The Ai Weiwei exhibit entitled ‘Baby Formula 2013′ uses 1,815 full cans of seven brands of milk powder and covers a 10-metre by 8-metre floor space. “The piece is related to several problems,” Ai Weiwei told AFP on Friday. One is the recent ban on mainland residents buying milk powder and bringing it back to China, and then there is the issue of why Chinese mainlanders go to Hong Kong to buy milk powder.” In Hong Kong, anger about visitor purchases saw the city ban travellers taking out more than 1.8 kilograms of formula from March 1 this year.

Banners at the border warn of HK$500,000 (US$64,000) fines and two-year jail sentences for offenders. Demand from the mainland is driven by memories of a 2008 scandal over Chinese formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine which killed six children and affected more than 300,000 others. Distrust grew last year when another domestic manufacturer’s formula was found to be contaminated with carcinogens, despite official pledges to clean up the industry. “We know that on the mainland food safety is a very serious problem. It largely related to a lack of supervision and moral decay within industry,” said Ai.

“Hong Kong people make profits from these problems, and are also victims,” he added. Executive director of the Para Site art space Cosmin Costinas, which is hosting the installation as part of a wider exhibition and has collaborated with Ai in the past, told AFP that all the cans of milk powder in the exhibit had been bought in Hong Kong. There will be no extra security to stop them being stolen, he said. In Australia, Chinese customers have been blamed for a shortage of formula in supermarkets and pharmacies, causing some outlets to ration sales, with limits also imposed in Europe after a run on baby milk powder. China is “by far” the world’s largest market for formula, says consumer research group Euromonitor. Breastfeeding rates are low – just 28 percent according to a 2012 UNICEF report — due to time limits on maternity leave and aggressive marketing of formula.

Source: Artdaily

“I figured it had to be multi-cultural, multi-racial, and all that kinda stuff,” Cannon explains, “and then it had to include old folks like me, and young folks like you, crossing into multi-generational as well as multi-cultural, and since this neighborhood has always been diverse in terms of every ethnic group I could imagine — either living on the Lower East Side or breezin’ through here at one time or another — the door had to be open to everybody. The only qualification was that you had to be a lover of the art.”

Although Cannon, author of the infamous Groove, Bang and Jive Around and self-proclaimed hoo-doo doctor, started the organization in 1990-91 as a literary magazine, the gallery component opened in 1993, a project the former Tribes curator Dora Espinoza convinced him to undertake. “And life has never been the same since,” Steve says with a laugh.

Although Cannon started the organization in 1990–91 as a literary magazine, the gallery component, located in his apartment, opened in 1993, a project former Tribes curator Dora Espinoza convinced him to undertake. “And life has never been the same since,” Steve says with a laugh. Tribes’ current exhibit, titled Out of the Closet and into the Open, features left-behind works from the shows that have previously hung on Steve’s walls. Some of the artworks are labeled and framed, others not. The artists have been contacted, but as Steve says, “If the artists want it back, they can pay me rent for all these years of storage!” Cannon’s slight southern twang, inflected with years of cigarette smoke, his tendency to occasionally interject the word “yawn” in conversation, and his sunglasses-inside look give him the vibe of a jazz singer imported straight from New Orleans (where he is in fact from). But the shades aren’t just part of his fashion sense: Steve is blind.

Cannon explains that he can typically imagine what the art on the walls of his gallery looks like through descriptions. This process of describing art inspired Espinoza to create Exquisite Poop, which the website explains was an ambitious project enlisting writers and painters in a chain: The painters first painted one work and committed to a second. The writers were then assigned a painting and told to describe it in as much detail as possible. The paintings were then reassigned to another artist, who was only given the writer’s description and asked to re-create it as closely as possible. Cannon, meanwhile, says that while he can typically picture what the art looks like, he isn’t as able to picture what his visitors look like — “and you know I’m not going to ask you,” he says.

Throughout our interview, many people wander into Steve’s apartment, all greeted with the same warmth, all offering to get Steve something from “the outside world” as they left. The first guest is Dora Espinoza, a Peruvian photographer and the space’s original curator, who scrambles about the apartment, making bids on photographs and telling stories from when she was curator.

 “Once I had an exhibit here, it was two guys from Medellin, Colombia, with all the big cartels,” Espinoza says. ”The exhibit was fantastic, and all the cars outside were super, [including] Rolls Royces … There was so many rich people that night, when I looked out [that window] I was like, whoa! And they were coming and coming and coming — all the drug cartel was here buying art.”

