KAWS has shown an uncanny ability to connect with a wide variety of people. Younger buyers clamor for his $50 Uniqlo T-shirts, while trophy-hunting collectors shell out millions for paintings.
What drew me to [them] was clear: an iconic brand with a genuine commitment to the independent advisors across Canada who have chosen to build their businesses here and to the clients they serve. That kind of alignment is rare. Having spent my career building companies at the intersection of real estate and fintech, I've seen what's possible when talented entrepreneurs are supported by the right platform, tools and leadership.
Kamrooz Aram is everywhere this year, from Mumbai Art Week to the Whitney Biennial, and critic Aruna D'Souza is grateful. She pens a beautiful meditation on his work, reading his abstract paintings as not simply a denunciation of Western modernism nor a reassertion of Islamic visual motifs, but something else entirely - something gestural, exuberant, riotous, and incomparably his own.
Stephen Friedman was overdue filing when he went into liquidation on 2 February, closing his London gallery immediately (his New York venue shuttered around the same date). At the time of writing, invoices remain unpaid and artists unable to retrieve works from storage companies. In a statement, Friedman says 'all matters are now subject to the administrator's consideration'.
Dealers like artists with established sales records because it lowers their already considerable financial exposure. Renting a gallery space in Tribeca costs anywhere between $8,000-30,000 a month on top of staff, marketing, and daily operations. With that kind of overhead, very few business owners can afford to take on the financial risk of untested artists.
I grew up in Qatar as a queer person. In Qatar, LGBTQ+ people are silenced. Stepping out of line comes with severe punishment. It is not safe to challenge your family, the country, or religious teachings. You are forced to disappear in order to survive. The open and vibrant Qatar presented through Art Basel is not the state that exists.
Major works from media mogul S.I. Newhouse's estate are poised to smash records at Christie's in May. The tranche of 35 to 40 works includes paintings by Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, and Jasper Johns, as well as a Constantin Brancusi sculpture, and is valued it at a whopping $450 million.
The terms are often conflated to portray an air of desirability and a limited opportunity. Rarity generally refers to the unusualness of an object—something that is infrequently encountered or 'rare to market.' With modern works from the past century, rarity can stem from limited original production, or the fact that many examples are held in museum or institutional collections, reducing their availability in the marketplace.
The work represents a 'real turning point' in the artist's development, said Ottilie Windsor, head of contemporary art at Sotheby's London. She noted that the painting's key characteristics, such as constructive perspective, flattened space, and a balance between observation and artifice, would reappear in Hockney's later works, such as his iconic California swimming pools and Yorkshire landscapes.
For some eminently wealthy individuals, amassing a first-class art collection is an ideal way to spend their money. And while some high-profile art collectors end up donating their collections to museums or other cultural institutions, others take a different approach, reselling their art after a certain amount of time. Which brings us to this week, when billionaire David I. Koch's collection of Western art hit the auction block at Christie's, setting a number of records in the process.
Under the terms of Sotheby's new fee structure, buyer's premiums for lots sold in New York are increasing from 27% on lots priced at or above $1m to 28% for all works sold for hammer prices up to and including $2m (£1.5m in London). The medium tier buyer's premium will remain 22% of the hammer price, but will be applied to lots sold for between $2m and $8m (£1.5m and £6m in London);
The snippet carries the phrase "Fathers of the Senate!" which is nowhere found in surviving Washington documents. The expression is borrowed from ancient Roman Senate-specifically the Latin patres conscripti , or "Conscript Fathers"-and quite possibly wasn't the patrician tone Washington intended to set for a young republic. It is unknown why or how it was used in this case as the manuscript from which the fragment was cut is long lost.
Many dealers said that their priority for the debut was making new connections, but what's an art fair without sales? Rest assured, some deals were confirmed during the first two VIP days, on Tuesday and Wednesday, though they took a while. "I'm really happy with this fair," said London dealer Niru Ratnam, who placed Kutlug Ataman's 22-screen video installation Mesopotamian Dramaturgies / The Stream (2022) with an institution on Wednesday for $250,000.
Art SG wrapped its fourth edition on Sunday, reporting 43,000 visitors during its four-day run, up from last year's 41,000. The S$250,000 ($197,000) SAM Art SG Fund, backed by patrons Carmen Yixuan Li, Pure Yichun Chen, and Pierre Lorinet, acquired works by Mona Hatoum (from White Cube) and Lotus L. Kang (from Commonwealth and Council) for Singapore Art Museum 's permanent collection. Some dealers said they made satisfactory sales, mostly for five or six digits.