Thursday, September 28, 2017

Lisbon rising: a global art hub emerges from crisis

https://www.wallpaper.com/art/lisbon-rising-a-global-art-hub-emerges-from-crisis

Lisbon rising: a global art hub emerges from crisis

ART / 2 AUG 2017 / BY YOKO CHOY

Portuguese artist João Penalva’s solo exhibition at Galeria Filomena Soares

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Lisbon is building a very strong case for getting on the list of global contemporary art hubs. After a deep economic recession, Portugal is finally emerging from the doldrums; the coastal country is not only opening up towards southern Europe, but is also reaching out again across the globe. Investors from Western Europe and new businesses are taking advantage of the low property prices and lenient tax regime (and surely the sun and sea, too), helping to kickstart the economic recovery. And this is not simply financial good news: the art scene in Lisbon – Best City in this year’s Wallpaper* Design Awards – has emerged in the wake of the country’s economic crisis.

The MAAT (Museum for Art, Architecture and Technology) opened its doors ten months ago as a public platform for local and international artists and curators; new galleries are being established; international dealers are opening branches in the capital and the affordable property is also a magnet to artists setting up homes and studios; in addition, the Spanish art fair brand ARCO strategically launched a Lisbon edition last year to take advantage of the country’s financial recovery.

image: https://cdn.wallpaper.com/main/arco-lisboa-15-e.jpg?WMDsWZo5BAIfHURT3n5mACtuw5HoyCMK

Portuguese artist Ana Vidigal at Galeria Baginski. Photography: Bruno Lopes

In only a year, the boutique fair has already become a fixture on the international arts calendar, bringing galleries and collectors from different backgrounds to Lisbon and helping to globalise its market. This year’s ARCOlisboa, held again in the Cordoaria Nacional in May, showcased 58 galleries from 13 countries. ‘I think what ARCO brought to the local art scene, is visibility – here they have a very interesting group of artists, curators and galleries, but we brought visibility and opening up a more international perspective for the local community.’ Carlos Urroz Arancibia, the fair director says.

Among the recent gallery openings, Madrid’s Galería Maisterravalbuena made its recent Lisbon debut in the post-war, modernist district, Alvalade. Its inaugural group show, curated by João Mourão and Luís Silva of the renowned non-profit Kunsthalle Lissabon, included works by Magdalena Jitrik and Haris Epaminonda and Christodoulos Panayiotou. Last December, native Galeria Vera Cortês relocated to an industrial space in the area too. ‘I believe that Lisbon’s art scene is booming but it has been for a long time. The difference is that now, for different reasons, we have the spotlight on us and finally people are starting to get to know Portugal better,’ says gallerist Vera Cortês.

In the city centre, the edgy, one-year-old Madragoa founded by Matteo Consonni, the former director of Galleria Franco Noero in Turin, is currently hosting Plasma, a solo show by Mexican artist Rodrigo Hernández, one of the city’s new residents. After lodging for two years in a temporary space in New York City, Monitor Gallery has found a new address in the heart of Lisbon’s historical quarter of Rato, and greeted the neighbourhood with British artist Graham Hudson’s solo show, ‘Major Trauma’.

image: https://cdn.wallpaper.com/main/arco-lisboa-14.jpg?GGm60KQTg_CL9VQsTcqKf7YWFYcCBOy9

Installation view of ‘Morphogensis’ at Galeria Francisco Fino

Galeria Francisco Fino joined key players Galeria Filomena Soares, Galeria Baginski and Galeria Múrias Centeno in Marvila, an entrenched gallery district in the city. The gallery, housed in a former warehouse, presented its inaugural exhibition ‘Morphogenesis’, curated by the young João Laia, which included works by established artists such as Tris Vonna-Michell and Maria Loboda, together with emerging names like Debora Delmar and Karlos Gil.

‘Portuguese art and artists are getting more attention and that's translating into a strong collective energy,’ Miguel Mesquita, artistic director of Galeria Baginski, says. ‘I think that the situation at the gallery is essentially the result of an improvement from the former state of the economic crisis in Portugal. Nevertheless the new wave of tourism and immigration has had an impact in the affluence of visitors to the gallery, and naturally that has a parallel in sales.’

Read more at https://www.wallpaper.com/art/lisbon-rising-a-global-art-hub-emerges-from-crisis#oIIK0hIxhiHAolzd.99

Photographic portraits are explored in exhibition

James Van Der Zee, Couple, 1924. Gelatin silver print. Sheet: 25.2 x 20.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert B. Menschel Fund.

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Thursday, September 28, 2017


Photographic portraits are explored in exhibition at the National Gallery of Art


Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Lorina and Alice Liddell in Chinese Dress, 1860, albumen print. Image: 14.4 16.7 cm (5 11/16 6 9/16 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund, The Ahmanson Foundation, and New Century Fund. 14

WASHINGTON, DC.- Posing for the Camera: Gifts from Robert B. Menschel explores posing in photography and examines how photographers have both drawn on artistic conventions and exploited the collaborative nature of the medium to create probing portraits of their subjects. A selection of some 70 photographs, either acquired with funds from Robert B. Menschel or pledged as gifts from his personal collection, examines the many forms portraits have taken throughout the history of the medium: as means to define one's understanding of another person or one's own identity, a device to elucidate cultural issues, documents of historical moments, and resources for educational and scientific purposes. It also illustrates the ways in which photographers have used a figure's unconscious pose to create striking depictions of contemporary life. On view in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from September 17, 2017, through January 28, 2018, Posing for the Camera features pictures from the early 1840s through the 1990s by photographers such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, James Van Der Zee, Brassaï, Roy DeCarava, Robert Frank, and Cindy Sherman, as well as scientists, commercial practitioners, and amateurs. Many of the works are on view for the first time, including examples by Lewis Carroll, Edward Weston, and Man Ray. Carrie Mae Weems' Kitchen Table Series (1990)—a recent acquisition made possible by Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund, and the Collectors Committee—is also on view in the East Building throughout the run of the exhibition.

