That Warhol Case That’s Not About a Warhol

Gerard Malanga thinks his painting is worth $250,000 but wants $5 million from sculptor John Chamberlain because that’s what Chamberlain received for a Malanga canvas that was authenticated as a Warhol. Kate Taylor in tries to straighten the story out in the NY Sun:

The dispute is between Mr. Chamberlain and a former Warhol assistant, Gerard Malanga. Mr. Malanga claims that Mr. Chamberlain misappropriated and then misrepresented a work, titled “315 Johns,” as a Warhol, when actually it was created by Mr. Malanga in 1971, with the help of two other artists, Jim Jacobs and Irene Harris.

Mr. Malanga alleges that Mr. Jacobs stored the work at the apartment of Mr. Chamberlain and his then wife, Lorraine, and that after the couple’s

divorce it made its way into Mr. Chamberlain’s hands. Around 2000, Mr. Chamberlain submitted the work to the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, which declared it to be a genuine Warhol. In 2004, Mr. Malanga claims, he ran into Mr. Chamberlain, who told him that he had sold the work as an authentic Warhol, for $5 million.

(. . . )

Mr. Malanga demands that Mr. Chamberlain either return the work, if he has it, or compensate Mr. Malanga for it, if it’s been sold. (The third artist, Harris, is no longer living; according to the amended complaint, Mr. Jacobs assigned his interest in the work to Mr. Malanga in 2005.) The complaint alleges that the work is worth at least $250,000. In the event that the work has been sold, Mr. Malanga asks the court to award him punitive damages “in excess of the amount by which Defendant defrauded an innocent third party.” In other words, if Mr. Chamberlain did sell the work for $5 million, Mr. Malanga wants at least that much in damages.

Singapore Free Port

The International Herald Tribune focuses on the Singapore as it makes a bid to become the Asian art center. With Indonesian art heating up and the establishment of the right infrastructure, Singapore has a real shot at becoming the art entrepôt of the East.

“We’re no longer talking about China as a separate market or Indonesia as a separate market, and no artist wishes to be referred to as an ‘Asian’ artist. They just want to be part of the international art community.”

While the partners considered several locations, including Shanghai and Hong Kong, they say they finally decided on Singapore because of its central geographical position in the region and its wide use of English. But most importantly, it is a financial hub for private wealth and is setting up a port with what Rutkowski called a “Fort Knox-like,” state-of-the-art facility to house works from all over the world.

Right now, the only other art free ports are in Zurich and Geneva, he explained. With a gross floor area of approximately 22,500 square meters, or more than 242,000 square feet, for Phase 1 (and an additional 24,000 square meters for Phase 2, to be completed in 2011), the Singapore FreePort will include showrooms, workshops, photo studios and private offices. Due to be completed toward the end of next year, it will be directly accessible to Changi Airport.

“The FreePort is a huge asset to the development of the art market here,” Rutkowski said. “There will be huge, secure warehouses, with no duty or taxes paid; a place for people to park their art safely for as long as they want and in total confidentiality.

True Colors

The colored diamond market has been overheating with huge prices for blue and pink diamonds. Now Pallinghurst announces that it wants to do for emeralds, rubies and sapphires what de Beers has done for diamonds. Here’s a trade report:

Brian Gilbertson’s Pallinghurst Resources (JSE:PGL, BSX:PALLRES) is planning to exploit the neglected non-diamond coloured gemstone sector by lavishing production and marketing with attention to create steady, ethical supply of coloured gemstones. The coloured gemstone sector is already delivering higher margins than the loved diamond sector.

(. . . )

Recent auctions by Sotheby’s and Christie’s International indicated that per carat prices for emeralds, rubies and sapphires can exceed per carat prices for diamonds.

Is This Really Such a Bad Idea?

The August doldrums are almost over. But we’d like to reach back to July and small piece that ran in the Art Newspaper to add something more to the very one-sided debate taking place over the University of Iowa’s Pollock. This story criticizes fees for exhibitions but we can’t help wonder whether the globalized art world doesn’t demand a new economic basis for owning and loaning art. We’ve already seen a move toward private museums and endowed collections whose sole purpose is to lend art. Shouldn’t the value of that art be reflected in fees? Wouldn’t the University of Iowa and Pollock’s Mural both benefit from the work being loaned out? And if it is loaned, shouldn’t there be a fee?

The Italian branch of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) has just produced a paper denouncing the practice of charging money to lend a work. This is not about wide-ranging projects such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, where the Gulf state is paying e1bn over 30 years into an endowment fund for French museums not just to lend works of art but effectively create a whole museum culture. It is about the renting out of works to pot-boiler exhibitions to bump up the lending institution’s finances, and worse—refusing to lend a work, even to a good show or deserving museum, unless a fee is paid.

