Leonora Carrington Last Surrealist Dies At 94 - ArtLyst

Leonora Carrington Last Surrealist Dies At 94

Leonora Carrington was born in Clayton Green, Lancashire, UK, on 6 April 1917. She studied at The Chelsea School of Art and was the lover of Max Ernst a leading exponent of Surrealism. She emigrated to Mexico during the second World War, dividing her time between Mexico City, New York and Chicago, but her last longtime home and inspiration was Mexico. It was once famously dubbed a "surrealist country" by writer, poet and founder of the Surrealist Movement, Andre Breton who cherished it for its colorful and sometimes grotesque costumes, masks, rituals and dances.
Read More:  Leonora Carrington Last Surrealist Dies At 94

Princess Bea Hat Reaches $102,000 On Ebay - ArtLyst

Princess Bea Hat Reaches $102,000 On Ebay - ArtLyst

Looted Nazi Art Records Published Online - ArtLyst

Looted Nazi Art Records Published Online - ArtLyst

Sex Lies and Pablo Picasso - ArtLyst

Picasso was a Love-Rat

This painting is about to be put under the hammer for £12m at Christie's. Read the full Story about Pablo Picasso's Wife Olga Khokhlova, his mistress Marie-Therese Walter and the woman he cheated with Dora Maar
Sex Lies and Pablo Picasso - ArtLyst

Syd Barrett Painting Stolen First Photo - ArtLyst

Syd Barrett Painting Stolen First Photo - ArtLyst

John McCracken American Artist Dies - ArtLyst

John McCracken American Artist Dies - ArtLyst

Syd Barrett Painting Stolen From London Gallery - ArtLyst

Syd Barrett Painting Stolen From London Gallery - ArtLyst

Artist Ai Weiwei Arrested and Missing In China - ArtLyst

 Ai Weiwei the dissident Chinese artist and pro-democracy activist has been taken by the authorities and is presumed to have been detained in a secret location.  He is due to come to London for his first solo show at the Lisson Gallery.Which runs from 13 May to 16 July. He will present his show of sculptural and video works at the same gallery as Anish Kapoor,Tony Cragg and Ryan Gander. This will be a chance to view a number of key works by the artist, one of the most significant cultural figures of his generation, both in China and internationally. He is also expected in New York in the first week of May to unveil the new project with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, and to receive an award from the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. All of the other dissidents  have now been released but Weiwei has continued to be detained by the Chinese authorities with no explanation, his whereabouts unknown.
Read Full Story Artist Ai Weiwei Arrested and Missing In China - ArtLyst

Arts Council Funding Cuts Announced Today

It is going to be a very difficult 24 hours for the arts as a body of industries. The wait will be over and Arts Council England will decide who's in and who's out in relation to funding. The list goes public and live at 10 am tomorrow at a press conference. This will hopefully create a clearer picture of how and where the cuts will be made. Speculation has been rife for months and now we will see who will be dead man walking.
There are 1,333 arts organisations that have entered the application process as part of the new National Portfolio. 850 are funded and an estimated 750 will have their projects realised. They will receive funding over the next three years. New organisations applying for arts council grants for the first time will stand alongside well known institutions. A clearer picture of the 15% cuts to frontline arts organisations. will become apparent and It will also allow the first real insight into the Arts Council's collective state of mind under the leadership of Dame Liz Forgan, the newish chair.
Read Full Story -Arts Council Funding Cuts Announced Today

Black Bloc Invade London 26 March 2011

This is the entry point of Anarchist Group Black Bloc to Trafalgar Square 26 March 2011. They are on their way up Charing Cross Rd. to Cambridge Circus. Note: the police don't seem to be following the splinter group. The rest is history.

At around midday a group of around 100 anarchists part of the organisation known as Black bloc, headed through Trafalgar square to the cheers of many, as they made their way up Charing Cross Rd towards Cambridge Circus.
  Watch Video   Black Bloc Attack London 26 March 2011 - ArtLyst

Ai Weiwei Sculpture for Somerset House This Spring

A large scale public sculpture by China's most controversial artists, Ai Weiwei's is to go on display in the courtyard of London's Somerset House. He is best know in London for his massive Tate/ Unilever commission in the Turbine Hall last autumn. Weiwei filled the vast space with over 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds. Read More...

