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Picasso's Granddaughter Sells 7 Works: "He Was Cruel, I Want to Forget Him"
Marina has decided to get rid of it for the modest sum of 241 million Euros In the background, a very difficult family history, between Pablo's absence and his suicidal brother Bearing that surname must not be easy, if that surname is undisputedly synonymous with contemporary art: but that is not the reason why Marina Picasso, Pablo's granddaughter and sole heir, struggles to live with the memory of her celebrated grandfather. 241 million euros No, the reason she decided to sell seven of the 400 Picasso works she owns, as well as the La Californie residence, where the painter lived with his second wife, Jacqueline Roque, is to distance herself from a painful past, from a man who "drove everyone around him to despair," as she has repeatedly said. Some gossips might argue that these sales are actually driven by far more venal impulses: for example, the 1909 "Woman with a Mandolin" is worth 50 million euros, while the 1921-22 "Maternity" is worth 45 million. Interesting figures. The paintings will be sold at an auction house in Geneva. «Grand Pere» But the 64-year-old granddaughter, as she wrote in 2001 in a biographical volume simply titled "Grand Pere" (Grandfather), actually has her fair share of reasons to detest the man so many revered: daughter of Paulo, son of his first wife, the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, and sister of Pablito, she was never accepted by the egocentric, cold, and detached painter. He never welcomed his grandchildren into his other house in Mougins, grandchildren of whom he didn't even own a photograph, placing between himself and them the terrible Jacqueline, a priestess of the Picasso cult who would reply to the little ones: "Your Highness isn't here" or "The sun is resting." She didn't even allow the children to attend the painter's funeral in 1973. His brother died from it An emotional bombshell that would have destroyed anyone. While Marina survived, so to speak, by suffering from anorexia, her brother did not: ingesting liters of bleach "to erase the weight of this inheritance," he died two months after Picasso's passing. A terrible family affair, therefore: this is also why Marine did not attend the celebrations marking the fortieth anniversary of the painter's death in 2013. "I don't feel particularly emotional," she said at the time. "The further I distance myself from what I experienced as a young man, the happier I am." And indeed, if you look closely, these are wounds that no million-dollar auction can heal.
From Campbell's Soup to Matisse. Art in the Year of Expo
Still lifes, Warhol's iconic cans, and much more on the theme of food are featured in the 2015 exhibitions, ahead of the Milanese food festival. But there's more: from the great French artist to Pollock, from Medardo Rosso to the monograph on motherhood. of the Expo Food and Matisse. 2015 will be the year of the Milan Expo (theme: "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life"), and the attention for all things food—"food" for those who want to feel international at all costs—is growing so much that it's spilling over into art: themed exhibitions will begin in the first month of the new year. It all begins in Brescia, where, at Palazzo Martinengo, starting January 24th, a major group exhibition will open with a title that leaves little to the imagination: "Food in Art. Masterpieces of the Great Masters from the 17th Century to Warhol" (curated by Davide Dotti). Around a hundred works by classical artists will be exhibited alongside more modern names, from Magritte to Fontana, so that until June, works such as De Chirico's "Fruit Compositions with a Classical Statue" and Warhol's famous Campbell's Soups will be on display. But the most anticipated food exhibition in Italy is another one, one that has already generated considerable buzz, months before its opening on April 10, 2015, at the Milan Triennale, due to the high fee paid to its curator, Germano Celant. The exhibition, titled "Cucina&Ultracorpi," will bring together, with a display by Studio Italo Rota, works, documents, and testimonies from artists, writers, musicians, architects, and designers who have expressed their views on food. Food is also invading art in Emilia Romagna, where it is creating a number of structural problems, so much so that Marco Pierini has resigned as director of the Galleria Civica di Modena after four and a half years. The source of the discord is the city council's decision to use the Palazzina dei Giardini—the gallery's exhibition space for over thirty years—as a space for the Villaggio del Gusto (Taste Village) during the aforementioned Expo, abruptly interrupting a successful artistic program that had been ongoing in the city, acclaimed by both the public and critics.