We understand that the exhibitions are meant to be for the benefit of the public and scholarship. But all exhibitions involves substantial costs–and often charge substantial admission fees–so the economic underpinning already exists. The step that’s decried is allowing the owners of the works to benefit from their value. At the same time, the owners are told that they either must sell their works to realize some of that value–or, if the institution is public–that they cannot sell their works to realize some of the value.

Scotland for the Brave

Jay Akasie features Sotheby’s Scottish paintings sale at the Gleneagles Hotel in the New York Sun. Despite the temptation to move the sales to London, Sotheby’s has kept this quirky sale thriving. Akasie makes a good case for what’s signficicant about Scottish painting:

The Glasgow School was a pioneering group of painters who broke away from their salons and infused their landscapes with hints of Impressionism. They helped lay the groundwork for the Scottish Colorists — men such as Samuel John Peploe, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, John Duncan Fergusson, and George Leslie Hunter — in the early 20th century. “The colorists spent time in Paris and got to know the techniques of Matisse and Monet. Their paintings have huge appeal to the international set,” Mr. Zlattinger said.

But the real star of these sales is the Contemporary illustrator, Jack Vettriano, the UK’s most popular artist by poster sales. While buyers are in Scotland, they can also think about getting some of the firearms so popular among Wall Street types.

Asset Allocation

CNBC picks up on the “The Mei Moses Fine Art Index, which tracks repeat sales of all art sold at the leading auction houses, gained more than 20 percent in 2007, dramatically outpacing the 5.5 percent gain for the S&P 500. The most recent five- and ten-year compound annual returns for the art index, 16.3 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively, also exceeded the return of the benchmark stock index, 12.7 percent and 5.9 percent during those periods.”

Checkmate

The Telegraph looks at artists who’ve designed chess sets: “Duchamp is not the only artist to have designed a chess set. In 2001, a newly formed art company called RS&A commissioned five prominent artists, including Damien Hirst and the Chapman brothers, to create bespoke sets that were then exhibited at Somerset House in London two years later. Japanese-born Yayoi Kusama adapted an 18th-century design with her trademark painted polka dots. The mischievous Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, best known for his 1999 waxwork mannequin of the Pope being squashed by a meteorite, replaced traditional chess figures with delicate porcelain figurines depicting recognisable people and characters associated in his mind with good and evil. Martin Luther King takes the role of the white king, with Superman as one of his pawns, while his opposite number is Adolf Hitler, standing beside his black queen, Cruella de Vil.”

Qatar: Can Philippe Come Out and Play?

Kate Taylor reports in the NY Sun that Philippe de Montebello, already consulting for Abu Dhabi through NYU, is thinking about working with Qatar on their museum projects.

Are Restaurants the New Museums?

The Independent explores the synergy between restaurants for the well-heeled and the art on display:

Pierre Gagnaire’s rue Balzac restaurant in Paris works with the Galerie Lelong and has shown works by stars such as Richard Serra and Antoni Tapies. Michel Besmond, director of the trendy Restaurant Alcazar on Paris’s Left Bank, reveals that all their spectacular photographs, including those by the likes of Martin Parr and Nobuyoshi Araki, are from the Kamel Mennour gallery, located nearby.

American Art: A Safe Haven?

Pittsburg art reporter Kurt Shaw showcases the American art market. It isn’t clear why he’s covering that market in the middle of August but Christie’s Eric Widing’s enthusiasm knows no news peg:

“Our wealthiest clients are putting money into the art market at levels that we haven’t seen before,” Widing says, “and that’s driving these record prices that we see in many categories. It certainly is driving prices in the American market.”

Still in Pittsburgh: Salon de What?

According to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, local dealer Steve Mendelsohn holds a Salon des Refusées for those who could not get into the 98th Associated Artists of Pittsburgh annual show.

The Monet Buyer’s Art Adviser Speaks

Tania Buckrell Pos is taking her star turn after purchasing Christie’s $80 million Monet water lilies. The previously unknown adviser calls her practice “small but successful” as well as “small and flexible” and says she’s at the forefront of a new business. In addition, she’s sure her client can sell the water lilies if they have to: “I know that there are two other people in the world who would like to own that picture if my client ever needs to sell it, so I feel quite confident at this point that we made a good purchase,” she says.

Collecting: Everybody Does It–But Let’s Not Talk About It

All-Star Baseball catcher Ted Simmons gets button-holed about his art and antiques collection. He does everything he can to drop the subject, “why talk about it? All it does is bring everybody and their brother into it because they’re interested in my art collection, whether it’s contemporary prints or American furniture. It’s something that takes up a lot of time (to discuss) and I’m here for baseball.”

