The Manhattan district attorney’s office arranged for the return of seven works to a family that has been seeking them for more than a quarter of a century.

A year after putting it on the market, the widow of a famed art dealer appears poised to unload her oceanfront home in Southampton.

An anonymous buyer is in contract to purchase the Hamptons estate at 140 Murray Place, which was most recently listed for $41.9 million, Behind the Hedges reported. The purchase price won’t be certain until the sale closes; if the listing price matches the purchase price, the deal works out to just over $5,200 per square foot.

A company tied to Susan Lloyd, the widow of Vienna-born art dealer Frank Lloyd, listed the property last July for $45 million. The company behind the listing purchased the property in 1997 for $6.5 million.

The estate spans more than two and a half acres, banking the ocean. The 8,000-square-foot, six-bedroom house was built in the contemporary style in 1992.

One of the property’s main calling cards is the 190 feet of Atlantic Ocean frontage along the beach, as well as a private boardwalk to provide the path to the beach. The grounds also include a heated pool and a clay tennis court. 

Bespoke Real Estate had the listing.

Frank Lloyd was the co-founder of Marlborough Galleries, but became infamous for his involvement in the Rothko art scandal, which included being convicted of tampering with evidence. Frank died a year after he and his wife purchased the Hamptons property.

The year’s top deal in the Hamptons was more than double the deal for the Murray Place estate, a January $91.5 million off-market sale in East Hampton.

That deal was followed by Lasata, the name for the East Hampton estate at 121 Further Lane where Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ childhood summer home, sold in August for $52 million. Peloton founder John Foley in the spring sold his estate at 442 Further Lane in East Hampton for $51 million. 

— Holden Walter-Warner

Enlarge this image

A screenshot from the premiere of The Joy of Painting shows the painter Bob Ross with the work, A Walk in the Woods, which is up for sale.

YouTube/Screenshot by NPR

YouTube/Screenshot by NPR

A painting from the very first episode of Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting could be yours, but not for cheap.

Titled A Walk in the Woods, the piece is listed at $9.85 million and could be the most expensive and historically resonant Ross piece to ever be sold.

The work depicts a meandering stone path, a cerulean pond and a handful of luminescent trees — all elements that were painted in under 30 minutes during the 1983 premiere of what would become the hit PBS show.

The following 31 seasons (403 episodes) of the Joy of Painting propelled Ross into one of the most recognizable faces in the 20th century art world, not to mention a pop culture icon known for his upbeat attitude and hokey aphorisms.

Before he even picks up a paintbrush in Episode 1, Ross lays out what the audience can expect from the show: simple step-by-step instructions rendered with just a few basic tools and the same paint colors from week to week.

“There’s no secret to this. Anyone can paint,” he says later on, dabbing at the canvas in a shape that will later clarify into a tree. “All you need is a dream in your heart and a little practice.”

The painting is signed “Ross” in red on the lower left corner. Whoever buys the painting will receive a written statement from its original owner — a PBS volunteer who bought the painting at a benefit auction.

“I don’t know the exact number that she paid at that point, but knowing what others paid around the same period, I’d assume it was somewhere under $100,” says Ryan Nelson, the owner of Modern Artifact gallery in Minneapolis.

Nelson, whose gallery has become the primary facilitator of the growing Ross market, said he purchased the painting from the PBS volunteer with the intention of selling it, but now isn’t so sure he’s ready to let it go.

“I think that the greatest thing we can do with it is travel it. I’d rather we get this in front of the public,” he said. “But there are definitely offers that I would probably have to take.”

He’s confident he’ll get his asking price, even if most Ross paintings that he’s traded don’t even break the six-figure range.

Part of his confidence comes from the recent cultural resurgence Ross has enjoyed as younger generations discover his appeal through the internet.

That moment could be traced back to 2015, when the streaming service Twitch marathoned old Ross episodes and attracted some 5.6 million viewers.

