Modern art prices go down

The Bloomberg agency informed that estimates of works put on October auctions in the sphere of modern art in London are lowered for 81% as compared with the estimates of the last year.

The lowest estimation bounds for the works that are offered on the bids of such auction houses as Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury makes 20,8 million pounds ($ 33,1 million). A year ago it was 107 million pounds.

In the end of 2008 the three auction houses stopped guaranteeing the sellers the minimal prices for their pieces of art. Besides, more paintings are sold not at open bids but through private transactions.

The Christie’s and Sotheby’s bids will be held on the same day, October 16th.
Christie’s brings forward 25 lots, the lowest estimate boundary is 6,8 million pounds ($ 10,8 million). Last year the auction houses sold 47 lots expecting to get not less than 57,8 million pounds for them.

Sotheby’s brings forward 177 lots and plans to get 9-13 million pounds for them ($ 14,320,6 million). Last year it brought forward 62 lots and the lowest estimating boundary was 30,6 million pounds.

On October 17th Phillips de Pury will offer 44 lots on the bids and hopes to get not less than 5 million pounds ($ 7,9 million).

Last year it brought forward 70 lots estimating them 18,6 million pounds.

What You see Might Not Be Real

Sunday, on September 28 the Beijing gallery displayed Chen Wenling’s dream, the striking sculpture “What You see Might Not Be Real.”

The sculpture represents a bull that in its turn represents Wall Street. Bernie Madoff, the con man whom the bull pins down into a wall, is considered to be the biggest con man of all time.

The great cloud that comes out of the hind part of the bull symbolizes not only the covetous epoch but also the jeopardy of virtual bubbles in international financial markets. Money and material desires clutch at false impressions. There also turn to be men who unluckily fall for them. Here are the main themes that this amazing piece of art covers.

Famous Animator Robert Sahakyants Passed Away

Talented and very famous Armenian animator Robert Sahakyants died in Yerevan on September 24 at the age of 59 shortly after being operated on.
On September 21 Sahakyants was taken to hospital as he had heartache. Doctors revealed aorta exfoliation, but unfortunately it was impossible to save the animator's life.
Sahakyants is well known for his cycle of animation films based on tales of Armenian classic writer Hovhannes Tumanyan. Some of Sahakyants’ well-known animation work includes Lilit, Kikos, Talking Fish, and For You, Armenia.
Sahakyants is famous and loved for his about thirty scenarios of animation films. His cartoons are known not only to Armenian people but he is also well known abroad, especially after getting awards at international film festivals in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, Ukraine, Russia, Estonia.
In 1987 Sahakyants was awarded with the title of Honored Artist. This talented animator was also honored to be the Artistic Director of the Union of Animation films at the 'Hayfilm' film studio.
Along with creating wonderful, kind and wise cartoons, Sahakyants was also rather seriously involved in politics.
As in the company of friends and colleagues, Sahakyants was always easygoing, kind, friendly, simple and available in communication. By heart he always remained young and this was one of the secrets of his success.
Artistic director Erik Muradyan called this loss an irretrievable one.
Sahakyants had a big family, four children and seven grandchildren. His two sons are now in their way to discover the mysterious world of animation.

Mariam

The great art dealer

The most powerful figure in the world of contemporary art Larry Gagosian experienced a unique entry into this mysterious scene. Willing to earn some money he started to wander from place to place selling reproduction posters for $15.

However this was not to last forever. Soon Gagosian realized that he had to enter to bigger market if he wanted to gain success. Finding some way of cooperation with rich collectors, Gagosian soon opened his gallery in LA.

It was in the late 70s that Gagosian came to New York with Annina Nosei to exhibit works of art from a small gallery in SoHo. Gagosian obtained the place for $10000 and a painting of Brice Marden. Already in the early 80s Gagosian became one of the most powerful dealers in the town. He was making great efforts and was trying his best to promote and rise stars like Jean-Michel Basquiat, whom Gagosian met in 1981 just after his debut show.

In 1985 Larry Gagosian moved his entire operation to New York and here he set up his first art gallery on West 23d Street.

However, things grew to their highest culmination when Gagosian met Leo Castelli who was a famed gallerist working with Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein. With Castelli’s great help and support Gagosina soon became one of the biggest collectors in town getting the nickname “Go –Go”
It was in 1990s that willing to widen his business Gagosian opened galleries in New York, two in London, two in LA and one in Rome.

Gagosian is now considered to be the most influential player on the contemporary art scene and is generally believed to be the richest gallerist.