Crime Pays

ArtInfo gives us a tour of the four types of art crime and comes away with some very big numbers. $6 billion a year?!

Chilled by Chihuly

The Wall Street Journal points out that Dale Chihuly has gotten his first “fine art” museum show and they’re not to impressed by the fact. Here’s a quote worth reading no matter what your interest level in Chihuly:

The word most commonly used by Chihuly-fanciers to describe the works is “beautiful,” a concept of little value in defining serious art after the Impressionists. Although some Chihuly objects appear snakelike or surreal, there is never anything troubling or challenging about them. It all looks strangely safe and escapist, even Disney-like, for art of our time.

Too Big to Shake

While you’re reading the Journal take in this nice story about the Polaroid large format cameras–there are only six of them–and their fate now that the company no longer makes Polaroid film.

Out of Sight, but Somebody is Minding It

The new way to prove that you’re cool is to talk about how all of your art is storage somewhere. Like this quote from a WSJ profile of Nicolas Bergruen: “The art I buy now goes to storage,” he says. “I don’t have a home to hang it in.” Ever wonder where all the art goes when it’s not on the wall? That’s where this great real estate story from the New York Times comes in.

Half-Baked Heist

The Brazilian police have recovered more paintings from that robbery where two Picasso prints were stolen from the Pinacoteca Museum in June. Two Brazilian painter’s works worth more than $500,000 were found under the bed of the suspected thief, a 29-year-old bakery manager who led the armed robbery in daylight. More on the first arrest here and the latest arrest here.

In Case You Missed It . . .

Slate runs some of the best art pieces around. Look for the keen-eyed Mia Fineman but don’t overlook this wonderful slide show from Christopher Benfey.

Well, That’s Definitive!

In a mostly uninteresting primer on the art market from the BBC, Godfrey Barker has this either/or view of the current state of the art market:

“It may be a long time before we see prices as good as these again, but it may just be that we are at the start of a boom which could last as long as the one in the 19th Century: mainly 32 years between 1863 and 1895.”

Ars Longa, Trust Fund Brevis

Keith Haring’s work was never out of favor but it has been increasing in value and showing some momentum. The artist would have been 50 years old this year. Some of his fans and supporters marked the occasion by recreating a mural on Haring’s old Lower East Side of Manhattan stomping grounds. Bringing back the mural, however, has revived a dispute with graffiti-artist Angel Ortiz, Haring’s underaged collaborator, who found a fitting way to remind the world of his role in Haring’s early work: he tagged it. Erica Orden in the New York Sun quotes Ortiz saying that he’s less concerned about the trust fund Haring set up for him with his share of the gallery proceeds than he is in getting credit.

China Girls

Holland Carter’s excellent story in the New York Times on the lack of visibility for women artists in the Chinese Contemporary art explosion is well worth reading. The fun fact of the story is that so many of China’s female artists are married to or associated with prominent men in the Chinese art world. But this is just an excuse to run this “One Day in 2004 No. 6″ by Cui Xiuwen whose work has been come up at auction.

The Global Museum

We’ve heard a lot about new museums being built in India and the Gulf States. Each museum has ambitions to influence their field and region but we know that art museums also play an important role in the market. A good museum show whets the appetite for collectors. But with all of these museums, there’s a still a finite supply of art from the classic art historical definition. How to get that art around the world? Time has a nice story on the new efforts and strategies emanating from the Louvre, including lending a lot more art than they used to.

There’s particular concern about the way the museum is sending out its treasures. “Some think there is excessive exportation” is how he puts it, although he acknowledges that “as one of the biggest museums in the world, the Louvre cannot escape the consequences of globalization.”

Socialite Cason Tharsh counters:

“It’s time for the Louvre to spread its wings.”

Sherman Lee of the Cleveland Museum Dies

From the New York Times obituary:

Mr. Lee, who viewed the museum as an educational institution, was wary of artistic fashion, eschewing the contemporary in favor of the time-honored, sometimes to the museum’s detriment; the museum did not purchase a Jackson Pollock until 1980 and passed on opportunities to acquire works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns.

“Sherman Lee had a very strong philosophy that you wait 20 years before you buy,” Evan H. Turner, his successor, said in 1984. “You wait until the first flush of enthusiasm is over.”

Why Are There No Great Women Artists?

From The Independent, a meditation on women’s prices and place in the art market:

“Surely the art market, of all places, should be free of such prejudices. I was delighted to see an important painting by Dumas sell at Sotheby’s for £3.2m. However, one has to compare this with works from the same sale, which included a Bacon that sold for £13.7m, a [Jean-Michel] Basquiat for £5m and a Richard Prince for £4.2 m. Female artists are the bargain in today’s markets.”