LONDON: 235 MILLION COLLECTED
Far from the £100 million target! London's October tour de force dedicated to Contemporary art grossed (between Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips) something like £184,416,675, just under €235 million. If we then factor in the 44 masterpieces from the Essl Collection, sold at Christie's, the total soars to £231.2 million. Contemporary art fever is at its peak. Sotheby's, in addition to a historic Italian Sale (£41.3 million), sold for £28.2 million in its Evening Sale. The top price was the living Informal master Pierre Soulages (2,658,500). At Christie's, Evening set five records for super-emerging artists (Joe Bradley, Rachel Whiteread, Toby Ziegler, Brent Wadden, and Louis Eisner). Fourteen lots sold for over £1 million. Three sold for over £2 million. And three sold for over £4 million. The top price was the fifty-year-old Peter Doig (4,562,500). Second and third place went to Gerhard Richter (4,450,500) and Jean-Michel Basquiat with Love Dub for A (4,338,500). GUN ITALIAN STYLE In the Day Sales, in addition to the minor works by historic Italians (all sold), Michelangelo Pistoletto rose significantly with a 1971 multiple (The Turkish Bath), whose 75/150 example started at 9,000 and stopped at 26,250 pounds. The two Blu paintings by Marcello Lo Giudice, present in the major sales and estimated at 24-36,000, totaled 101,250 pounds. At Phillips (which grossed 20 million with the first two auctions in the new venue at 30 Berkeley Square) the photographic print by Paola Pivi was sold for 17,500 pounds. Now, after the excitement of London, while awaiting the big November auctions in New York, our enthusiasts and collectors can relax with Italian auctions. Between Rome, Genoa, Florence, Prato, and Vercelli, the offerings are rich and varied. Farsetti (www.farsettiarte.it) offers a significant catalog, with a selection of works of historical and artistic interest, in the wake of signs of recovery in the antiques market. HIM AND HER PISTOL On Thursday the 30th and Friday the 31st, the catalog features antique furniture and paintings. Among these are a Flagellation of Christ by Luca Giordano (€20,000-€30,000) and a View of Rome painted in 1855 by Ippolito Caffi (€18,000-€24,000). Saturday will feature paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the works by the Macchiaioli, the large L'Arno alle Cascine by Giovanni Fattori (€280,000-€350,000). In Florence, Pandolfini (www.pandolfini.it) is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a special sale showcasing the best of every department. A significant collection of Renaissance majolica, gathered in a single catalog, has already attracted considerable interest from foreign customers (including museums). Also on the Arno, Bibelot (www.maisonbibelot.com) is offering furnishings and paintings from Villa Pandolfi in Florence on Thursday and Friday. Proceeds will be donated to the Salesian Institute for the Missions in Turin. PHOTOGRAPHS In Genoa, the event is twofold: with modern and contemporary art, photography, and design at Boetto (www.asteboetto.it) and with furniture, old master paintings, and 19th and 20th-century paintings at Cambi (www.cambiaste.com). The auction house, located in Castello Mackenzie, offers four unmissable catalogs with attractive estimates. Michelangelo Pistoletto There are 1,800 lots of furniture and art objects, approximately 360 19th-century and ancient paintings, including a large Venetian Market by Stefano Novo (15,000-20,000) and a portrait attributed to Bernardo Strozzi (35,000-40,000). The eight sessions that Meeting Art (www.meetingart.it) will dedicate to antiques (furniture and paintings) will begin on Saturday, November 1st, and run until the 13th. This Saturday (lots 109 and 110) are offering two large Vertical Landscapes by Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli, formerly part of prestigious collections and auctioned at Christie's in 2002. Prices start at €16,000 and €25,000. Finally, starting tomorrow, the Roman auction house Babuino (www.astebabuino.it) will offer art and paintings from Roman collections, furnishings, Chinese and Asian art, silver, jewelry, and collectibles. In short, there's something for every taste and budget.
