Damien Hirst forgoes Big Gallery, Wins big

The NYTimes’ Carol Vogel has been able to squeeze three days worth of coverage (Day one, two & three) regarding the exclusive Sotheby’s London auction of Damien Hirst works titled, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever.  The 223 works were all bought by the auction’s close for a grand total of $200.7 million, exceeding estimates and […]

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 […]

Beijing, where the money is.

MSNBC.com has a piece on 798, one of the massive art spaces in Beijing gaining worldwide notoriety and dripping with a hip, trendy sheen unseen in the New York art world in recent times. More impressive is the sheer size of the space, owing to its previous life as a munitions factory.

Headlines on the Seen — Aug. 19

(ARTINFO) Marc Chagall Window Vandalized; Seven Indicted in International Art-Fraud Schemes; Basel Rejects Claim from Heirs of Persecuted Art Dealer; Permit for Oil Drilling Near Spiral Jetty Denied; (NYTIMES) Russian and Rich: Art’s New Tastemaker; (ARTFORUM) Sugar Rush — Terence Koh’s Asia Song Society opening reception; Cory Arcangel live and the opening of the new […]

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 […]

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 […]

Tranquillity of the Heart, Torment of the Flesh

Carol Vogel of the NYTimes reports on Takashi Murakami’s new works and opening at the Gagosian Gallery:
In the central gallery stood the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. In place of his usual garb — baggy cargo pants, T-shirt and sneakers — he was done up in a traditional hakama, his hair pulled back in a neat […]