Posts from the Art Category at Luxist

J. Peterman English Pub Signs

Posted Oct 12th 2008 4:01PM by Rigel Celeste
Filed under: Decor, Art

Whether you're looking for the perfect final touch for your home bar or simply love antiques and English history, these pub signs available from J. Peterman are truly unique specimens. Each authentic and hand-painted and many still in their original wood or metal frames, the collection includes subject matter going back to the time of Queen Victoria. Some signs represent subject matter commonly used by pubs over the years (such as the swan in this sign) while others are more unique, like the Wilton Arms sign shown here that honors the coat of arms belonging to the local lord. Prices vary from $495-$1895.

Gallery: J. Peterman English Pub Signs

Metallica Drummer to Auction $12 Million Basquiat

Posted Oct 12th 2008 11:04AM by Jared Paul Stern
Filed under: Auctions, Art

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is selling a massive 8-ft. wide Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at Christie's in New York on Nov. 12, where it's expected to fetch about $12 million. Untitled (Boxer) (above), painted in 1982, is an important "proxy self-portrait,'' Brett Gorvy, Christie's international co-head of postwar and contemporary art, tells Bloomberg. "The black artist as defiant hero.'" In 2002, Ulrich, a noted collector, sold Basquiat's 1982 Profit I at Christie's for $5.5 million. In July, Irish rock band U2 sold the artist's Untitled (Pecho/Oreja) for $10.1 million at Sotheby's in London. The auction record for a Basquiat work was set at Sotheby's in New York last year with the $14.6 million sale of 1981's Untitled.

"East Meets West" at the Whitaker-Augusta Auction Company

Posted Oct 12th 2008 10:02AM by Annie Scott
Filed under: Apparel, Auctions, Art, Men's Style

Perhaps we should say "The Wild West Meets the Eastern Seaboard." The Whitaker August Auction House in New Hope, Pennsylvania (it is also possible to participate online) regularly features couture and vintage clothing, western wear and "cowboy collectibles," and Asian, Bolivian, and Native American textiles and art.

Their upcoming event, taking place October 24th and 25th, will feature pieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art, NYC Costume Study Collection, and Mia Farrow's very own closet. See the gallery below for some of the items that will be auctioned.

Gallery: Whitaker-Augusta Auction Company, Available October 24-25

Inuit Carved Ivory Necklace, 19th Century

Signed Vintage Cowboy Chaps, Mid 20th Century

Pierre Cardin for Mia Farrow Dress, 1967

Lux Tip: Free Museums

Posted Oct 11th 2008 4:02PM by Annie Scott
Filed under: Art, Lux Tips

Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Walker Art Center

Whether you're a prince or a pauper, there's probably a day (or night) you can get into the best museums in your area for free. For example, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis offers free admission every Thursday night (sponsored by Target), and the first Saturday of every month. Their sculpture garden, where you find the Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, at right, is always free.

In New York, you can always visit the Guggenheim in Soho for free, as well as The Whitney at Phillip Morris and The Museum of American Folk Art. A number of other museums offer a "suggested donation" admission, and are instructed to treat you the same whether you're donating $1 or the full fare. Here's a pretty good list for New York.

The Art Institute of Chicago is free from 5-8 on Thursdays, Los Angeles free days are listed here, and if you find yourself in Paris, the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month and on Bastille Day, July 14th.

Be sure to Google museums in your area, or check the website of any museum you intend to visit to see if there's a free day of which you can take advantage.

It's just another easy way to make life more lux for cheap or free.

Auction House Phillips de Pury Sold To The Russians

Posted Oct 7th 2008 2:32AM by Deidre Woollard
Filed under: Auctions, Art

Over the past couple of years Russia's new wealthy have made some big moves in the art world. Most recently, as my colleague Jared Paul Stern reported that Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich will be bankrolling a major Francis Bacon exhibition at his girlfriend Dasha Zhukova's new Moscow art gallery in 2010. Now auction house Phillips de Pury has been sold to Mercury, a Moscow-based luxury goods group. Phillip's founder Simon de Pury will still remain as chairman and will have a share in the company. This isn't Phillips's first spin with a luxury conglomerate, it was was briefly owned by LVMH. For Phillips, the new owners will provide a big influx of capital so that Phillips can continue adding to their contemporary art auctions and it will also likely bring some important auctions to Moscow.

