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.”
