This week's Art Collecting and Investment News

Sunday, 1^st June 08

Jeff Koons opens first major US exhibit after 15 years
CHICAGO - Celebratory, kitschy and sometimes explicit, they're the works of Jeff Koons, considered one of the most influential living contemporary artists. And they're on display in his first major U.S. exhibit in nearly 15 years, opening Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.              
                                                                                                Chicago Tribune - United States

Soon, art haat in India
INDIA - Even though the interest in art has percolated to the middle classes, there is no indigenous platform for an Indian artist to get international acclaim. Nothing like the art fairs of Europe which offer numerous opportunities.
                                                                                                                             Times of India - India

Collectors turn their apartments into personal galleries
MIAMI - The minute visitors step off the elevators at the high-rise apartments of art collectors Ruth and Dr. Marvin Sackner and Estelle and Paul Berg, it is clear that these two couples have much in common. Their respective art collections greet you immediately.
                                                                                     MiamiHerald.com - Miami,FL,USA

Beijing's art district 798 struggles against cultural demolition
BEIJING- For the last decade or so, 798 was at the heart of the city's creative boom, a decommissioned military factory which became a haven for artists desperate for the roomy, light spaces it provided for cheap rent.                    
                                                                                                                                              AFP

Saturday, 31^st May 08

Highest Total Ever for an Evening Sale of Latin American Art at ...
NEW YORK - Sotheby's evening sale of Latin American Art achieved a total of $21,033,500 (est. $13,945,000/17,945,000*), the highest total ever for an evening sale of Latin American Art at Sotheby's. 91.2 percent of lots met or exceeded their high estimates.
                                                                                                                         Art Daily - USA

Newly Attributed Frans Hals Painting Goes Up for Auction
LONDON - A portrait by Frans Hals once considered by scholars to be a copy of a work hanging in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and not by the artist, has been declared the genuine article and will go up for auction July 9 at Sotheby's in London, where it is estimated at $6 million to $9 million.                                                                      ARTINFO

Art.view Egg and lemon
UK - CHRISTIE'S British art week brings together some of the most famous artists of the mid-20th century, including L.S. Lowry, John Piper, Graham Sutherland and two formidable dames, Barbara Hepworth and Elizabeth Frink. But the name that is likely to cause the most excitement among collectors is William Scott. To which you respond: Who?
                                                                                                                        Economist - UK

Christie's Hong Kong Sales Up 58 Percent
HONG KONG--Christie's has announced the results of its spring sales in Hong Kong, which brought in a total of HK $2.4 billion (U.S. $310.7 million), up 58 percent from last year.                              
                                                                                                                                    ARTINFO

Private galleries in Canada at greatest risk
CANADA - Break-ins at private galleries, art dealerships and companies with art collections account for a higher percentage of stolen art in Canada, according to the Art Register. Here there is about 35 per cent of art theft overall, compared to a worldwide average of about 14 per cent.
                                                                                                                           Globe & Mail

Pop star: Peter Blake
LONDON - Peter Blake is one of Britain's best-loved artists - and a decade after announcing his retirement, he is as prolific as ever. Here he describes where he finds his inspiration, also includes an exclusive limited-edition print offer.
                                                                                          Independent -     London,England,UK

Christie's sells record US$310m of Asian art
HONG KONG - Global auction house Christie's sold a record US$310.7 million worth of Asian art at its Hong Kong spring sales this week. The tally was Christie's highest ever for an Asian sales series and a 58 per cent increase on the same event last year.
                                                                                                                   Business Times Asia

Friday, 30^th May 08

Art Review | Anish Kapoor
BOSTON -- The Indian-born, London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor, has always been a kind of magician, which cuts two ways. Whether with blazingly reflective metal surfaces or dark, plush, seemingly infinite interiors.                                             New York Times - United States


