Thomas Campbell ascends to Met Director

Following last week’s news regarding several New York art institutions and their personnel shakeups, the NYTimes reports, both factually and critically, that “Thomas P. Campbell, 46-year-old English-born tapestries curator, [is] to succeed Philippe de Montebello as director and chief executive”of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
No one should be stunned or surprised that the Met’s selection […]

New Directors for everybody!

The NYTimes reports that The Museum of Modern Art has finally found a successor to John Elderfield, chief curator of sculpture and painting:
[Ann] Temkin assumes the curatorial post, considered the most prestigious in the field of Modern art, as MoMA gears up for its second growth spurt in less than a decade[…]
In addition to the […]

The 16th Annual New York City Outsider Art Fair

It’s Outsider Art Fair time again, and the Puck Building will be swarming with buyers, tourists, and other curious folk today through Sunday, January 27. This year there are 34 galleries exhibiting work by artists who are on the fringes of society and have no formal artistic training.
Having attended twice before, I recommend this fair […]

Damien Hirst at Lever House

Opening this weekend in the Lever House (Park Avenue and 54th Street) lobby is Damien Hirst’s latest, and quite ambitious, piece titled School: The Archaeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity, and the Search for Knowledge. The $10 million installation was purchased by the owner of Lever House, Aby Rosen, (who also owns the Seagram Building […]

ACAF NY: Asian Contemporary Art Fair

Surprisingly under the radar, New York’s first art fair dedicated entirely to Asian contemporary art opened quietly yesterday with the invite-only cocktail and performance by Sin Cha Hong and the band, Second Hand Rose. An event of this magnitude should have had a more intense marketing blitz, and I’m still scratching my head over why […]

Prankster Banksy’s Work Breaks Records At Auction

Eleven originals created by the cheeky, sneaky graffiti artist Banksy sold for over £540,000 at Bonham’s auction house in London last Wednesday. The Bristol-born artist, who has managed to keep his identity a secret despite worldwide notoriety, is a divisive figure in the art world, at once infuriating the establishment with his bold stunts and […]

Hirst’s skull goes for $100 million in dubious sale

Since Bloomberg first reported the news that Damien Hirst’s diamond-studded, platinum skull piece, For the Love of God, had sold for the asking price of £50 million, there has been a flurry of scepticism surrounding the purchase.
The ‘consortium of businessmen,’ or, “unnamed investor group,” includes Hirst, and why that raised eyebrows was dissected by […]

McMusee: The Louvre to franchise a Gulf succursal (update)

The BBC reports that a deal inked between the French state and Abu Dhabi (UAE) will allow the Gulf state to build and license its own Louvre, at the rate of “400 million euros ($524m; £272m) just for the Louvre name,” and “will pay hundreds of millions of euros over 30 years for the privilege […]