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 York's Gagosian Gallery (Fall, 2000) sold out and was an
unmitigated raging success, there has begun to settle in a re-evaluation
of the value of Hirst's artistic output in all forms, i.e. paintings,
sculptures, prints and multiples.
In effect much if not all of Hirst's recent output has been the
result of endless reiteration of a few ideas first put fourth
in the early stages of his career nearly a decade ago. The obvious
nature of this stratagem is the bottomless pit of spot and spin
paintings that ceaselessly flow from Hirst Incorporated. Together,
these works form a kind of non-authored aggregation that until
now has continuously fed the hungry masses of collectors and institutions
hankering to have a scrap of the Hirst enterprise to proudly showcase
on their mantelpiece. The spots are offspring of early Bridget
Riley paintings from the 1960's, augmented by titles that refer
to pharmaceuticals, produced ad infinitum; and the spins, a simple
Richter-esque formula with no discernable conceptual import. All
in all, these bodies of works (two simplistic "ideas") amount
to naked marketing panache. And guess what, the collecting world
has begun to take notice as reflected by the fact that on many
occasions no paddles were raised at the last round of auctions
in New York and London when these works appeared. A humorous footnote
to the machinations of the creation of these paintings, Christies
tried to distinguish one of the endlessly repetitive spots by
stating in its catalogue that Hirst had a hand in actually applying
the paint to one of the early ones himself. Wow, what a reassuring
signifier of value that a painting was allegedly touched by the
author (which painting did not sell by the way).
Like binary fission, Hirst's sculptures split off into reincarnations
of themselves, sometimes a fact made clear to the public at large,
and sometimes a deception hidden from full view: caveat emptor-let
the buyer beware. An example is the flayed skeleton sculpture
resting on a glass cross with floating Ping-Pong balls suspended
from the eyesockets. In the Spring of2000 this work first appeared
in London's White Cube Gallery's grand opening in Hoxton Square
under the name "Rehab is for Quitters" (can't take anything away
from Hirst's occasional brilliant wordplay), which sold in the
vicinity of $275,000. In the fall of the same year in New York,
the work appeared under the guise of a different name with no
allusion to the fact that this was an exact replica of a previously
created sculpture. An early 1990's medicine cabinet readymade,
no different from a Hiam Steinbach, and Koonsian in spirit, failed
to elicit a single bid in New York in the Spring of 2001 with
a $600,000-800,000 estimate. Ten years later, Hirst is still shopping
away in medical supply catalogues doing a great impersonation
of himself. Great work for as long as you can get away with it.
Further examples, and they are legion, are two gynecological offices
submerged in water with fish (as stated in Hirst's own words to
refer to woman who "smell like kippers") called "Love Lost", and
"Lost Love", one with small fish, and one with larger fish. And,
separated by four years from his last one person show in New York,
two floating ball sculptures, one just a beach ball suspended
by a jet of air (1996), and another ball similarly suspended but
in the later work over knife blades. Could the life of excessive
indulgence (rumors of rampant boorish behavior at the recent Venice
Biennale ) be the result of guilt , and self-doubt over continuing
to bamboozle the art world? Stay tuned.
In the early 1990's Karen Kilimnik was a leading light of the
movement known as scatter art which entailed the strategic placement
of found stuff, crafted objects and assorted flotsam spread about
the floor in a sculptural arrangement akin to a Carl Andre with
a degree of three dimensional kitsch. When hard economics times
hit in the early nineties, one suspects that Kilimnik's dealer,
the 303 Gallery in NYC, had a hand in the gradual transmogrification
in the body of work from these loose, barely confinable aggregations
to paintings and works on paper. Though any time factors impacting
on the work of an artist wrought from without may seem problematic,
the work of Kilimnik has progressed into some of the most effecting,
original two-dimension art currently being produced. This is especially
apparent when taken into consideration with some of the outlandish
prices for the works of her contemporaries such as Cecily Brown
(over $100,000), Elizabeth Peyton (over $75,000), John Currin
(nearly $350,000) and Chris Offili (over $300,000). In relation
to the previously mentioned group of Kilimnik's contemporaries
(all younger artists by the way), her work is downright undervalued.
Recent auction performance for Kilimnik's drawings are in the
neighborhood of $10,000 and oftentimes lower, and a record of
$27,500 for a painting dating from 1996 (Spring 2001, Sotheby's
day sale). Her work has yet to crack the evening sales of a major
auction. The paper works often juxtaposes imagery and text with
colored pencils and painted bits, detailing the worlds of fashion
and celebrity in a mode not seen in others who tread upon this
albeit familiar territory. The works on paper are in a language
so distinct to the artist that one can imagine a scenario where
these will be more favorably viewed over time than the paintings.
In Kilimnik's hands, these themes become infused with a mannered
romanticism, light and airy in the drawings, as the sculptures
once were diffused on the floor, and lushly painted when applied
to canvas. Kilimnik is transfixed by the ballet in an almost nostalgic
longing for active participation in the realm of dance that has
infatuated so many previous artists. In the end, the works of
Kilimnik are like little gems (always small in scale, physically)
with the paint luxuriantly applied, the text quirkily distinct,
and prices that have not yet come close to approaching the top
of their inherent value.