Whatever 'design-art' is, it's thriving
LONDON - The New York design gallerist Murray Moss describes the current market, "Prices continue to rise dramatically for great work, and to fall for what is deemed mediocre," he said. "In short, the market is becoming more extreme - like the society that supports it."
                                                                                                      International Herald Tribune

BASEL ART BLOW-OUT
BASEL - In 2007, when Art 38 Basel coincided with the 52nd Venice Biennale and Documenta 12, many observers noted that the commercial art festival outshone its scholarly cousins, in terms of both the blue chip art on view and the new art being shown.
                                                                                                          Artnet - New York,NY,USA

ART MARKET WATCH
NEW YORK- May 29^th, $21 million for Sotheby's Latin American sales set new records for Mario Carreño ($541,000), Jesús Rafael Soto ($481,000), Pedro Coronel ($457,000), Francisco Toledo ($265,000), Juan Soriano ($217,000), Gonzalo Fonseca ($157,000) and Kati Horna ($16,250). Added to this, the results of Christie's day sale of Latin American art on May 29, the total jumps to $33,861,360, with 82 percent of the lots finding buyers.       Artnet

Welcome to the surreal world of benevolent art afficionado
UK - A Leeds art collector has opened up his works of surrealist art to the public for the first time. Dr Jeffrey Sherwin, honorary alderman of Leeds and former chairman of Leeds Leisure Services, is the proud owner of one of the most significant collections of British surrealist art.
                                                                                            Yorkshire Post - Leeds,England,UK

Carnegie Museum, in Pittsburgh, shows contemporary art's "Old ...
USA - The oldest exhibition of international contemporary art in North America and the second oldest in the world after the Venice Biennale, the Carnegie International began its 55th installment this month at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The show features about 200 works by 40 emerging and established artists from 17 countries.
                                                                                          International Herald Tribune - France

Study Finds That Marketing Efforts For Luxury Goods Needs To Be ...
USA - Young Affluents Choose 'One-Time' Luxuries, While Older Consumers Choose Those That Will Last. The weak economy is hitting the different age segments in the affluent market in surprising ways," says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Shopping.
                                                                        Furniture World Magazine (press release) - USA

Contemporary art boom brings opportunities, and challenges, for ...
"Only 5 percent of the world's artworks will survive the next 100 years. The remaining 95 percent, in museums and in the trade, will be exposed to increasing environmental stresses, and without immediate intervention and curatorial measures, will not last." AXA Art is supporting a project, with the Tate Modern in London, to address conservation problems arising from the use of synthetic materials, notably acrylic paint.  
                                                                                         International Herald Tribune - France

Where Have All the Paintings Gone? To the National Academy
At "The 183rd Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art," abstract painting reigns, sculpture is small and non-threatening, and photography is practically nonexistent. The exhibition continues through Sept. 7 at the National Academy Museum, 1083 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street.
                                                                                                  New York Times - United States

Sotheby's review
Results from the May 2008 sales of Contemporary art give some hint that these very successful evening sales signal an important milestone in the growth of this market. The strong numbers posted at all three auction houses--$973 million combined--were not anticipated by the media or many of the art market's participants.

Jake and Dinos Chapman go to work on
LONDON - Tim Marlow, director of exhibitions at the White Cube, insisted that the Chapman brothers' project was not glorifying the work. "These are very bad paintings - abject paintings - and Jake and Dinos have now annihilated them. We bought them anonymously because the last thing we wanted was to increase the market for Hitler's work," he explains.
                                                                                                                    Times Online - UK

Antiques Slide, Paintings Thrive at Christie's Hong Kong Sale
HONG KONG - Christie's had its highest ever total of HK$2.4 billion in Hong Kong over its six-day sale as buyers paid record prices for contemporary works and jewellery. However, for Chinese antiques, the mainstay of Hong Kong's auction market, the percentage of lots sold at Christie's has fallen in each of the past four years.
                                                                                                             Bloomberg - USA

