News

13.03.2019

Art turnover in the world reached $ 67.4 billion, the most famous artists and the most expensive works bring in the main money, women get only a third of the market, and the millennials began to buy – Art Basel presented a new report

 Mel Bochner. “Blah blah blah” and “Haha.” 2014. Art Basel Miami. Photo: Art Basel

The main strategic conclusions from the annual report on the art market, prepared by Art Basel with the support of UBS Bank: for the second year the global market is growing again, and mainly by young people from Asia. In general, everything is as usual: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, art forever.

The study of the global art market, which is annually published by the company Arts Economics and its head, Dr. Claire MacEndrew, is the main source of data for all art analysts. Previously, the study ordered the fair TEFAF, but now it is sponsored by Art Basel. Nevertheless, this year, after a false start the year before last, TEFAF is planning its own research, the results of which we will share after its presentation on March 15.

According to the report of Arts Economics, sales in the global art market in 2018 reached $ 67.4 billion, up 6% over the previous year. This is the second year of growth – after two years of recession (in 2016 and 2017). The US remains the largest market ($ 29.9 billion and 44% of global turnover), the UK is the second largest market ($ 14 billion, 21%), and China is the third ($ 12.9 billion, 19%).

World sales of art are divided between art dealers and auctions. In recent years, dealers often reproached auction houses (especially the largest ones) for squeezing them out of the art market. Although predicting someone’s priority in this area is like asking who is stronger: an elephant or a whale? In 2018, sales of dealers, according to estimates by Arts Economics, amounted to $ 35.9 billion (7% more than in the previous year). Sales at public auction yielded $ 29.1 billion, an increase of 3%.

The most rapid growth rates showed large gallery owners – with a turnover of from $ 10 million to $ 50 million; the weakest indicators were at small dealers with a turnover below $ 250 thousand per year. Banal truth – money to money – has justified itself and here. In galleries operating in the primary market (that is, directly with artists, rather than reselling their work again), an average of 63% of total sales accounted for the three most sought-after artists and 42% in general for one leading artist.

 Victoria Miro Gallery booth at Art Basel 2018: works by Yayoi Kusama, Adriana Varejao and Sarah Ze. Photo: Yayoi Kusama, courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore / Shanghai and Victoria Miro, London / Venice

At auctions, more than half the turnover (61%) yielded a tiny amount (1%) of the most expensive lots sold for more than $ 1 million. Post-war and modern art was the most significant section in the auction in 2018: it brought the auction houses about half of their turnover.

With gender equality in the art market, things are not so bad. One-third of the artists (36%) that the galleries represented in the primary market in 2018 were women and the sales of their works brought a third of the income (32%). However, it turned out that the higher the cost of the work, the less among their author’s women. In the “stable” of galleries with a turnover of up to $ 1 million, an average of 38% are female artists, and those gallery owners whose turnover exceeds $ 10 million allowed only 28% of women to be included in the lists of their authors.

 The dynamics of the turnover of the art market over the past ten years in terms of value (value) and the number of transactions (volume). Art Basel Report. Photo: Arts Economics (2019)

The main sales channel for art dealers is still fairs, and their importance is growing (gallery owners made up 46% of their turnover by participating in international fairs). On average, each dealer participated in four fairs a year.

And finally, the opening of the year. All previous surveys have shown that the majority of art buyers are elderly people. For example, among American collectors (and we remember that the USA is the main art market in the world), most were aged 50 and older. However, now, when the art market in Asia was investigated, it turned out that between one third and one-half of the customers there were “millennials”, that is, people born between 1981 and 2000. Asian “millennials” turned out to be extremely active both in the number of purchases and in their value – half of the people who spent more than $ 1 million on art over the past two years were 30 years old. But recently, art sellers were distressed: how to sell it to those who are not after possession, but after impressions, and are ready to use the apartment and car in half with their neighbor, joining the economy of shared consumption? It remains to wait when the “millennials” of the whole world will follow the example of young people from Singapore and Hong Kong.

11.03.2019

For the first time in Ukraine, the self-portrait of the artist Kazimir Malevich, which he painted 11 months before his death, will not be exhibited before.

“Now I look like Marx in the grave. When I go out, the children shout Karl Marx,” Malevich signed a self-portrait in a letter to the poet Grigory Petnikov. It is known that the portrait was painted in 1934, at 8:00 in the morning.

Malevich’s self-portrait is the first work that was found during the independence of Ukraine.