Gaddafi's Son Saif's Eleven Million Pound Squat - ArtLyst

ArtLyst Visits the Gaddafi Mansion photo © 2011

This is a work of art

I visited the palatial Neo-Georgian red brick mansion belonging to Colonel 's son Saif in Hampstead Garden Suburb today. A group of squatters have taken over house but it seemed to be in a state of lock down and no one answered the door.     Read More

Kay Saatchi Collection Goes Under The Hammer - ArtLyst

Kay Saatchi Collection Goes Under The Hammer - ArtLyst

China Overtakes Britain as the World's Second largest Art Market - ArtLyst

China has overtaken Britain as the world's second largest art and antiques market .The dragon economy over took the UK last year as mainland buyers proved they were important players on the world art market stage. British art professionals have voiced concern about the planned EU levy on art, known as the Droit de Suite which comes into effect in 2012 The levy is aimed at the sale of works by living artists and was introduced in the United Kingdom in 2006 via an EU directive.  Read More...

AP Sues Urban Outfitters Over Shepard Fairey Obama Image

OOPS SORRY  Photo:  By Mannie Garcia © 2006 AP ,Iconic image by Shepard Fairey, Collage by Sue Me!

Associated Press has now decided to pour salt on the wounds of the recently settled Shepard Fairey case by suing retailers Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom and Zumiez, seeking unspecified damages. They have pinpointed the revenue generators who monetised  the image on T shirts and accessories and now want blood. They won the case through excessive litigative bulling pumping millions into the case. In 2009 Fairey sued AP,seeking a declaration that he had not violated their copyright with his image. AP counter-sued, stating that he had done so through his uncredited and uncompensated use of its picture. The lawyers representing AP stated that the  photo was used without permission, to create Fairey's image, violating copyright. AP successfully argued in court that using the image was a wilful and blatant violation of the copyright of the photo. Read Full Article...

Koons' Pink Panther Goes Under The Hammer $20 -$30 M Estimate

 The German publisher and art collector Benedikt Taschen, known for his glossy art books including a delightful publication of Koons fornicating with his ex porn star wife, La Cicciolina, is selling his 1988 porcelain sculpture of a tacky  blonde woman holding a large pink panther cuddly toy. It is going under the hammer, this May at Sotheby's spring Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York. The polychrome porcelain sculpture has a pre-sale estimate of 20 -30 million dollars.  Read More....

Mr Brainwash Run DMC Lawsuit

This must be the season for artists lawsuits. First it was Shepard Fairey settling the case concerning the iconic disputed photo of Obama. Than Jeff Koons sued Canadian company Imm-Living for allegedly copying his metallic balloon dog sculptures and marketing them as $30 resin bookends. The suit implied that Koons owned the intellectual rights to balloon dogs so to stop further embarrassment, he conceded. The latest in line for a court battle is Thierry Guetta, a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash who is being taken to court by the photographer Glen Friedman, creator of one of the best known photos of rap group, Run DMC. It has been implied that Guetta ripped off the image using it for limited edition prints and promotional material for his 2008 break-out exhibition.  Read More..,.,.

Frieze Art Fair Appoints Carmody Groarke 2011 Architects - ArtLyst

Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover,the directors of the Frieze Art Fair have announced the appointment of the London-based architectural studio Carmody Groarke as the new architects for the Deutsche Bank sponsored, Frieze Art Fair 2011. The firm designed the Surreal House Exhibition at the Barbican one of the most successful events last year. It was A series of archetypal "house" forms are clustered together in the Barbican Art Gallery to create a bespoke backdrop for presentation of surrealist art, sculpture, film and architecture. The labyrinth of rooms created by the installation draws on familiar as well as abstract associations of domestic space, and challenges the visitor's preconceived expectations of the existing gallery. Frieze Art Fair Appoints Carmody Groarke 2011 Architects - ArtLyst

Tino Sehgal Gets Tate Turbine Hall Commission For 2012

Tino Sehgal commissioned for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall for the 2012 Olympic period.
17 July to 28 October 2012
Tate has announced that Tino Sehgal will undertake the annual commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2012. To be unveiled on 17 July that year, Sehgal’s new work will be the thirteenth to be commissioned in The Unilever Series.
 Tino Sehgal 2012 will be part of the London 2012 Festival, the finale of the Cultural Olympiad. Sehgal has risen to prominence for his innovative works which consist purely of live encounters between people. Avoiding the production of any objects, he has pioneered a radical and yet entirely viewer-oriented approach to making art. His works respond to and engage with the gallery visitor directly, creating social situations through the use of conversation, dance, sound and movement, as well as philosophical and economic debate. Having trained in both political economics and choreography, the resulting works are renowned for their high levels of interaction, intimacy, and critical reflection on their environment.Read More....