Jeff Koons exhibit opens at Museum of Contemporary Art
CHICAGO - More in his approach, which embraces American consumerism in both subject and method. He has run what amounts to an art factory for decades. His life too has been filled with an American sort of controversy.
                                                                                                Chicago Tribune - United States

Art Review | Anish Kapoor
BOSTON -- The Indian-born, London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor has always been a kind of magician, which cuts two ways. Whether with blazingly reflective metal surfaces or dark, plush, seemingly infinite interiors, his pieces dispense multiple visual thrills and mysteries.
                                                                                                 New York Times - United States

Museums wrestle with preserving art that's not made to last
BOSTON - Important questions arise from the business side of the art world. Not unreasonably, collectors have an interest in preserving value as well as artwork, says Heather Darcy Bhandari, director of Mixed Greens Gallery in New York. "Once you enter the world of commerce, you have to be willing to be concerned with the issue of maintenance," she says.             
                                                                             Christian Science Monitor - Boston,MA,USA

Christie's sets record with Asia art sales, eyes more
HONG KONG  - Global auction house Christie's sold a record $310.7 million worth of Asian art at its Hong Kong spring sales this week, cementing the region's reputation as one of the most promising in a thriving international market. This was Christie's highest ever tally for an Asian sales series and a 58 percent increase on the same event last year.
                                                                                       Washington Post - United States

100 Galleries Set For Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair
SHANGHAI - The second SHContemporary Art Fair, which will take place in Shanghai from 10-13 September, has announced that more than 100 international galleries will participate. This year the fair will be hosted at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre which will coincides with the city's much-acclaimed Shanghai Biennale.
                                                                                       BizChinaUpdate - Shanghai, China

Christie's sets record with Asia art sales, eyes more
USA - A diptych painting by top Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi fetched $9.7 million, setting a new mark for Asian contemporary artwork at a glamorous evening sale which raked in $104.6 million, a 33 percent increase from last spring. Other emerging Asian talent, including 29 Japanese contemporary artists, 10 from India and 10 South Koreans, also saw record prices paid for their work.
                                                                                                                          Reuters - USA

Event Announcement: Art Basel Miami Beach
MIAMI - December, An exclusive selection of more than 220 leading art galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa will exhibit 20th and 21st century artworks by over 2,000 artists. These exhibiting galleries are among the world's most respected art dealers, offering exceptional pieces by both renowned artists and cutting-edge newcomers.
                                                                          TAXI Design Network - New York, NY,USA

Art Deals More Often Involve Art of Litigation
SAN FRANCISCO - With art pieces becoming increasingly expensive, deals crossing more borders and a growing number of people acquiring art, lawyers said they are seeing more lawsuits.  In response, Bryan Cave is forming a team of lawyers to handle such cases.                                                                                                            
                                                                       Law.com (subscription) - San Francisco,CA,USA

Hedge-Fund Manager Sender's Curator Sees Art Prices Falling
USA - Sender, founder of Exis Capital Management Inc., has been collecting contemporary art since 1998 when Levin joined him. His collection has about 800 works, said Levin, who was not prepared to give a total value, only saying it was ``well into nine figures.''                                                                                               Bloomberg - USA

New York Painter Fights Rising Art Prices
NEW YORK - Nelson Diaz, an artist in New York's SoHo neighborhood, has announced that he will auction a series for paintings with starting bids of a $1 each. The auction will begin June 15, 2008. Diaz will put "Self Portrait with Pipe, 2008," rendered in his signature mathematical style, on eBay with the goal making art affordable and widely available.
                                                                                       OhmyNews International - South Korea