In total, the artist has eight self-portraits, and the self-portrait found is the last in his life. It was first published in the magazine Color and rhythms.

After the presentation, Malevich’s self-portrait will be exhibited at the Avangard exhibition. In search of the fourth dimension in the Center for Contemporary Art M17.

You can see it until April 6th.

06.03.2019

The exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts collected masterpieces of Leonardo, Titian, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer and many others

Agnolo Bronzino. “Saint Sebastian”. Around 1533. Photo: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisz

The naked body image experienced its highest rise in the XV – XVI centuries with the revival of artists’ interest on opposite sides of the Alps to the art of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Gathered at the exhibition works by Bronzino, Leonardo da Vinci, Jan Gossaert, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Michelangelo, Pietro Perugino, Antonio del Pollaiolo, Raphael, Titian show the passion and zeal artists depicted nudity in paintings on religious themes, from Adam and Eve to the life of Christ, and in the then very popular paintings on mythological scenes, bringing in them a lot more dynamics and personal ideas about beauty than their predecessors did. Here are Hercules and Dejanira (1517) Gossart and Venus Anadiomena (circa 1520) by Titian, Saint Sebastian (1533) Bronzino and Faun with his family (1526) by Cranach, the preparatory drawing of the Three Graces sanguine (1518) ) Raphael and anatomical studies of Leonardo and Michelangelo. The curators built the exposition itself in contrasts: idealized by the ancient canons of the body and aging flesh, monumental canvases for public spaces and chamber, small format of paintings and miniatures, small bronze plastics and drawings.

Royal Academy of Arts
Naked body in the Renaissance
March 3 – June 2
www.royalacademy.org.uk

04.03.2019

The picture, which is now considered the second version of “Judith killing Oloferna” by Caravaggio, will be put up for auction with an estimate of £ 86–129 million in June

In 2014, a canvas attributed to Caravaggio was found by chance in the attic of a house in the south of France. Since the discovery of his fate has attracted the attention of world experts, some of whom do not agree with the attribution and the general public. Now the picture is on display in the London gallery Colnaghi, and in June it is going to be put up for auction in Toulouse La Halle aux Grains. We recall her journey from obscurity in a dusty attic to news tops.

April 2014: Auctioneer Mark Labarb is invited to the Toulouse House to assess the large canvas on April 23. According to available information, at some point, thieves entered the house, who carried a number of valuable things, but did not take the picture, finding that it was worth nothing. The canvas depicts a scene from the story of Judith, a young widow from Bethulia, who saved her hometown from the siege of the Assyrians, captivating and beheading the commander Holofernes.

The French government imposes a 30-month ban on the export of works outside the country, while experts are considering the question of its authenticity.

April 2016: April 12, after two years of research, including a three-week study in the laboratories of the Louvre, the find is shown to the press, and the French Minister of Culture declares it a national treasure.

An expert on the old masters Eric Turken says that “experts, art historians, restorers, conservatives and radiologists studied the picture in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy.” He adds that although “there is no consensus [regarding authenticity], I don’t strive for consensus. For example, the attribution of the Dublin canvas [meaning “the Kiss of Judas”, attributed by Caravaggio in 1991] in 2003 was still criticized. Caravaggio is really made for endless debate. ”

The painting is considered the version of “Judith killing Holofernes” by Caravaggio. Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Another Caravaggio specialist, Mina Gregory, reports The New York Times that she considers the painting to be a copy of the Flemish painter Louis Finson. In response to the question of whether Caravaggio’s creative experts put this find before a new dilemma, Richard Speer, an expert in Italian Baroque from Princeton University, said: “This is not a dilemma, and even not entirely unexpected since attribution opinions are divided.” Türken, meanwhile, insists: “I am more than sure that the painting is the lost canvas of Caravaggio, which [the Flemish artist] Frans Purbus saw in 1607.”

November 2016: The picture is exhibited for the first time in the museum – in the Milan Pinakothek of Brera – side by side with Caravaggio’s masterpiece “Dinner at Emmaus” (1605-1606). Pinakothek director James Bradburn says that the exhibition “Caravaggio. The question of attribution “gives the general public a unique opportunity to compare both pictures.

The decision to exhibit the controversial canvas provokes controversy, and art historian Giovanni Agosti leaves the Pinakothek Consultative Council to protest against the “uncritical” presentation of the painting, which “is not only privately owned but also put up for sale”.