PERSONAL PICKS:
IN THE DOMAIN OF THE UNKNOWN-ACCONCI STUDIOS
Vito Acconci seems to have found the secret of life transcending
the everyday woes that drive the rest of the world at large, namely,
the ubiquitous quest for prosperity that has recently spurred
global acts of civil disobedience and violence. From his beginnings
as a poet and early conceptualist in the 1960's, mercilessly exploring
his body in his photo-based text pieces and performance work,
Acconci has consciously cultivated a position outside the mainstream
mechanations of the artworld. He famously lives a life of extreme
asceticism without so much as a nod to the throes of conspicuous
consumption that rule so many of our lives. His outfit is a regimen
of black shirt and trousers, never varying from one year to another,
yet from day to day. His studio is a threadbare office with gunmetal
gray metal shelving units that could furnish the set for a 1950's
accounting firm. Though he has worked with Barbara Gladstone Gallery
for some years, among the most elitist venues in New York, his
body of work has grown steadily unwieldy progressing from 2-D
and video, to large-scale installations, to giant outdoor public
works to the most uncontainable of art forms: architecture.
To date, Acconci has built architectural elements such as the
futuristic walkway and entrance to a subway station in Shibuyu,
Japan (2000) and a slowly turning ring set within an administative
building courtyard in Munich, Germany, powered bya wind turbine
atop the office tower. Such gyrations in the body of work of an
"artist" are considered tomfoolery, or worse, career self-destruction.
And, the extant pieces of Acconci popping up at recent auctions
have been no exception to the inelasticity of the artworld when
it comes to marked shifting in art making practice. A model for
an outdoor work, a giant clam shell sculpture fetched all of $1,500
in the Spring 2001 auctions at Phillips. A fencing-mask festooned
with video cameras as eyes and mini monitors to observe the din
of life from a protected stance was for sale for $35,000 at Barbara
Gladstone's summer 2001 group show. The early panel pieces from
the late 1960's through the 70's, comprised of a photographic
element and a text component, can be had generally for $5,000
to $15,000 at any given auction. Adivce: buy anything you can
from this seminal master of the contemporary who only suffers
from being too far ahead of his time with his quest for intellectual
pursuit and experimentation at the expense of material and societal
success.
Towards my unfettered belief in the ideas generated by Acconci
Studio, I have commissioned Acconci and his band of disenfranchised
young architects to design a permanent gallery space in New York's
Chelsea, and while that project is being built, a temporary public
exhibition space in the West Village, as well. The premise was
to use Frederick Kiesler's design of Peggy Guggenheim's Art of
This Century Gallery (from 1942) as a point of departure-to readdress
the paradigm of the white cube as the monolithic, only viable
model within which to show art. The results by team Acconci were
as loopy as one would imagine: the void of the cube is to be filled
with a giant, all encompassing, polycarbonate blob floating in
the space like a slightly hovering blimp... There are no walls,
when paintings need to be hung apparatuses appear from hidden
structures in the columns like accordians. The biomorphic mass
seduces people into the space where the faêade is left purposefully
open to blur the distinction between outside and inside. Clear
your minds, withhold judgement: a new archetype is upon us to
display and disseminate contemporary art and hopefully, just maybe,
things will never be the
What in heaven's earth is Jeff Koons thinking with regard to
his new series of paintings aside from money? They are without
doubt the most awful crop of crap to emerge from the studio of
a leading light of contemporary art since...there is no comparison
to be made, as this body of work stands unto itself in the annals
of art. Not even dwelling on the reputed sweat shop studio filled
with in excess of forty Soviet immigrants working on the paintings
in shifts that stretch 24-7 (hours per day and days per week),
they feel corrupt for other reasons. First and foremost, there
is the James Rosenquist rip-off factor; despite the fact that
Rosenquist is still alive and well and making more authentic and
underrated versions of the real thing recently on view at Gagosian's
Chelsea outpost, crafty Koons displayed his mercenary restatements
at Gogo's Beverly Hills branch. Fitting that Koons' "paintings"
debuted in Beverly Hills since they felt as fake as bad plastic
surgery cases resplendent in the sunny streets of Los Angeles.
The paintings are spliced and diced with shards and fragments
of children's toys, desserts and body parts in the hyper realistic
mode that has reared its ugly head in the equally off-putting
works of Mary Boone's new batch of "talent" Damien Loeb and Will
Cotton. Sure, there is nothing wrong with assistants fabricating
work, and Koon's vacuum cleaner assisted readymades and statuettes
are wonderful, but here they just come off as the shady output
of a charlatan.
And, continuing the rampage is the recent hyperbolized 1980's
painting show with the dim-witted title: Mythic Proportions at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. The cracked crockery
paintings of Julien Schnabel have not aged very well and seem
the result of an out of control temper tantrum from the monstrously
egotistical tyrant who thankfully has picked up steam in his directing
career. Can we really afford to loose that much volume of space
on the planet with more of his office building sized creations?
Too bad David Salle's movie directing career has fizzled in direct
proportion to Schnable's advancement because his paintings have
the veneer of a hangover from a point in time that is better put
behind us, and we are assured to get nothing but more of the same.
Ross Bleckner looks here the same as he ever was: dull, repetitive
and decorative; like wallpaper for the aesthetically challenged.
Peter Halley, though interesting colorist as he is, remains the
reigning king of the formulaic-how it must feel to be locked into
an economic conundrum where one feels the need to make the same
work over and over for in excess of twenty years. He paints prison
bars and seems forever locked into one. Take your Cucchi, Clemente,
and Chia thank you very much; we have entered a new millennium,
so let us quickly get over this overrated, overvalued and overpriced
period of art.
