With the conflicting Occupy Museums, the disastrous shit show of Occupy 38, and whatever #OccupyArtWorld was, there has been some confusion in the Occupy Wall Street art department, but one cause remains clear. Sotheby’s $500 dollar auction Wednesday night must be crashed. Let’s foster some dialogue! Read more »
“This was not an outcome Sotheby’s wanted,” but the auction house has locked out its picketing art handlers and hired scabs to “assure our clients of smooth and uninterrupted service.” There will be a rally today.
Seems like decades-dead Marie-Thérèse Walter is still the art world’s it girl, still raking in the most auction moneys for the similarly long-dead Picasso. This colorfully suggestive paint-ditty is estimated to fetch in $15-$20 million at Sotheby’s. The mistress is seen here snoozing, probably after all that “intimidating and terrible” sex Pablo was giving her in the cabana. Read more »
New art theory ruining Botticelli’s famous “triumph of love” painting: Mars isn’t basking in sweet, post-coital surrender — he’s tripping on “acid” fruit. Read more »
Looks like the art market is looking up again, at least according to “experts” who point to another noticeable spike in the wealth of their target collectors – bank advisors and hedge fun managers. Those sorts usually have an appetite for big ticket items that Christie’s and Sotheby’s are hoping to unload at their upcoming auctions. Read more »
British American Tobacco (BTI), the second largest cigarette maker in the world, has been extending their spindly claws of death towards the art world, scraping up $18.5 million for some paintings at Sotheby’s auction the other day. Not as scary as smokey poison peddlers sponsoring elementary schools in China, but still creepy.
Tangent image: lalitkala
Alberto Giacometti’s “L’homme qui marche 1 (Walking Man 1)” sold at Sotheby’s for a record $104.3 million, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold at an auction, despite it being an edition of six. The buyer of the slim, bronze gentleman is a mystery, like most of Sotheby’s anonymous bidders from the gilded percentile that patron the art market, Economic Armageddon regardless.
Also, Gustav Klimt’s “Kirch in Cassone“ was sold for $43 million—most ever for a landscape—after being baby-sat by the Nazis for awhile, making it extra rare and valuable. Explaining the night’s total jackpot of $235 million, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Melanie Clore credited “the serious people” with resolve: “When they see these pieces of art they fall in love… just as they would fall in love with a person.” Yes, a person that you can buy, strap onto your wall and show off to all your swanky friends… Kinky. |CNN|
Sticky street artist Sam Bassett was arrested last week after a failed attempt to tape up Sotheby’s as “a guerilla action to bridge the gap” between the “new creative generation” and all the dead artists up for auction. Tragically, the building’s ledges were too narrow to work on, forcing an abortion of the masking mission. Read more »
Sotheby’s post-war and contemporary art auction saw more then $130 million in sales last night. Helping nearly double the auction’s pre-sale estimate was Andy Warhol’s cash tribute. The pop master’s 1962 painting “200 One Dollar Bills,” sold for $43.7 million, triple its estimated price. That means every single dollar in the 7.5-foot screenprinted painting is worth more than $218k. |Artinfo|
Not surprisingly, contemporary art sales are not only down in New York, but in London too. At London’s June auctions of Impressionist and contemporary art, Sotheby’s, Christie’s International and Phillips de Pury made $270 million, down 70 percent from last year’s record $900 million haul. |Bloomberg|
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