January 2019: the export ban is lifted after the refusal of the Louvre to purchase this piece. After the painting is allowed to move freely, Turken says to Le Figaro: “This allowed us to start the restoration immediately. But the decision to sell will not be made before all the work is completed. Everything will depend on the owners and the auctioneer in Toulouse, who represents their interests. ”

February 2019: the work is brought to London to the Colnaghi Gallery for an exhibition that runs until March 9, after which it will return to Toulouse, where it will be put up for auction in the summer. Türken says that “this will be an auction without a reserve. It will be a real auction without guarantees, without all this nonsense, a real auction ”, and suggests that the buyer is likely to become a museum.

25.02.2019

 Mark of Rothko’s Painting “Untitled”, 1960

The Museum of Contemporary Art in San Francisco will sell from its collection a picture of Mark Rothko “Untitled” (1960) to replenish the fund with new works by young authors. The painting will be sold at the Sotheby’s May New York auction. Its preliminary estimate is $ 35-50 million.

In accordance with the rules of the Association of Directors of Art Museums, the proceeds from the sale of paintings can be used only for the purchase of other works in the museum collection. According to the director of the museum, Neil Benzer, the sale of the painting is “aimed at a wide diversification of the collection of SFMOMA, expansion of its modern funds and elimination of gaps in the history of art, to continue to expand the boundaries and introduce new ideas.”

Experts of the auction house, on which the lot will be exhibited, described the canvas as “the most important work, created at the peak of the creative take-off Rothko.” The Museum of Contemporary Art received this work back in 1962 when its leaders were keenly interested in the work of the artist. Since then, it has occupied a significant place in the exposition of abstract expressionism.

Source: https://artslooker.com/odin-iz-amerikanskikh-muzeiv-zmushenii-prodati-zi-svoyeyi-kolekcii-kartinu-marka-rotko/

 

22.02.2019

For the first time in 60 years, masterpieces of French impressionists and post-impressionists, including works by Manet, van Gogh and Cezanne, returned from Great Britain to France

 Vincent van Gogh. “Self-portrait with a bandaged ear.” 1889. Photo: Courtauld Institute of Art, London

The Louis Vuitton Foundation presents a series of exhibitions that showcase the masterpieces of impressionists and post-impressionists created in France, which were deposited in foreign collections many decades ago. At the exhibition “Courtauld Collection. A look at impressionism is shown by about 100 paintings and graphic works from the collection of British textile industrialist Samuel Curto (1876–1947). Among them are the Bar at Folies Bergere by Edward Manet, Paul Cézanne’s Card Players and Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear.

Courtauld, a descendant of the French Huguenots who settled in London in the 17th century, was ahead of his time, starting to collect works by artists such as van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet, Renoir and Cezanne. Already in the 1920s, Courtauld, who had grown rich in the production of viscose, could afford, as the director of the Gallery Courtauld Ernst Vegelin says, was the best and was a regular customer of Parisian dealers.
 Pierre Auguste Renoir. “Boat skiff.” 1875. Photo: National Gallery, London

In addition, Courtauld established a special fund for the acquisition of the art of impressionism and post-impressionism in the UK state collections. The London National Gallery presented a number of such works to the exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, including a canvas “Wheatfield with Cypress” (1889) by van Gogh, which in its time was the first painting of the artist to be included in the collection of the British Museum.

In 1923, Courtauld founded the country’s first center for the study of the history of art – the Courtauld  Institute of Art and donated his collection and mansion to him in Portman Square, London. Since 1989, the Institute and the Courtauld Gallery have been located in the Somerset House mansion, which has now been put up for renovation worth £ 30 million.

 Edouard Manet Bar in Foley Bergère, 1882. Photo: The Courtauld Gallery

20.02.2019

The first exhibition, entirely devoted to Jean-Jacques Leke and his fantasy architecture on paper, takes place in Paris Petit Palais

 Jean-Jacques Lekeu. “He’s free”. 1798. Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Little is known about Jean-Jacques Lekeu (1757–1826). Born in Rouen, in the family of the joiner. He worked with a local architect, studied drawing and was very good at it. He visited Rome and received two awards and then a scholarship of the local Academy of Arts, in 1778 he left to conquer Paris, where he was presented to everyone as “the architect of the Academy of Sciences, Literature and Arts of Rouen”. But in the capital, an ambitious provincial as a practicing architect did not materialize. And the little that he managed to build in the vicinity of his native Rouen, has not survived.