Bourgeois Spider Sells; Street Gallery; Auction Fees: Art Buzz
PARIS - May 30. A four-foot high spider by Louise Bourgeois sold for a record 2.9 million euros ($4.5 million) with fees at Christies in Paris. The 2003 metal-and-fabric sculpture by Bourgeois, 96, was purchased by a European collector on the telephone against competition from three other bidders on May 27. It had been given a 1.8 to 2.5 million euro estimate. Bourgeois was already the most expensive living female artist. Her most priciest work was sold in November 2006, an 8-feet high arachnid, reached $4 million with fees at Christie's, New York.
                                                                                                                        Bloomberg - USA

Russians bring home the Bacon
UK - Whether driven by artistic patriotism, mere acquisitiveness, financial acumen or exhibitionism, these new Russian collectors are doing a service to art. By putting their money on the wall, they are once again demonstrating that art has the power to transcend time, taste and economic cycles, becoming more important than yachts, or investments, or even football.                                                                   
                                                                                                                        Times Online - UK

Thursday, 29^th May 08

Bank of America sends its art on tour
USA - According to a bank spokesman, the museum lending programme is not a prelude to a sell-off. "We have no plans at this point for a large sale," he says, "but the collection is big enough so there will be opportunities to deaccession certain pieces."                                    
                                                                                                                   Art Newspaper - UK

Rufino Tamayo painting sells for $7.2M, setting Latin American art ...
NEW YORK, May 29th -- Rufino Tamayo's painting "Troubadour" has been auctioned for $7.2 million, more than doubling the Mexican artist's previous high and setting a world auction record for Latin American art.
                                                                              New York Daily News - New York, NY, USA

New Peaks Reached In The American Art Market At Christie's New York
NEW YORK - Christie's Spring 2008 Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture sale totalled $72.6 million, set new records and established major new benchmarks across the category.                                                                                                              Christies

ART FORUM BERLIN 2008
BERLIN - 120 galleries from more than 25 countries from Europe, the US, Central America, Japan, Israel, Russia and India.
                                                                                                    E-Flux - New York,NY,USA

Making waves in rarefied atmosphere
MALAYSIA - Yee is a  relative newcomer and has done astonishingly well. When taking into account that her latest auction result is based on a print from an edition of eight, it puts her right at the summit of the Malaysian art-price mountain. In the case of this loyal Sabahan, that would be Mount Kinabalu.
                                                                                     New Straits Times - Persekutuan, Malaysia

Chen's `Duet' Unsold at Beijing Auction as Quake Damps Bidding
BEIJING - May 29, Chen Yifei's ``The Duet,'' the largest piece in the deceased artist's ``Musicians'' series, flopped last night at Poly International Auction Co's sale in Beijing, as buyers stayed away after China's May 12 earthquake. This 1988 work, a photo-realistic oil painting of a pianist and her cellist, has been part of the collection of the Armand Hammer estate and was shown publicly only once in China in 1996. Bids rose to 17.5 million yuan ($2.5 million), below the reserve price.
                                                                                                                       Bloomberg - USA

Cate Blanchett joins art censorship row in Australia over naked ...
Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett has joined a deepening row over censorship in Australia, after police shut down an exhibit by a prominent photographer and confiscated portraits of nude teenagers. The Melbourne-born star of the latest Indiana Jones film has openly signed a letter, endorsed by 42 other leading arts figures. The letter criticises Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for describing artist Bill Henson's photographs of naked 12 and 13-year-old children "absolutely revolting".                                                              
                                                                                              Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom

Bill Henson, a viewpoint on the current controversy
AUSTRALIA - Henson's work is held in numerous international collections including the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and the Houston Museum of Fine Art 
                                            artsguide.com.au (press release) - Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

International Dealers Have $1.6 Billion of Art on Offer at the ...
MOSCOW - With a Picasso on sale for nearly £10 million and diamond necklaces going for almost twice as much, the opening of the Moscow World Fine Art Fair this Tuesday night was proof that the balance of power in the art world is shifting inexorably eastwards, reported Adrian Blomfield from The Telegraph.                                                                 
                                                                                                                      Art Daily - USA

