Sotheby’s Mid-Season Impressionist & Modern Art Sale Scores $6.4 Million

When I first saw the painting above, I could not stop looking at it. I was just sitting there, trying to figure out what exactly it was. I came up with numerous objects. For instance, I saw a fish, a bird, an apple, and a bull. Now im not really sure that is what the painting was intended for, but it really blew my mind and I love it. Someone must have really loved it too since it went for so much money!! We saw bidding from all parts of the world, including the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, with results exceeding the high estimate for the sale. Grand total $6,435,939 (£3,673,272) on October 7th.

Extremely strong bidding was seen for the cover lot, Sinfonie 23 (lot 76), by Rudolf Bauer, which achieved $254,400. Bauer is a figure who has often been marginalized in the history books; however he was painting at a crucial time in the development of abstract art in the 1910s and 1920s and had a strong relationship with his Friend and mentor Wassily Kandinsky. This early work, from 1916-1919, was exhibited in Der Sturm andDas Geistreich, two important galleries in Berlin. Sinfonie 23 was unquestionably the finest work by Bauer to come to the auction market in many years, which is reflected in the world auction record achieved for the artist that more than doubled the previous record. Almost 15% of the value of the sale was achieved by 20 lots sold on behalf of the Patti Birch Trust, dominated by works by Zoran Music. These included portraits landscapes and works from the important series Nous Ne Sommes pas les Derniers, of which lot 177 brought $314,500.

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08's most underrated underdog

If there was an award for the "best underdog category", I would give it to former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. This guy has been underestimated in every way possible. Nobody listened to him when he was warning us about inflation and the Fed and all the flag signs he raised in our economic and monetary system. And look where we are now. He also spoke of pulling our troops out of every corner of the world, and his "conservative" counterparts blasted him. And look where we are now. This guy has truly been underestimated. But hey, I'll leave the brunt of the political commenataries to the pundits.

What I am amused about is the iconic status reached by Ron Paul's campaign. I recently read an article over at the New York Times how graphic designers have been creating and recreating banners and logos for Ron Paul and his "Revolution". And believe me, a lot of these logos are pretty dope. If you did not know Ron Paul is a 72 year old congressman from Texas, you'd think people are nominating him for an MTV award. No politican form the conservative spectrum has in recent memory stirred up support from younger generations, much less artists. Rep. Paul may not have clinched the GOP nomination, but sure did accomplish a lot this year.

ORIGINAL PHOTO and ARTICLE: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/ron-pauls-graphics-revolution/?ref=opinion

Art continues to boom in Southeast Asia

With the recent gloom and doom prophecies of pundits and and politicians, you would think that your in some sort of a twilight zone, where humanity is bound to be trapped into an eternal econonomic quagmire. Certainly, we could use some bretah of fresh air. And that is exactly what I have been trying to do in my recent blog entries. There is at least one sector of the market that is relatively in OK shape, and that is of course the art industry, particularly in Asia. Of course, it has not been completely free from economic woes as more expensive artwork from CHina and India have declined in the recent Sotheby auction, but art from Southeast Asia offers more hope. While pummeling house values and tight credits are an everyday reality, so is the increase in the values of many artwork in Southeast Asia. Channel NewsAsia reports that art from that region has received a 30% boost in real value. Not bad. Not bad at all. And the better news about that is that people still buy these works proving that the global economy is not yet on the path to an apocalypse. After all, art is a luxury commodity. And if people still have the energy and resources to purchase these goods, then it just shows that we are not completely doomed. I'm sure the world can ride this crisis out.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/cna/20081011/tap-096-average-price-sea-contemporary-a-231650b.html

Obey does it's part for the election

As you all know Obey has came from the ground up. You see their logo everywhere they go. for those of you who don't know about Obey.. Obey is a street art, clothing line, and it shows us a different way of seeing politics. I'm sure that all of you have seen the shirt above. it comes in many forms. Yupp! Obey made those tees and now they are spreading wild like fire. One thing that I admired most about Obey is there strong passion to keep people inform about the debate. On their website they have updates about why Obama should be the next president by showing what propositions he goes for. In my opinion, I think this is a great way of connecting to another target group. They used a form of art to connect to politics. Art can bring such a hard impact on people. And maybe it helps to see it in a different angle rather than just the media telling you the updates. I also think that it's a great way to promote Obama for presidency because I don't think that Mc Cain would look good on a t-shirt. Maybe Palin, but she's a psycho woman on the loose.

For example:
"vote green on nov 4th
California League of Conservation Voters have just posted their endorsements for the Nov election. Take a look and decide for yourself. If you dont know whats at stake, this is a good place to start. Choose Responsibly!"

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Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert to show Early Works from 1939-1954

London has so many exciting things going on in the months of October through December. One including the showing of Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert of his early works from 1939-1954. A major loan exhibition of early works by Lucian Freud will be held at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, 38 Bury Street, St James’s, London SW1 from 9th October through 12th December 2008. The earliest paintings, from 1939, were completed when the artist was only 16. Many of the paintings in the exhibition are from private collections and not normally available to be seen by the public. With the support of the artist, the exhibition will be curated by the artist’s assistant and model for the past fifteen years, the painter David Dawson, with help from Catherine Lampert, who most recently selected the Freud retrospective which opened in Dublin in June 2007.

This will be the first exhibition devoted entirely to the artist’s early work since 1997 with all works on loan from private or public collections worldwide, and several being shown publicly for the first time. Highlights include oil portraits such as Woman with Tulip (1945), Portrait of a Man (John Craxton) 1946, Girl in a Blanket (1953), A Woman Painter (1954) and the self portrait Man at Night (1947) as well as the still lifes Cacti and Stuffed Bird (1943), Dead Heron (1945), Lemon Sprig (1946) and Still Life with Aloe (1949).The aim of the exhibition will be to follow the evolution of Freud’s vision in the early years from the period of, in the artist’s words, “maximum observation”, when he proceeded solely “by staring at my subject matter and examining it closely”, to the period from 1954 when he wanted to deliberately “free myself from this way of working”.

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As Brits say: bloody hell!

For 350 grand, British Museum National Portrait Gallery could get its hands on a sculpture known only as "Self", a work made by artist Marc Quinn. The "frozen sculpture" is a replica of the artists head, but that only tells half the story. Whereas sculptors would carve stone or marble or clay to, Quinn used his own blood (ten pints of it to be exact), to create his masterpiece. Quinn puts out such work every five years and said that it takes one year to produce the amount of blood he needs to cretae another version of "Self". Being offered by the artists gallery White Cube to National Portrait Gallery is the one Quinn created in 2006, his latest obra maestra. His first creation was made in 1991, and was bought by a man named Charles Saatchi. The second, released in 1996 was bought by a couple from Texas and the third one went to a Korean museum owner named Kim Chang-il.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE and PHOTO: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=16226

Art shall thrive

If Andy Hei's optimism proves to be true, then I guess there is a silver lining to our current global market crisis. Hei is an antique-funiture dealer by trade and is the "organizer of the Hong Kong International Arts and Antiques Fair" , which will be held for four days starting October 4. Many galleries are said to have signed up for the event and it will be carrying various artworks, a lot of which priced at millions of dollars. Hei said that he has seen worse days for the art community, citing the SARS outbreak in 2003 and another market crisis that happened in 1998. Some of the galleries which will be featured in the HongKong event would be Christie's International and Sotheby's, "New York-based Carlton Rochell Ltd. and Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Shinseido- Hatanaka Art Gallery and Hong Kong's Hanart TZ Gallery." Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara's HK$18 million will also be shocased in the said event.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE and PHOTO: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a0vCFWmklUnY&refer=muse