Collectors and collections

“At art fairs, people look too quickly,” said Jason Poirier dit Caulier, the founder and director of the Plus-One Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium. “Here they take a bit more time. They almost want to touch,” he added. Poirier dit Caulier was standing in a branch of his dealership, in front of an ingeniously illusionistic painting by the Belgian artist Ritsart Gobyn, 37, that attracted plenty of up-close admiration during Antwerp Art Weekend , an annual celebration of the city’s contemporary artists and gallerists that concluded on Sunday. Although Gobyn’s artwork looked like a bare canvas with strips of masking tape and fragments from art books stuck to it, it was, in fact, a highly detailed two-dimensional painting in oils, on display with 26 similar works in “Prologue,” a solo exhibition that was part of the Art Weekend program. The show proved a commercial hit. At least 25 of the oils, which give a contemporary twist to Northern Europe’s centuries-old tradition of … [Read more...] about At Antwerp Art Weekend, Collectors Buy With Their Gut

close Video Museum of the Bible's latest exhibit shows 'link between science and scriptures' Fox News' chief religion correspondent Lauren Greene discusses NASA astronauts endorsement of the new museum on 'Fox News @ Night.' Spain will soon open a new gallery that is considered the biggest museum project across Europe in decades. The Royal Collections Gallery will feature items the Spanish monarchs collected over five centuries. The museum in Madrid will include tapestries, sculptures, master paintings, art pieces, and royal furniture. It’s not as if Madrid was short on world-ranking galleries with the likes of the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Reina Sofía, among others. But next month, Spain is set to unveil what is touted as one of Europe’s cultural highlights of the year with the opening in the Spanish capital of The Royal Collections Gallery. The swanky new museum will feature master paintings, tapestries, … [Read more...] about Madrid museum to open new gallery next month with 5 centuries of Spanish royal collections

The U.S. economy has been sluggish for as long as anyone can remember under President Barack Obama. On the plus side, though, the last several years have been a golden age for debt collectors. As of this week, over 35 percent of all Americans have bad debts and bills so overdue that some creditor has reported them to a collection agency. The Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., released the stunning statistic on Tuesday, according to ABC News . These various unpaid bills faced by tens of millions of Americans come in many forms — home mortgages, student debt, car loans and credit cards as well as abandoned cell phone contracts and never-paid gym memberships. “Roughly, every third person you pass on the street is going to have debt in collections,” said Urban Institute senior fellow Caroline Ratcliffe, according to ABC. “It can tip employers’ hiring decisions, or whether or not you get that apartment.” The particulars of the study are that creditors have … [Read more...] about Obama’s Economy In Action! Debt Collectors Now Chase 35 PERCENT Of All Americans

Spring auction week tends to be a swirl of heartachingly beautiful works of art and mind-bendingly big prices. But it also serves a more practical purpose: setting the level of the art market. Is it strong overall or ailing? Were prices inflated, appropriate or low? Which artists broke out and which tanked? On the face of it, the past week of New York sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips seemed solid, with the amount of art sold totaling nearly $2 billion at high sell-through rates. But compared to the stratosphere of the past few years , this series of auctions fell considerably short, with less exciting inventory, lower price points and some serious discounting. “This week looked like ’08, where all of a sudden people are hunting for deals and you can get ’em,” said Neal Meltzer , a New York art adviser, adding that collectors were at the same time still willing to pay top dollar for unusual pieces by Klimt, Rousseau, Magritte and Bacon . As a result, the art … [Read more...] about 5 Takeaways From Auction Week

BERLIN — It’s not looking good for Berlin’s art scene, if you believe the newspaper headlines. This spring, Die Welt, a German daily, called the city an “ art metropolis in decline .” The Financial Times said the art world had “ said goodbye .” These dire proclamations were spurred by the announcements that three prominent art collectors with art on public view here — Julia Stoschek, Thomas Olbricht and Friedrich Christian Flick — were departing, taking their collections with them. It was just the latest bad news: In December, the Art Berlin fair folded; in February the international mega-gallery Blain Southern, which had a space in Berlin, announced it would be closing. Yet, art in Berlin goes on — perhaps in a more-established, less-hyped way than during the German capital’s cheap, come-one, come-all halcyon days. From the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 until the early 2010s, when rents began rising sharply, Berlin was a hotbed for unregulated experimentation and … [Read more...] about Berlin’s Art Scene: Are Reports of Its Death Exaggerated?

HONG KONG — A luxury watch that belonged to China ’s last emperor has sold for a record $6.2 million at a live auction in Hong Kong. The rare Patek Philippe timepiece was once owned by Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty whose life was the basis for the 1987 film “The Last Emperor.” It was sold over the phone on Tuesday to an Asian collector in Hong Kong after six minutes of bidding, according to Phillips, the London-based auction house which managed the sale. Thomas Perazzi, Phillips’ head of watches for Asia, said it was a record for a wristwatch previously owned by an emperor as well as for the Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune, of which there are only eight known to exist. “I was delighted because after more than 3 years of hard work on researching, we found all the missing pieces of this beautiful puzzle,” Perazzi said after the sale. “This result brings Hong Kong to a new level as really a hub for fine watches and extremely … [Read more...] about Watch owned by China’s last emperor sells for record $6.2 million