Harlem is heating up hot in the real estate and art markets.
Though the sale of townhouses has not breached the one million
dollar mark, it is a threshold that is bound to be broken soon
irregardless of the present economic slowdown that has seen some
residential prices drop by 20% elsewhere in Manhattan. MVRDV,
the Dutch architectural firm (an offshoot of Rem Koolhaas' office)
much in demand after making a big splash at Expo 2000 in Hanover,
are presently in discussions to build in the area for a young
New York City collecting couple in the tech industry. Way up north
on 149th Street, Sasha Newly, the British born society portrait
painter and son of Joan Collins has set up a live/work space on
a full floor of a refurbished brownstone. Many contemporary artists
are presently migrating uptown to Harlem to set up studios and
seeking living accommodations, since compared to artist-infested
Brooklyn, the rents are competitive and the atmosphere much more
sympathetic.
Art-wise, there is The Project, the progressive gallery run by
Christian Hayes that in it's few short years in existence has
become a must see for the hard core gallery going public. The
gallery represents such luminaries as perennial Whitney Museum
wonder-boy Paul Pfeiffer, winner of the first $100,000 Buxbaum
Prize for video recently awarded by the museum and newcomer painter
and installation artist Peter Rostovsky. After Thelma Golden was
unceremoniously dumped by new Whitney chief Max Anderson, and
after a short stint with the Peter and Eileen Norton Foundation,
she has settled into to a position as Deputy Director of the Studio
Museum of Harlem on West 125th Street. The Director of the museum,
Lowery Stokes Sims was formerly the Curator of Modern Art at the
Metropolitan Museum (that hotbed of contemporary art activity!)
where she had been on staff since the early 1970's. The Studio
Museum is presently undergoing a major expansion and renovation,
to be completed by 2002, which includes a new glass faêade; entry
court; cafô; auditorium; and new 2,500 square foot permanent collection
galleries. As commented upon by a gallery-goer after the opening
of the latest offering, curated by Golden, entitled "Freestyle":
"They have this area perched in between two buildings (i.e. in
an alley) which they turned into the little social area, brightly
lit and shrouded in white linen, where the liquor was served and
the elite meet and greet and congratulate. It was every other
opening, but it was right there in Harlem. At the opening you
even heard a yell or siren from the streets, alerting us all to
the fact that this little pretentious bubble could pop. It was
so not-Harlem. It was so 'fine-art'."
From glancing at the press release, though, one would think "Freestyle"
and the Studio Museum in general represent less freethinking and
more overt dependence on Philip Morris and their cultural cigarette
smoke and mirrors.
PERSONAL PICKS: SANFORD
BIGGERS AND SUSAN SMITH PINELO
Standouts from the Studio Museum of Harlem "Freestyle" exhibition
were a video by Susan Smith-Pinelo, a recent graduate of the MFA
program at Columbia University and sculptures by Sanford Biggers,
recently graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago. Smith-Pinelo
presented a work titled: "Sometimes" which depicted a closely
cropped set of bodacious boobs swaying up and down, and right
and left to the sound of Rhythm & Blues music. Filling the entire
screen was the hypnotically pulsating crevice of her cleavage
in a white tank top shirt sporting a jeweled necklace spelling
out her name. Concise, to the point, and remarkably memorable
and effective-a kind of site-specific work that dealt with the
context of the show in its immediate surroundings in a more meaningful
way than most other entrants in the exhibit.
Sanford Biggers was recently the recipient of Lower Manhattan
Cultural Council Grant which entitled him to a studio on the 92nd
floor of one of the World Trade Center Towers. In the downtown
venue (the more successful of the two for him) Biggers presented
a large-scale sculptural installation and uptown a series of clear
cast resin Buddahs filled with sundry detritus culled from local
Harlem neighborhood life. The Trade Center sculpture was a headrest
of a queen sized bed fitted in red satin sheets and faux black
fur comforter, in the form of a giant afro hair pick shaped into
a clenched fist and clad in black leather. The piece utilized
the symbol of the Black Power movement, conceptually reduced to
the kitsch of a hair comb, then enlarged to a bed ornament morphing
into a comment on the clichô of African American male prowess
in the sack. All in all, a tough though humorous and seductive
work of art.
The World Trade Center (WTC) disaster was sad, nauseating and
unfathomable. After being brought to our collective knees, New
Yorkers walk around with a continual knot in our stomachs wondering
what will be next. We are gripped by fear for the futures of our
children, and simultaneously are forced to digest information
about conflicting reports on asbestos exposure. At the time of
this writing, nearly six weeks after the attack our neighborhoods
and homes (miles from the WTC) are intermittently overcome by
an invisible remainder from the still smoldering site that manifests
itself in an acrid, indescribable smell. The odor has caused many
people to temporarily or permanently flee the city altogether.