Now the powerful art dealer lives in a townhouse on the Upper East Side that was designed for Christophe de Menil, the fashion designer and Schlumberger heiress.

Kim Gordon, the guitarist of Sonic Youth who worked for Gagosian overtime the time he was selling posters in LA, commented, “He was such an asshole. He used to yell at us. It was a painful, awful experience working for him. He was very mean.”

Mariam

Pigeons, the great art critics

Professor Shigeru Watanabe from Keio University in Japan insists that pigeons are able to criticize art like humans do it. The pigeons manage to do this by putting into practice color and pattern cues as well as their texture. According to the professor’s study pigeons can be tamed to differentiate “good” from “bad.”
Springer’s journal “Animal Cognition” published professor Watanabe’s work online.
Art teacher in a Tokyo school classified children creating art either “good” or “ bad.” Pigeons from the Japanese Society for Racing Pigeons were placed in a chamber and in front of them there was replaced a computer monitor demonstrating children’s art.
During the first series of experiments four pigeons were trained to recognize “good” pictures and as soon as they pecked at the “good” pictures, they were given good food. The pigeons were not rewarded when they pecked on “bad” pictures.
The pigeons were also demonstrated some old “good” and “bad” paintings and the birds pecked at the “good” paintings more often than at the “bad” paintings. What is more interesting about these studies is that as soon as the birds were shown grayscale paintings they were no longer able to distinguish as far as they use color cues.
Mosaic pictures also represented some difficulties for the birds to be distinguished. This is explained by the fact the birds also use pattern cues.
Eight new pigeons were trained to distinguish and recognize the texture of the pictures. Four of the pigeons were able to recognize the watercolor paintings and four were trained to recognize the pastel paintings.
These researches show that like people pigeons use visual cues to differentiate “good” paintings and painting texture.
The brain architecture of human beings greatly differs from that of pigeons’, however both pigeons and humans function in the same way to make complex visual distinction.
Mr. Watanabe considered it important to mention that this research does not deal with advanced artistic judgments, but it shows that pigeons are able to acquire the ability to judge beauty similar to that of humans.

Mariam

Modern art stimulates emotions

People who visit museums of modern art are used to describing their visit in emotional terms. Traditional art, on the contrary, more often gets rational description.

A group of Italian experts from University of Rome in the head of Stefano Mastandrea has researched and analyzed the reasons for what people go to museums.

The experts questioned 137 people who had visited two not so well-known Rome museums, the palace of Braschi (exhibiting pictures of 16-19 centuries) and The National Gallery of Contemporary Art (exhibiting pictures of 19-mid 20 centuries).
In both cases the visitors mainly turned to be women. The educational level of the visitors was the same in both cases. The most frequent answers to the question why they visited museums were that they had great interest to this or that artist or that they were coming to see the original pictures.

However, there turned to be visitors who said they visited the museums for self-satisfaction, while the reason for the visitors of museums of traditional art was the wish to get spiritual nourishment.

What is more interesting about these studies is that the visitors of the museum of contemporary art showed higher results in the sense of expressing emotions.

According to the researches, people who visit contemporary art museums and galleries look for new impressions as compared with those who prefer ancient art.

However the experts found it important to mention that in both cases the visitors were satisfied with their visits.

Ovations or criticism…?

It is maybe a universally recognized truth that when you start doing something new, something which is not quite usual for people, you must be completely ready to receive both ovations full of surprise and criticism. However, what is essential, is to treat both steadily. The project that ArArtplatform realizes is not an exception in this sense.
ArArtplatform is a private project promoting and selling pictures of Armenian artists beyond the boundaries of Armenia. It seems as if what ArArtplatform aims to do is a deed really devoted to the well-being of the nation. Nevertheless, being the first suchlike project in Armenia, it arises kind of intrigues covering the following questions: “How will this project work?” “Why should Armenian art be promoted?.” Some people may even wonder what is that makes Armenian art differ, others will probably ask themselves, “is there anything about Armenian art that can make a foreigner believe in its uniqueness without being part of the country it reflects.” To create a piece of art means to give birth to something dead or something that did not exist before. Artists reflect their illusions, their dreams and more often the reality in their own perception of this concept. However, what is typical to this or that nation is by all means, either you like it or not, reflected on the work the artist creates. Thus what is different about Armenian art is that it reflects Armenian reality, Armenian symbolism, peculiarities that are typical to this very nation. One can not escape from his roots and one can not ignore or deny what comes with blood. However, to be rooted to your own country never means to deny the advantages and uniqueness of other countries.

