Downticks: the Damien Duldrums: When is Enough Enough?
As evidence that there can be no strictly linear movement up in the art market without regard to quality and consistency, there has been a marked downturn and backing off with regard to Damien Hirst's auction performance in 2001. Though his last extravaganza at New...
Paul Thek: Famous… & Forgotten… & Famous
Pain, death and not being able to make art again. Have you ever stumbled across a medical television station in the middle of invasive surgery? Clamps hold open a stomach, a surgeons’ hands extend deep into the body, and blood and guts are revealed like a...
Bottino; :Bot; Glass
From 1986 to the summer of 1999 Borocco Restaurant (below Canal on West Broadway) was a favorite art world hang out in the heyday of the Mary Boone-Schnabel-Fischl-Salle-Basquiat, rein of power. A time forever, memorably etched upon the minds of those that caught a...
Trends in the Day Sales of Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips
Phillips was tepid at best and at worst, a dangerous place to go to market with your contemporary art wares. The conclusion was don't sell at Phillips work that could be accepted for consignment at either Sotheby's or Christie's (in contrast to some big-ticket items...
The Do-It-Yourself Dealers
IT IS RAINING ON THE MORNING OF MAY 3, nasty, chilly showers that add a smell of damp to the scant charms of the shabby-genteel Gramercy Park Hotel. The third annual Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair will officially open here at 6, and by noon Kenny...
My Dinner (Eavesdropping) With Gagosian
OK. So I didn't actually have dinner with him, he sat at a table behind me; but, I recognized that unmistakable close cropped gray buzz cut. We were back to back in the restaurant. As the meal progressed and in proportion to my imbibing, I began to listen more and...