One thing is clear, although we are not told so by the local authorities,
this scent must be carcinogenic. Experiencing the events of September
11th, for those that survived, was akin to a life threatening
mugging; after the initial shock and scare fade, there is the
residue of loss of a certain protected sphere of the body and
mind. And, if you happen to ask someone directions on the street
after being robbed, they jump three feet. That is how we all feel
with each and every plane sighted overhead, and every loud noise
from the street-this from a city characterized by a cacophony
of unruly sounds. By erasing the towers and inducing a state of
implausibility and heightened uncertainty, we are all walking
around vulnerable beyond naked. Now passenger planes could be
guided missiles, and regular mail is a delivery system for deadly
anthrax. Maybe we were a bit too smug in our sense of security
as the USA was caught sitting on its hands; and then, as Lichtenstein
might have put it: POW! Life as we know it will never be the same.
Though it is truly impossible to pick up where we left off, what
else can we do?
Cynically showing a dark side of humanity akin in spirit but
not in levels of destruction as the terrorists, immediately after
the event street hawkers sprang into action selling appropriated,
re-photographed images of people jumping from the towers to avert
the heat, flames and smoke. Also available for sale, both on the
street and in one hour photo shops, were pictures of the towers
imploding. Additionally, not a bodega exists in the city that
does not sport a newly minted postcard rack with glossy mementos
of the towers standing tall as they once, almost inconceivably
now, did.
Another odd, disquieting phenomenon at the early stages of the
art season was the post facto gravity given to art works nothing
more than mediocre, due to their fortuitous connection to the
WTC attacks. Chief among these cases was Wolfgang Staehle's installation
"To the People of Manhattan", later changed to "Untitled" after
the attacks at Postmasters Gallery. Staehle hung up his appropriationist
art making shenanigans in the early 1990's as he set about creating
an arts oriented web discussion group and net services provider
called "The Thing". Internet providing must have proved insufficient
ego gratification as Staehle decided to allegedly reenter the
art making fray again. What is more irksome than the re-contextualization
of his work in post WTC terms is his claiming his simulcast in
the gallery of lower Manhattan, a TV tower in Berlin and a monastery
in Comburg, near Munich, was "a kind of contemporary landscape
painting". Couching new media work in the language of painting
is a non sequitur that does a disservice to the art of paint and
canvas as well as the realm of the video ready-made (see the work
of Jeremy Blake, which also fits in this category). The destruction
of the towers, viewable as a gaping hole in the New York City
skyline on his simulcast only served to render his work a quick
fix substitute for CNN, to hold one over on the way home to catch
the latest news.
Richard Phillips, at Frederick Petzel Gallery, who once made
quirky quilted neo-geo sculptural constructions in the go-go late
1980's shifted to the more market friendly world of photo-realist
paintings quite similar in form and content to the 1960's artists
that gave the movement it's name. Suspiciously, the change occurred
in the belt-tightening, recession plagued early to mid-1990's
when, perhaps in a bid to keep up with the Sean Landers' and John
Currin's of the world, who were classmates of Phillips at Yale,
and had launched zooming painting careers at the time. In this
case, a knowing, wink-wink, obviously sarcastic portrait of a
smirking George Bush took on the unintended monumentality of depicting
a leader at the crossroads of a world historical moment. In the
instances of Staehle and Phillips, they clearly had no a priori
intent to capitalize on a tragedy, the magnitude of which no one
could have foretold; but, the unintended effects served to focus
unwarranted spotlights on work that was at best undeserving of
the added attention.
New Yorkers are a resilient bunch and we will pick up the pieces
and create a city even more determined and cohesive than ever
before. The art market, after holding its breath for much of September
seems to be slowly eking back to more normal levels. In the immediate
aftermath of the WTC there was an eerie pause where things came
to a grinding halt: there were no visitors to galleries whatsoever,
and business came to a standstill. However, feedback from galleries
such as Andrew Kreps in Chelsea, a cutting edge venue that represents
international emerging artists, shows a heartening rebound in
business and an honoring of pre September 11th deals. His first
show of the season (mid September to mid October) multi-media
artist Hirsohi Sunairi practically sold out with prices in the
range of $3,000 - $15,000. The centerpiece of the exhibit, a giant
abstracted wooden Buddha with a painted and photo collaged surface,
was also the most costly work in the show. It sold just prior
to the 11th but the sale was not reneged upon, which is good news
from the unproven, more speculative emerging segment of the market.
At Luhring Augustine Gallery, Japanese photographer Yosimura Morimura
who usually cross- dresses himself into roles in iconic Hollywood
films or masterpieces from historic art works, sold remarkably
well at levels from$10,000 to $45,000 in editions from 3 to 15.
Phenomenally for any time of year, yet almost inconceivable after
the most heinous act of terror the world has known to date, the
gallery sold in excess of 40 pieces of the artist playing Frida
Kahlo in photographs and videos. Though certain collectors expressed
sentiments that they were "not in the mood to buy", artists such
as Donald Baechler reported fairly brisk sales from his studio
in the range of $20,000 to $50,000 for paintings and works on
paper. A possible precursor to the upcoming fall auctions was
the recent sale held on October 10th at Sotheby's from the estate
of Fred Hughes; Andy Warhol's recently-deceased business manager.
Though the sale was comprised of mostly decorative doodads from
his elaborate brownstone, a classic blue Warhol Jackie portrait
in the generic size of 16 x 20 inches which is almost classifiable
in the realm of commodity (over 40 are known to exist), fetched
a respectable $180,000. At another auction, this one a charity
event to benefit the Coalition for the Homeless, anxious bidders
snapped up much of the art being offered. Ricci Albenda, an emerging
conceptual artist who has a project room opening at the Museum
of Modern Art in November, sold an 8 x 10 inch drawing on paper
for $1,500 and an Ed Ruscha print in an addition of 100 sold for
a healthy $5,600. With these encouraging tidbits of sale information
trickling in, perhaps art will be viewed as a safe haven in a
shaky economy, in an even shakier world.