Takashi Murakami, in Milan with an eye on Fukushima
The first exhibition of the Japanese "ancient child" in an Italian public space. One of the most paradoxical artists of our time, considered one of the great stars of contemporary art. A selection of recent works, ranging from science fiction references to references to his country's recent past. In the Sala delle Cariatidi at the Palazzo Reale, until September 7th. Huge, colorful canvases teeming with curious characters, many of them resembling holy men and portrayed frontally, large or small, in prayer or contemplation. They are the "Arhats," perfect Buddhist figures on the verge of nirvana, painted with meticulous care and many aids by the most famous Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami, and from today they can be admired in the Hall of the Caryatids at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. On few other occasions has the work of this artist, beloved for the great energy of his pop language, imbued with references to manga, been seen in Italy. He has been hosted in the past by the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin and by Gogasian, his gallery owner, in Rome. Therefore, this is a real opportunity to get to know his precious works up close, which tour the most important museums in the world, and which have recently also occupied a temple of classical art, the Palace of Versailles, which has been literally invaded by his works. In Milan, Murakami presents the Arhat series: in addition to four paintings, up to 10 meters wide, several smaller canvases show self-portraits of the artist, who likes to depict himself in a comical way with round glasses, a goatee, and hair tied in a ponytail, leaning on piles of skulls (absolutely not disturbing) or on masses of gaseous matter. These works were created after the Fukushima disaster, which shook Japan indelibly: "It's a large-scale exhibition mounted in record time that reveals Murakami's transformation, after 2011, into an ancient child," explains curator Francesco Bonami. "It focuses on the theme of disasters in Japan, and is set in a symbolic space that speaks to the inevitability of fate, a place burned during the war and subsequently left in ruins. We Europeans are not accustomed to taking fate too seriously, and this is an exhibition where the protagonists are monks who want to help humanity move forward in adversity." The cycle marks a real shift in Murakami's art, considered by many to be the true heir of Andy Warhol, capable of understanding creativity also in terms of the worlds of industry and finance. Among his relationships with major corporations, the most memorable was the deal with Louis Vuitton, which in 2000, when Marc Jacobs was the artistic director, asked him to reinterpret the brand. Murakami printed it with bright colors, in perfect "Superflat" style, a celebration of surface texture and pop culture. Born in Tokyo in 1962, with a university curriculum including a music degree, he founded the Hiropon Factory, which later became Kaikai Kiki Co., which has studios in Japan and New York and employs hundreds of people. These workshops produce not only paintings and sculptures but also gadgets, merchandising, graphics, and take on complex creative projects. Despite his counterculture roots, he is not averse to brand art, enforcing copyright laws on all his products. In this regard, the Milanese exhibition, open until September 7, will also be accessible through the fashion and design portal yoox.
De Chirico, 160 previously unpublished works published
Surprising paintings such as ''The Poetic Dreamer'' from 1937, acquired by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Or more traditional works, such as the 1934 Self-Portrait, which emerged from a private collection. A brilliant and prolific artist, active throughout nearly the entire 20th century, the great Giorgio De Chirico never ceases to amaze. So much so that 36 years after his death in 1978, 160 previously unpublished or otherwise unknown works have come to light—along with countless fakes. This is the latest development in a new General Catalog, the first volume of which is currently available in bookstores from Maretti Editore. The catalog aims to complete the cataloging of the master's impressive output while also stemming the phenomenon of forgeries, which has further increased in recent years. Introduced by an essay by Claudio Strinati, the volume—the first in a series of at least four—collects the fruits of years of work by the Giorgio and Isa De Chirico Foundation, whose mission is to "search for and catalog works deemed authentic by the master," in addition to managing the house museum in Piazza di Spagna and preserving a collection of over 550 canvases and drawings. This work, explains Foundation President Paolo Picozza, seeks to bring to a close the vast output of the inventor of Metaphysical Art, 27 years after the publication of the "historic" General Catalogue edited by Claudio Bruno Sakraischik (now out of print), which authenticated 2,600 De Chirico paintings and which was interrupted in 1991 with Sakraischik's death. Collected in this first volume of the Maretti General Catalog are 450 works dating from 1912 to 1976, which were not included in Sakraischik's catalog. Of these, 290 are accompanied by a bibliography (published in the appendix), while another 160 are currently unpublished and virtually unknown to scholars, as Strinati notes, "even though a certain number of paintings appearing in the volume have appeared at auctions or exhibited in exhibitions with related catalogs, some authoritative, others marginal." During his long life, De Chirico—according to President Picozza—produced some 5,000 paintings and drawings. The Foundation's goal, he explains, is to finally bring order to this vast sea of works within a few years, cataloging and publishing the more than two thousand missing works from Sakraischik's oeuvre and establishing a reliable chronological order. Following the recently published volume, a second volume, with another 450 works, is planned for January 2015, followed by a third of equal weight at the end of 2015, and then a fourth "until the collected material is exhausted." All this is to "provide scholars and collectors with an important and comprehensive tool for consultation, comparison, and work." But also, the lawyer emphasizes, "to try to stem the ever-recurring phenomenon of forgeries."
