Art Investors Burnt Amateur investors.. or speculators.. or people with a little extra cash to invest in something different are burning their fingers on art. Companies buying art for clients and renting the works out to institutions, and promising the investor amazing returns each year should be treated with caution.
I'm a believer in buying art that you love.. and would be happy to look at everyday. Art is for appreciating.. while real estate and stocks are for investing. If art increases in value while you own it, great! But if it doesn't increase, your reward should be living with a work of art that you enjoy.
Scams snare unwary investors in art
"Savers are being lured into investments such as wine and art as an alternative to the lacklustre stock market, but the potential returns may be exaggerated, the costs can be high and scams are rife."
times online uk
  ¶ 4:05 PM 0 comments

  Sick and Pointless? Two goldfish in a bowl with a menacing looking knife sitting in it has come under attack by animal rights groups.
The gallery director described the work as..
"a brilliant and thought-provoking display which has been praised by critics and visitors alike."
While animal rights groups described it as..
"a sick and pointless spectacle"
and..
"It 's pathetic. It shows a complete poverty of imagination and a vast amount of callousness. It 's not art."
read more at cherwell online
Greek born Italian artist Jannis Kounellis is exhibiting at Modern Art Oxford.

  ¶ 5:32 AM 2 comments

  Artist Offended An interesting post over at The Art Life blog, where an artist gets nasty over a little criticism. Sure I have been offended, possibly even hurt by criticism before but it was unconstructive and hurtful criticism, certainly nothing as mild as this. And I can't remember attacking the critic like this..
"Unlike you, coward, I shall stab you in the front. Keep on hiding behind your nowheresville little blog, right where you belong, you insignificant shit eating maggot. Never insult my family name again"
Who would want to be a critic?!
I remember an art teacher told me that if I can't handle my work being torn apart and criticized than I am in the wrong game. Or I'm sure it's also possible to avoid criticism by keeping your work in the studio, or doing predictably boring work.
  ¶ 4:05 AM 6 comments

  Saatchi's Triumph of Painting Contemporary British art collector and gallery owner Charles Saatchi has cleared out his dead sharks, cow heads in glass, dirty beds, and anything of a conceptual nature, to replace them with good old fashioned paintings on canvas, hanging on walls, and sometimes with frames on them.
Painting lives at the new Saatchi Gallery!
For Saatchi, painting is the new taxidermy
"in carefully chosen statements over the past few months he has said that painting's time has come again - on the Continent they appear to have discovered that several years ago - and that he has come to the conclusion the days of Turner Prize art are numbered.
"Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting," he unexpectedly thundered to The Art Newspaper recently."
telegraph uk
  ¶ 7:36 PM 2 comments

  New Artist Profile - Belinda Eaton A new artist has been profiled at artquotes.net. Figurative UK painter Belinda Eaton, currently living in Spain works mostly with the figure, arranged decoratively with quirky objects (fish, prawns, fruit, etc).
Check out her artist interview or paintings online.
Picasso Sells Online - Also, (thanks to Sash from Arte Six) news online that an original Picasso scribble has sold at the online retailer Costco.com for $39,999. Costco sells an eclectic range of goods online and have now added high priced original Picasso works to the range. Admittedly it's only a small crayon work on paper, but its original and it's signed by the great one, so it's going to sell. msnbc news
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  Under or Over Rated Artists? Interesting article in the current edition of the ArtNews magazine discusses underrated and overrated artists. Artists and art industry experts were asked to comment on the topic, with replies like this one from the artist Shirin Neshat..
"Part of the confusion about overrating is that we tend to think of people who are overly present as overrated. In fact, they may be really good artists, but we’ve just seen too much of them and somehow become neutral about the value of their work. Artists get overexposed. There was a moment when I felt I was too much everywhere."
read the rest here..
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  The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living Damien Hirst's shark is migrating to the United States from it current UK homeland. The dead shark floating in formaldehyde is an iconic work that symbolizes the Britart movement and won Hirst a Turner prize nomination in 1992.
British art collector and advertising whiz Charles Saatchi has sold the work for more than 6.2 million pounds to an American collector that will donate it to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
thisislondon
  ¶ 6:46 PM 3 comments

  Leonardo and Mona Lisa Leonardo Studio Found - (News submitted by Regina)
Experts believe they have discovered the a studio of the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci in the monastery of Santissima Annunziata in the centre of Florence. It's believed to be the studio where Leonardo met Mona Lisa, but nothing seems to be verified or proven at the moment. "We need to do more research, but these frescoes are very encouraging" said one of the researchers.
times online