ArArtplatform never aims to insist that art should not be a means to earn money. The mission of this project is to offer opportunity to Armenian artists to become known and to sell their art without taking care of it… What the artist needs is just to relax and to enjoy the rapturous process of creating.

Mariam

Real Art: When Science meets Art

Have you ever imagined that human’s insight beauty can be shown as a graphic picture?

The radiologist Kai-hung Fung made success in it with the help of CT scan. Making pictures and working them up in graphic editors, he gets amazing results.

Dr Fung said: ‘The pictures I create are generated directly from the medical 3D workstation, representing what I see on it. I do not use software such as Adobe Photoshop to further change the image.

Dr. Fung’s works are exhibited in galleries all over the world and all the proceeds from sales are donated to charity.

Angela

Stephanie's Fine Art Gallery

Have you ever visited Stephanie's Fine Art Gallery?
Well, this is a bold and advanced gallery in Sothern California based on Armenian art. Beyond its unique emphasis on Armenian art, Stephnaie's is particularly distinctive thanks to the wide world outlook of its founder and owner, Linda Stepanyan.
The Art gallery was opened ten years ago. The aim of the founder was to represent and make Armenian art familiar to art lovers from all over the world.
Linda Stepanyan mentions, "when other nations appreciate Armenian art it makes me proud of what I am doing.....It makes me happy and gives me more motivation."
The gallery mainly focuses on modern and contemporary art. Dealers from all over Europe also serve as sources to create those unique collections that are exhibited in this gallery. Here one can also find works of Armenian artists from Europe and Istanbul from the mid-nineteenth century. Paintings of such world-known names as Jean Carzou, Jean Jansun, Hovsep Pushman, Edgar Chahine, Leon Tutundjian, Arsene Chabanian, Ohannes Alhazian, Sarkis Diranian are represented and exhibited in the gallery.
Not only Armenians but also non-Armenians come here to enjoy and buy these extraordinary works of Armenian art. Stephanie's gallery has clients who are in the movie industry in Los Angeles and who really differ "Real Art."
Stephanie's gallery provides a wonderful opportunity to get the world recognize the Armenian art. This gallery serves to educate the general public about Armenian art and culture.

Mariam

Can may be used to paint on it

It is possible to draw not only on a canvas, a paper or asphalt, but also on cans, the founders of the project «paintingcans.com» claim. This project is realized for creation and dissemination of independent art.

Everyone can be part of this project, from any part of the world, from any sphere of life. Just use a can as a canvas, express yourself on it and send it to the project.

What does it give? Each works of the participants can be placed on project’s site gallery and can be offered for sale.

Angela

Art in the time of economic recession

Recently, thinking over the world’s most discussable problem, a logical question occurred to me…Is economic recession a serious problem for the world or is it just an inevitable sweep to put things in order.

Well, for the beginning I decided to treat it from the professional point of view…so, the short definition for economic recession is “a temporary slow-down in economic growth.”

Later, another question occurred to me…What is the impact of economic recession on the sphere of art? Is it a slowdown or again a means to put things in order.

As soon as global crisis began to take its tall on the world, there immediately arose an anxiety…what influence will it have on maybe the most philanthropic sphere of life, on art?. What is the reaction of art dealers on this matter. Has the time to adapt come? Some insist on the fact that art prices are weakening by all means, others claim that even if the economy of art has gone down, it is because perceptions are different. According to some other art dealers, visual arts will never suffer economic pressure as long as there exist influential art collectors who are always ready to pay significant sums of money to enlarge their collections with the latest work of an outstanding artist.

However, what the universally recognized truth says is that the success of art market is almost always connected with the economic situation of this or that country, so the two walk hand-in-hand. The statistics even brings it to the point that recently the number of young art collectors all over the world has increased. There may be various explanations for this, one of them suggesting that prices for luxury consumer items are lowered. For US and UK art buyers this turns to be one positive aspect of economic recession. It is programmed that the impact of world recession for US, Middle East, South East Asia and Europe museums is more subtle, but no less profound.

One thing, however remains stable… just like art itself market relies heavily on public opinion. When the art lovers’ confidence is exhausted, they buy less.

After 1980’s art boom, there occurred a great collapse. However, for any situation, for all times art experts suggest the main art lesson: buy art to put on the wall, not on your portfolio.

Mariam