Nicolas G. Hayek, Chairman of The Swatch Group, 82, passed away on Monday due to heart failure. His Swatch empire was founded in 1983 when the future of Swiss mechanical watches was threatened by the cheaper Japanese quartz watches made by Casio and Seiko. He countered the Japanese threat by creating traditionally reliable Swiss watches with revolutionary colorful design while keeping price Swatch Group today also includes several well known brand like Breguet, Omega, Longines, as well as Rado and Tissot. Hayek's son, Nic , and Swatch Group CEO since 2003, will now take the course as the Swatch Group leader.
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Shanghai's Pudong district will get a Venu Himalayas hotel in 2011. The art-themed hotel, managed by the Jumeirah Group will include a modern art museum, a theatre, as well as the ubiqious retial space. The Venu Himlayas Hotel Shanghai is the sixth management agreement signed by Jumeirah Group in China.
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Europe and Asia have had close relations for thousands of years. Commercial and political networks developed both on land - via the Silk Road - and on sea, and trade opened the way for the spread of major religious and philosophical trends. A new exhibition, A Passage to Asia, throws light on 2,500 years of exchanges between Asia and Europe, presenting a selection of over 300 decorative and artistic objects never previously shown in Europe: burial urns, bronze ritual drums, gold jewellery, ivories, old maps, and unique textiles, as well as extraordinary cargo recently recovered from shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea.
Collaborations between international fashion houses and Chinese artists have become de rigeur in recent years. Lacoste asked Chinese artist Li Xiaofeng to create two different polos for its 2010 Holiday Collector’s Series and the result is quite interesting. Li is known for his clothing sculptures using broken porcelain shards recovered from ancient archaeological digs, some dating from the Ming Dynasty. Here, he’s created a limited edition printed polo, using shards of blue and white porcelain from the Kangxi Period with lotus and babies designs. This particular type of folk ceramics reflected the Imperial taste at that time and was only used by the upper classes, as technically the painted blue background on a white base that delineated the figures was more complex to produce. Li first shaped and polished the shards as usual, but instead of drilling holes and linking them with wire, he photographed each (251 for the men’s polo and 304 for the women’s) and placed them one by one in a life-size digital pattern of the polo’s front, back and sleeves. The final touch was the addition of a white Lacoste crocodile logo, the rarest breed in the brand’s collection. The printed Porcelain Polo is limited to 20,000 pieces for both men and women. Li also created a Porcelain Polo art work using new porcelain shards (China forbids the export of ancient artefacts including porcelain shards). Inspired by the early Ming Dynasty, he painted porcelain bowls with images of a scholar contemplating a scenic landscape surrounded by what is referred to as the ‘Four Gentlemen’ in classical Chinese painting - namely an orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum and plum blossom. He also drew the crocodile logo and letters on the bowls as well as the phoenix, a symbol of good fortune. The Porcelain Polo was unveiled in Paris on Friday at the Musée des Arts et Métiers and will be shown in Bejing in the fall at Li Xiaofeng’s first one-man show organized by the Red Gate Gallery.
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is presenting “Tracing the Past, Drawing the Future: Master Ink Painters in 20th-Century China” with more than 110 works of four well known Chinese ink masters. These include monumental portraits, vibrant bird-and-flower painting, and spectacular landscapes by Wu Changshuo (1844–1927), Qi Baishi (1864–1957), Huang Binhong (1865–1955), and Pan Tianshou (1897–1971). Collectively known in China as the ‘Four Great Masters of Ink Painting,’ these artists faced the dual challenges of negotiating the impact of encounters with the West, while inventing new directions for long-held practices of ink painting.
More Bruce Lee-related films are in the making. After Ip Man, Ip Man2 and The Legent is Born: Ip Man, an unofficial prequel to the Ip Man pair, there are now two more films in production. Wong Kar-wai is now filming, The Grand Master, another telling of the story of Lee’s tutor with Tony Leung starring. That film is due to be released in time for Christmas. Meanwhile principal photography should start later this month on Bruce Lee, My Brother, a new biopic starring new comer Aarif Lee and directed by Raymond Yip.
So far, 2010 has been a very good year for the Indian art market.A new report by ArtTactic shows that both volumes and average auction prices in the Modern Indian art market are now back to levels seen at the peak of the Indian art market in June 2008 – a remarkable recovery after volumes in the Modern Indian art market dropped 63% between September 2008 and March 2009, and prices fell 46% in the same period.
The sharp recovery in the Modern market is also starting to rub off on the Contemporary Indian art market, which has remained subdued after market confidence evaporated during the downturn. The Contemporary Indian art market dropped 93% in volume and auction prices plummeted 85% between autumn 2008 and spring 2009. However since then, average prices are only 35% below its peak, and volumes have more than doubled since June last year.
