Da Vinci Star Power, Nude Ai Weiwei, Oscar’s Scrub Enliven 2011
Although Leonardo da Vinci died almost half a millennium ago, he has had a great year. The success of his show at the National Gallery in London has been sensational.
Tickets, which the museum sells at 16 pounds ($25), had been changing hands on Internet sites for as much as 400 pounds (until the museum declared the resold versions invalid). The line for admission each day is 3 hours long. Who would have imagined that an old master could generate this level of excitement? Or that the staid National Gallery would outshine Tate and the whole galaxy of contemporary art in terms of glitz?
Things also have looked up for Oscar Wilde and Jacob Epstein. Wilde’s tomb, carved by Epstein and sited in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, Paris, has just been cleaned of graffiti. Much of this took the form of lipstick left by admirers kissing the monument. Such adulation, even if damaging on conservation grounds, was a dramatic turnaround in itself. Wilde (1854-1900) died in exile, poverty stricken and reviled after serving a prison sentence for homosexual acts. The author’s tomb, designed by the sculptor Epstein, features an angel in quasi-Assyrian style.
This monument caused consternation when it arrived in Paris in 1912 on account of the prominence of the angel’s testicles. The French authorities had the sculpture covered with a tarpaulin until World War I; in 1961, these pendulous pieces of stone were hacked off the tomb.
Missing Parts
According to one story, the vandals were two outraged British ladies and the fragments were subsequently used by the custodian as paperweights. Perhaps now there should be a concerted search for these missing angelic body parts so that poor Oscar can rest completely in peace.
The asymmetrical conflict between the artist Ai Weiwei and the Chinese government is continuing, and it’s still too early to call the winner. It has been far from fun for Ai himself. His 81-day detention earlier in the year caused a global furor. Subsequently, he has been pursued for “economic crimes.”
On Nov. 18, one of his assistants was interrogated about a (fairly demure) photograph he had taken of Ai, nude, with four naked women (titled “One Tiger, Eight Breasts”). The authorities suggested that this was pornography. In response, Ai’s supporters rapidly uploaded naked photographs of themselves on a site in a protest, insisting that nudity is not pornography.
More news
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Being told that a work of art is fake alters your response to it, researchers at Oxford University have found.
07 December '11
www.telegraph.co.uk
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Traders snared in a conmen's scam are pursued with demands to pay huge sums for an advertising listing.
05 December '11
www.guardian.co.uk
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Art Miami, Miami’s longest running contemporary art fair and anchor fair to the City of Miami, announced at the close of the fair’s fourth day (Saturday) that collective sales exceeded the 2010 figures by more than double.
05 December '11
www.artfixdaily.com
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The 3rd edition of Miami International Art Fair (MIA), one of America's most exciting mid-winter contemporary art fairs, will return January 12-16, 2012 with a dynamic ensemble of 28 international galleries representing artist from Europe, Latin America, United States and Asia.
05 December '11
www.artdaily.org
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Even a show-off like me finds this new, super-rich art-buying crowd vulgar and depressingly shallow.
05 December '11
www.guardian.co.uk
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Days after Manhattan’s 165-year-old Knoedler & Co. art gallery unexpectedly closed, a London hedge- fund executive sued it and its former director, Ann Freedman, accusing them of selling a forged Jackson Pollock painting.
05 December '11
www.bloomberg.com
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Sotheby's London Old Master and British Paintings Evening and Day Sales on 7th and 8th December 2011 will offer a selection of important works of exceptional quality and rarity, many of which have remained in private collections for decades, including the masterpiece by Jan Steen Card Players in an Interior (est. £4.5-6 million).
05 December '11
www.artdaily.org
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By the end of Art Basel Miami Beach’s VIP preview this week, art dealer Kavi Gupta sold 35 sculptures by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates.
04 December '11
www.bloomberg.com
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The Winter Antiques Show celebrates its 58th year as America's most prestigious antiques show, providing museums, collectors, dealers, design professionals and first-time buyers with opportunities to see and purchase exceptional pieces showcased by 75 exhibitors.
04 December '11
www.artfixdaily.com
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This fair is one of three to be studied in a Swiss sociology project.
01 December '11
www.theartnewspaper.com
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Last night, Art Miami, the city’s longest running contemporary art fair and anchor fair, hosted an unprecedented Opening Night VIP Preview, which unveiled a compelling array of works from internationally renowned modern and contemporary artists from the 20th and 21st centuries.
01 December '11
www.artfixdaily.com
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Portraits by Velazquez and Goya are the main attractions in a 55.6-million-pound ($86.5 million) series of Old Master auctions in London next month that have struggled to lure big-ticket works by major artists.
30 November '11
www.bloomberg.com
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In one decade, Art Basel Miami Beach has catapulted from lively newcomer on the art fair scene in the Americas to an annual destination for the international contemporary art set.
28 November '11
www.artfixdaily.com
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In keeping with its ongoing expansion of its online and mobile access strategy, Christie’s International launches its newly upgraded mobile applications, enhancing the Christie’s digital experience for a global audience of mobile device users.
30 November '11
www.artdaily.org
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Brazil has been a powerhouse in the art world for more than a decade, and now its booming economy is putting its artists and collectors on the global map.
30 November '11
www.artdaily.org
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The British Museum announces the major acquisition of a complete set of Picasso’s Vollard Suite, which will go on display at the Museum in the summer of 2012.
30 November '11
www.artdaily.org
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The men face maximum sentences of 30 years in prison for armed robbery at the end of the week-long trial in Aix-en-Provence. The leader's lawyer claims they were a bunch of bumbling art amateurs talked into the heist by the world's most notorious art detective bent on catching bigger prey.
27 November '11
www.telegraph.co.uk
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The National Gallery in London says it is cracking down on ticket-scalping for a major exhibition of the works of Leonardo da Vinci, which opened on Nov. 9.
27 November '11
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
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