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Artnet News
11/21/00		  
     
  SUCCESS AT PARIS PHOTO SALON
The fourth edition of the Paris Photo Salon at the Carrousel du Louvre, Nov. 16-19, 2000, resulted in total sales estimated at $10 million, according to the organizers. Some 95 galleries participated in the photo fair, arguably the most important photo fest in the world. Last year, dealers reported high demand for 19th-century photographs, but now, they say, collectors are seeking contemporary works.

Auction prices are soaring in this part of the market, particularly with works by contemporary photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff, Cindy Sherman and Thomas Struth. Many buyers are speculating in this specific sector, say insiders, who calculate that 36 percent of sales are at prices under $1,000 and 46 percent between $1,000 and $5,000.

Man Ray (1890-1976) remains the most sought-after photographer on the market, followed by Cindy Sherman (b. 1954), Edward Weston (1886-1958), André Kertesz (1894-1985), Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Paul Outerbridge (1896-1958), Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884), Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) and Edward Steichen (1879-1973).
-- Adrian Darmon


DAY WITHOUT ART
December 1 marks World AIDS Day/Day with(out) Art, and an international calendar of events celebrating the day can be found at Artery: The AIDS-Arts Forum, the webzine edited by Robert Atkins and published by the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS. Among the activities is "Fever in the Archive," opening Dec. 1 at the Guggenheim Museum.

AVEDON DONATES
Photographer Richard Avedon has donated a group of 115 portrait photographs to the Metropolitan Museum -- the set of pictures that he exhibited in 1975 at Marlborough Gallery in New York as a kind of survey of the "intellectual, artistic and political landscape of a nation that had undergone a social and cultural revolution," according to the museum. The photographs range from a 1949 study of Frank Lloyd Wright to a 1975 portrait of William Burroughs, and include images of Marilyn Monroe, Robert Oppenheimer, Marcel Duchamp, Truman Capote and Louise Nevelson. The works go on view at the Met in the fall of 2002.

"EGOFUGAL" AT ISTANBUL BIENNIAL
The theme for the Seventh International Istanbul Biennial, Sept. 22-Nov. 17, 2001, has been set -- it's "Egofugal: Fugue from Ego for the Next Emergence," organized by Tokyo art historian Yuko Hasegawa, curator at the Kanazawa Contemporary Art Museum. For more information, check out the websites at www.istfest.org and www.istanbulbiennial.org.

WEINER DOES COVERS
Conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner has designed 19 cast-iron manhole covers for Con Edison in New York as a result of a major commission from the Public Art Fund. The works, which carry the phrase "In direct line with another and the text," are installed in holes in streets in the West Village, Union Square and Tompkins Square area. The project is Weiner's way to "pay homage to [the New Yorker's] ritual of looking down, watching feet hit the pavement, avoiding construction zones, curbs and debris, to arrive at a destination," the PAF says, and is "an ultimate statement of anti-monumentality" and "based on the very materiality of New York, iron immersed in asphalt." The manhole covers go on view today, Nov. 21.

LATIN LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens its new, 4,000-square-foot Bernard and Edith Lewin Latin American Art Galleries on Dec. 14, 2000. The galleries are devoted to rotating exhibitions of the museum collection, which includes more than 2,000 works, mostly by Mexican modernists, donated by the Lewins in 1997. LACMA has the world's largest holding of works by Rufino Tamayo, and boasts the most significant public collection of works by Carlos Mérida.

NGA RETURNS OLD MASTER
The National Gallery of Art has relinquished a 17th-century still life by Flemish artist Frans Snyders after concluding that it was probably looted from a French Jewish family during World War II. Titled Still Life with Fruit and Game, the work was seized from Edgar Stern in 1941, and later turned up in the collection of Karl Haberstock, the notorious Nazi art dealer. The painting was donated to the NGA in 1990 by Herman Schickman, himself a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.

One curious wrinkle in the case, according to a report in the Washington Post -- does Schickman now owe taxes to the IRS? He was allowed to deduct the full value of the painting when he donated it to the National Gallery, but the official value of a looted artwork is zero. The NGA is the fourth U.S. museum to return Nazi war booty; the others are the Seattle Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the North Carolina Museum.

GLOWING LANTERNS FOR NELSON-ATKINS
Architect Steven Holl has unveiled his design for the annex to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Holl's addition, to the east side of the Nelson's 1933 building, is 140,000-square-foot exhibition hall topped by five frosted-glass structures. The Nelson has raised almost $200 million towards the project.

ILLNESS HALTS SISTER WENDY TOUR
The U.S. tour of the world-famous art nun, Sister Wendy, has been cancelled due to concerns for her health, according to Harper Collins, her publisher. Sister Wendy was scheduled to appear at the Cleveland Museum of Art last week to promote her latest book, Sister Wendy's American Collection, which features works from the Cleveland Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Boston MFA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

MAX ANDERSON KEYNOTE AT ART SHOW
Whitney Museum director Maxwell Anderson is giving the keynote speech at the 13th annual Art Show in New York, Feb. 22-26, 2001. Organized by the Art Dealers Association of America, the Art Show 2001 is presenting 70 art dealers at the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue and 67th Street. Five galleries are participating for the first time: Edwynn Houk, Hans P. Kraus Jr., Matthew Marks, Jill Newhouse and David Zwirner.

KIESLER PRIZE TO BARRY
New York multimedia artist Judith Barry has won the second Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts from the Kiesler Foundation in Austria. The prize, worth about $50,000, is the third largest cash award for the arts. The 1998 winner was architect Frank O. Gehry. For more info, see www.kiesler.org.

MOORE AT DALLAS
The first U.S. retrospective of the work of Henry Moore in nearly 20 years opens at the Dallas Museum of Art, Feb. 25, 2001. "Henry Moore, Sculpting the 20th Century," organized by DMA curator Dorothy Kosinski and Henry Moore Foundation exhibitions head David Mitchinson, is subsequently appearing at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The exhibition includes 109 sculptures and 98 drawings.

NEW ROLES AT CHRISTIE'S
Christie's auction house has appointed John Hays as its international director, in charge of developing business strategies for top collections, particularly of American furniture and folk art. Hays has been at Christie's for 20 years. In another appointment, Christie's has named Martha Willoughby head of its American furniture and decorative arts department.