The 798 ART FESTIVAL is coming soon.
Starting from the 18th of September, there will be various events and exhibitions at the 798 District in Beijing.
If you are in the area, make sure to join in the festivities.
For more information on the Festival’s events, please have a look at our 798 Festival micro-site at http://www.798district.com/798festival.
An Exhibition and a Conference
The art market is engaged in the delicate non-science of attaching prices to works of art. It is a process of making something as intangible as art into something as clearly defined as a numerical value. Everyone in the art world is somehow involved in this process, from critics to museums, galleries, collectors and auction houses. A massive network of knowledge and experience goes into creating a delicate balance between the artistic value and commercial value of contemporary art, but the peaks and troughs of the market every now and again throws everything into doubt. The contemporary art market is now larger than it has ever been in history, and the recent crisis is forcing new art markets to face this question for the first time. The advent of modernism and the ideas that drove the artistic evolution from traditional to modern to contemporary has been a constant challenge to the idea of what artistic value actually is. The so-called art establishment that traditionally pronounced on value has been changing and expanding to the extent that it’s now almost impossible to define. In the last two decades with the development of globalization, cultures all over the world with different artistic traditions have been brought into the contemporary dialogue, bringing new and more complex perspectives on the debate about value, which has rarely been questioned within a commercial context.
Artists in Foshan, a city in Guangdong province that bills itself as the home of Chinese kungfu, are creating a 30-meter-tall sculpture of Bruce Lee which they hope will one day become a landmark on the scale of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
The red-painted ceramic statue depicts an eight-legged Bruce Lee, known as Li Xiaolong in Chinese, balancing world famous monuments on each foot. These include The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower, and the Bird’s Nest, or National Olympic Stadium, in Beijing.
Galerie Paris-Beijing in 798 Art District is currently hosting an exhibition of works by celebrated Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf.
The large selection includes his photography series “Rain,” “Hope,” “Grief,” Hotel” and “Laboral Escena, Spain,” and demonstrates people’s emotional world, mostly focusing on the feeling of loneliness.
Well known for his usage of studio lighting, Olaf created the pictures with bright colors and vivid details. All the models look cold and distant, and even when multiple people are in one photo, there is little eye contact between them.
Olaf, who was born in 1959, has lived and worked in Amsterdam since the early 1980s. A pioneer in staged photography, Olaf appeared on the international art scene in 1988 when his series “Chessmen” was awarded first place in the Young European Photographer competition.
The exhibition will run until Sept. 24.
A single-owner sale of more than 400 works, which is estimated to bring more than $10 million, has been scheduled for Saturday, 25 September 2010 in New York. Among the works to be auctioned are examples of early works by many of the leading artists of the late 20th century – Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Richard Prince, John Currin and Takashi Murakami, as well as examples by artists whose work has become more internationally acclaimed over the last decade – Neo Rauch, Julie Mehretu, Liu Ye and Do Ho Suh.
“We ran a rigorous process to find the right auction house for this distinguished group of works,” said Mr. Bill Gordon, a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal. “Sotheby’s longstanding familiarity with the collections of both Lehman and Neuberger as well as its reputation and experience with corporate collections were important factors in our decision. We are confident that Sotheby’s is the best fit for the Estate’s mission to deliver maximum value to our constituents.”
Mr. Kelly Wright, an advisor to LBHI who is overseeing the evaluation and sale of these works, said “It truly is a visionary collection, and Neuberger Berman’s astute reputation for investment is clearly seen in the selected works for sale. Many of the works were acquired from cutting edge and emergent artists who have since evolved into the vanguards of the contemporary art world.”
Lehman Brothers long history of collecting art can be traced back to Robert Lehman. Works he collected were donated to the Metropolitan Museum and comprise the Lehman Wing. Works from the Lehman Brothers Corporate Collection currently being offered at this auction provide buying opportunities for works of important provenance to both seasoned collectors wishing to supplement an established collection and first-time purchasers. As a result of Lehman Brothers’ 2003 acquisition of Neuberger Berman, the two firms’ collections were integrated.
In 2005, this humoristic asumption by Evariste Blanchet allowed us to understand that there were different types of comic boods, while suggesting that there was a real need to classify and define contemporary comic book art.
But how can we define contemporary comics art, and is there comic book art created today that cannot be classified as « contemporary » ? One could assume that, as for contemporary art, all comics cannot be called « contemporary » ; the works of an artist painting Montmartre «Poulbots» or « Marines » for an art gallery in Le Touquet can hardly be called contemporary, even if the execution shows genuine virtuosity.
One will point out the fact that contemporary comics have a long history, which has been widely referenced and commented on, and that a number of artists throughout the past decades have challenged the boundaries of the genre : from Gilbert Shelton to Aurélie William-Levaux, Moebius, Philippe Druillet, Chris Ware, Christophe Blain and many others. And creators have to be aware of the fact that they belong to this history, and have to mistreat their medium by multiplicating hybridisations with other artistic specialities to make unknown aspects emerge.
One could conclude that the purpose of an event such as the Le Havre contemporary art biennale is to reference, in a non-exhaustive way, the most convincing of these hybridisations. A word that has to be understood in its latin meaning, « mixed blood ».
Chengdu is an important city in Chinese Contemporary Art, Which nurtured a lot of famous artists and critics, but the art collection is not so active comparing to Beijing and Shanghai. How to accelerate the development of the Chengdu art market and to increase the number of local collectors, is the question to be deal with.
World famous sculptor Ju Ming from Taiwan is holding a large-scale solo exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, showing a selection of his Living World Series sculptures that he has created over the past 30 years.
A total of 150 sculptures are on display in four exhibition halls at the museum, revealing the artist’s personal interpretations of the kaleidoscopic human world. The exhibition also provides an insight in part, to the great contemporary sculptor’s lifelong artistic achievements.
Pablo Picasso was the 20th century’s most important artist. Picasso’s many-faceted personality is reflected in the wide array of creative paths he chose — his forms, colors, and the materials he used. The Picasso Story invites you to meet Picasso, the man, and to delve into his life and creative world, to walk in his footsteps, to discover him, and like him, to embrace your internal creative spirit, and to leave a legacy for the world. The Picasso Story has been on display in Berlin’s Humboldt Carré since November 1, 2009. At the heart of the exhibition is a collection of Picasso’s ceramics and graphic art, complemented by the incredible images of Edward Quinn, who accompanied Picasso as a photographer for decades.
Gathered together under the prestigious dome of the Grand Palais from 15th until 22nd September 2010, 80 art dealers and 7 great jewellers will present to the public their most beautiful masterpieces.
Created in 1956 by the Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA), the Biennale trully made its debut in 1962, the year of the first International Biennale des Antiquaires. Today, presided over by Hervé Aaron, it gathers the most internationally renowned art dealers, all members of the SNA.
During this major event in the art market calendar that attracts collectors from around the world, visitors will discover more than 4000 square meters of stands with exceptional works of art spanning from archaeology to modern paintings.
With a visual identity made of vivid colours, a simplified floor plan, new exhibitors and displays where works of art take the leading role, the Biennale des Antiquaires celebrates its 25th edition with enthusiasm!
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