Overhyped Picasso Painting Hung At Tate Modern - ArtLyst

Overhyped Picasso Painting Hung At Tate Modern - ArtLyst

Review- Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970’s - ArtLyst

Review- Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970’s - ArtLyst

Pinner Vase Sale a £51m Stiff ?

Intrigue and sabotage blamed for the sales collapse.

The internationally reported sale of an 18th century Qianlong-dynasty Chinese vase from a small suburban London auction house last November has fallen through. Bainbridge's of Ruislip scored the record, for the highest price realized for a piece of Chinese art, sold in the UK. The fact of the matter is the buyer has never payed for it and it looks like the sale was either shambolic or a severe case of buyers remorse.    Read More....

Artist Suze Rotolo Dies in New York - ArtLyst

Artist Suze Rotolo Dies in New York - ArtLyst

Damien Hirst Survey Tate Modern 2012

The Tate feel that this is the best Artist to represent Britain during its most high profile world event in the last 100 years.

 Tate Modern have announced the first substantial survey of the work of Damien Hirst which will run from 5 April - 9 September 2012. This is hardly a retrospective, given Hirst's age. It will instead cover in-depth two decades of the artist's output. The exhibition will highlight works including many of his most iconic pieces such as, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991 (the shark) and his Spot and Spin paintings. The exhibition is sponsored by the Qatar Museums Authority and takes place during the period of the Olympics.  Read Full Article....

Tate Exhibition Programme 2012 Include Picasso, Hirst and Munch

The Tate has  announced an ambitious exhibition programme for 2012, just in time for the Olympics. First off Tino Sehgal is to create the Turbine Hall commission for the  London 2012 Festival. Other major exhibitions will stretch across all four Tate galleries and will feature some of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Outstanding contemporary artists including Picasso, Munch, Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama, Cy Twombly and Alex Katz, alongside a range of pioneering historic exhibitions including the Pre-Raphaelites.  Read More....

March Latest London Art Reviews - ArtLyst

March Latest London Art Reviews - ArtLyst

John Galliano You're Fired - ArtLyst

John Galliano You're Fired - ArtLyst

Susan Philipsz New Chicago Installation - ArtLyst

Susan Philipsz New Chicago Installation - ArtLyst

John Galliano Racist Attack Video - ArtLyst

John Galliano Racist Attack Video - ArtLyst

Watch the full video here 

Banksy Fails To Scoop Best Documentary Film Oscar - ArtLyst

Banksy Fails To Scoop Best Documentary Film Oscar - ArtLyst

British Council Appoints New Director

Graham Sheffield has been appointed the new director of The British Council  he succeeds Rebecca Walton who was acting as interim Director of Arts in the UK’s largest international cultural relations organization.Sheffield’s extensive arts management and creative experience will ensure that the arts remain at the heart of the British Council’s mission to strengthen ties between the UK and people in over 100 countries." Sheffield has been involved in several high profile jobs in the UK and internationally. His role as CEO of the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong was considered important enough for promotion to this key position. He has also worked as Artistic Director of the Barbican Centre and Chair of the City of London Arts and Culture Forum. Read Full Article...

Picasso Denounced Computers In 1968

In 1968, when Pablo Picasso stated that, "Computers are useless.They can only give you answers", he would not have been exposed to the modern computer as we know it. If Picasso had seen a computer at the time, it would have been a big, cumbersome mainframe, utilizing punch cards like the ones used by banks and insurance companies, for database management, calculating invoices, bills, and insurance premiums. In 1968 Intel was founded and it was inconceivable to realize the implications of this development on the future of home computing and its application to art.  Read Full Article....

