The Market |
This week's top lots
February 12, 2010 | 
What: Madonna I by Andreas Gursky, 2001
Where: Sotheby's London (February 10, Contemporary Art Evening Auction)
Estimate: £900,000 - 1,300,000
Sold For: £1,077,250
Claimed to be the world's most collectable living photographer, Gursky took this large-scale aerial photograph, measuring 111 by 81 1/2 inches, of a Madonna concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Originally scheduled for September 11, 2001, the concert was postponed to September 13, due to the terrorist attacks that toppled the World Trade Center. This photograph—one of two prints made, the other is in the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou—was inscribed for and given to Madonna, who can be seen on stage wearing an American flag tied around her waist. Due to its epic scale and heroic imagery, Sotheby's likens the image to the tradition of nineteenth-century history painting.
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Discovery |
Recommended this week
February 10, 2010 | 
Louise Devenish gives readers a peak through the looking glass. Read more on the history of mirrors at 1stdibs.com.
Culled from the organization's online classifieds, the College Art Association posts rather bleak statistics for job opportunities in the arts. Take a look.
Just in time for the Oscars, Design*Sponge blogger Amy Merrick steals the look of Jane Campion's Bright Star. See her picks, and read our interview with the film's set decorator here.
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Discovery |
ANTIQUES bookshelf
February 9, 2010 | The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850-
1900 is a beautiful and engaging study of the private worlds of Paris, London, and Berlin depicted in the visual arts. Organized by the National Gallery of Art, and opening this week at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, the exhibition and its catalogue offer a unique view of the urban landscape and interior in the nineteenth century that—like its counterparts in literature and philosophy—emphasizes the solitary and introspective life over the frequently depicted scenes of cosmopolitan boulevards and cafes. In the introductory essay to the catalogue the curator Peter Parshall explains that the title is meant as a paradoxical play on different levels—among them references to Paris as the City of Light, and the birthplace of impressionism.
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The Market |
This week's top lots
February 5, 2010 | 
What: L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti, 1960
Where: Sotheby's London (February 3, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale)
Estimate: £12-18 million
Sold For: £65 million
Fetching $104.3 million, Giacometti's iconic 6-foot tall sculpture set a new world record price for a work of art at auction (previously held by Picasso's Garçon à la pipe, which sold for $104.2 million in 2004). The cast bronze sculpture of a wiry male figure was the first of two versions made for an outdoor installation at the Chase Manhattan Plaza but never completed. A cast of the sculpture was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1962.
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Discovery |
Recommended this week
February 3, 2010 | Art aficionados will want to stay tuned to the Super Bowl this Sunday to see which team's regional art museum takes home the prize (a three-month artwork loan). On the line in this friendly wager—instigated by art blogger Tyler Green—are the New Orleans Museum of Art's Ideal View of Tivoli by Claude Lorrain and the Indianapolis Museum of Art's The Fifth Plague of Egypt by J.M.W. Turner. Get updates here.
New blog Unhappy Hipsters is generating a lot of buzz with its picture perfect modern interiors ripped from the pages of Dwell and snarky captions. A good reminder that "less is a bore." 
"Eames, Aalto—her most significant relationships were with dead designers." --Unhappy Hipsters
On Saturday the Museum of Modern Art hosts Art Book Swap New York in collaboration with Regency Arts Press and the New Art Dealers Alliance. The public is invited to swap their books for ones donated by publishers, distributors, and galleries. Details here.
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Pickle Dish, American China Manufactory (Bonnin and Morris), Philadelphia, 1771-72. Soft-paste porcelain with lead glaze; height 4 3/16, width 4 1/2
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