Today, the official Bob Ross YouTube page boasts over 5.62 million subscribers. Netflix re-launched Ross’s second series, 1991’s Beauty is Everywhere, in 2016, and reruns of The Joy of Painting still appear regularly on public television.

The increase in popularity has come with increased interest in owning a Ross painting. But, as The New York Times put it in a 2019 investigation, the lack of available Ross work is among “the internet’s greatest mysteries.”

Ross once said he painted over 30,000 paintings in his lifetime, and he likely painted 1,143 alone for the filming of the show: An analysis by the website FiveThirtyEight calculated he produced paintings for 381 of the 403 episodes, and his standard process was to make three of the same paintings for each show; one as a template to copy, one on camera and a third after the show for use in instructional materials.

An estimated 1,165 of his pieces are being stored by his surviving company, Bob Ross Inc., which told The New York Times in 2019 that it has no intention of selling off the works, but has since parted with a few to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

What happened to the rest of the work? Some internet aficionados say that Ross didn’t want his paintings available for sale because it would’ve detracted from the joy he derived from his work. Nelson doesn’t buy that theory.

“He sold them at malls, he gave them away at paintings lessons and so there are a lot of paintings that went out there,” he said. “I believe, sadly, that a lot of those paintings didn’t make it to the popularity that Ross is today.”

But in a way, that’s also how Ross would’ve wanted it, Nelson said. He wasn’t interested in giving his art to well-to-do collector types or seeking fortune alongside his fame.

The one thing that’s clear is that Ross wanted everyone to learn to paint. The rest may have just been a happy accident.

ISHPEMING, Mich. (WLUC) – A U.P. art contest is opening conversations about mental health and suicide.

Folks can submit their art for the 4th annual LIVE Art and Word Contest. Anyone in the U.P. can submit an original piece of visual artwork or written word that addresses the theme of mental health awareness. There are two new age groups this year – middle schoolers and high schoolers.

There will be cash prizes for the winners in each age group for visual art and written word.

Organizers say the contest will help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health awareness.

“It’s just a way to really engage the community and showcase the talent of the people we have here,” said Amy Poirier, GLRC community relations and marketing director and west facilitator. “The entries in the past have been unbelievable. And really to open up that conversation which will help break the stigma around mental health and suicide.”

Adults can submit art pieces here. Middle and high schoolers can submit art here.

Copyright 2023 WLUC. All rights reserved.

Whether working with porcelain or spray paint on wood panel, Morel Doucet begins with beauty. In a new conversation with Colossal, he discusses why he wants to entice viewers and tempt even the most unexpected audiences to engage with issues of displacement, the climate crisis, and what it means to be an immigrant in the U.S. He approaches his activism similarly because, to him, they’re one and the same. He says:

As an artist, the work that I make is inherently political. I consider all of my work to be double-edged swords: they entice and lure the viewer with beauty while reminding them of their complacency within the dying environment. I don’t have to say I’m an activist. The work that I make is inherently that.

This conversation occurred in September 2023, a few months after the artist closed his first solo exhibition at Galerie Myrtis and premiered his works in Chicago in At the Precipice: Responses to the Climate Crisis. We discuss those milestones, how his upbringing on his grandfather’s farm laid the foundation for his work, his proclivity for poetry, and why it’s important for him to tell his own stories.

Read the conversation. 

“Gardenias” (2019), porcelain ceramic with cast altered forms, 10 X 12 x 15 inches. Photo by David Gary Lloyd

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article A Colossal Interview: Morel Doucet on Beauty, Gentrification, and Why He Uses Poetry to Tell His Story appeared first on Colossal.

Successful art dealing often comes down to astute management of real estate and supply. So, it was doubly shocking when news broke that David Zwirner, one of the most prominent dealers in history, lost both a long-planned, multimillion-dollar Manhattan expansion as well as a major artist to a rival within the space of six weeks.