Las Vegas and Art: Public Meets Private
(Interview with Robert G. Goldstein, President of the Venetian
Resort-Hotel-Casino)
The manners in which contemporary art galleries and museums function
is based upon models that have not changed for decades. One would
think with the entrepreneurial nature of the gallery business
and the lack of institutional structure and layered bureaucracy
inherent in the museum world, that galleries would be quick to
respond to shifting cultural, political and economic times. Paradoxically,
that has not been the case as none other than the Guggenheim has
seized the initiative, first in Bilbao, and now even more radically,
in of all places: Las Vegas. That innovation has occurred at the
hands of the much-derided director of the Guggenheim, Thomas Krens
and the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino. Vegas, much more so than
Spain, has the potential to forever transform the underlying business
of art-from nurturing new audiences to disseminating works of
art to the public. Stay tuned.
Since the late forties the architecture of galleries, mimicking
early museums of modern art, adopted the white cube paradigm for
displaying works in order to confer value when there was little
or no market to support such wares... Thus, for in excess of sixty
years there has been a rigidity and orthodoxy in exhibitions that
is mind-numbing in its sameness. If you step into contemporary
art galleries from Africa to Asia you encounter the ubiquitous
generic box, uniform hours of operation, and worse still, the
exclusionary mind-set. And now the time for change is upon us;
more revolutionary than a revolution started by the public sector
is the launching of a hybrid marriage with private enterprise.
Inevitably, galleries will catch on and be emboldened to follow
in the footsteps of the Vegas experiment in reaching out to inaugurate
alliances that for the first time seek to mobilize fresh visitors
that would not ordinarily patronize galleries.
Viva Las Vegas
Las Vegas has tourism (prior to the World Trade Center attack,
referred to herein as WTC) to the tune of 35 million visitors
a year, and 130,000 hotel rooms en toto in which to house them.
The 1.5 billion-dollar Venetian hotel, with over 3000 rooms, has
60,000 people a day passing through the lobby. Within the hotel
alone are 400,000 square feet of retail space and three Jacob
Javits Centers worth of convention space to boot (1.7 million
square feet). Citywide, room rates can be had for as low as $29.99
at Circus Circus Hotel and probably approach a slot machine jackpot's
worth for the high-end consumer. Vegas boasts more retail space
in 3 miles than anywhere else does in the world. The commercial
establishments in the Venetian hotel range from Canyon Ranch Spa
and Prada to Banana Republic, and rival Madison Avenue for quality
and choice. The city is hitting its stride with an onslaught of
new gourmet eateries and nightlife activities and the re-development
is not predicated on increasing gambling tables, but on entertainment
and retail.
Elvis Meets Picasso
Steve Wynn, the legendary hotel developer of Las Vegas who began
his forays into hotel ownership in deals involving Howard Hughes,
built the Mirage Hotel and Casino in the eighties. The Mirage
introduced the concepts of high end shopping and better dining
to Las Vegas to skeptical critics that thought neither would fly,
but take off they did. The Bellagio, which opened in 1998 at a
cost of 1.6 billion dollars, added another high-end retail concept
to the glitzy and gaudy world of Las Vegas: the single collector
museum. Just a few years prior to the opening of the Bellagio,
Wynn began an art collection of Impressionist masters, though
not in the usual incremental fashion one might test the waters,
rather, in true Vegas Style, we went in deep, to the tune of hundreds
of millions of dollars. In 2000 the Mirage (which includes the
Bellagio) was sold to MGM Grand Inc. for $6.4 billion out of which
Wynn was said to receive between $500 and $800 million. With the
sale of the hotel, Wynn acquired a right of first refusal on any
offers made for works from the Bellagio collection, said to be
worth $400 million, sometimes for prices less than that offered
by another buyer. Of the $400 million art collection of the Bellagio,
half was said to be owned by the hotel and the remainder owned
by Wynn and leased back to the Bellagio at a cost of $5 million
per year.
It was the forward and insightful thinking of Steve Wynn during
his reign at the Bellagio Hotel that gave birth to the impetus
that trickled-down to the Venetian in the form of the Guggenheim,
and Hermitage Guggenheim. Wynn committed the then (and still a
little now) sacrilegious act of bringing world class art to a
hotel lobby gallery and restaurant (the infamous Picasso Restaurant,
adorned with eleven authentic Picasso's to whet diner's visual
appetites, and designed by Claude, Picasso's grandson). Surprisingly,
entrance to the Bellagio gallery came with a $12 admission fee,
and more surprisingly, lines formed to gain admittance packed
with crowds composed of all colors and stripes waiting to get
in to view Wynn's personal collection of masterpieces. Wynn's
inimitable style of high profile purchases of big ticket items
both privately and at Sotheby's and Christie's, raised eyebrows
and created headlines as much for the prices he paid as for the
creative way he found to finance it-the buying it and leasing
it back to the publicly traded hotel. Auction purchases from 1999
included: a landscape by Georges Seurat, "Island of the Grande
Jatte," for $35.2 million, a landscape by Berthe Morisot for $3.85
million, and it was speculated, more than one Picasso in the $40
million range. Bought privately by Wynn were a Tahitian scene
by Paul Gauguin from a European collection for close to $35 million,
and van Gogh's Peasant Girl with Straw Hat at a price of $47.5
million. As is fairly common with most mega collectors, Wynn was
and is a frequent seller of high profile works at auction as well.