Google Street Art View Showcases Graffiti - ArtLyst

Google Street Art View Showcases Graffiti - ArtLyst

General Idea’s A A Bronson Receives French knighthood

AA Bronson Conceptual Artist and last surviving member of the collective General Idea has been awarded the highest honour in France for his contribution to visual art. On the eve of the opening of the first-ever retrospective of GI’s work in Europe, Bronson is named a chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des arts et lettres by France. The honour is an Order of France, established in 1957 by the Minister of Culture in France and confirmed as part of L’ordre National du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963.
Read Full Article...

Christian Marclay The Clock Turner Prize Contender?

Christian Marclay walks a fine line between being entertaining and mundane. His work The Clock which has been a surprise  international success closes it’s New York stint at the Paula Cooper Gallery this weekend. 'The Clock' which had its London debut at White Cube in Mason’s Yard in October and November is constructed out of moments in cinema when time is expressed or when a character interacts with a clock, watch or just a particular time of day. Marclay has excerpted thousands of these fragments and edited them so that they flow in real time. While 'The Clock' examines how time, plot and duration are depicted in cinema, the video is also a working timepiece that is synchronized to the local time zone.
Read More....

Was The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize Rigged?

Was The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize rigged? The 2010 prize is supposed to present the very best in contemporary portrait photography, showcasing the work of talented young photographers and gifted amateurs alongside that of established professionals and photography students. Through editorial, advertising and fine art images, the entrants have explored a range of themes, styles and approaches to the contemporary photographic portrait, from formal commissioned portraits to more spontaneous and intimate moments capturing friends and family.This year the competition attracted nearly 6,000 submissions from over 2,400 photographers from around the world. Read More...

Sotheby's Post War and Contemporary Art Sale Protest

While the Sotheby's Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale realized  totals of £44.4 million another very different auction was taking place outside on the street in London. The Arts Against Cuts group were auctioning off public services like the libraries for £.99 or a pound could purchase the NHS. When confronted by the police the auctioneer stated; "and what do you think about the cuts to the police services?" The officers declined to comment.  Read More...

Photo: Lord Jim © 2011

Banksy Meets Jamie Oliver

British guerilla artist Banksy has created a new work on a wall in Westwood California in preparation for his Oscar nominated documentary, "Exit Through the Gift Shop". The ballots are due Tuesday and it is looking good for the artist, who is busy lobbying for votes by keeping a high profile. The work has been dubbed "The Crayola Shooter," Read More....

Nazi Art Claimant Maria Altmann Dies

Maria Altmann who in 2006 successfully reclaimed five paintings by Gustav Klimt, from Austrian museums that were seized by the Nazis in 1938, has died age 94. The case was one in a string of high profile disputed ownership cases that has rocked the art world in the last decade. The successful outcome resulted in a sale at Christie’s realizing 180 million pounds. ( 330.7  million dollars).
The Klimts, three landscapes and a portrait, were part of a group of five reunited  with Maria Altmann by the Austrian government. The Nazis plundered the paintings along with other arts treasures owned by this prominent Jewish family,who were friends and patrons of the Vienna Secession elite.   Read Full Story

Eduardo Paolozzi Murals At Risk By Developers

Several of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi's mosaic murals designed for the Tottenham Court Road Tube Station, in the 1980s are to be removed, to make way for new passages and reinforced tunnels, as part of the expanded tube station, connecting to the new Cross Rail project. The unlisted works of art include, panels of tessellated mosaics inspired by Tottenham Court Road's electronics shops and the once vibrant music industry. The 1000 square metre commission is a distinct and internationally recognized feature of the station. The mosaic's frenetic designs are much loved by art critics and the public. In a statement from TFL, "London Underground highly values the Paolozzi mosaics within Tottenham Court Road Underground station, and alongside the Tube’s ‘Art on the Underground’ programme, we have been working closely with the Paolozzi Foundation as the Tottenham Court Road upgrade progresses. We are taking great care to protect and preserve these wonderful mosaics as we upgrade Tottenham Court Road station". Test areas have been investigated and a feasibility study undertaken removing sections of tiles. In all cases the damage was negligible. Read Full Report