Trade Secrets
USA - Leo Castelli's name still resonates in the art world. He is remembered as a trailblazer and a star maker. The Trieste-born dealer has nearly the same cachet as the artists whom he championed: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein and Bruce Nauman, to name a few.                 ARTINFO - New York,NY,USA

Art Basel Braces for Billionaires After Record Spring Auctions
BASEL - The world's biggest contemporary-art fair opens on June 3 for a preview day to about 8,000 invited guests. The organizers have said there were 1,000 applications for the 300 sellers' places, the most ever. Billionaires in Russia and other emerging markets have shrugged off the credit crisis to buy artworks.
                                                                                                                         Bloomberg - USA

Game, set and match as Martina puts the forehand smash into art
UK - It was not the tennis star's own idea, but one put to her several years ago by Czech artist Juraj Králik, who had found himself inspired by the marks left on clay courts by tennis balls after a match. Since then, the duo have created 300 such works in a variety of sizes and produced in a range of                                                                                guardian.co.uk - UK

Wednesday 28^th May, 08

Younger Chinese artists struggle to excite buyers in market some ...
CHINA - Zhang is one of several market professionals who have raised concerns that Chinese contemporary art could be becoming overpriced, and might be heading for an inevitable correction. This market has recorded stellar gains of about 40 percent each year for the past two years.                  
                                                                                       International Herald Tribune - France

Government offers incentives in bid to revive market
FRANCE - Overall, Ms Albanel's plans were seen as the first step in reforming the market, with dealers acknowledging that much more needs to be done. "We have been shown the first step, but not the staircase," said Patrick Bongers, president of France's art dealers' association.
                                                                                                                     Art Newspaper - UK

British Artists Fight for Posthumous Royalties
LONDON--Britain's artistic community is lobbying for a law that would require the payment of royalties on artists' works for 70 years after their deaths, as writers and musicians already receive, reports the Times of London. Opposing the law are leading auction houses and dealers who claim it would be detrimental to Britain's £8.5 billion ($16.8 billion) art market.             
                                                                                                    ARTINFO - New York,NY,USA

Great American Nude
USA - Slightly less attention-grabbing, but no less important, was the sale of another nude lady at Sotheby's. Tom Wesselmann's 1963 ''Great American Nude No. 48,'' a pivotal work in the history of modern painting, was sold for $10,681,000, a record for this artist. 
                                                                                                       Forbes - NY,USA
How to Become a Mobile Phone Artist
UK - There are all different sorts of mediums for tackling the mobile phone as an art subject; from mobile phone sculptures to paintings that send a message about the mobile phone in society. But there is also a subsection of the mobile phone art movement which is specifically focused on actually creating art on the mobile phone.                         Dialaphone - London, England,UK

India wants the contemporary
INDIA - Western museums and private collectors have started to take a strong interest in what is happening in India at the moment. This interest will continue to grow in 2008, with exhibitions planned at the Serpentine Gallery, the Saatchi gallery, the Mori Art Museum, as well as the current exhibition 'Passage to India' at Initial Access, the space recently opened by UK collector Frank Cohen.                                                GulfNews - Dubai,United Arab Emirates

Chagall, Picasso Lure Russian Buyers to $1.6 Billion Art Fair
RUSSIA - A Marc Chagall tapestry and Picasso ceramics are among 6,000 works expected to lure Moscow's burgeoning number of millionaires to the Russian capital's biggest art fair, which opens to the public today. International and Russian dealers have 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of art on offer at the Moscow World Fine Art Fair as they hope to profit from the new elite's growing appetite for art.                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                       Bloomberg - USA

Modern art's kudos and glamour lure Russia's rich
MOSCOW  - Wealthy Russians who cannot spare the millions needed to buy headline art from Europe and the United States are snapping up cheaper contemporary works in Russia to add a twist of transcendent glamour to their homes.
                                                                                                                           Reuters - USA

