The Art Newspaper

Editorial & Commentary

This was demagoguery skilled in the manipulation of existing prejudices
Chris Bratton: “I see a new, pervasive and global condition of fundamentalist violence directed against dissident images and thought”

And also:

Death as a work of art - a reply

I am not trying to get the sort of publicity that detracts from the people involved and the subject of dying. I’ve been thinking about exhibiting a dying person since 1996. In Germany, the reality of... >>

Gregor Schneider | 1.5.08

Museums should beware of being used as marketing tools

Shown at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and on the block in Hong Kong this month: Zeng Fanzhi’s Chairman Mao with Us, estimate: US$347,000-$555,000

Decisions made by art museums about what objects to acquire and what to exhibit affect the prices that those works of art and others related to them can command in the market. In the case of... >>

Adrian Ellis | 8.4.08

An unexceptional collection puffed up to lever state sale and museum franchise

The “Baroness” Carmen (Tita) Thyssen-Bornemisza’s attempt to repeat her husband’s brilliant, if questionable, $350m art sale by selling the Spanish part of her collection to Spain and using the rest... >>

David Litchfield | 3.4.08

Features

The recipe for a record price: auction house hype, media frenzy, and billionaire buyers

During the past 12 months, the record for the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist at auction has been broken twice—first by Damien Hirst’s Lullaby Spring, then by Jeff... >>

Sarah Thornton | 1.5.08

Introducing the first identical twin painters in the history of art

Pieter Oyens, 1880, and, right, David Oyens, 1878

An exhibition of paintings by the first identical twins in art history will reveal the astonishing story of David and Pieter Oyens, who worked in the Low Countries in the late 19th century. Although... >>

Martin Bailey | 24.4.08

Books—but not as you know them

These are not the type of books you find in your local library—one of them explodes, one of them is made with the artist’s own blood and one stands more than two metres high. The woman behind these... >>

Cristina Carrillo de Alborno | 17.4.08

The saving of the Irish country house (pity about the countryside)

Castletown, built around 1720 for William Connolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. It was in grave danger from property developers until it was bought by the Irish Georgian Society in 1967 with money put up by Desmond Guinness himself

We would drive down rutted tracks to find a desolate space where once there had been a house, with perhaps the stables still standing. Or the house would be there, but the owners were retreating from... >>

Anna Somers Cocks | 19.3.08

Web exclusive

Revealed: $72.8m Rockefeller Rothko has gone to Qatar

Qatar’s ruling Al-Thani family is the mystery buyer of Mark Rothko’s White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), 1950, which sold at Sotheby’s New York on 15 May 2007 for $72.8m—setting... >>

Sarah Thornton and Georgina Adam | 4.5.08

Agnew’s sells historic home in central London

One of Britain’s oldest art dealers, Agnew’s, which has a rich history of selling masterpieces from Rembrandt to Raphael, has sold its historic building in Bond Street, London. It is downsizing and... >>

Georgina Adam | 21.4.08

Guggenheim Hermitage exhibition space in Las Vegas to close next month

The Art Newspaper can reveal that the Las Vegas exhibition space at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino operated by the Guggenheim Foundation in New York and the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg... >>

John Varoli | 9.4.08

Volta: big art for Big Apple debut

In the current economic climate, the launch of an art fair could be viewed as a risky venture. But few new fairs have a deep-pocketed backer like Volta, which opened on Thursday with 52 international... >>

Gareth Harris and Charmaine Picard | 28.3.08

Books

The man who turned everything into art

It is now widely accepted that the art history of the second half of the 20th century is no longer a history of artworks, but a history of exhibitions,” states—rather provocatively—the introduction... >>

Maud Capelle | 8.5.08

The most comprehensive book on Freud

William Feaver begins his introduction to this impressive volume with a pointed and genuinely funny anecdote. A young Freud has been invited to pay his respects to the late Mr Page, a costermonger he... >>

Sebastian Smee | 3.4.08