Christie's to Auction Rare Lucian Freud Portrait

Posted Oct 6th 2008 7:01PM by Tracy Chait
Filed under: Auctions, Art

Christie's has announced it will offer one of the two Lucian Freud portraits of Francis Bacon in its Post-War and Contemporary Art auction in London this October. Pilar Ordovas, Christie's Head of Post-War and Contemporary art, calls it an "intimate portrait" that is a testament to the relationship between arguably the two "most important British artists of the 20th century."

The piece is estimated to reach bids of up to £7 million, though if last May's sale of Freud's Benefit Supervisor Sleeping is any indication, it might go for more -- that painting sold for $33 million.

LVMH Chief Plans $140 Million Art Museum

Posted Oct 6th 2008 8:01AM by Jared Paul Stern
Filed under: Art

Bernard Arnault (right), the billionaire chairman of Louis Vuitton parent LVMH and France's richest man, plans to open a $140 million art museum in Paris within the next 2-3 years despite the grim economic forecast. "It's a way of showing that luxury, which often has an arrogant, elitist, egotistical image, can be generous," Arnault's arts advisor Jean-Paul Claverie tells Bloomberg.

Dubbed the Louis Vuitton Foundation and designed by Frank Gehry, the luxury goods kingpin has high hopes for the museum in Paris's Bois de Boulogne on the site of a former bowling alley, which will display LVMH's extensive art collection. "Mr. Arnault often says that as many people will visit the building as will go see the Eiffel tower,'' Claverie says.

Kate Moss Loves Her $2.7 Million Gold Statue

Posted Oct 5th 2008 5:02PM by Jared Paul Stern
Filed under: Art

British artist Marc Quinn's $2.7 million life-size solid gold statue of Kate Moss, which we told you about last month, just went on display to the public, and Quinn says the supermodel's thrilled. Said to be the world's largest gold statue made since the days of Ancient Egypt, the piece was unveiled at the British Museum in London and has drawn large crowds.

"When I showed Kate the statue, she told me she loved it," Quinn says of the piece, entitled Siren. "She modeled for me for a day or so - but she didn't pose for me like that." Noting that Siren is about "trying to live up to impossible dreams or immortality," something Moss apparently contends with on a daily basis, he says, "For Kate, she thinks it lifts her into a mythic level. I think she very much loved it because she appreciates the difference between her image and herself."

Absolut Creates Online Art Gallery For Helmut Lang

Posted Oct 5th 2008 11:02AM by Deidre Woollard
Filed under: Art

Absolut, which has a history of supporting art projects has created a new online virtual "gallery" showcasing Helmut Lang's "Alles Gleich Schwer". The online gallery will exist for three months at Absolut.com/HemultLang. In the gallery you can zoom in on pieces and look at them from different angles. From the site you can also download and print exhibition posters. It's an interesting experiment and it seems suited to Helmut Lang's first solo institutional art exhibition which showcases the same lean, angular and industrial aesthetic seen in his fashion lines.

Liza Lou Installation Derided as Too PC, Priced at $1M

Posted Oct 3rd 2008 4:01PM by Tracy Chait
Filed under: Art

In 1996 Liza Lou became an immediate art world fixture for her millions-of-beads approach to the suburban kitchen. She proceeded to hand-bead her way through all kinds of Americana, including a six-pack of Bud and a few presidential portraits.

In short order she won a MacArthur (the "genius grant"), moved to South Africa and didn't show in New York for six years. Now her latest installation, Maximum Security Fence, is drawing maximum criticism. Charlie Finch at artnet called it derivative, soul-less and a "politically correct commodity."

Lou drew similar criticism for the San Quentin-like jail cells she showed in London two years ago. One critic also questioned how she treated her assistants, who weren't allowed to talk during the creation of one of the cells -- not at all how W describes her singing, dancing Durban studio.

Maximum Security Fence is priced at $1 million and will be on display at Lever House (390 Park Ave. at 53rd) until November 29. The installation coincides with an exhibition of Lou's recent work at L&M Arts, which will run through November 15.

Pictures don't do the work justice but check out the gallery for examples of Lou's work over the years.