Tuesday, 27^th May 08

Thomson oil sketch fetches $1.2-million
CANADA - Eight works by the artist have now sold for more than $1-million - all at auctions in the past 12 months                                                                                            Globe and Mail

GOODBYE JOHN
USA - Art dealer John Weber, who died over the weekend, was a mascot and mover in that old world. Weber specialized in adventurous art: Arte Povera, Daniel Buren, Richard Long, Art & Language, as well as U.S. Minimalists, Conceptual and Earthworks artists.
                                                                                                       Artnet - New York, NY, USA


Chinese Contemporary Record Broken at Christie's Hong Kong
HONG KONG--Spontaneous applause broke out at Christie's inaugural Hong Kong evening sale on May 24 when the final hammer went down for lot 156. The sale of the a bright, large, oil-on-canvas diptych titled Mask Series 1996 No. 6 went to an anonymous buyer, bidding by phone, who paid an astonishing HK $75,367,500 (U.S. $9,703,490) for the painting by Zeng Fanzhi, creating a new world auction record for Chinese contemporary art.                                        
                                                                                           ARTINFO - New York,NY,USA

Sotheby's Sale of Contemporary Art in Paris Sets World Auction ...
PARIS.- The first part of Sotheby's sale of Contemporary Art at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris totaled €20,384,750. This included works from French, European and American collections the majority of them fresh to the market such as paintings of Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joan Mitchell and Robert Rauschenberg                                 Art Daily - USA

Art 39 Basel Presents Conversations
USA - This year's Art Basel Conversations promise a varied program, featuring respected members of the international artworld discussing numerous issues such as the collection and preservation of new-media art, and galleries working at the edge of a globalized art market.                    
                                                                                 TAXI Design Network - New York,NY,USA

Fine Art Capital Changes Its Name to Emigrant Bank Fine Art ...
NEW YORK - Fine Art Capital, LLC today announced that it has changed its name to Emigrant Bank Fine Art Finance, LLC. The new title highlights the company's affiliation with Emigrant Bank, the largest privately held bank in the country.            Earthtimes - London,UK


Art galleries take export growth path
DUBAI - And it seems the pie is big enough for everyone. In an informal calculation, Al Shabibi estimates Dubai's art market at about $70 million (Dh257m), reaching possibly $100m around the Gulf. Perhaps the biggest player on this front is Gallery One, the region's first dedicated photographic gallery.                                                                            Emirates Business 24/7 - Dubai

Making Sure Your Art Is Yours
USA - If Spielberg had had art title insurance, Shindell argues, he would have been able to avoid the whole mess. Either his company would have uncovered the painting's origins during due diligence or it would have reimbursed the director the full cost of the painting. Without it, Spielberg was not only out the $700,000 value of the painting but also his legal fees.    
                                                                                                                  BusinessWeek - USA

Artnet News
LONDON - Tate Britain has announced the four artists who have been shortlisted for the 2008 Turner Prize. The nominees are the Bangladesh-born London-based film- and videomaker Runa Islam; pop-culture dandy Mark Leckey, known for installations and performances; the Polish-born installation artist Goshka Macuga, who has been called a "cultural archeologist"; and the Belfast-born, Glasgow-based sculptor Cathy Wilkes.        Artnet - New York,NY,USA

Gagosian, Tagore Boost Hong Kong's Ambitions as Asia Art Hub
HONG KONG - Hong Kong's ambition to be Asia's art hub received another boost with the recent arrival of three top galleries: Gagosian, Sundaram, Tagore and Tang Contemporary.
                                                                                                                     Bloomberg - USA

in the eye of the collector
INDIA - Among these top Indian artists are Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, Ram Kumar, Syed Haider Raza, Akbar Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta. A somewhat younger grouping of artists in their mid-60s are also pivotal in the Indian contemporary art scene and include Laxma Goud, Anjolie Ela Menon and Nalini Malani.
                                                                                      GulfNews - Dubai,United Arab Emirates