Christie's Embraces the iPhone

Christie's, ever at the forefront of online-auction technology, has developed an iPhone app that allows users to browse catalogs, zoom in for close-image analysis, and check sales results. You can also get directions to Christie's salerooms and decorate your iPhone with downloadable wallpapers.

For the truly serious Christie's enthusiast who's in it for much more than just a couple of Impressionist wallpapers, iPhone users can also use their camera function to submit items for appraisal, and eventually the app may have a live bidding function as well.

Users can already live-bid through the internet on Christie's Live, which offers real time video of the saleroom (which is fun just to watch sometimes, especially at big evening sales, more exciting than a courtroom drama!).

Check out Christie's On the Go page for an assortment of widgets, podcasts, an iGoogle auction calendar, and of course, the new iPhone app.

In a total art-world turnaround, the Old Master paintings summer sales at both Christie's and Sotheby's did far better than expected, even beating out the dismal totals from the recent impressionist, modern, and contemporary sales.

Big-ticket items included a Willem Heda still life that went for 1.38 million pounds, a newly attributed Frans Hals, and Fra Bartolommeo's Madonna and Child. Could these auction results be evidence of a shift in popularity in favor of Old Master works and away from the modern and contemporary that's dominated the art scene of late? Given the current economic climate, collectors are increasingly careful with their purchases, and Old Masters tend to be a better, more solid investment than whatever is currently hot in the contemporary market.

Interestingly though, as Souren Melikian recently observed regarding the modern art sales, there seems to be a lack of quality art to go around at auctions lately, leading major houses to pad their catalogs. This last round of Old Masters included 19th century works and drawings. Apparently the rush to buy up the last of the "good art" is on.

(And for a little fun, check out these incredible modern "Old Masters")

Art Links

-A new show of paintings by modernist Belgian artist James Ensor in the creatively titled James Ensor at MoMA.

-A show of objects from the National Museum in Kabul, Afghanistan at the Met, which was previously at the National Gallery in Washington. Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul is on through September.

-Sotheby's has done pretty well in the last few days, with solid modern and contemporary sales, with Picasso and Giacometti selling well at the modern sale and contemporary standbys Warhol and Calder selling well yesterday, though American art is not doing well at either house.

-LACMA, in a somewhat surprising but still totally predictable move, sold off their old master paintings at Sotheby's. I guess they didn't get the memo about older art being a consistently good investment.

-The new Acropolis Museum in Athens is awesome, which has sparked debate over who really owns the Elgin marbles, currently housed at the British Museum in London.

And now for some bad news

The art world is still suffering, bad news this week includes:

-A disappointing Impressionist and modern art sale at Christie's London, which just barely cleared the $60 million low estimate. As Souren Melikian says: The hard lesson for auction houses is that scraping the barrel to fill a catalog no longer does the trick. To do well, you need real art and there is not much left of it.

-Contemporary art galleries in Chelsea (and pretty much all galleries in New York) are in trouble this summer, and there have already been several notable closings. The notoriously slow summer season combined with a huge recession in art buying make it survival of the fittest (and best-marketed).

-More and more exhibitions are being cut from museum schedules due to financial concerns, and in most cases, a lack of funding.

-The Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum announced last week that both major institutions will cut more staff. The Guggenheim will cut 25 positions, or about 8% of their full time staff, while the Met laid off 74 employees and offered 95 other employees retirement packages.


But let's end on a good note!

-Most of the documents, many dating back to the Middle Ages, have been recovered from the rubble of the Cologne Archives, which collapsed back in March. The catch is that everything has to be sorted and re-cataloged, and 15% of the materials are still missing.

-Art Basel did surprisingly well, partially due to lowered prices and partially owing to the fact that most rich art collectors are still rich.

Another Art History Mystery

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has just acquired a painting believed to be by a young Michelangelo.

The Torment of St. Anthony, an easel painting, was recently studied in-depth by Keith Christiansen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He believes that the work is definitively by Michelangelo, and dates to 1487-88, making Michelangelo only 12 or 13 when he completed it.

The NYTimes article presents an interesting mix of opinions from experts who've seen the work from museums and auction houses around the world.

In other news:

-There was another less-than-spectacular Sotheby's sale last night, bringing in only $47 million in total.

-The Eiffel Tower turns 120 years old tomorrow.

Art Links

Hey everyone! I'm back with your Art Links this beautiful Friday:

-Those Hitler paintings that were up at auction recently sold for a lot more than people thought they would, coming in at around $143,000.

-I wish I was able to go to London to see this show at the Tate Britain, Van Dyck and Britain.