Minutes after she leaves, a couple of other guests come in, looking for solace over the recent death of their cat. Steve permits them to hold an impromptu funeral service in his garden, and the girls solicit his advice as to what type of poem to read at their cat funeral. They leave minutes later to get the necessary supplies. Alyssa Devine, his current gallery attendant, comes into the room, on her way out to run errands. She offers to grab “cigarettes, ice cream, beans, Hershey bars, and… coffee: that’s the Steve special.” Cannon, who, along with Devine, runs the gallery with the help of various interns and guest curators, is a local East Village legend, sometimes referred to as “the living book of the East Village” and has been the subject of many documentary films and articles, including a travel show aired in Japan.

Cannon is often mentioned in conjunction with Gil Scot-Heron, whose spoken word piece “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is frequently cited the inspiration behind much of the prolific New York hip-hop movement. Cannon taught Scot-Heron at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and recalls when Scot-Heron lived with his friend in a trailer next to the campus, “because they decided that they were too bright to live in the dormitories with the other students,” Cannon jokes. He recalls when Scot-Heron invited him to hear his poem, and Cannon said it needed a lot of work before it could be published. “Next thing I know, that god damn poem became one of the most popular things on this scene,” he laughs. Cannon will be publishing Scot-Heron for the first time in the upcoming issue of his literary magazine alongside a photo of the “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” mural painted on Avenue C and 12th.

Faced with economic hardship in 2006, Steve sold the building and now rents his apartment. This means he often confronts the threat of eviction. “Where it stands right now is that me and this woman I sold [the building] to are at peace temporarily,” he says, “and temporarily is in a broad, neon sign in the middle of Time Square. It’s a temporal piece.” Although the current exhibition is worth a visit, Cannon always imbues the space with a remarkable character, making it what Espinoza describes as “the last anarchist place in New York City.” Out of the Closet and into the Open will continue at A Gathering of the Tribes (285 East Third Street, East Village, Manhattan) through Tuesday, May 21. There will also be a poetry reading on Saturday, May 18, beginning at 7 pm and featuring Ron Kolm’s newest collection of poems, titled Divine Comedy.

Source: Hyperallergic

A total of 80% of all lots were sold, realising an average increase of 265% per sold object. The auction’s most expensive work was the “Porträt einer eleganten Dame mit Fächer” by Konstantin Egorovic Makovskij (lot 724), which was particularly popular with the artist’s fellow Russian countrymen. In the end a bidding skirmish broke out between international phone bidders and two Russian art lovers in the auction room, of which one eventually won the attractive oil painting for a result of €155.000. “Almost every second buyer bought for the first time, and every third bidder was a new customer”, says Robert Ketterer. “I am glad to see an ever increasing interest in Old Masters & Art of the 19th Century and that this particular section attracts so many new customers, both national and international. The run from Russia and the Czech Republic was especially high.”

Second place goes to “Anbetung Mariens mit zwei Engeln“ (lot 6), ascribed to Francesco Botticini from the Collection Harry Beyer, one of the few works that was not so much sought-after in Russia, but rather among art lovers in German-speaking countries, France and Italy. An Italian collector honored the masterpiece with € 122.000*after it had been called up at € 7.500. Prague will be the new home of the oil painting “Reiter und Flaneuer im Park“ by Georges Kars (lot 29), the work was not only desired by art traders, collectors and experts from the Czech Republic, Russia and basically from all over Europe, but even from Indonesia. With a result of € 98.000 the work was able to realize a twelve-fold its starting price of € 8.000.

Yet another top rank is occupied by two works from Peder Mørk Mønsted, both achieving results of € 85.000. While his “Sommerlandschaft mit Flussaue“ (lot 727) was fought hard for among competitors from Great Britain, the U.S.A., Sweden and Switzerland, it eventually went to Russia for a five-fold its starting price of € 17.000. The large-size “Verschneiter Waldweg bei Sonnenlicht“ (lot 668) from a Luxembourg private collection, however, went to England, and that against the will of numerous art lovers from mainly Russia and Scandinavia. The other two works by the same artist in the auction, which will both remain in Germany, also realized fine increases. Half a dozen of works by Alexander Koester were almost entirely sold, led by the oil painting “Enten (Seelandschaft)“ (lot 714), which an Austrian art dealer honored with a result of € 54.000, while a German collector won “Enten am See“ (lot 715) for € 14.000.

