ANIMAL » Sotheby’s

Occupy Sotheby’s Tomorrow!

Marina Galperina — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:15:06 +0000

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!

The situation is that art handlers of the Teamsters Professional Art Handlers Local 814 members were locked out mid-contract negotiations since August and where swiftly replaced with vaguely-trained temps. Sotheby’s has been justifying lay offs with “economic hardship;” they made $680 million in gross profits last year alone. Just recently, Sotheby’s had four protestors arrested.

Save the date: 6 PM this Wednesday, at 1334 York Avenue. May we recommend a colorful banner and some orgasmic hooting?

Sotheby’s Art Handlers Locked Out

Marina Galperina — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:00:38 +0000

“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.

Another Picasso’s Musetress Auction: Now With Vagina Hands

Marina Galperina — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:24:58 +0000

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.

“Well, some people try to pick up girls and get called assholes… This never happened to Pablo Picasso.”

Botticelli’s ‘Venus and Mars’ Were on ‘Acid’

Marina Galperina — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:40:11 +0000

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.

A sneaky satyr in the bottom right corner supposedly holds Datura stramonium, a weed/fruit that causes disinhibited and bizarre behavior, delirium, amnesia and speedy clothes removal.

Or so Sotheby’s program director David Bellingham claims. Datura (devil’s weed, thorn apple, Jamestown weed, moonflower) can be used as an aphrodisiac or poison, depending on the recipe, and Mars has been dozed:

The fruit is being offered to the viewer, so it is meant to be significant. Botticelli does use plants symbolically… Datura is known in America as poor man’s acid, and the symptoms of it seem to be there in the male figure. It makes you feel disinhibited and hot, so it makes you want to take your clothes off. It also makes you swoon.

Sotheby’s expert/unromantic killjoy wants us to believe it’s not Goddess of Love’s sensual prowess that disarmed the God of War. The bitch had him drugged. |Times Online|

Art Market Hopes to Profit from Profiteers

Marina Galperina — Mon, 03 May 2010 16:30:55 +0000

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.

Christie’s will attempt to peddle a $90 million Picasso and $74.3 million of Michael Crichton art stash that includes a Jasper John’s flag. At Sotheby’s, Tom Ford is hoping to sell his Warhol “Self Portrait” for $25 million. You never know; it might match some big exec’s purple couch. |Reuters, Bloomberg|

Sotheby’s Coughs Up Lots of Cash for Major Tobacco Company’s Art

Marina Galperina — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:20:01 +0000

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

Sotheby’s Gets the Gold for Selling Bronze

Marina Galperina — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:36:21 +0000

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|

Tape Artist Sam Bassett Gets Stuck in Jail

Will Sherman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:30:56 +0000

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.

But the night was still a success: Bassett spent a street-cred bolstering 20-hours in jail before a judge dropped trespassing charges and the Post wrote up his installation effort. |NYP|

Photos by Sam Bassett

Warhol’s Painting of $200 Sells for $43.7 Million

Will Sherman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:00:43 +0000

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|

London Art Sales Are Down Too

Will Sherman — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:33:38 +0000

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|