The objective of art is to give life a shape and though artists cannot change the world they can, through their work, give flight to imagination, they can give you the direction." Salima Hashmi
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  4 Year old Marla Olmstead The so called "Child Prodigy" Marla Olmstead is in the news again, gaining more international exposure than most veteran artists. Her work is now selling for up to $15,000 each.
"She builds her paintings in layers. Children don't do that. She starts with big swatches of colors and then adds details and accents on to that. That's what is so impressive and beyond what other children do" says gallery owner Anthony Brunelli.
Good for her if she's having fun painting..
cbc - canada
  ¶ 7:50 PM 51 comments

  Fernando's Fat Women Colombian artist Fernando Botero is holding one of his largest exhibitions ever in Singapore with more than 70 paintings and drawings and 36 sculptures on display. Singapore is aiming to be a hub for international art exhibitions and the government is spending $120USD over the next 5 years to promote the region as a "global arts city".
Artist Botero's fat ladies make huge impression in Singapore
"Ten of the 22 monumental sculptures are for sale, costing between 700,000 and 850,000 US dollars each, and media reports said local buyers are interested in buying two of them."
yahoo news
  ¶ 1:23 PM 2 comments

  Art Thief gets Prison The French waiter that had a love for art and expressed it by stealing as much as he could has been given a three year sentence to think about his actions. Stephane Breitwieser stole more than 240 works of art from 1999 to 2001 in France, Austria and Denmark.
He will now serve 3 years in prison.. the same amount of time his 52 year old mother was sentenced to (although 18 months of her sentence is suspended). She destroyed several works by throwing them into a canal when she heard her son was in trouble.
When will we learn that crime just doesn't pay..
reuters
  ¶ 6:26 PM 2 comments

  Klimt Movie Another film based on the life of an artist being made. A Gustav Klimt film is being made with John Malkovich playing the role of Gustav Klimt.
To be honest, I have never really found much inspiration in movies about artists. Frida was just ok, Pollock was pretty good, but Basquiat has been the only artist film I have watched more than once. The Basquiat movie has a great soundtrack to paint with too...
Basquiat Soundtrack
1. Van Gogh Boat - (dialogue)
2. Public Image - Public Image Ltd.
3. It's All Over Now Baby Blue - Them - (featuring Van Morrison)
4. Suicide Hotline (Dialogue And Music Montage) - Nick Marion Taylor
5. I'm Not In Love - Toadies
6. Is That All There Is? - PJ Harvey
7. White Lines - Grandmaster Flash/Melle Mel
8. Rise - Tripping Daisy
9. These Days - Joy Division
10. She Is Dancing - Brian Kelly
11. Tom Traubert's Blues - Tom Waits
12. Small Plot Of Land, A - David Bowie
13. Summer In Siam - The Pogues
14. Last Song I'll Ever Sing, The - Gavin Friday
15. Hallelujah - John Cale

There's also an interesting story on stolen art over at the CricketChurping blog.
  ¶ 6:25 AM 3 comments

  I see, I love, I buy Wealthy art collectors in the United Kingdom that once only bought old masters are now happily opening up their mind and wallet to new art.
How the rich fell in love with new art
"The wealthy once bought Old Masters and antiques to adorn their homes, but now they are more likely to invest in a Damien Hirst than a Regency commode."
telegraph
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  Istanbul Modern Art Museum Turkey has it's first museum of modern art located in Istanbul. It has been put together with the help of several wealthy art collectors, philanthropists, and a lesser contribution from the Turkish government.
The project's main contributor and driving force has been Turkey's 6th wealthiest man and collector of contemporary Turkish art Bulent Eczacibasi.
In Istanbul, Creating a Space for Modern Art
"With a collection of abstract paintings, portraits, sculptures and photographs from private and state collections, the new museum, Istanbul Modern, aims to foster innovative exchanges between Turkish and Western art."
new york times (requires free subscription)
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  More Pain = Better Art French conceptial artist Amelia Gentleman believes that her best art comes from her lowest times. Particularly bad relationship break-ups have inspired her to create some of her best work.
"I had a project that I wanted to do when I split up with the last man that I was with, but the pain went before I had time to put together the idea. In a way it was very frustrating - there just wasn't enough pain and I couldn't continue to do the work once it was gone."
guardian
She wouldn't be alone in finding inspiration from misery. Think of Vincent, Egon Schiele, Munch, and a thousand other great artists from art history.
  ¶ 1:18 PM 0 comments