Those days have ended with the sale of the Bellagio and the collection
within, but before temporarily closing due to the WTC disaster,
the Bellagio began a program of temporary exhibits the first of
which was from the public Phillips Collection in Washington DC.,
which staged: "Masterworks from the Phillips Collection at Bellagio"
which was comprised of 25 paintings including: Van Gogh's "Entrance
to the Public Gardens in Arles" and El Greco's "The Repentant
St.Peter", and additionally paintings by Picasso, Degas, Manet,
Cezanne and others. Next up was a show entitled The Private Collection
of Steve Martin, which consisted of a partial loan of 28 pieces
from the actor, comedian, and best selling author including works
by Hockney, Picasso, Seurat, Lichtenstein, Bacon and Hopper. Among
the more contemporary works were paintings by actor/comedian Martin
Mull and three Fischl's among which included a portrait of Martin.
The proceeds from the $12 admission fee benefited Steve Martin's
charitable foundation and an acoustic guide that included Martin's
commentary and anecdotes about the works accompanied the exhibit.
Canceled due to the trade center attacks was the exhibit arranged
by the Calder Foundation, entitled "Alexander Calder: The Art
of Invention" showcasing works from 1926-1976.
Steve Wynn has struck again albeit in a scaled down version of
his original ground breaking conception. Located in the former
Desert Inn hotel lobby which currently houses Wynn Development,
is yet another rendition of the original Bellagio museum. Named
La Reve (The Dream) after a 1932 Picasso portrait of his mistress
Marie Therese Walter that Wynn purchased for $42 million from
Austrian banker Wolfgagn Flottl, who previously bought the painting
for $48.4 million from the Ganz collection at Christie's in 1997.
Additionally, there are signature works from Van Gogh, Matisse,
Cezanne, Degas, Gaugin, and Modigliani and to catch a glimpse
it will cost Vegas residents $5 and out-of-towner's $10.
Passing the Baton
Now the Venetian has expanded the concept of the single collector
gallery established by Wynn who opened the eyes of the city to
the possibility of creating a mixed use commercial formula by
combining art, culture, food and entertainment. The goal of Robert
G. Goldstein, president of the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino was
to make Wynn's original conception more diverse, and especially,
more economically viable. Goldstein was born in Philadelphia,
and lived in Las Vegas since 1975; he is an attorney by training
with no formal art background whose specialty is real-estate development,
with a knack for all things cultural. Goldstein's mother was a
hobby painter and as a child they frequently visited museums.
He collects an eclectic mix of contemporary work from street art
in New Orleans to cutting edge emerging art from Paris and New
York galleries. His is an intuitive approach characterized by
criteria defined by "what I like". The ubiquitous don of Las Vegas
aesthetics and cultural booster-ism Dave Hickey, plays a multi-faceted
role in the shaping of Goldstein's burgeoning contemporary art
knowledge. Tricky Hickey accomplishes a dual influence by way
of Goldstein's wife's attending Hickey's class at the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas and Hickey's wife Libby Lumpkin (a consultant
to Steve Wynn) pitching in with advice on the contemporary scene
to the Goldsteins. Goldstein's dedication to the cause is evidenced
by his reading Clement Greenberg every night to glean a better
understanding of the underpinnings of modern and contemporary
art thinking.
Goo Goo Guggenheim
Thomas Krens came into the picture when a commerce association
envisioned opening a 100,000 square foot gallery in Vegas and
brought in the Guggenheim director for feasibility advice. Goldstein
was so impressed with the "razor sharp intellect, creativity and
open-mindedness" of Krens that he approached him independently
to feel out the possibility of the Gugg opening a franchise at
the Venetian. The result was the founding of the 63,700 square
foot Guggenheim Las Vegas, and 7,600 square foot Hermitage Guggenheim
Museum, both designed by Rem Koolhaas, the latter in Cor-Ten steel,
a la Richard Serra. Together, the stated cost of the construction
of the two venues was 30 million dollars. The larger of the two
Guggenheims is nicknamed the Big Box and is structured as a partnership
between the hotel and the museum, and the Hermitage Gugg was built
by the hotel but based on a strict tenancy between the museum
and the Venetian. The hours of the museums are 9am to 11pm; private
galleries should take heed. Together the museums are envisioned
as growing the spectrum of activities in the hotel and thereby
increasing various appetites (for food and drink, shopping and
gambling) by adding hubs for culture. Fantastically, rooms and
other retail ventures earn more than gambling, which contradicts
the notion of gambling dollars fueling the neon fire. So much
for the common perception of Vegas as a place where fat cats get
free booze and gratis suites that could accommodate football teams,
and go on to drop millions in gambling losses at baccarat.
As set forth by Goldstein, there will be "no rules" governing
the possibilities of what may transpire at the Venetian Guggenheims.
Though they are seeking for the projects to be commercially viable,
at $15 dollars a pop for admission to each museum, the extremely
prominent spaces at the entrance to the hotel could have been
put to better economic use by high-end retail. Goldstein states
that the hotel won't get rich from the admissions to the Guggenheim,
but it could have a phenomenal and mutually beneficial spillover
effect. When queried as to whether the Venetian would contemplate
art projects outside the (big) box he stated that they are considering
fetching Koons' giant flower puppy for an appearance-the perfect
kitsch emblem for the emblematically kitsch city.