Julian Assange The New Che Guevara Wikiart

Julian Assange has become one of the hottest subjects for street art since Che Guevara. Hundreds of images of the web-entrepreneur have appeared in places as diverse as New York, London, Lisbon, Rio de Janerio and Tel Aviv. Although most of the Artists are anonymous It is thought that Shepard Fairey is responsible for a work in the style of the Obama ‘change’ poster. The term Wikiart has been coined to discribe the phenomenon.          Read Full Article

Jeff Koons Settles Balloon-Gate Lawsuit

Jeff Koons’s attorneys LLC, have called off their irrational lawsuit with the Park Life Gallery in San Francisco and the Canadian company IMM over the production and sale of multi-coloured resin balloon dogs. In an attempt to copyright the balloon dog image, as his intellectual property, the plaintiff has relented that the case is untenable. Koons, whose oversized metal balloon dog sculptures sell for millions was suing a gallery and manufacturer for copyright infringement, ordering production and sales to cease.  Read Full Article

Kinetica Art Fair 2011

 

The Kinetica Art Fair opened in London tonight with a fantastic display of automatons, moving sculpture and light /sound installations. The fair is produced by the Kinetica Museum and is the first of its kind in the UK. It brings together international galleries, art organisations and curatorial groups  who focus on universal concepts and evolutionary processes though the convergence of movement art and technology.
The fair which runs throughout the weekend,provides a platform for museums, collectors, curators and the public to view and buy artworks in this thriving cutting edge field. Alongside the fair there will be special events, screenings, tours, talks, workshops and performances.
For 2011 a Kinetica feature exhibition and events programme will explore the evolution of the human body, brain, mind and consciousness.
The Kinetica Art Fair 2011 is the UK's only art fair dedicated to kinetic, robotic, sound, light and time-based art featuring new and ground breaking work, will take place from 3 - 6 February 2011 at the Ambika P3 space in London. The feature exhibition focuses on the Evolution of Consciousness and will explore the progression of the human body, brain, mind and consciousness in reference to our place in the universe. Of special note, the works of Tim Lewis,Tanja Vujinovic,Arts Republic,Tom Wilkinson,Alex Posada,The Middllesex University and my favorite, Christiaan Zwanikken.Have a look at the high definition ghost corpse holograms and ectoplasm by Musion Academy. It's superbly executed and extremely authentic.This is the most fun,friendly and accessible art fair to be mounted annually.don't miss it!!!!  Visit The Fair See Details


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Google Art Project Takes Tate Britain and National Gallery Online

Google, The Internet colossus has now turned its technical innovation to Art. Their latest innovation is called, Art Project, a web portal devoted to putting the world’s great museums online. Collaborating with 17 international Museums and Galleries, including the Metropolitan and MoMA in New York, the Uffizi in Italy , the Hermitage in Russia, as well as London’s the National Gallery and Tate Britain,they have created a staggering archive, which will grow over the next few years. Art Project took 18 months to develop and offers 6,000 “street view” formatted, room panoramas. They are similar to the visuals used by Google street maps and incorperate1,061 high-resolution artworks.  Read Full Article

Cairo Museum Looted Latest

Looters broke into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo Friday night smashing vitrines,damaging statues and mummies.The robbery took place while police attempted to quell the violent protests which erupted on the streets last week and have carried on throughout the weekend. The museum is home to the world's largest collection of Ancient Egyptian treasures, including the priceless collection of King Tutankhamen.
 Read Full Article

Arts Donations From UK Business Falls By 11%

Businesses investment in UK arts fell last year by 11%. This was despite Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s DCMS directive to encourage corporate philanthropy. The initiative was launched last year to take the pressure off of the Government, which has made cuts to the arts of around 30%. The figures clearly highlight the universal tightening of belts taking place in some of the most prestigious British company boardrooms. The amount of funding raised for the cultural sector last year was £144m, down from £157m the year before. This revelation comes only two months after Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced plans for a "year of corporate giving" to help boost private funding. Read Full Article....

Christie's Sales Total Record-breaking £3.3 Billion

Contemporary art market bounces back In 2010

Christies has announced sales figures of £3.3 billion or $5.0 billion for 2010. This is up 53% and a record for the world’s leading art business. The 245-year-old company now holds the record for the highest total recorded in the industry. The contemporary art market bounced back last year, logging $961 million, compared to a relatively weak $387 million the previous year. Impressionist and modern art was Christie's leading category, totaling $1.2 billion, a rise of more than 50% over $786 million realised in 2009. Read Full Article......

