- On Friday, street artist Retna (real name: Marquis Lewis) smashed a bunch of ceramics at Soze, a West Hollywood gallery. Apparently this tantrum is the latest in a long string of violent outbursts and assaults on both artwork and gallery employees. Maybe everyone should stop inviting this dick to openings? [artnet News]
- Kerr Houston muses on the obsolescence and glamour—or lack thereof—of aging Art Deco buildings in three cities. [BmoreArt]
- Rafael Schacter convincingly argues that street art festivals such as Miami’s Wynwood Walls provide little but wallpaper for gentrification. It’s a pretty obvious observation, but one worth reminding people of. [The Conversation]
- Why does reading The New York Times auction reports always feel like reading auction house sales copy? The breathless first line of a report by Robin Progrebin and Scott Reyburn, “In an overheated art market where anything seems possible…” Liu Yiquin, a Chinese taxi-driver turned stock market billionaire, is now the proud owner of a reclining nude by Amedeo Modigliani. He purchased the work last night at Christie’s for $170.4 million with fees. Some other stuff sold too. 34 lots brought in $491.4 million. [The New York Times]
- Two, more balanced auction reports: Nate Freeman at Artnews notes the weak sell through rate of 77 percent and the difference between this auction and last May’s (which was 97 percent!). Brian Boucher over at Artnet news, noted that auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen said the 10 works that didn’t sell were perhaps “just not good enough.” I guess the story the auction house wants to push here is that there is that art market bubble is doing just fine. It’s just the quality of the work available that’s the issue. [artnet News, Artnews]
- Pyotr Pavlensky, the Russian performance artist who famously sewed his mouth shut to protest Pussy Riot’s imprisonment and later nailed his balls to the Red Square, has been arrested for setting fire to the door of Russia’s Federal Security Service building. [The New York Times]
- A new exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum pays tribute to Marie Spartali Stillman. Stillman was often a model for the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and a painter in her own right, but being a woman in the Victorian era, she never rose to fame like her male peers. [BBC News]
- An upcoming Alexander Calder exhibition at the Tate Modern will feature a restoration of the sculpture “Acrobats”. The piece depicts a male and female acrobat, who have been in separate collections since 1929, when someone cut off one of the legs to use the wire for a repair. Now, they’ll be reunited. [The Guardian]
- Okay, is this the dumbest art project ever? It’s Vincent Van Gogh’s ear, constructed from genetic samples artist Diemut Strebe took from Lieuwe van Gogh, the great-great-grandson of Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s brother. It’s grown tissue displayed in fancy petri dish. [artnet News[
- This is a thing? Apparently cruise ships have art auctions. This recollection from an art history major who found herself working for a cruise ship art company is pretty funny. I would have (incorrectly) guessed that getting to be on a cruise and talking about art all day would be less horrible than it is. [Travel Pulse]
