Displaying items by tag: Damien Hirst

Two signed works by contemporary British artist Damien Hirst were stolen from the Exhibitionist Gallery in London. The works, which are from Hirst’s colorful spot paintings series, are worth around $54,000.

Officials believe that one person carried out the robbery and gained entry into the gallery by forcing open the front doors. It appears that the suspect had specifically targeted the two paintings.

Hirst, who rose to fame in the 1990s, is believed to be the richest living artist.  

The Art Newspaper’s annual survey of art museums named the Louvre in Paris the most visited institution in the world for 2012. Attendance skyrocketed to 9.7 million, meaning one million more people visited the museum than in 2011.The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was the world’s second most-visited institution.

The list of most-visited museums did not change significantly from 2011 and the Louvre has claimed the top spot since 2007. British museums fared exceptionally well in 2012 with some help from the London summer Olympics, which brought crowds of visitors to the city. The Tate Modern saw attendance jump from 4.8 million to 5.3 million thanks to a highly anticipated Damien Hirst (b. 1965) retrospective, which helped the museum move from the fifth to the fourth most visited institution in the world.

London’s Tate Modern announced that 5.3 million patrons visited the museum in 2012, a record for the institution. In fact, the number of visitors was up a considerable 9.5 percent from the previous year.

An exhibition devoted to the work of contemporary artist Damien Hirst (b. 1965), which ran from April 4 to September 9, 2012, contributed significantly to the Tate’s record attendance. The show, which featured some of the controversial artist’s best-known works, attracted 463,000 visitors making it the most popular solo show ever organized by the museum. The Tate’s recently opened performance space, The Tanks, also contributed to the increase in patrons. The Tanks, which opened in July, is a permanent space for not only performance, but installations and video art as well.

Tate Modern, which opened in 2000, is Britain’s national museum for modern and contemporary art. Located along the Thames River in the former Bankside Power Station, the museum expects another stellar year. Exhibitions planned for 2013 include a major retrospective of the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) and a show devoted to Swiss-born painter Paul Klee (1879-1940).

Damien Hirst, contemporary artist and leading member of the Young British Artists movement that made headlines in the 1990s, will no longer be represented by Gagosian Gallery, where he has shown his work on and off for 17 years. The news comes as a bit of a shock as earlier this year Gagosian devoted every one of his 11 galleries to Hirst’s abstract “spot” paintings.

While both art world giants claim that the split was amicable, Hirst will continue his association with London’s contemporary White Cube Gallery. It is unclear whether or not Hirst will look for additional representation in another city such as New York, where he has a large collector base.

Hirst, who is known for his excessive works of art that often include dead animals suspended in large tanks of formaldehyde and skulls engulfed in diamonds, has been regarded as the world’s wealthiest artist.  

While hedge-fund owner, Steven A. Cohen, is embroiled in a financial fiasco, the art world is anxiously waiting to see what will become of his impressive art collection. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has informed Cohen that his $14 billion company, SAC Capital Advisors LP, could be at the center of an insider-trading lawsuit. The SEC is currently suing SAC Capital’s former portfolio manager, Mathew Martoma.

Cohen, who is worth $9.5 billion, started building his collection around 2001 and is now regarded as one of the biggest and most influential art collectors. Once a major buyer of Impressionist works, Cohen began collecting more contemporary pieces and helped raise prices of big-name artists like Damien Hirst, whose shark in formaldehyde, titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, he bought for $8 million.  

Cohen’s collection also includes works by Vincent van Gogh, Edouard Manet, Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Jasper Johns. If Cohen’s troubles worsen, he may be forced to dismantle his carefully assembled collection and begin selling his artworks.

The cruise ship “Reflections,” one of 11 boats owned by Celebrity Cruises, set sail last week from Miami. Unlike most ships headed to the Caribbean, “Reflections” features 6,059 impressive works of contemporary art.

Given a budget of $4.1 million, Mariangela Capuzzo of International Corporate Art curated pieces from the company’s $60 million art collection. Working with the notion of reflections in mind, Capuzzo chose works by Robert Rauschenberg, Brazilian artist Albano Alfonso, and sculptor Will Ryman, among others. In total, there are eight site-specific works on board.

