Need an alternative to the traditional gallery scene? Check out the new art exhibition on the Upper West Side. Ten artists, calling themselves 25CPW, have taken over a vacant commercial space on Central Park West. Their new show, 10 from 25: Emerging Artists Using Photography, will run through December 13, 2009. Read the whole story at Luxist.
The art market isn’t sure if it wants to recover yet. This month, Sotheby’s had a fantastic contemporary art sale, while the one at Christie’s just plain sucked. Among the paintings at the latter was “Brother Sausage,” by Jean-Michel Basquiat. It entered the Christie’s art auction with the highest presale estimate, but nobody was interested in buying it.
Life’s a bitch.
What’s interesting, though, is where this painting comes from. Word on the street is that Peter Brant, turned art collector by his soon-to-be ex-wife, is trying to move the piece. He and Stephanie Seymour are battling their way through a divorce, and “Brother Sausage,” with a presale estimate that approached $10 million, is bound to be one of the assets they fight over.
Why does this matter to the millions of Gen Xers who don’t give a fuck about art? Or, to those of us who like art but still don’t give a shit about the squabbles of the rich and famous?
A friend of mine e-mailed me last week to ask where I write. He can’t sort it out through all the tweets and links and so on. I can understand; I’m all over the place. So, if you’re interested in following my work, see the following links:
Gadling (travel): http://www.gadling.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer (If you want to read about hostels and backpacking, go read someone else. I tend to roll upscale)
Luxist (art and cigars): http://www.luxist.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer/ (Occasionally, I do a luxury travel or real estate story here, too)
BloggingStocks (finance, economics and markets): http://www.bloggingstocks.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer (I do a bit on the clean technology sector, venture capital, private equity, hedge funds and social media for this blog, in addition to all my work as a generalist)
DailyFinance (finance and economics): http://www.dailyfinance.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer (I don’t have a specific beat, though I do write a lot about cleantech, social media and the alternative investment space)
Envy (travel): http://envymags.com/index.php?s=johansmeyer (It’s not a regular gig, but I am starting to do more with this magazine)
It’s a bit embarrassing, looking back. I studied philosophy and history in school, read like an animal and wrote every chance I could. I was focused on thought and expression, but the role of art in all this never really occurred to me. My current interest in art grew out of a freelance assignment I had for a newsletter for financial advisors back in the summer of 2007. The article was short and dealt with investing in art. From there, I got my first art market story in Trader Monthly (RIP) – which was how I got into that magazine and which opened the door to my becoming a travel writer (I’ll get into that story some other time).
I now blog about art on Luxist more than cigars (with the latter being why Luxist hired me), and I’m really into it. I have an original hanging over my desk at day job and six paintings hanging in my apartment … with two more that I still need to pp on the walls. I was thinking about the extended version of how I got here, and my mind raced back to two college experiences. The first was more directly related to art, but the second was far more powerful (and I finally understand it).
I went to the Cleantech Venture Day conference yesterday in Stockholm, Sweden. In general, there was some interesting stuff, but the best conversation I had was with a venture capital/private equity investor. I asked the guy if he invests in art. A large grin formed on his face, as he nodded. Apparently, this was a subject close to his heart. So, I asked for a bit more detail, and the gump was more than willing to talk.
Sophia Lynn, by Julio Aguilera
The latest from top art market publication ArtPrice suggests that the global art market is tanking. Every corner of the market has been affected, from the really high-end stuff to the emerging artists fetching less than EUR10,000 a canvas.
In the words of ArtPrice:
Whereas the top-end of the market (4.1% of transactions) has shown relative price inertia, on the more dynamic segment of works offered for less than 100,000 euros, reactions have been more spontaneous: price adjustments are already underway. In this segment, the price index calculated using the repeated sales method has dropped 18% compared with October 2007!
The art market is in decline, as I predicted back in September 2007, in a short article for Trader Monthly. Prices, I felt, were topping out, and ArtPrice retrospectively calls the peak in late 2007/early 2008.
Read “Bubble Watch” in Trader Monthly >>
Check out some charts from ArtPrice after the jump.
The past week has been gruelling, non-stop at day job, and I’ve been putting in nights for CPA Magazine and a few others. So, my blogging fell of a bit. I think I’m clear of the insanity for a while, though. Time to enjoy the fruits of my labors. I’m in the current issue of New York magazine, for a contribution I made to the Winter Travel edition. I added a few lines to the story on Reykjavik, Iceland. Also, I’ve been busy at TraderDaily.com. My latest piece is on hunting for art in Helsinki.
Currently, I’m working on a story for a major national. It’s exciting … and killing me that I can’t release any details yet. I’ll say something just as soon as I can.
I love the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), but sometimes they do some retarded shit. I went recently to see the Van Gogh exhibit, which is nothing short of spectacular. While I was there, I looked around a bit. The idiocy I saw is recorded below.
Yes, this is art. It must be; it’s in a museum.
Little more than a Halloween decoration, in my opinion
I don’t even know what this is.
In honor of basketball? I don’t get it.
This may look stupid at first, but wait until you get a closer look.
See, it’s truly moronic.
Not only is it not art, it’s an old joke.
This guy’s a perv.
How the fuck did both Larry Gagosian and Damien Hirst make the top 40 in Vanity Fair’s New Establishment rankings. While I’m excited to see two artists represented, did they have to pick the dealer client combo? Particularly at #31 and #38? It just seems like a bit much. Throw in Bacon-buyer Roman Abramovich at #8, and you have the entire Bacon supply chain.
Of course, Vanity Fair was not cool enough to show some love to the ultimate Baconian, Nelson Diaz. That’s a damned shame, because you can look at his work and see where Bacon was headed.
Source: Wikipedia
Vanity Fair ranks artist/asshole Damien Hirst 30th in The New Establishment 2008. That part blows. But, I was happy to see that the mag called him “today’s greatest inheritor of the mantle of Andy Warhol [emphasis added].” Andy Warhol sucked. Damien Hirst’s bullshit animals are a joke, so the connection makes sense.
Don’t get me wrong, I do like some of Hirst’s work. The statue outside the Lever House on Park Ave (since replaced) was fantastic, and his installation in the Lever House gallery, recalling Francis Bacon’s 1946, was nothing short of genius. But, Hirst doesn’t do enough of this any more.
And, he promotes himself via MySpace. How low rent is that?
Source: ArtObserved
I’m just happy Vanity Fair compared him to Warhol and NOT Francis Bacon. Hirst no longer seems to carry Bacon’s torch. That honor belongs to Nelson Diaz.
Enter the Mind of a Migrant Blogger 