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The sharp recovery in the Modern market is also starting to rub off on the Contemporary Indian art market, which has remained subdued after market confidence evaporated during the downturn. The Contemporary Indian art market dropped 93% in volume and auction prices plummeted 85% between autumn 2008 and spring 2009. However since then, average prices are only 35% below its peak, and volumes have more than doubled since June last year.
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority has announced that Lars Nittve, a museum director and curator with years of experience heading London’s Tate Gallery of Modern Art and Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, has been appointed Executive Director, Museum Plus ( M+), a groundbreaking new museum concept planned at the future West Kowloon Cultural District. The appointment is effective January 2011.
M+ has been envisionned as a forward-looking cultural institution focusing on 20th to 21st-century visual culture, with four initial broad groupings including design, popular culture, moving image and visual art (including ink art). Now they just need to build the museum!
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M+ has been envisionned as a forward-looking cultural institution focusing on 20th to 21st-century visual culture, with four initial broad groupings including design, popular culture, moving image and visual art (including ink art). Now they just need to build the museum!
A two-foot high Qianlong Period gilt bronze censer sold for $1.2 million at Bonhams & Butterfields’ sale of Asian art in San Francisco. The 250-year old censer was described by the auctioneers as “fine and rare;” its bell-form bowl is decorated overall with rows of bronze lotus petals above a base of three gilt bronze elephant heads. Bidding had opened at $40,000 and was ultimatly bought by an Asian buyer. The censer came from the private collection of Corinthian Studios in Washington State.
Absolut is planning to release this August a limited-edition of Absolut 72 for the Chinese market. The bottle was designed by Chinese artist, Gao Yu, and the design is inspired by the legend of the monkey god (Sun Wukong), who travelled to the east and acquired the powers of the “72 transformations” - or shape shifting.
Vodka lovers will be glad to know the bottle's contents remain true to the classic recipe.
Art buyers can now bid at art auction via their blackberries. At Saffronart's latest online auction several customers tracked the auction and bid through the auction house’s groundbreaking mobile application . About 10 lots were sold to bidders using Blackberrys and iPhones, including M.F.Husain’s Untitled work for $235,750.
I recently interviewed the artistic director of Carnegie Hall, Sir Clive Gillinson, who had some interesting views about how to make classical music less ritualistic. He also talked about the plus and minus of generous government's support of the arts in Europe vs the reliance on donations and sponsorship in the US. See the whole Newsweek Q and A here.
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Designer Kenzo Takada started painting 10 years ago, after he sold his label to French luxury goods giant LVMH and retired. Eight self portraits are currently on show in Paris. They show him in traditional flower-printed kimonos that recall the prints his label is known for. Very colorful.
The panda is often associated with China and in Zhang Qikai’s paintings, the cuddly animal cuts a lonely, solitary figure exploring and often lost in the material world around him, sometimes embracing a consumer culture, but often overwhelmed by it. The artist’s latest works are now showing in Taiwan.
Chinese contemporary art is not all about Political Pop and Cynical Realism; some artists have reacted to the pink Mao and eschewed the ‘concept over form’ approach, by embracing a very painterly realism of intimate scenes of everyday life. Amongst the champion of the Chinese Neo-Realism movement is Wang Yidong, known for his romanticized depiction of the Chinese feminine form. This exhibition present a retrospective of Wang’s work since 1986, showing the fusion between western classical painting, Chinese traditional painting and folk art that the artist favours.
Budding artists for the Red Bull Art of Can have come up with some ‘uniquely Singaporean’ entries a quirky Merlion with fangs and a durian made out of the drink's cans. Hard to get a real feel for them on the website, because the photos are so small, but I quite like the pot with orchids entry. Lots of little details. The three winning pieces will be announced Jly 2. The public also has a chance to designate a People’s Choice Award by casting votes online at www.redbullartofcan.sg.
Chinese screen goddess Gong Li has finally signed to play opposite Hong Kong star Andy Lau in a remake of What Women Want. This should be a very interesting pairing. Shooting has already started this month in Beijing. The storyline of this remake should prove very popular within the current Chinese society context and the rise of the career woman. Fans will have to wait as the film is not set to be released until next Valentine.
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A retrospective of Zeng Fanzhi’s work has just opened at the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia, Bulgaria. The group of 18 paintings are from the artist’s personal collection, including some from his Mask Series that brought him to collectors’ attention in the 1990s. I particularly like Mask No 13, where a man caresses a Dalmatian with his enormous, out of proportion hands (a signature style from the artist). There is a moment of joy in this painting which is quite unusual in Zeng's works. There is also a rare self-portrait, dating 2009, where he sits on a stool in front of a mountainous landscape, wearing a long red robe. Zeng holds a paint-brush in his hand which appears to have started a line in the air (recalling his most recent landscape works of frenzied brush strokes.). If you want to know more about this artist, I wrote this IHT story a few years back.