More than a five-fold its starting price of € 8.000 was realized by Paul von Franken‘s “Der Jungfrauenturm (Quiz Qalasi) in Baku am Kaspischen Meer“ (lot 695), which went also – against strong competition from mainly Russia – to the buyer of the auction’s number one lot. He paid € 43.000 for the 1880 oil painting. The title “highest increase of the day“ went to Januarius Zick‘s sympathic work “Amor auf einem Hund reitend“ (lot 536), which is no surprise considering the interest it caused with almost a dozen phones from mainly German speaking countries and half a dozen written bids. The hammer went to a bidder in the auction room from Germany’s south, who only put his hand down at a result of € 19.000 after it had been called up at € 1.500. In the section of works on paper it is quality and a big names that count. While Albrecht Dürer scored with his engraving “Adam und Eva“ (lot 569), which, called up at € 16.000, in the end went to a German bidder for a result of € 31.000, Harmensz. Rembrand van Rijn impressed with seven lots at once (587-593), which were all sold with excellent increases.

While the section of sculptures was led by Ernesto de Fiori‘s bronze “Stehender Jüngling“ (lot 66, starting price: 5.000) and Franz von Stuck‘s “Phryne“ (lot 90, starting price: € 3.000) each achieving results of € 51.000, the manufactories Meißen, Sèvres, Gardner and KPM Berlin were popular with bidders in the section of porcelain. A southern German bidder let a floor vase by KPM soar from € 1.000 to a final € 12.500.

Among objects of Russian silverware it was a “Großer Löffel“ from Moscow (lot 258), which, as expected, returned to his home country Russia. The large number of bids came mainly from Moscow, St. Petersburg and New York, but also from Florida, Berlin, Vienna and Bratislava. Called up at an inexpensive € 400, the hot bidding skirmish halted only at a result of € 34.000. A similar effect had the Fabergé-Service in its original case (lot 226), which was also sold to Russia for a price of € 32.000 (starting price: € 7.500). A German museum and half a dozen potential buyers were relegated to places second and beyond.  The varia section was dominated by a pocket watch by Jean Pierre and Ami Houaud as well as Jean de Choudens, for which a southern German collector afforded the result of € 73.000 (starting price 23.000), winning over bidders from Italy, Great Britain, France and Switzerland.

Source: Artdaily

Decorated with a classic Marquesan tiki figure, the wooden prow – or ‘au ‘au – would have been attached to the bow of a canoe. Marquesan ‘au ‘au show carved tiki figures seated and pushed backwards, as if by acceleration, and were primarily intended to be seen in profile as canoes sped through the water.

“This particular Marquesas prow is covered in linear tattooing and has especially naturalistic proportions, including fully articulated legs, which is very rare,” explained Bonhams African, Oceanic & Pre-Columbian Art Consultant, Fredric Backlar. “I always felt strongly that it was an exceptional example, and I am pleased bidders agreed.” The auction attracted global interest. Europe – particularly Belgium, France and Spain, the Americas, Russia and the Pacific were all represented with the majority of bidders coming from the US. While attendees made a strong showing, telephone and online bidders took home the lion’s share of the top lots.

The Marquesas prow was not the only item to significantly exceed its pre-sale estimate during the auction. A Senufo rhythm pounder from the Ivory Coast realized six times its pre-sale estimate, achieving $42,500 after lengthy bidding. Carved in wood as a female figure, the striking pounder stands over four feet tall. Other notable results included a rare royal necklace from the Hawaiian Islands made of whale ivory, fiber and human hair that more than doubled its pre-sale low estimate to achieve $25,000, selling to an important European collector. From the African section of the auction, a 10-inch Songye figure more than tripled its pre-sale low estimate, selling for $20,000. The top lot from the auction’s Pre-Columbian section was a rare gold shark pendant that realized $22,500. Well over 2000 years old, the five-inch pendant would have been created in Costa Rica, or possibly Panama. The finely cast pendant, with articulated fins and eyes as well as loops for suspension, was one of a number of fine jewelry examples offered.

Bonhams next auction of African, Oceanic & Pre-Columbian Art will take place in New York in November.