The opening festivities included a sit down dinner for 800 people
(the scale of everything in Vegas seems larger than life); but,
the scope of the opening events were scaled back inasmuch as a
giant pool party was canceled due to the WTC attack. Initially
after the disaster, there was a setback of 50 - 70 % reduction
in attendance at the hotel, but that has come back at the time
of this writing to levels of 40 - 50% of what is normal for late
fall. On an optimistic note, the Venetian's 3000+ rooms were sold
out for the latter week and a half of October. Attendance for
the two museums is projected at 5000 people per day for each space.
Says Goldstein surveying the completed and now open for business
museums: "Krens delivers on his promise."
Vegas-Next Generation
Art is a business and is product in reality not very different
from any other in a sense, and it is this fresh, outsiders perspective
that is so empowering about the marriage of hotel and museum in
Vegas. The art world finds it anathema to breathe words of commerce
combined with art, but hypocritically is meshed with money like
worms under a rock. Though the quality is to date questionable,
there are some galleries in Vegas, but Goldstein believes it is
only a matter of time before high caliber commercial galleries
take advantage of the new momentum for viewing art and drop stakes
in Vegas. There is already a movie festival slated for Vegas and
an art fair of some sort is not ruled out for the near future.
Goldstein is amazed that the private sector hasn't seized the
opportunity in New York or other major city to do some mixed-use
venture of the caliber of the Vegas Gugg. In expanding the horizons
of Vegas, the audiences at the Venetian Guggenheims are not expected
to be art buyers per se, but just curious tourists who will walk
away vastly enriched from an experience they might otherwise never
attain. And, from the seeds sowed at the Venetian Guggenheims,
who knows what may emerge next from the alchemy.
GABRIUS ZINE (TEMA
ONLINE COMPONENT) Cancellation of Art Basel Miami Beach - Spring
2001
Lesson number one for those contemplating staging an international
contemporary art fair in the future: get more than a contract
when signing up participants, get a deposit. Lawyers raison d'Ìtre
is to get clients out of contracts, but the leverage of money
in hand is uncontestable. The above-mentioned scenario is exactly
what befell the organizers of Art Basel Miami Beach, which surely
contributed to the decision to cancel the fair which was to be
held from December 12th to the 16th, 2001 in addition to the stated
reasons of the terrorist attacks and increased insurance costs.
What got the ball rolling in favor of calling the whole thing
off was a series of letters in Europe, New York and California
initiated by a number of the dealers requesting a one year postponement
due to the warnings of potential attacks, the anthrax incidents
and the difficulties in air travel. The New York drive in favor
of cancellation was led by Barbara Gladstone and included as signatories
Sandra Gering, Marianne Boesky, 303 Gallery, Marian Goodman, Pace
Wildenstein, and Frederick Petzel among others. Not everyone shared
the sentiment that halting the fair in Miami, the first foray
in North America (maybe not the best term at this juncture) by
Swiss Exhibition, the firm that runs the Basel Fairs, was the
wisest choice. British dealer Jay Jopling said the dealers who
were dead-set against making the trip were babies and that as
a whole, putting off the fair was bad business for the art world.
The bear hug of a grip that Basel Miami had negotiated around
the city is evidenced by the fact that any off site project to
be conducted within a certain radius of the convention center
had to be cleared with Amy Cappellazzo in advance. Cappellazzo,
now head of Christie's contemporary in New York and a former curator
of the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, was in charge of organizing
projects around the city; and, no official permit for an art related
special event could be issued without her specific approval. Due
to co-inside with the Basel Miami were many, many off-site exhibitions
for those that didn't feel like joining a waiting list for a booth,
or for a container. The sponsors of the fair were actually renting
out empty truck containers to be placed along the beach in close
proximity to the fair for smaller dealers, such as Andrew Kreps
in New York, to distribute their wares. The 38-year-old real estate
developer and mega-collector Craig Robbins who is responsible
for creating the Miami design district (and owns about 80% of
it) strewn about with European and American furniture and housewares
boutiques for the trade, but equally open to the public, organized
some of the ancillary projects that were afoot. Robbins had planned
for a painting exhibit organized by New York dealer Jack Tilton
his primary art adviser (that was to have featured Marlene Dumas,
Nicole Eisenman, Franz Ackerman, and others) and a German sculpture
show (with John Bock, Andreas Slominski, and Olafur Eliason, and
others) that was to be curated by New York gallerist and son of
painter Georg Baselitz, Anton Kern, both of which have been canceled
as well. Nevertheless, Robbins will hang his collection throughout
the design district, including an installation of Rirkrit Tiravanija's
scaled down version of Phillip Johnson's glass house (that he
owns) that was created for a Museum of Modern Art project in New
York, to be utilized as a "playtime" space for kids. Big time
Miami art patron Rosa de la Cruz, a major force in collecting
emerging contemporary art, is considering a project at the time
of this writing in conjunction with Robbins as well. Separately,
Miami Art Exchange, which will be a group exhibit of local area
artists like Lynne Gelfman, Karen Rifas and Glexis Novoa will
be held, as will another local artist ensemble (45 artists including
Janine Antoni, Teresita Fernandez and Quescaya Henriquez) curated
by artist Robert Chambers, to be held at the newly renovated Bass
Museum at 21st Street (and Park Avenue) in South Beach, from December
12th through Feburary 2002.