Art market soars as street art sales rocket

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Thursday, September 28, 2017


Art market soars as street art sales rocket


"Vibrant, non-elitist and attractive to the mass media, street art is seducing an increasing number of collectors," Artprice said in its annual report. by Antoine Froidefond / Fiachra Gibbons 6

PARIS (AFP).- The art market is booming fuelled by rocketing prices for contemporary art with work by street artists like Banksy among the fast sellers, according to a new report Wednesday. Four of the top 10 most sold artists at auction houses across the world over the last year were street artists -- Americans Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Kaws and British-born Banksy. PUBLICIDADE Last year only Haring -- who died in 1990 -- made the list. "Vibrant, non-elitist and attractive to the mass media, street art is seducing an increasing number of collectors," Artprice said in its annual report. "Whether on bits of fencing or traditional canvases, works are changing hands just as much on the social networks as in galleries and auction rooms," it said. Haring's work notched up sales of near $34 million (29 million euros) over the last 12 months with works by Banksy and Kaws changing hands for around $6 million. Fairey, best known for his "Obey" and Barack Obama "Hope" murals, watched his work sell for nearly $1 million. 'Art in tune with times' Artprice said that the "strong demand concerns a whole new generation of artists" which suggests "a clear trend among collectors and positions street art as one of the most dynamic sub-segments of today's contemporary art market". It said the Brazilian graffiti artists Osgemeos (brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo) "are growing in stature" setting a new record of $310,000 in New York while New Jersey-born Kaws is increasingly generating six-digit results. "The commercial successes reward an art in tune with its time, whose pioneers, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, were graffiti artists in the New York subway before being acquired by major art collections," the report added. Indeed Basquiat set a new world record for contemporary art in May when Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa paid $110.5 million for one of his skull canvases, "Untitled". The sale put Basquiat, who died of a drug overdose aged 27, into the tiny club of artists whose works have sold at auction for more than $100 million after Modigliani, Bacon, Giacometti, Munch and Warhol. He is also the "biggest" contemporary artist on the art market, with his work fetching $313.5 million at auction last year, Artprice said. Banksy on the skids But not all street artists are on an upward curve. Prices for Banksy murals have halved since "Banksymania" in 2008 when some of his work was going for seven-figure sums. He still remains the fourth most sold contemporary artist in the world, however, just ahead of fellow Brit Damien Hirst. The report said Banksy was a "victim of his own success", but that he still "sells large quantities of prints (usually for a few hundred dollars), a tactic that ensures his popularity." Overall, Artprice said contemporary art had become the "locomotive" for a surging art market, which is booming again after two years in the doldrums and a dramatic 10 percent drop in 2016. Sales rose 14 percent in the first half of 2017 alone. "Contemporary art regularly enjoys periods of intense collector enthusiasm followed by periods of hesitation," the report noted. "Over recent months however, the segment has proved that it is now the primary driver of the entire art market." Artists such as Picasso, Klimt and Egon Schiele "remain the heavyweights of the market", according to Artprice. However, its founder Thierry Ehrmann told AFP that "contemporary art is the most exciting sector of the market... because of its immense financial potential." And Chinese artists were becoming more and more important. While the British artist Peter Doig and the American Christopher Wool make up the top three after Basquiat in terms of prices, 162 of the top 500 highest prices were paid for work by contemporary Chinese artists, compared to 139 Europeans and 97 Americans. © Agence France-Presse

Woman Tries to Rob Four Banks in 40 Minutes

SPEEDY

Armed Woman Tries to Rob Four Manhattan Banks in 40 Minutes

Police are looking for a mystery bandit who struck across New York.

DANIELLE TCHOLAKIAN

09.26.17 1:44 PM ET

A woman tried to rob four Manhattan banks in 40 minutes, according to the NYPD, and made off with some cash a little before noon on Tuesday.

The woman hit the first bank, a Bank of America at 127 8th Ave., at 11:17 a.m. and passed a note demanding cash but didn’t get any, a police spokesman said.

SPEEDY

Armed Woman Tries to Rob Four Manhattan Banks in 40 Minutes

Police are looking for a mystery bandit who struck across New York.

DANIELLE TCHOLAKIAN

09.26.17 1:44 PM ET

A woman tried to rob four Manhattan banks in 40 minutes, according to the NYPD, and made off with some cash a little before noon on Tuesday.

The woman hit the first bank, a Bank of America at 127 8th Ave., at 11:17 a.m. and passed a note demanding cash but didn’t get any, a police spokesman said.

Three minutes later, at 11:20 a.m., she hit a Capital One at 144 8th Ave., where she was seen with a note but didn't pass it to a teller. Seven minutes later, at 11:27 a.m., she passed a note to a teller at an Apple Bank at 250 West 23 St., but didn't get any cash.

Mohamed Ali, the assistant manager at Apple Bank, said the teller called him to the booth, but the woman calmly left the bank without any cash when she saw him walking over. He said it seemed like she knew what she was doing since unexperienced robbers tend to make a scene if they don't get what they want. Ali said the woman wore a red wig under a black hat.

She finally made off with an as-yet undetermined amount of cash at 11:57 a.m. after hitting a Chase Bank at 71 West 23rd St. Police said she left the note at that bank.

The woman is still at large. Police describe her as 5-foot-6 and 125 pounds and said she was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt with the word "London" on it and a black "NY" cap. She claimed to have a gun but didn't show it, police said.

— Additional reporting by Emilie Plesset

VANTAG galeria

Thursday, September 28, 2017