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 Open Submissions

New Contemporaries gives people still at, or just after, art school the opportunity to show their work in the context of a professional art gallery. It is important in that it takes the work out of the educational context and into the real. The relationship between education and art is known, respected, but strangely not recognised enough. As an organisation New Contemporaries is, however, totally independent of the art school as it allows applicants a democratic chance for the work itself to shine through. Reputations that might otherwise become set within the art school system are able to break out.

The annual exhibition is selected from slide, film, video, CD, proposal, and then at a second stage from a shortlist of the work itself. New Contemporaries is one of only two open exhibitions in the country.

Online Application

Banksy Nominated for Oscar and Bafta

It’s official Banksy's film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, has been nominated for an Academy Award as well as a Bafta. The Bristol street artist’s first film has been nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category for the Oscars which will take place in Hollywood in February. The Academy is already considering what do in the likely event that the 'reclusive' artist fails to show up to collect the award should he win. The film was placed on the long-list, for an Oscar in the category of, Best Documentary Film and has now made it onto the final 5.
Read Full Story and Lists

Dennis Oppenheim Conceptual Art Pioneer Dies 72

Dennis Oppenheim the pioneering conceptual artist has died of complications from liver cancer, he was 72. Oppenheim was born in 1938 in Electric City, Washington and studied at the California College of the Arts and Stanford University, before moving to New York in 1966. He made a name for himself as one of the first land artists in the 1960s, and explored Body Art at the inception of the movement. Oppenheim’s work evolved into the first wave of Conceptual Art and was influential and embraced by a younger generation of artists. He was a contemporary of ground breaking artists including, Vito Acconci, Gordon Matta Clarke and Bruce Nauman. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.  Read Full Obituary...

Art 42 Basel Who’s In Who’s Out

June 15 – 19, 2011
 
Richard Green and Patrick Painter have pulled out of the worlds biggest Art Fair, Art 42 Basel .The fair is the most important international art show for Modern and contemporary art, held annually in Switzerland. It features nearly 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. More than 2,500 artists, ranging from the great masters of Modern art to the latest generation of emerging stars, are represented in the show's multiple sections. The exhibition includes the highest-quality paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, photographs, video and multiple works. Read Full List....

Has Jeff Koons Gone Bonkers?

Forever an egotistical megalomaniac, Koons is obsessed with himself. His inflated self-importance has overstretched all sensible boundaries, reaching the point of no return. He is now suing a small San Francisco gallery for design and copyright infringement. It all began about a month ago when Koon’s lawyers sent a ‘Cease and Desist’ letter to the Park Life Gallery in California. The dispute arose over a pair of cast resin bookends in the form of multi-coloured Balloon Dogs. The bookends are manufactured by Toronto-based imm Living, available in some 700 stores in the United States, retailing for $30. Does Koons think he owns the intellectual rights to Balloon Folding? Here is the complaint. Read Full Story ....

VIP Art Fair Is Virtually There

Review - First Major Online Art Fair Launches

The first online art fair featuring top international dealers, artists and prime location galleries, launched today with overloaded servers and the type of crashes only experienced when trying to buy Lady Gaga tickets online. “Please bear with us, as we work to remedy this situation”; was the frustrating message.

I persevered and managed to have a look at the ‘virtual fair’, cracking into some of the better-known galleries like Gagosian, White Cube and Pace but the slowness made me lose interest before browsing what I really wanted to see, the ‘Emerging’ and ‘Focus’ pages. I will return tomorrow ,as the fair continues for seven days.

The VIP Art Fair operates on a two-tier system. Participating galleries have sent invitations to their client lists, allowing them instant-messaging privileges. This also allows access to a wider variety of works not on show on the horizontally scrolling, virtual stands. The largest booths publicly display 20 works. The remaining 80 works on offer will be by request, opening up a dialogue between client and dealer. Valued clients may chat in private online viewing rooms. Visitors without invitations will be able to browse a limited inventory for free, but in order to view all areas the public must pay $100 for a pass, to see price ranges and interact with dealers, via instant messaging. Read Full Story...