Philips closes London auction week on a high note
The Phillips sale on July 2nd concluded London's Contemporary Art auction week: 27 lots in the catalogue generated £9.9 million, with high sales rates of 95% by value and 85% by lot. Young artists such as Wade Guyton, Tauba Auerbach, and Lucien Smith particularly triumphed, with David Ostrowski also setting a record. The artist, born in 1981, was featured in the catalogue with a 2012 canvas titled F (gee Voucher), which sold for £170,500 against an estimate of £30,000-50,000. The only work to surpass the million-pound mark was Andy Warhol's Self-portrait, which sold for £2.8 million. Rudolf Stingel followed with a 2012 work sold for £842,500, and in fourth place was a joke painting by Richard Prince, My Life as a Weapon from 2007, which sold for £680,500. Among the opening lots, Auerbach took eighth place in the evening's top ten with a 2012 work, Untitled (Fold), fetching £386,500 above its high estimate. Lucien Smith also blew past estimates, selling for £115,500 with Boys Don't Cry. A large-scale work by Wade Guyton from 2007 found a buyer for £602,500, while Mark Flood's abstraction, Mineral, from 2003, surpassed expectations, selling for £86,500. Among the sculptures, Anish Kapoor's Untitled (2008) reached its high estimate at £812,500; and Anthony Gormley's Domain XI (Freefall) from 2000 also performed well, selling for £182,500.
Milan. An exhibition on Mimmo Rotella at the Palazzo Reale.
"Mimmo Rotella. Décollages e retro d'affiches" is the title of the exhibition dedicated to one of the most iconic and influential figures in Italian art of the last century, currently on display at Milan's Palazzo Reale. Curated by Germano Celant, promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan – Culture, Palazzo Reale, the Mimmo Rotella Institute and the Mimmo Rotella Foundation, it will be open to visitors until August 31st.
Christie's New York grosses $745 million: the highest ever in its history.
Christie's New York grosses $745 million: the highest ever in its history. Yesterday's contemporary art evening sale broke the record for an art auction. The Bacon triptych (€80 million) is headed to Asia. New York. May 13, 2014, is a memorable date for the art market: Christie's Evening Sale of Postwar and Contemporary Art grossed $744.9 million (€543.7 million), the highest total ever recorded for an auction in the history of the art market. The previous sale was $691.6 million, also recorded at Christie's last November. Of the 72 lots offered, 68 have changed hands. The sales rate is 94% by number of lots and 98% by value. Among the ten highest prices, it is striking at first glance that the top four are above $50 million and the top nine are above $25 million. Finally, of the ten most expensive lots, five were purchased by clients who spoke by phone with Christie's specialist Xin Li, vice president of Christie's Asia. The highest price of the evening was achieved by Barnett Newman, who doubled his own record at $84.16 million (€61.4 million). The work in question ("Black Fire I," an oil on canvas from 1961, 289.5 x 213.3 cm), here with an estimate on request, was purchased by the current seller in 1975 from the Mayor Gallery in London and had a substantial bibliography and exhibition history in its catalogue. In second place was Francis Bacon's triptych "Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards," 1984, an oil on three canvases measuring 198.3 x 148 cm, sold to an Asian buyer for $80.8 million (approximately €59 million), roughly the same as its unpublished estimate. Moving down the price list, an untitled work by Mark Rothko fetched $66.2 million (€48.3 million), while "Race Riot," a four-part acrylic and silkscreen on canvas by Andy Warhol from 1964, was purchased for $62.88 million (€45.9 million) by Larry Gagosian, who also bought "If You," an aluminum enamel painting by Christopher Wool from 1992, for $23.68 million (€17.3 million). According to Christie's press releases, 10 auction records were broken. In addition to Gagosian, the event was attended by collector Eli Broad, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, high-risk fund manager Andrew Saul, and real estate investor Mark Fisch. The day before yesterday, May 12th, Christie's held its first contemporary art sale, assembled by a young curator, 33-year-old Loïc Gouzer. The auction was titled "If I Live I'll See You Tuesday," taken from a work by Richard Prince. The 34 lots sold (out of 35 total) generated $134.6 million (or €98.2 million) and achieved a 97% sales rate by number of lots and 99.5% by price. The top lot of the sale, at $18.6 million (or €13.6 million, against an estimate of $9-12 million), was an untitled 1988 oil on canvas by Martin Kippenberger, which broke its own record. In addition to Kippenberger, 13 other artists achieved their highest ever price.