An interestingnew exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art just opened at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. ‘Tradition Transformed: Tibetan Artists Respond’ features nine artists each exploring contemporary issues--personal, political, and cultural--by integrating the centuries-old traditional imagery, techniques, and materials found in Tibetan Buddhist art with modern influences and media. Of the nine artists, five were born in Tibet, three come from Nepal and one was born in India, but only three (Dedron, Tenzin Norbu and Penba Wangdu) continue to live in their Himalayan homelands, while the others have emigrated to Europe and the United States. Mostly trained in traditional painting and the strict interpretations prescribed by Buddhist religion, these nine artists break the spiritual formulas and artistic norms by experimenting with alternative media, extracting sacred symbols from their religious context and repurposing them for self-expression.
The New York-based Singaporean photographer John Clang has always liked to challenge people’s visual perceptions with his works. His new exhibition, Con(Front) is a more intimate series of visual dialogues that pin down the photographer's response to his environment in New York and his search for a sense of place and identity. I especially like his open wound series, where the photograph of a beautiful landscape is slashed; simple, but effective
Shen Shaomin’s first solo exhibition in New York just opened. The conceptual artist loves to push unconventional materials to new limits, while commenting on contemporary issues. This exhibition feature his new bonsai ink installations. Here, the tortured ornamental trees become a metaphor for controlling nature and beauty. With such practices as foot binding in mind, the artist illustrates violence done to reshape the work of nature. He pushes the limits of traditional bonsai arts, employing a wide range of techniques to mutilate his bonsai trees, bending them to his will. The exhibition also includes Shaomin’s G8 Summit installation, portraying iconic world leaders. The distorted framed canvases cause the faces of the public figures to shift, thus revealing the ironic mutability of politicians and their views or promises.
Christie’s sales of South Asian modern and contemporary art realised a total of 18.1 million and 91% sold by lot. The top lot, Syed Haider Raza (b. 1922), Saurashtra, 1983 (Photo) set a world auction record for any modern Indian Work of Art at $3.48 million. The monumental painting was bought by a private Indian museum. Six new artist world auction record prices were set for Aisha Khalid; Sunil Gawde; Naiza Khan; Imran Qureshi and Soren Pors & Aparna Rao. In the crowd was famed artist Maqbool Fida Husain who saw all works by his hand sell successfully.
Master ceramist Fong Choo has won many awards for this miniature and whimsical teapot forms. Full Circle: An Exhibition of Diminutive Teapots by the U.S-based ceramicist is opening at Sculpture Square in Singapore this weekend. More than the shapes, I love the colors he achieves…
I’m always interested in art shows I can take my three children to. Art Garden: Children’s Season at the Singapore Art Museum is a wonderful opportunity to expose little ones to imaginative and interactive works. Dawn Ng's giant floating rabbit sculptures and Sandra Lee's illustrated enchanted forest create a friendly, whimsical world that will stimulates their curiosity. Children can watch mechanical flowers grow and bloom, observe everyday objects come to life in spot-motion films and ‘grow’ trees or ‘divert’ streams with the help of interactive new media.
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Hong Kong confirmed its position as the premier center for jewellery auction with the results of the Christie’s sale. At more than US$60 million, this was the most important one ever organized by Christie’s anywhere in the world. The top lot of the sale was a single-strand jadeite bead necklace which sold for $7.3 million. It is interesting to note that the Kashmir sapphire bracelet which sold for $6.9 million had been sold by Christie’s previously in 1988 for $902,000, which represents $1.7 million in today’s currency.
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Art HK 2010 is over and the sales numbers are in…The 4-day art fair attracted a total 46,115 visitors, up 65 percent on 2009. Major sales to Asian based collectors included:• The Inescapable Truth, by Damien Hirst (2005) – the first formaldehyde work by the artist to be shown in China – was sold by White Cube for £1.75 million.
• Green Wall - Husband and Wife, by Zhang Xiaogang (2010) was sold by Pace Beijing for US$1 million.
• Galerie Lelong sold Sean Scully’s More Light (1988) for US$750,000.
• Anish Kapoor’s Untitled (2010) was sold by Lisson Gallery for £550,000.
• Sperone Westwater sold Liu Ye’s Composition with Bamboo and Grass (2007-08) for US$650,000.
• Yoshitomo Nara’s Rock’n Roll the Roll (2009) was sold by Marianne Boesky Gallery for US$350,000.