Source: Artdaily

The cast – known as the ‘Boys cast’ – was made for the Rev Richard Boys, Senior Chaplain of St Helena and is one of only a tiny handful with a provenance linking it directly to the island. It is the most significant example remaining in private hands and bears an autograph note of authentication written by Boys. All but one of the other examples are in national collections, either in France or in Corsica.

It is being sold by Andrew Boys, a direct descendent of the original owner’s brother. After Napoleon’s death, there was a protracted wrangle over whether his physician, Francesco Antommarchi, or the British doctor, Francis Burton, should make a death mask. Practical difficulties also meant that this was not done until 7 May, two days after the former Emperor had died.

The mask to be sold was given to the Rev Richard Boys by the portrait painter, J.W. Rubidge, who assisted Antommarchi in making the mask. Boys received it before Napoleon’s entourage left the island towards the end of May. The mask is inscribed “Rev Mr Boys” on the inside of the cast, and comes with a note by Boys reading: “This Cast was taken from the Face of Napoleon Buonaparte as he lay dead at Longwood St. Helena 7th May 1821 which I do hereby certify/ R. Boys M.A. Sen.r Chaplain/ By Rubidge”.

Boys is recorded as having played chess with Napoleon and is said to have brought several mementos of Napoleon with him on his return to England eight years later. He was a strict moralist who made himself unpopular by preaching sermons against the loose living of senior members of the British garrison. As a result he was viewed as something of a liability by the British Authorities and well regarded by the French continent on the Island. This may explain why he managed to secure such an intimate memento of the Emperor as this impression of his death mask. Head of Bonhams UK Book Department, Matthew Haley said: “This mask is a fascinating reflection on the nature of power and its projection. By the time the cast for the mask was made Napoleon’s body had begun to decompose in the fierce heat and, as was noted at the time, his features had changed quite markedly. The very last image we have of Napoleon, therefore, is more that of a saint than the man of action and resolution carefully engineered in the portraits painted during his lifetime. ”

Felix Pryor, a consultant in Bonhams Book, Map and Manuscript Department: “Before the invention of photography, taking a cast from a person’s face was the one way of producing what may be described as an objective likeness. These masks were most often taken after death. In this they became part of the funerary rites of the dead, the royal dead especially; royal death masks can be traced back to at least the time of Tutankhamun. The present death mask of Napoleon can be seen as standing at the end of this long tradition – the world’s first photograph was to be taken only five years later”. Owner of the mask, Andrew Boys, explains how it came down through his family and into his hands: “At a family funeral I was rather surprised and taken aback, to hear that I had been left this mask. After a while I realized its significance but I was not sure what to do with it beyond ensuring its safety. To date it has been confined to an attic but I most definitely did not want this to happen for another generation. I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to offer it for sale in the hope that, as a result, it was something more people would then be able to see and enjoy”.

Source: Artdaily

There has been a considerable regain in interest in the aerial view over recent years. From the success of Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Earth From Above to the popularity of Google Earth, we are fascinated by this bird’s-eye view as much for the beauty of the landscapes it reveals as the feeling of omnipotence it inspires. The exhibition draws on this popularity to return to the origins of aerial photography and explore its impact on the work of artists and, consequently, the history of art.

When Nadar took his first aerial photographs from a hot-air balloon, circa 1860, he gave artists their first indications of the world they knew but had never seen from so high. An elevated perspective blurs landmarks and relief, slowly transforming the land into a flat surface whose visual reference points are no longer distinguishable one from the other. Right up to today, artists, photographers, architects and filmmakers have continued to explore the aesthetic and semantic implications of this extraordinary vantage point. Now this fascinating journey is the subject of an unprecedented multidisciplinary exhibition. An innovative scenography in eight themed sections takes visitors through time as well as space, gradually rising from the balcony scenes of the first works on display to views from a hot-air balloon, an airship, an aeroplane, and finally a satellite.

The exhibition, in two parts, begins in the Grande Nef of Centre Pompidou-Metz with works spanning the years 1850 to 1945 then continues, on a higher level, in Galerie 1 with works from 1945 to the present. Contemporary works are included in the “historic” sections to create a counterpoint.

