This week's Art Collecting and Investment News

Saturday, 7^th July 2008

Gilding The Water Lily
GLOBAL - Many inside and outside the art world are wondering how much longer this trend can possibly continue. Art dealers, museum curators and auction-house experts have all weighed in on the matter; many do not believe the bubble will burst.
                                                                                                            Forbes - NY,USA

Sunday, 6^th July 2008

'There's never been a great woman artist'
GLOBAL - Iwan Wirth, who represents the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, said the huge gap in prices between the likes of Lucian Freud and Bourgeois was "a constant source of disappointment".
                                                                                  Independent - London,England,UK

Highly Bankable Works
PHILADELPHIA - Bank of America owns one of the largest and oldest collections in the world - and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has teamed up with it for the exhibit "Reverberations."
                                                                        Evening Bulletin - Philadelphia,PA,USA

Saturday, 5^th July 2008

Art theft! Lawsuits! Spielberg!
LAS VEGAS - Solomon bought Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom" in 1968. The work was stolen in 1973. In the late 1980s an art dealer bought it, then sold it to Steven Spielberg. The dealer is challenging Solomon's claim to the painting.
                                                                           Las Vegas Sun - Las Vegas,NV,USA

Inside Art London Swings as a Dynamo for Selling Art
LONDON - The weak dollar has made London an attractive place for Americans to sell. This city has also gained cachet as the stomping ground for rich denizens of the former Soviet Union.
                                                                                New York Times - United States

Investors Turn to Art; Sales Make Record $1.1 Billion (Update1)
GLOBAL - The auction houses' day sales of ``affordable items'' under 500,000 pounds showed continuing demand. A week ago, analysts said that the global economic slowdown and credit crunch might reduce sales for priced at less than $1 million,
                                                                                                         Bloomberg - USA

The Exuberance of Youth
MOSCOW - "We need a youth biennale because the generation gap between the young artists and the older generations is too big," Pyrkina said. "There are not enough schools for contemporary art, and having a biennale will develop some continuity.
                                                                                         The Moscow Times - Russia

China's Legacy: Let a Million Museums Bloom
CHINA - Yet most art is an unsettled category in China - "cultural relics" is the preferred term - and museums have complicated uses. They provide aesthetic delectation to be sure, but also moral education, pop entertainment and political propaganda.
                                                                                                  New York Times - United States


Thursday, 3^rd July 2008

A happy mood buoys contemporary art
LONDON - Not only did contemporary art perform superbly, but its performance improved from one major evening sale to the next. It is the jump in confidence observed this week as Sotheby's took over from Christie's.
                                                                                        International Herald Tribune - France
Contemporary art sales in London
SLIDESHOW - The art market received its most resounding vote of confidence this week, as contemporary art auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's exceeded £230 million, or roughly $450 million.
                                                                                         International Herald Tribune - France

LA Collector Files Second Suit Against MOCA
LOS ANGELES - Arthur is suing based on a chapter of the California Civil Code called the Fine Prints Act that allows for triple damages in situations when a dealer "willfully" fails to provide documentation of an art print's authenticity.
                                                                                                    ARTINFO - New York,NY,USA

China's Museums, Art in Transition
CHINA - AUDIO SLIDE SHOW

Koons brings kitsch to Versailles
PARIS - Delighting contemporary art fans and dismaying some of France's most august historians, Jeff Koons is flying in this September to exhibit some of his most famous works in the chateau and gardens of the country's most illustrious national treasure.
                                                                                                                     guardian.co.uk - UK

Dead Artists Breathe Life Into Auctions
GLOBAL - This splintering phenomenon could push up prices for an elite group of artists but undercut the overall health of the art market. In past boom-and-bust cycles, art experts say, the middle and the top ends of the art market have risen and fallen in sync.
                                                                                                            Wall Street Journal - USA

Lawsuits against Louis Vuitton, MOCA about papers, not art
LOS ANGELES - Together Louis Vuitton and MOCA potentially are liable for millions of dollars: The law, at Code sections 1740-1745, allows triple damages for each instance in which a dealer "willfully" fails to provide documents that vouch for an art print's authenticity.
                                                                                         Los Angeles Times - CA,USA

MoMA Acquires Eight Chinese Artists From Bulk-Buying China Hand
NEW YORK - Their purchases totalled 23 photographs by eight Chinese contemporary artists. MoMA's purchase includes some of the most influential artists to emerge in the 1990s, including Rong Rong, Huang Yan and Ai Weiwei.
                                                                                                         Bloomberg - USA



Oil profits help art market defy gravity
GLOBAL - This trophy-lot frenzy, however, has obscured some underlying weakness. "We have two markets going on," says Ian Peck, CEO of New York-based Art Capital Group, which provides financing against art assets.
                                                                                                    CNNMoney.com - USA

Sotheby's July 2008 Contemporary Art Evening Sale Triumphs
LONDON - Jean-Michel Basquiat's early masterpiece, Untitled (Pecho/Oreja) from 1982-83 was sold tonight on behalf of the rock band U2 for £5,081,250($10,133,029).
                                                                                                                     Art Daily - USA

The Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in Europe ...
AMSTERDAM.- The Vincent Award is a prestigious European prize, awarded every two years to an artist with great relevance for contemporary art. The nominees for this edition are: Francis Alÿs, Peter Friedl, Liam Gillick, Deimantas Nakevicius en Rebecca Warren.
                                                                                                                         Art Daily - USA

Wednesday, 2^nd July 2008

Contemporary Market Bruised but Resilient After London Sales
LONDON - After a trio of evening sales, the contemporary art market emerged slightly bruised but remarkably resilient, proving once again its impressive mettle despite the persistent looming sense of an economic downturn.
                                                                                                    ARTINFO - New York,NY,USA

Bacon Stars, 10 Records Set at Sotheby's; U2 Sell Art (Update1)
LONDON - A Richard Prince ``Nurse'' and an Antony Gormley ``Angel of the North'' were among 10 works to set records for their makers at Sotheby's contemporary-art auction in London, where a Francis Bacon portrait was the star attraction and Irish rock band U2 among the sellers.
                                                                                                                      Bloomberg - USA

Francis Bacon
VIDEO -  1970's Documentary about the artist, YouTube