For life, Leke had to earn something as an employee in the cadastral chamber, then a construction officer, then a surveyor and cartographer. And all his free time he tirelessly painted, creating fantasy architecture that had become fashionable then on paper. He probably did it, hoping to achieve success here after the masters Claude Nicola Ledoux and Etienne Louis Bulle, the main trendsetters in this genre, who were also called “speaking architecture”, since the design of the project had to match its purpose.

 Jean-Jacques Lekeu. “The temple dedicated to equality.” Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France

But here too Leko suffered a failure. Even for connoisseurs of the genre, his architectural fantasies, like a monument to Priapus, resembling a phallus, a farm in the form of a giant cow, mixing different styles and disregard of proportions, seemed extravagant and tasteless.

Lekeu died in poverty and obscurity, bequeathing before his death all his works to the Paris National Library. Only modernists remembered him in the first half of the 20th century. Especially he liked the surrealists and Marcel Duchamp, who was a big fan of Leke. The current exhibition is the first, entirely dedicated to Jean-Jacques Leke. Gathered several hundred drawings and engravings of the architect-visionary, she sets as her goal to completely rehabilitate him, even after almost two centuries after his death, putting him on the same line with Ledoux and Bulle.

Petit Pale
Jean-Jacques Lekeux
Until March 31

18.02.2019

In March, at Christie’s auction will be sold to a collection of works of art owned by George Michael. The initial cost of work varies from $ 600 to 2 million dollars.

As CNN reports, fans will suddenly have a British singer, George Michael, who died on Christmas 2016, a unique opportunity to purchase items from the magnificent collection of works of art that belonged to the singer.

George Michael was one of the main people who supported British artists, including Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.

During his life, Michael, who became famous in the 1980s as a member of the group Wham!, Had amassed an impressive and valuable collection of works of art.

After his death at the age of 53, caused by natural causes, the British press revealed many stories about how George Michael helped numerous charitable organizations.

Auction house Christie’s confirmed that all funds from the sale of the collection will be directed to charity.

“We are pleased to organize such a large auction, which will allow it to continue its charitable activities. George Michael was a genius in the music industry, and viewing more than 200 works of art from his private collection will help understand the breadth of human tastes that have been admired throughout the world, ”shared a global director of the auction house Jussi Pilkanen.

Before the auction, the collection will first be shown in New York, then in Los Angeles, then it will go to Hong Kong and Shanghai, a week before the sale it will be exhibited in London. 75 pieces of art will be sold at live auction, and another 130 will be sold online. One of the highlights of the collection is the Inconvenient Truth of Damien Hirst. For her expect to gain up to $ 2 million

 

15.02.2019

This is the first time that one of Benxi’s works came into the collection of the great London museum. This work was a Di-faced Tenner print depicting a fake ten-pound banknote, in which the princess Diana Welsh is portrayed instead of the queen.

This work was created in 2004 for the action, during which thousands of such bills were scattered at the carnival in Notting Hill and the Reading Festival. In the movie “Out of Souvenir Store” (2010), Benxi said he had made these bills for a conditional £ 1 million and distributed some of them at the festival, but stopped the action after people began to try to pay them at the bar: “It looked like on the fact that we have forged one million pounds and, obviously, we can get into jail for 10 years, “the author said.

The work was transferred to the museum by an organization that is engaged in the authentication of the artist’s work – Pest Control.

13.02.2019

At the first retrospective of the famous Belgian Symbolist Fernand Knopp, in 40 years, about a hundred of his works were collected in various techniques and genres.

 Fernand Knopf. “Art, or the Tenderness of the Sphinx.” 1896. Photo: J. Geleyns Art Photography

Here, everything that Knopf became famous for is the mysterious desert views of his native Bruges, women’s and children’s portraits, nymphs, sphinxes and chimeras. Paris, by the way, played a decisive role in the formation of a young artist, a graduate of the Brussels Academy of Arts. On his first visit to Paris, Knopf discovered the paintings of Delacroix and Ingres, and when he returned to the World Exhibition in 1877, the Pre-Raphaelites had a great influence on his style. In 1900, Knopf, who lived a hermit, set up a workshop for himself, the design of which was inspired by the aesthetics of the Viennese Secession. The workshop has not been preserved, but at the exhibition, you can see its reconstruction and plunge into the atmosphere in which fascinating visions of the Belgian symbolist were born.

Petit Pale
Fernand Knopf. Master of Mystery
Until March 17
www.petitpalais.paris.fr