All in all the fair which was to be attended by in excess of
150 galleries was said to have lost an estimated $4 million in
printing costs and advertising related expenses as a result of
the cancellation. Fantastically, in the letter acknowledging the
end of the venture, the fair organizers solicited voluntary contributions
due to the fact that the galleries could have been held to their
contracts, but wouldn't be. Imagine the flurry of checks being
written at this moment-not! The death knell was sounded November
7, 2001 when none other than Page Six of the New York Post noted
the obituary of the fair in its gossip columns. And, a full page
advertisement in the New York Times appeared Novermer 9th, with
the schematic layout of the galleries, but with a fair date in
excess of a year from now. So it will remain fresh in our minds,
perhaps. On the bright side, maybe this will free up some more
collecting dollars to be spread at next week's onset of the contemporary
art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips.
Lesson number one for those contemplating staging an international
contemporary art fair in the future: get more than a contract
when signing up participants, get a deposit. Lawyers raison d'être
is to get clients out of contracts, but the leverage of money
in hand is uncontestable. The above-mentioned scenario is exactly
what befell the organizers of Art Basel Miami Beach, which surely
contributed to the decision to cancel the fair which was to be
held from December 12th to the 16th, 2001 in addition to the stated
reasons of the terrorist attacks and increased insurance costs.
What got the ball rolling in favor of calling the whole thing
off was a series of letters in Europe, New York and California
initiated by a number of the dealers requesting a one year postponement
due to the warnings of potential attacks, the anthrax incidents
and the difficulties in air travel. The New York drive in favor
of cancellation was led by Barbara Gladstone and included as signatories
Sandra Gering, Marianne Boesky, 303 Gallery, Marian Goodman, Pace
Wildenstein, and Frederick Petzel among others. Not everyone shared
the sentiment that halting the fair in Miami, the first foray
in North America (maybe not the best term at this juncture) by
Swiss Exhibition, the firm that runs the Basel Fairs, was the
wisest choice. British dealer Jay Jopling said the dealers who
were dead-set against making the trip were babies and that as
a whole, putting off the fair was bad business for the art world.
The bear hug of a grip that Basel Miami had negotiated around
the city is evidenced by the fact that any off site project to
be conducted within a certain radius of the convention center
had to be cleared with Amy Cappellazzo in advance. Cappellazzo,
now head of Christie's contemporary in New York and a former curator
of the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, was in charge of organizing
projects around the city; and, no official permit for an art related
special event could be issued without her specific approval. Due
to co-inside with the Basel Miami were many, many off-site exhibitions
for those that didn't feel like joining a waiting list for a booth,
or for a container. The sponsors of the fair were actually renting
out empty truck containers to be placed along the beach in close
proximity to the fair for smaller dealers, such as Andrew Kreps
in New York, to distribute their wares. The 38-year-old real estate
developer and mega-collector Craig Robbins who is responsible
for creating the Miami design district (and owns about 80% of
it) strewn about with European and American furniture and housewares
boutiques for the trade, but equally open to the public, organized
some of the ancillary projects that were afoot. Robbins had planned
for a painting exhibit organized by New York dealer Jack Tilton
his primary art adviser (that was to have featured Marlene Dumas,
Nicole Eisenman, Franz Ackerman, and others) and a German sculpture
show (with John Bock, Andreas Slominski, and Olafur Eliason, and
others) that was to be curated by New York gallerist and son of
painter Georg Baselitz, Anton Kern, both of which have been canceled
as well. Nevertheless, Robbins will hang his collection throughout
the design district, including an installation of Rirkrit Tiravanija's
scaled down version of Phillip Johnson's glass house (that he
owns) that was created for a Museum of Modern Art project in New
York, to be utilized as a "playtime" space for kids. Big time
Miami art patron Rosa de la Cruz, a major force in collecting
emerging contemporary art, is considering a project at the time
of this writing in conjunction with Robbins as well. Separately,
Miami Art Exchange, which will be a group exhibit of local area
artists like Lynne Gelfman, Karen Rifas and Glexis Novoa will
be held, as will another local artist ensemble (45 artists including
Janine Antoni, Teresita Fernandez and Quescaya Henriquez) curated
by artist Robert Chambers, to be held at the newly renovated Bass
Museum at 21st Street (and Park Avenue) in South Beach, from December
12th through Feburary 2002.
All in all the fair which was to be attended by in excess of
150 galleries was said to have lost an estimated $4 million in
printing costs and advertising related expenses as a result of
the cancellation. Fantastically, in the letter acknowledging the
end of the venture, the fair organizers solicited voluntary contributions
due to the fact that the galleries could have been held to their
contracts, but wouldn't be. Imagine the flurry of checks being
written at this moment-not! The death knell was sounded November
7, 2001 when none other than Page Six of the New York Post noted
the obituary of the fair in its gossip columns. And, a full page
advertisement in the New York Times appeared Novermer 9th, with
the schematic layout of the galleries, but with a fair date in
excess of a year from now. So it will remain fresh in our minds,
perhaps. On the bright side, maybe this will free up some more
collecting dollars to be spread at next week's onset of the contemporary
art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips.
