ART PICK OF THE MONTH (Jan. '11)

"Lives of the Artists"
By Calvin Tomkins (2008 ed.)
 

As the title suggests, this is a collection of ten biographical profiles (formerly published in The New Yorker over the last ten years) of some of the most significant (and interesting/controversial) contemporary artists including Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Jasper Johns and Maurizio Cattelan. Notwithstanding the uncontrollable, inexplicable feelings of like/ dislike one has when viewing an artwork, the intellectual process underlying the artwork is often lost on a "naked" viewing. Although some have argued that this loss is irrelevant and what matters is the viewer's own, personal experience of the art, I myself do value and in fact attempt to acquire a deeper understanding of an artist's intellectual and creative processes. Biography is one way to gain such an insight because the way artists live is an integral part of who they are and how they create art. Tompkins' intimate portraits of the chosen artists are not only memorable and intriguing but also poignant and meaningful in the sense that each incident or fact recounted masterfully adds to one's understanding of the artist and his work - nothing is superficial or superfluous. An incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in contemporary art.

LINKS

 
• NEW YORK. Titian may have been the star at the Sotheby's Old Masters sale but he wasn't alone: 16 auction records were set at the sale, which "totaled $90.6 million, just shy of its $91.8 million high estimate." Three key reasons accounting for the Titian beating the previous record for the artist ($13.6m versus the new record of $16.9m) are the exceedingly few Titians remaining in private hands, the  clear provenance of the painting ("A Sacra Conversazione" has only exchanged hands 6 times) and the fact that it's a "multi-figured" painting (generally, price increases with the number of figures depicted). 
  

  

  A Sacra Conversazione, Tiziano Vecelli (circa 1560)

• Donn Zaretsky points us in the direction of a fascinating article in the FT.com about the "prolific and amazingly persistent" forger Mark Landis. Unbelievably, his motivations were not financial - Landis donated the forged works as a tribute to his parents. Equally surprising is that no criminal liability arises from his actions, however "annoying and disruptive," as no loss was suffered by any of the victims (loss is a required element under the criminal fraud statute).

More on that balloon dog

SAN FRANCISCO. The gallery that received a cease-and-desist letter from Koons' attorney to refrain from selling balloon dog bookends (see here) has filed a petition in federal court for a declaratory judgment which, reports The New York Times, states that the dog cannot be copyrighted according to Courthouse News Service. Here is a lively exert from the complaint: "as virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain."

LINKS

• WASHINGTON DC. More on how the changes to the US estate tax are likely to have an adverse effect on bequests. There's no denying that the fiscal advantages to donors are a significant factor motivating gifts to institutions so the combined effect of a lower rate (35%) and a higher exemption ($5m per person) will almost inevitably put off some donors. However, if the regime is amended in two years time, it could mean that those donors' bequests are merely delayed rather than forfeited.
• NEW YORK. Donald Judd former fabricator, Ballantine, is planning two conferences in New York and Berlin this year to discuss the "misconceptions connected to the artist's fabrication and conservation techniques" and his "extreme version of delegated fabrication." The discussions could raise some interesting questions on the relationship between fixing damaged art, authenticity and value ("there are unusually authentic ways outside the way of fixing most art that doesn’t diminish the value in Judd”). 

La Lecture, Pablo Picasso (1932)

• LONDON. Last time Marie-Thérèse Walter made an appearance at auction, she sold for $106.5 million, setting a world record auction price for a work of art. Now she's set to return to auction for the first time since last May but this time in London not New York and at Sotheby's rather than Christie's. The estimate for La Lecture is £12-18m which seems somewhat conservative in light of her past performance (the estimate then for Nude, Green Leaves and Bust had been $80m though one of the main reasons it sold so well was specific to that particular painting - the work had not been in the market since 1951 and during that time, it was only publicly exhibited once in 1961). Aside from depicting the same protagonist, the two works are both dated 1932 and are characterized by equally intense, vibrant colors (albeit in distinct palettes). However, the upcoming painting is much smaller than its predecessor, size clearly being an important factor affecting an artwork's value. We'll see in a couple of weeks just how fond the market is of Marie. 

UPDATE: National Portrait Gallery refuses to oblige AA Bronson's request

The letter from AA Bronson's lawyers to the NPG had given the institution until January 17 to remove the Canadian artist's piece (Felix, June 5, 1994) from the controversial exhibition "Hide/Seek" unless it reinstalled David Wojnarowicz' video "Fire in my Belly." Well, on Monday a spokesperson for the NPG announced that it will not comply with Bronson's request. Bronson is said to have responded to the Director of the NPG, Martin E. Sullivan, with the following e-mail: "My lawyer suggests that, according to my moral rights under copyright law in both Canada and the USA, I have the right to withdraw my work from "Hide/Seek... Please remove my work from the exhibition immediately." So the e-mail said pretty much the same as the letter. It may be time to come up with a new line of attack.

"Lost" Rubens staying in Britain, for now

Portrait of a Young Woman, attributed to Rubens
Photograph: PA

LONDON. The Export Reviewing Committee has succeeded in delaying the export of a "lost Rubens" until March to allow prospective buyers to match the £1m price paid at auction and keep the painting in Britain. This isn't the first time this practice of restricting the export of artworks has been scrutinized in the media and here - remember the Fatimid ewer?

That case was more controversial because the government sought a valuation from a rival auction house (eventually estimated at £20 million) rather than taking the price paid at auction (£3.2 million) as that which needed to be matched by a third party to keep the ewer in Britain. Unsurprisingly, no buyer could match the £20 million price tag and, following the export of the ewer to Berlin, it was unclear what precedent had been set by the government in going against what had been past practice to date to use the price paid at auction.

The fact that the "Rubens" was estimated at £6 million but only sold for £1 million as a result of its uncertain provenance gave the government an ideal opportunity to require an "independent" (if there is even such a thing) valuation and use that figure instead of the £1 million actually paid. That the government chose not to do so is significant in that it suggests that the export of the Fatimid ewer may have been exceptional. However, only time will tell the extent to which the case of the Fatimid ewer changed the way artworks are exported from Britain. On the other hand, there's always the possibility that the government decides to seek independent valuations arbitrarily, on a case-by-case basis, depending on its interest interest in keeping the artwork in Britain and the price paid for it...