June 2009

Phillips de Pury Contemporary Evening Sale Results (Highlights)

June 30, 2009

Event: Phillips de Pury Contemporary London (Evening) Sale Date: 29 June 2009 Time: 1900h Auction Summary: 1. Sales totalled up to ₤4,227,000 (excluding premiums), underperforming low-end estimate by 21.7%. 2. 30 of 40 lots sold, with 75.0% sell-through rate. 3. 12 lots sold above high estimate, 11 lots sold within estimated range, 7 lots sold below low [...]

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Bansky’s Boomerang Effect

June 25, 2009

What goes around comes around. What is art to someone is vandalism to some others.  What is beauty to Bansky is unadulterated ugliness  to others. And it seems Bansky’s boomerang has returned to Bristol to hit him with a thud. Two thuds to be precise;  Two of his artistic murals were vandalized this week. I’m staying tuned for more… Has the [...]

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bluffer’s bluffer’s guide to Jeff Koons

June 24, 2009

In my 12 June entry, I gave undivided attention to an artist I thought everyone knows. I was wrong. My still good friend, JT, skipped the lengthy entry… because she didn’t know wtf Koons is. So, to all JT’s out there, here’s a 5-points bluffer’s guide to Jeff Koons:

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DoD

June 23, 2009

What do the Queen, Richard Branson and Angelina Jolie eventually have in common with men-on-the-street? Death. La mort. 死 亡. Grim Reaper spares no one. And when it is time, GR will personally invite you to a DoD - Dance of Death. … after you have been stripped of your corpus, beauty and earthly  possessions but hopefully not your soul.

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neophytes in necropolis

June 22, 2009

Something about an abandoned hospital inconveniently located at a secluded spot that stops you in your rat race tracks and forces you to ponder about mortality. Welcome to Necropolis (formerly known as Changi Hospital (CH)) … … so a budding Yoshitomo Nara of a neophyte, with an explorer’s thirst for charting unknown and forbidden territories humorously declared:

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To buy Art, all you need is Love

June 18, 2009

This is a story about love. Once upon a time, there lived a girl and a boy who fell in love with each other and got married. Dorothy was a librarian and Herb a humble postal worker. They live in a simple 1-bedroom, rent controlled apartment. In 1962, Herb & Dorothy Vogel went to the [...]

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Nuit Blanche 2009 @ Toronto

June 17, 2009

Who needs Fast (aka Speed) when you’ve got Farmer. Who needs Jack Rabbit (THE vibrator that gained celebrity status in Sex and the City) when you’ve got Jeff’s Rabbit. I’m talking about the 4th edition of Nuit Blanche - an annual sunset to sunrise Contemporary Art festival  that will be parading the streets of Toronoto coming 3 October.

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Designer Donuts

June 13, 2009

A disclaimer to start off with: I am NOT sponsored by the wonderful 3M and Scotch… yet, I hope. Like one of those juicy scandals that even the most virtous priest would find difficult not to divulge, Scotch’s Donut Dispenser is simply too delicious to not tell anyone about. I’m one of those lucky ones [...]

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Art Basel 2009: Brad Pitt’s shopping cart

June 11, 2009

You don’t have to be an art veteran to have that bloodhound instinct for sniffing out bargains at this year’s Art Basel. … or the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) for that matter. The star of the opening day at Art Basel yesterday was not a Damien Hirst-disciple, Peggy Guggenheim incarnate or even Larry Gagosian himself. Instead,  all [...]

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permission to Fill Your Walls

June 1, 2009

Remember the infantile urges that instinctively prompted us to surge uncontrollably, armed with a handful of Caran d’Ache crayons,  toward the freshly painted white walls that surrounded our playpens? As surely as the infamous WWII Japanese pilots were convinced of the nobility of their cries for Kamikaze!, I recall charging toward the nearest available wall screaming Gwafitti! Like many [...]

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