Grande Nef

Visitors, who are greeted by early photographs by Nadar and James Wallace Black, are immediately struck by the visual Displacement which inspired artists, in particular Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet and Gustave Caillebotte. Street scenes appear flattened from their elevated vantage point; the horizon disappears from their paintings. Artists rise, literally, to the challenge of exploring the different angles offered to them by these unprecedented and unexpected views. Photographers such as Léon Gimpel use this new perspective to spectacular effect in images for the illustrated press. As aviation developed and aerial images grew in popularity, more and more avant-garde artists were seduced by this bird’s-eye view. From the early Cubist compositions of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque to the urban scenes portrayed by Fernand Léger, Félix Vallotton and Gino Severini, or Robert Delaunay’s plunging views of the Eiffel Tower, artists abandon the Renaissance linear perspective to distort and fracture the Euclidean plane.

The First World War was a watershed in the history of aerial photography. Increasingly, the trenches were photographed from military planes, their flattened, geometric forms suggestive of emerging Abstract painting. This is less a case of cause and effect and more a fascinating correspondence between technical progress and artistic invention. Abstraction features in the next section, Planimetric, with works by Oskar Schlemmer, Edward Wadsworth, Piet Mondrian, Russian artists including Kasimir Malevich and El Lissitzky, and Bauhaus figures such as Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky.

This exploration of two-dimensional space continues in the following section, Extension. The field of vision is extended when in the air, in a plane or a helicopter. Lászlό Moholy-Nagy referred to a “more complete experience of space” which, like his fellow Hungarian Andor Weininger, he transcribes in vast stage designs. It inspired Josef Albers for his painting, while the artists in the De Stijl group transpose the idea of extended space into an axonometric system with no vanishing point. In the 1920s the elevated perspective became a symbol of modernity; it also produced a sense of Detachment. The world appears different, unrecognisable, from above. Sense of scale disappears as micro and macro blur into one. New Vision photography, which had advocates both in France (André Kertesz, Germaine Krull, Eli Lotar) and Germany (Robert Petschow, Umbo, Andreas Feininger), takes full advantage of this peculiar view. A selection of films and photographs of an iconic subject, the transporter bridge in Marseilles, highlights Moholy-Nagy’s influence on this new vision.

The fifth section, Domination, considers the fascination and excitement of seeing the world from above; of sharing the omnipotence of a view ordinarily reserved for the gods. The individual, when seen from the sky, loses its singularity to become an indistinct part of a “mass spectacle”. The airplane’s speed thrills the Aeropittura Futurista artists. This sense of supremacy is as much a force for Le Corbusier in his study of urban design viewed from a plane as for American photographer Margaret Bourke-White in her overhead shots of New York.

Galerie 1

In Galerie 1, the visitor enters a much vaster, lighter space. Leaving war-torn Europe behind, we are soothed by the wide-open spaces of America, captured in the abstract painting of Richard Diebenkorn, Mark Tobey and Sam Francis. The aerial vision captivates artists on this side of the Atlantic too, in particular Jean Dubuffet. In Australia it emerges from the dream imagery of Aboriginal ancestors. Aerial photography is central to the sixth section, Topographie, and also a major component of Land Art, represented by Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim and Peter Hutchinson who make extensive use of elevated perspectives when documenting their interventions on the vast scale of natural landscapes. With Marcel Griaule’s archaeological explorations, this section shows how aerial photography can reveal traces and structures that would be invisible at ground-level. Architects such as Dominique Perrault show equal concern for the traces their work leaves on the ground, not forgetting Frei Otto’s “roof-clouds”.

The seventh section, Urbanisation, goes further in examining the revelatory powers of the aerial view, this time focusing on artists’ fascination with urban grids. Ed Ruscha, Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tillmans, Zoe Leonard and Balthasar Burkhard deliver their interpretation of the urban fabric in sometimes sweeping, sometimes fragmented views. Members of the International Situationist movement propose their critical reading of the modern city, while David Goldblatt and Wilfrid Almendra consider the collective utopia embodied in tracts of lookalike housing. The final section, Supervision, considers the use of aerial and satellite images for intelligence gathering and surveillance, from CCTV in city centres to images sent from military drones, a subject explored by Harun Farocki as well as Sigmar Polke. Images of the world seen from above also serve environmental protection by alerting populations to potential threats. From Georg Gerster to Emmet Gowin, Alex MacLean or Yann Arthus-Bertrand, there are now numerous practitioners of aerial photography internationally. The exhibition ends with the influence of Google Earth on contemporary creation.

