money on cars, watches and art.

Before last month, the record for a Chinese work of art was the £15.7 million ($28 million dollars) paid at Christie’s in London in 2005 for a beautiful but less ornate 14th century blue and white porcelain jar. The jar was bought by London dealer, Giuseppe Eskenazi for Bruno Eberli, a Swiss-born financier based in New York. Eskenazi says that the traditional, scholarly taste for earlier Song dynasty (11-13th century AD) ceramics and Ming (14th — 17th century AD) porcelain, on which so many western collections were founded, has been pushed aside over the last 2 or 3 years.

“Western and Japanese collectors liked imperial porcelain,” he says” but not the later more showy examples, which didn’t excite them.” Celebrating his 50th year in business, he has just sold an 18th century Qing dynasty vase for which he was asking $25 million to a Chinese buyer. “It would have been much less three or four years ago,” he says. “The interest I had was all Chinese, and I priced it accordingly.” For auctions outside China, repatriation is an important motive, as it was during the early surges of the Russian and Middle Eastern art markets. The Bainbridge vase is believed to have come from Old Summer Palace that was looted by French and British troops during second Opium War in 1860, providing added incentive to return it to China. Some important works are being donated by wealthy collectors, such as Alice Cheng, to Chinese museums. In addition, John Axford of Woolley & Wallis, which last week sold an 18th century white jade carving of a deer for £3.8 million to a collector in Hangzhou, believes the Chinese are comparing the price of their antiques with Western modern art in the belief that it should be worth as much or more.

The rate of price increases is leaving even Andy Warhol in the shade. At Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last month a Qianlong jade imperial seal which had been bought in London in 1997 for £25,300 ($42,600) sold for $16 million. At Sotheby’s in London this month, a yellow jade censer from the Qianlong dynasty, estimated at £3,000 to £5,000, sold for £313,250, or 45 times the higher estimate.

Western collectors are getting priced out of the top of the market, but are still active elsewhere, says Eskenazi. From his current exhibition, he has sold a 6th century limestone carving of an asparas, or heavenly being, for $2 million to a UK based collector.

Sotheby’s Hong Kong sales in October of everything from wine and watches to contemporary Asian art, doubled estimates to make almost $400 million - a record for such a series in Hong Kong. Next week, Christie’s will be attempting to emulate that figure with a similar series that is estimated to fetch $220 million. In the current climate, that must be just an educated guess.

This article is from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/8152180/Art-sales-the-great-haul-of-China.html

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