-This Leonardo mystery sounds like a case for Dan Brown! Oh wait, Gary Radke's work for the show Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of Genius actually sounds like art history at its finest. Dan Brown could learn something.

-An interesting interview with graffiti artist Sixeart.

-Depressing news: the dire market for academics gets even more dire.

Art Links

-More bad news for the art industry: 2008 was the worst year for Sotheby's since 2003, budget cuts, pay cuts, and job cuts ensue.

-The Met cuts even more jobs, spanning all departments.

-Alexander McQueen's ab-so-lutely brilliant show at Paris Fashion Week. The slide show that accompanies this NYT article is especially good.

-It seems that the British Museum is in trouble again regarding illegally excavated artifacts. This time the subject is a bronze Chinese drum stand from 770-476 BC, now owned by the Shanghai Museum.

Art Links

-Following yesterday's news that the Met might be cutting staff, the Philadelphia Museum of Art announced today that a mixture of 30 positions (some currently filled, others vacant that will now not be filled) will be cut. No curators are being let go (though they will take a pay cut)...yet.

-An Art Deco armchair by Eileen Gray became the became the most expensive piece of 20th century furniture ever at the Yves Saint Laurent sale, the top bid at 21.9 million euro.

-A little fun, because I think fashion is art, and the fashion was fantastic at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. Here are a couple of slide shows with the highlights. I would kill for SJP's Dior gown.

The Curious Case of the Kaaba Key

Sotheby's canceled the record £9.2m sale of a 12th century iron Kaaba key (originally sold in April of 2008) after the key's authenticity was disputed. Art historians at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Oxford were consulted in the matter, their expertise eventually resulting the annulment of the sale.
The Art Newspaper reports that only 17 medieval Kaaba keys are known to exist (though there are 58 that exist total, from any period), and because of their extreme rarity, the likelihood that the Sotheby's key was a fake was extremely high. Indeed, there were many doubts regarding the key's authenticity leading up to the sale. The key was the most expensive Islamic work ever to be sold at auction.

Art history is sort of like detective work, isn't it? It gets especially exciting when 18 million hangs in the balance.

Art Links (and a Mummy!)

-A very insightful review from Roberta Smith of the new exhibition at Chicago's Art Institute, Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth. "I may not be creative, but at least I’m not crazy." (Van Gogh, I'm looking at you!)

-Greece's plan to unveil the new Acropolis museum, opening about 5 years behind schedule after disagreements with the British Museum and an impromptu excavation of artifacts from a large swath of early Christian Athens.

-German art happenings, featuring an exhibition of German expressionist works at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the clash of Western and non-Western art at Zurich's Museum Rietberg, and a collection of contemporary German art at Die Pinakothek in Munich.

-Buzz about the upcoming Yves Saint Laurent sale at Christie's Paris. I've taken a look at the copious catalogs that accompany this sale, and it's quite spectacular (Christie's provides complete eCatalogues online). Check out some of the sale highlights on the Christie's website. I'm partial to the Juan Gris cubist works and Fernand Leger's Composition, in the factory, 1918, though the sale will also include an impressive collection of Old Master paintings and decorative arts as well.

-Not quite art-related, but a new mummy from Luxor, Egypt underwent a high-tech CT scan without even having to be removed from her [rather beautifully painted] coffin. Science!

Morning Art Links

- An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about contemporary artist Elizabeth Peyton's work. A retrospective of her portraits is moving to the Walter Art Center in Minneapolis (opens Feb. 14th), having just finished a run at the New Museum here in New York. I find Peyton's work to be some of the most interesting paintings that have been done in recent years, probably because she works in a traditional genre, but "reinvents" it in a way that appeals to modern audiences.


- Also in the Wall Street Journal, a snapshot of recent contemporary art auction results. The past few months have been some of the most tumultuous the major auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have experienced in recent memory, as both houses have had heavy job cuts, and disappointing sales all around. Highlights for the upcoming contemporary sale at Christie's this week include standbys like Koons, Murakami, and Bacon, though at somewhat more conservative estimates. Interesting that though the industry has suffered, impressionist and modern sales continue to perform respectably.

-An exhibition at the Walters Art Museum features nine manuscripts of the Old French poem, the Roman de la Rose, one of the most popular and influential texts of courtly love in the Middle Ages. The manuscripts are also displayed with some of the Walters' medieval ivories, many of which pick up on the same courtly love themes. What a great medieval Valentine's Day activity!


miniature from a manuscript of the
Roman de la Rose in the Bodleian Library