Source: Artinfo

The lot of 18 photographs is part of the June 5 “Changing Focus — A Collection of Russian and Eastern European Contemporary Photography” auction in London. They include both Mikki’s clarity-challenged captures of Moscow’s Red Square and other city sights, as well as documentation of Mikki learning to use a polaroid, analogue, and antique large-format camera with Russian-born American conceptual artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid. Called “Our Moscow Through the Eyes of Mikki,” the 1998 collaboration between human and simian was part of Komar and Melamid’s broader ongoing project of collaborating with animals. Back in 1987 they worked with a a dog named Tranda to “draw” with paw prints canine-friendly subjects like the outline of a bone, and in 1995 they painted busts of George Washington with an elephant named Rene at the Toledo Zoo in Ohio. They even tried out gnawed wood sculptures with with beavers in 1998.

Komar and Melamid reportedly first encountered the chimpanzee Mikki at the Moscow Circus, according to Metro. While chimpanzees have similar vision to humans, including bifocal sight, depth perception, and distinguishing the variations in colors, it’s hard to say whether Mikki could really conceive of the idea of capturing what was before him with these strange devices. However,  Suad Garayeva, the curator of contemporary art at Sotheby’s, told Metro that “Mikki got quite excited with the results.” These results, the fuzzy views of the spires and people of Russia, may not have much in the way of control, but there are plenty of surprising angles and a dislocation from the expected in their frames.

Photographs from Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid’s “Our Moscow Through the Eyes of Mikki” are up for auction in ”Changing Focus – A Collection of Russian and Eastern European Contemporary Photography” on June 5 at Sotheby’s in London.

Source: Hyperallergic

Propaganda: Power and Persuasion has a global focus on state-run propaganda that stretches back to the ancient world all the way up to contemporary Twitter and our current bank notes. One of the co-curators at the British Library, Jude England, stated in the release:
With about 200 items, there’s plenty of examples of how war posters preyed on visceral reactions to death and destruction, and how the icons of a nation can be manipulated into calls to action or reaction. Yet while images like Hitler removing a mask to show a skull (illustrated by FDR’s proclamation that “the world knows that the Nazis, the Fascists, and the militarists of Japan have nothing to offer to youth, except death”) are expected fodder for any propaganda showing, there are also grand portraits of leaders like Napoleon, toweringly painted by Jean-Baptiste Borely and decked out from silky shoes to golden laurel crown. Despite its ostentatious opulence that shows him secure as emperor, it was painted as his power was declining to his ultimate defeat at Waterloo.
Similar and subtle in using portraiture to influence a desired profile are the images of Mao and Stalin, both showing them in an idealized youth. While nothing on them blares COMMUNISM IS THE WAY, they suggest with simplicity the visions of perfection of the leaders.
All of this is just the beginning of a delve into propaganda, as it is an always present component of our visual culture. Some of the most significant events of our recent history have resulted in state-funded art meant to blare out from the noise of daily life and drive their messages straight into your heart. When the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, propaganda posters showing drowning women and children and a smoldering ship, demanded viewers to “take up the sword of justice.” When the space race consumed the US and Soviet Union in an epic, and expensive, battle for the stars, even the pioneering space dogs were honored as Soviet conquerors of the cosmic sphere. Art is, in a way, all about persuasion already, convincing a viewer of an artist’s world perception, even in the most passive of work. It’s a power that governments around the world have long appreciated for its influence on our emotional cores.

Source: Hyperallergic

Experts in the US had never predicted such a rise in the sale of Indian art. Here’s the arty news: the market for Indian art in New York is rising, rising like never before. “We never anticipated that sales would sky-rocket in this manner: USD 3.7 million is our highest-ever auction figure for contemporary Indian art. The market for Indian art will witness steady growth, with demand being high and little supply of quality stuff. For example, since we see little of Husain’s early work, when we do get a Husain, its prized stuff. Even young Indian painters like Chittrovanu Mazumdar are doing well. The future belongs to Gen Next contemporary artists from India,” says Hugo Weihe, international director of Asian art, Christie’s, New York.

Take this. Akbar Padamsee’s Mirror Image went for USD 1,86,000. Husain’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi went for USD 1, 44,000. Chittrovanu Mazumdar sold for USD 54,000. A Ramachandran went for USD 50,400. Bikash Bhattacharjee went for USD 48,000 and Prabhakar Barwe for USD 33,600. What’s more, even as the demand curve for contemporary Indian artists rises, a sandstone Khmer figure of a goddess (11th century) went for USD 4,86,400 at Christie’s, and a grey Gandharan head of the emaciated Siddhartha (2nd to 3rd century) went for USD 2,84,800.