Celebrity Cruises is owned by Christina and John Chandris, the son of a Greek shipping magnate. The duo began collecting in 1990 when they purchased Robert Indiana’s Love sculpture, a bronze by Fernando Botero, a Damien Hirst painting, and many other well-known works.

David Hickey, one of America’s foremost art critics is known for his acerbic commentary, but his latest tirade against the world of modern art is downright scathing. Hickey, a professor, curator, and author, told the Observer that he will be walking away from contemporary art, a genre he says has been ruined by rich collectors who are more concerned with money and celebrity than quality.

Hickey claims that art editors and critics have lost their edge, spending more time catering to the wealthy people who hold the reigns on the contemporary art market than surveying the actual work (which he says is also lacking). Hickey is not alone in this claim. A number of contemporary art curators, museums, and galleries have deemed the work of such artists as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and Antony Gormley bloated and empty – the result of too much fame and not enough criticism. While the notion of the artist as celebrity is not new, today’s market is saturated with it and gaining status has taken precedence over making revolutionary, ground-breaking art.

A former dealer, Hickey is attuned to considering art in monetary terms but his objections stem from his belief that contemporary art has become too broad, too elitist, and lacks discretion. Hickey’s retirement will remove an important critical voice from the equation. He plans to complete a book on the pagan roots of America, aptly titled Pagan America, as well as a book of essays titled Pirates and Framers.

After ten years, Frieze London continues to be a hit with patrons and dealers alike. A mix of established and fledgling galleries, Frieze attracted nearly 55,000 visitors during its five-day run. Major sales included Paul McCarthy’s White Snow Head (2012) for $1.3 million, Damien Hirst’s Destruction Dreamscape (2012) for $807,650, and Jenny Holzer’s installation Blast (2012) for $525,000. New to the fair, Stevenson Gallery was pleasantly surprised when The Outset/Frieze Art Fair Fund to Benefit the Tate Collection acquired Nicholas Hlobo’s Balindile I (2012).

Stefan Ratibor, Director of Gagosian, said, “We had a terrific fair. Both Frieze and Frieze Masters were quite brilliant.” Victoria Miro of Victoria Miro Gallery added, “I can only say positive things. We’ve had success with all our artists and the market has been surprisingly strong. The fair is truly contemporary with many cutting-edge pieces.”

This year marked the debut of Frieze Focus, a section of the fair devoted to galleries less than ten years old. Focus participant, Mihaela Luteo of Plan B said, “The positioning of Focus has been really very good in cultivating positive reactions. This section gives us the possibility of building our profile in the perfect context. We wanted to introduce artists that may not be so well known and have sold most of the work we brought with us.”

A decade after its debut, Frieze London remains at the forefront of the Contemporary art scene. Frieze's dedication to innovation, risk-taking, and new talent can be thanked for that.

Picasso’s lovers, Richard Serra's steel and Andreas Gursky’s yacht-studded Monaco are the highlights of a $130 million trove Gagosian Gallery is taking for its first expedition to Brazil next month.

The occasion is the second annual ArtRio in Rio de Janeiro, a fair spread over 7,500 square meters (80,730 square feet) in four warehouses on Guanabara Bay. It will feature 120 galleries, including David Zwirner and White Cube, as well as events hosted by Christie’s and Sotheby's. The size and participants reflect a growing interest in the world’s sixth-largest economy.

The Gagosian Gallery has announced that they will be participating in ArtRio for the first time this year. Held September 12-16, ArtRio features major works by current artists and other modern masters. Gagosian plans to not only have a booth at the fair, but will also hold a sculpture exhibition in an offsite warehouse. Both the booth and the warehouse will be designed by Brazilian designer Claudia Moreira Salles.

There has been some chatter about Gagosian expanding internationally and as Brazil's art market has expanded considerably in recent years, ArtRio seems a logical destination for Gagosian. Works by Damien Hirst, Cecily Brown, Alexander Calder, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and many others will be on view.

ArtRio will coincide with the first major retrospective of Alberto Giacometti in South America. The show will run through September 16th at the Museu de Arte de Moderne do Rio de Janeiro and brings together 280 works from the Fondation Alberto e Annette Giacometti in Paris, which is represented by the Gagosian Gallery.