Speaking of Riley

From the Guardian interview/profile of the 77-year-old artist:

She was the star of the op movement, her paintings copied by designers, and her fame could get them a hearing from the establishment. It is easy to picture her impressing bureaucrats. She speaks precisely in a refined accent and recalls the time she “had tea with Agnes Martin in New York” - the picture of a polite meeting between these two great abstract artists materialises. She is highly articulate and educated, has written many essays on modern art, and does not see herself as in any way a pop figure: in 1965 she denounced the way her art was being “vulgarised in the rag trade”. Yet every so often, Riley jumps up and all but dances around the room - she moves like a cat, and for a moment becomes the artist who posed in a black shirt and white skirt between her zebra-stripe paintings in a famous 60s photograph.

. . . and if you like Riley, you’ll love LeWitt

From the New York Sun’s story on the installation going on at Mass MoCA:

his legacy collection is currently being applied and erected by a small army of about 60 artists. The exhibit — which covers 30,000 square feet on three floors — is arranged in the chronological order of LeWitt’s inspiration, from the ground to the third floor.

A key part of Sol LeWitt’s method was to replicate his art at will and he gathered around him a staff of 20 artists who are the key to translating his instructions at MASS MoCA. In addition, since the project began on April 1, a dozen LeWitt apprentices have joined to learn the ropes, while in recent weeks, 30 fine art undergraduates from universities and art colleges have been drafted for 10-week internships to ensure that the gargantuan project is completed on time for its grand opening on November 16.

Which Reminds Us of This Story about Dead Artists

From the International Herald Tribune:

Call it the Dawn of the Dead Artist. The message from the market is as clear as it is macabre. In a quest for fresh material, blue-chip contemporary-art dealers are finding a healthy source of revenue buried six feet under.

Though the IHT should look at Parrino’s recent auction results where his prices have remained somewhat stuck. Take this lot that was bought in during the London sales.

Oil=Orientalism

The Telegraph’s Market News covers graffitti artist Banksy and the continuing rise of Orientalism. One of the important drivers of the Orientalist market is the purchasing power of the Gulf States and Turkey. These buyers are particularly interested in depictions of local landmarks but the potential in this field is just beginning to be explored:

• Orientalist art continued its upward trajectory in the market last week when a sale at Christie’s realised a record £18 million, £10 million more than the previous record set by Sotheby’s last year. Several individual artists’ records were broken, the most prominent being the £2.1 million paid for an 1876 portrait, Veiled Circassian Beauty (above) by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, which had been estimated at £400,000 to £600,000.

Gérôme painted it after one of several trips to Turkey, where the painting is now most likely destined. Eighteen years ago it had fetched £324,000 at auction. The Orientalist sale made up just half of Christie’s regular 19th-century European art sale, but the second half did not do so well, realising just £3.3 million. Nearly half of the lots were unsold.

Vanishing Vasarely

Op-Art Icon’s daughter-in-law gets in embroiled in some troubles.

Mei Moses Not the Promised Land?

The Financial Times doubts the value of the Mei Moses Index (last item.)

The 200

ARTNews has named the Top 200 collectors; The New York Sun summarizes. ARTnews has them here.

Behind the Dollar Signs

A fascinating look at the Australian Aboriginal art market and its relationship to impoverised natives.

The Young and Acquisitive

Collecting families get their turn in the New York Times.

Masters of the Art Market Universe

Everyone wants to get in on the art market action according to the Financial Times.

Failure is an Option

The New York Times looks at a documentary of a former art star of the 1980s.

But Is It Art?

What do you call a former model who does portraits of women composed from mentions of their man’s name in the Financial Times? A genius, of course. Natasha Archdale did Steve Schwarzmann’s wife, among others. This gives new meaning to the term, trophy wife. Bloomberg has the story.

Female Nudes Crafted from Financial Times Mentions Lure Bank Barons (Bloomberg)

London Market Notes

The Daily Telegraph gives us a quick report on the London market news and deeper look at the Hirst sale news.

Bullish Hirst Rattles the Market (The Daily Telegraph)

Market News (The Daily Telegraph)

Dia Delivers

Carol Vogel profiles the new director of the Dia Art foundation. Phillippe Vergne has some work to do.

Dia Art Foundation Names a Curator as its Next Director (The New York Times)

The Next Hot Market? Indonesia?

Not to be out done by the Hungarians, The Straits Times has a very good and nearly comprehensive story about the art market and the prospects for Southeast Asian artists, especially I Nyoman Masriadi, to become hot commodities on the art market.

From Canvas to $$$$ (Asia One/The Straits Times)