Gallery: Work by Liza Lou

The American President Series, 2000-2001

Ukranian Billionaire Was Big Hirst Buyer

Posted Oct 2nd 2008 11:02AM by Jared Paul Stern
Filed under: Auctions, Art

Ukranian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk has revealed he was a major buyer at Damien Hirst's record-breaking $200 million Sotheby's sale last month, but has declined to say exactly what he purchased. Pinchuk, who's worth an estimated $5 billion, has his own museum in Kiev, the first private institution of its kind in the former Soviet Union, which already houses works by Hirst, Jeff Koons and Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami. He says he plans to display his new Hirst acquisitions at the Pinchuk Center in the spring.

"Victor Pinchuk is having a great impact on the [art] market," Simon de Pury, chairman of auction house Phillips de Pury & Co., who credits him with starting the oligarch art collecting trend, tells Bloomberg. "The contemporary art market in both Ukraine and Russia has really taken off in the past two years, and I expect this growth to continue." Earlier this year Pinchuk paid a record $150 million for a house in London, the world's most expensive at the time.

Jasper Johns, John Baldessari Collaborate to Raise Funds for Obama

Posted Oct 2nd 2008 10:02AM by Tracy Chait
Filed under: Art, Big Givers

A group of 13 highly covetable artists including John Baldessari, Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns and Richard Serra have donated print editions of their work to raise funds for Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Los Angeles-based print publisher Gemini G.E.L. commissioned the group of artists to create what they're calling the "Artists for Obama" portfolio, a set of prints in a limited edition of 150 (not including Jasper Johns's iconic Flag, at right). Art lovers looking to acquire the rare set of prints must donate a minimum of $20,000 to the campaign.

[via The Los Angeles Times]

Banksy Works Fail to Sell at Auction

Posted Sep 30th 2008 8:02PM by Tracy Chait
Filed under: Auctions, Art

Banksy, the British graffiti artist who remains semi-anonymous, had five of his works at a Lyon and Turnbull auction in London over the weekend. None of them sold.

Part of the problem stemmed from Banksy's refusal to claim the work as his own. Banksy has a history of stating that street art should remain in its places of origin, and this group of pieces had been moved. In the past the controversial artist's work has earned double the expected auction price.

[via The New York Times]

Lux Tip: Art is Meant to be Seen. Go See It.

Posted Sep 30th 2008 4:02PM by Annie Scott
Filed under: Art, Lux Tips

Know what? Your local art gallery wants you to come look at the art. It's not all about money. You don't have to be a prospective buyer. Most art is made to be seen and digested by the public.

While an invitation to, say, the Louvre's special exhibition opening party might be hard to procure, your local art gallery is probably advertising their next opening in your newspaper or event magazine, and it is probably free!

Art openings often include free wine and free hors d'oeuvres, and always include mingling with interesting arty people and, best of all, the ART.

So, go to art gallery openings.

It's just another easy way to make life more lux for cheap or free.

Big Givers: Lynda and Stewart Resnick at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Posted Sep 30th 2008 10:02AM by Deidre Woollard
Filed under: Art, Big Givers

anThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has been the recipient of some big gifts lately by people eager to get their name on the door. First we had the Eli Broad's new building now comes the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. The Resnicks, who own both the Fiji Water and Pom Wonderful brands will give $45 million for new LACMA pavilion designed by architect Renzo Piano. They will also give about $10 million more in artwork. The LA Times notes that Lynda Resnick has a long history with the museum, she has served on LACMA's board of trustees since 1992 and is chair of the museum's acquisitions committee. The new pavilion is expected to open in mid-2010.

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J. Peterman English Pub Signs

Metallica Drummer to Auction $12 Million Basquiat

"East Meets West" at the Whitaker-Augusta Auction Company

Lux Tip: Free Museums

Auction House Phillips de Pury Sold To The Russians

Christie's to Auction Rare Lucian Freud Portrait

LVMH Chief Plans $140 Million Art Museum

Kate Moss Loves Her $2.7 Million Gold Statue

Absolut Creates Online Art Gallery For Helmut Lang

Liza Lou Installation Derided as Too PC, Priced at $1M

Ukranian Billionaire Was Big Hirst Buyer

Jasper Johns, John Baldessari Collaborate to Raise Funds for Obama

Banksy Works Fail to Sell at Auction

Lux Tip: Art is Meant to be Seen. Go See It.

Big Givers: Lynda and Stewart Resnick at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Deidre Woollard	189	7
2	Jared Paul Stern	72	0
3	Tracy Chait	43	0
4	Rigel Celeste	25	0
5	Annie Scott	23	1
6	Laura Malesich	18	1
7	Lisa Palladino	8	0
8	Meg Massie	1	1