Then, a copper Saraswati and a copper inlay gilgit fetched USD 5,53,600 at Sotheby’s while a 1962 landscape by Francis Newton Souza sold for USD 1,32,000. “We’re pleased that the market for rare Himalayan material is so strong,”…  Akbar Padamsee creation …says Robin Dean, head, Indian and Southeast Asian Art, Sotheby’s. “Interestingly, we see the rejuvenated Indian miniatures section selling many times over its top estimate. The market for Indian art in New York is becoming aggressive. There are many buyers for modern Indian paintings too, with two works selling in the top 10 lots overall and virtually every lot finding a buyer. There are some very good times ahead for Indian art. And the money is going to be bigger than ever.”

Source: TOI

Qureshi, who is from Hyderabad, Pakistan, is the first artist to paint directly on the rooftop. Playing off the privileged setting above Central Park, he has rendered bursts of ornamental foliage, exuberant and elegant. They look like enormous details of the gardens in Mughal miniatures, an intricate genre he spent years mastering. In this garden, though, something terrible has happened.

 Switching from the elaborate detail of the Islamic miniature to the ritual dance of modernist action painting, Qureshi has splattered the roof in paint, blood-red like the leaves. It takes a moment to perceive the scope of the tragedy that may have unfolded in such a setting. The piece, the artist says, is a response to violence that has occurred around the world in recent decades. He calls it And How Many Rains Must Fall before the Stains Are Washed Clean.

There is no shortage of war art at the Met, of course. But at a time when the museum has one Civil War show on view and another opening this month, there is a particular sense of trauma and despair in some of its galleries, especially because so many of the 19th-century images echo what we see in the daily news. It was as a response to bombings in Lahore that Qureshi began using red acrylic paint in his art, creating tragic landscapes that negate the idea of paradise on earth. While the Met piece was in the works, the Boston bombings occurred. So according to curator Ian Alteveer, the artist “pushed the work a little further,” creating a series more oblique lines, off kilter from the grid. In another symbolic gesture, he decided not to paint the entire surface. Downtown, near the Holland Tunnel, there’s a violent scene as well, but in this case the victims are just tomatoes, crushed for the juice that Los Carpinteros flung on Sean Kelly’s wall. The piece recapitulates a famous tomato-throwing festival in Spain, where the Cuban-born artists live, but it also evokes the tomatoes thrown in political protests worldwide. These tomatoes would hurt lots more than the real ones, though, because they’re porcelain.

Using the arsenal of paint, painted fabric, and paper collage, Benny Andrews depicts a victim of Apartheid in Study for Portrait of Oppression (Homage to Black South Africans), a 1985 assemblage in the survey of his work ending Saturday at Michael Rosenfeld.

The figure’s nose is flat, his eyes are missing, his hands are pinioned behind his back; the blood splatter on his (real) shirt implies he was tortured. His shirt is torn, Lowery Sims notes in the catalogue, exactly where painters throughout Western art history have rendered Christ’s wound from the soldier’s lance.

Hayv Kahraman, who was born in Iraq, grew up in Sweden, and now lives in Oakland, is featured in the Jameel Prize exhibition, an initiative of the V&A that spotlights artists whose work responds to Islamic tradition. The show arrives at the San Antonio Museum, its last stop, on May 24. Here, too the victim’s eyes have been erased, as the woman on the noose is forced to hang herself.

A cry of pain is arising from the Worcester Art Museum, where Nancy Spero’s stunning, devastating, Cri du Couer (2005) goes on view this Saturday. The work, the artist’s first after the death of her husband, Leon Golub, echoes a procession of female mourners, like those in the tomb of Ramos of Thebes. With its mix of vigorous, hand-painted color and silk-screened images, the piece suggests not only the artist’s own bereavement, but, as Roberta Smith put it when the work was first shown, at Galerie Lelong, “a world declining into violence, chaos and bottomless grief.” Like Qureshi’s work at the Met, Spero’s tour de force echoes a famous comment Harold Rosenberg made (in our pages) in another context: “It’s not just a picture, but an event.” Qureshi stresses that his work is not just a lament over violence but an expression of his hope for regeneration. Already, little green buds—real ones–are peeking from the cracks in the tiles. How long before they get crushed?

Source: Artnews