“Show us how to do it,” Smith instructs auctioneer Oliver Barker. Well, okay. pic.twitter.com/KAd1mYvH6e
— Lee Rosenbaum (@CultureGrrl) November 5, 2015
- Lots of handwringing that the uneven results at last night’s Sotheby’s “Masterworks” sale. The works for sale were from the [Alfred] Taubman Collection, an ex-chief of Sotheby’s who was notoriously convicted of price-fixing in 2001. Do the results signal a cooling of the market? Were the results a referendum on him? (Ha, yeah right.) And why did Sotheby’s guarentee all the work, when the consensus seems is that Taubman’s collection wasn’t very strong. (Both dealer Richard Feigen and consultant Josh Baer are on record about that.) Best blow by blow of the auction comes from Lee Rosenbaum’s storify. [Culturegrrl]
- Artists are upset about the Brooklyn Real Estate Summit that the Brooklyn Museum is hosting. There’s an open letter circulating and lots of angry tweets. In response the museum posted a statement on their blog essentially saying they’re just the renter and don’t share the opinions of those at the conference. They’ve also reached out to the conference organizers. Let’s call this developing. [The Brooklyn Museum]
- The new Whitney Biennial curators have been chosen. They are: Christopher Y. Lew, an associate curator at the Whitney, and Mia Locks, a former assistant curator at MoMA P.S.1. The biennial will take place in 2017 rather than 2016 to allow the curators more time to get used to the building. [The New York Times]
- The European Union announced last week that it will not ban cadmium red paint. I guess concerns that the pigment pollutes the food chain were not enough to assuage the will of art lovers. [The Art Newspaper]
- Restorers have discovered a man pooping in a painting owned by the Royal Collection Trust. Think about that. [Smithsonian]
- B&H workers unionize. Yay! [Hyperallergic]
- Here’s a Star Wars Death Star waffle maker. #thebest [Laughing Squid]