These are unusual blows to one of the largest and most smoothly run art businesses in the world, and they have incited plenty of trade gossip. But more interesting are the insights they offer into the high costs and higher stakes of competing at the top of the private art market.

In late July, Zwirner told the New York Times he was abandoning long-held plans for a new five-storey, $50m headquarters in a Renzo Piano-designed residential tower being built at 540 West 21st Street. The tower project, originally announced by Zwirner in 2018 and scheduled to open by 2020, was delayed at first because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and again when developer Uri Chaitchik of Casco Development failed to secure additional financing. The limited liability company controlling the property filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 2 August, as reported by Katya Kazakina at Artnet News, transforming the $28.8m “put option” paid by a Zwirner company for the new gallery into a line item on a list of developer debts unlikely to ever be repaid.

Then on 5 September, it was announced that the acclaimed American sculptor Carol Bove had moved from Zwirner to Gagosian gallery.

Some dealers might panic in these circumstances, given the ongoing disquiet and deceleration in the broader art market that has defined 2023. But David Zwirner says he takes things on balance.

“The market has definitely slowed down in the last 12 months, which is the bad news,” he says. “The good news is that we’re having much more rational discussions when it comes to values in the secondary market, and we have seen some promising transactions, even in the middle of summer.”

Build-up, slowing down

What went wrong between Zwirner and Bove? Sources say the gallery struggled to build a secondary market for the artist. Asked for comment, a Zwirner gallery spokesperson said: “We loved working with Carol for over a decade, and we wish her the best in her next chapter.”

Defections from Zwirner’s programme are rare. His 2013 profile in the New Yorker noted just one, the Austrian sculptor Franz West, who left for Gagosian in 2001. But Bove’s departure marks the third in the past two years, following the Donald Judd Foundation (which oversees the artist’s estate) in 2021, and painter Harold Ancart in 2022.

“The Judd Estate left the gallery because they were hoping that a change would positively impact the sagging Judd market, and unfortunately it hasn’t,” a Zwirner spokesperson said. “Harold Ancart left for reasons that are entirely personal.”

(It is worth noting that two major artists have recently joined Zwirner: Gerhard Richter in 2022, and Elizabeth Peyton this summer.)

The three artists to recently leave Zwirner are now represented by Gagosian. The rivalry between the two mega-galleries is well documented. In his 2019 book Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art, the author Michael Shnayerson described it as “an art-world cold war that has helped shape the entire marketplace”.

The loss of West proved catalytic for Zwirner. Understanding the stakes of the competition, he realised the need for gallery growth, moving from Soho to Chelsea the following year, a real estate decision that helped fuel Zwirner’s rise into one of the few truly mega gallery brands in the world. By 2019, Zwirner had won West’s work back.

More, more, more

Art sales and real estate have only become more intertwined for dealers in the decades since. As the market has ballooned, so too has the bitter competition among dealers for the best supply of work. Sought-after artists are routinely offered opportunities by rivals for more space and more frequent exhibition opportunities, as well as better access to different international markets—and therefore, potentially, more money and career momentum. Knowing this, many dealers feel compelled to expand their empires, taking on more building space to protect their programmes from poaching (or to better position themselves as the poachers).

But, as both Gagosian and Zwirner have discovered, architectural largesse is not necessarily rewarded with artists’ loyalty—even if construction is arranged around specific artists’ needs. Gagosian, for instance, has designed galleries to ensure they can bear the weight of sculptures by Richard Serra, whose multi-tonne steel sculptures often require extraordinary engineering considerations. Yet this has not stopped Serra, whose representation arrangement with Gagosian is non-exclusive, from working with Zwirner on various projects, including most recently a show of the artist’s new works at one of Zwirner’s New York galleries in 2022.

Similarly, when Zwirner bought a space at 537 West 20th street for $8m in 2009, he “effectively… built this building for Judd and Flavin”, its architect, Annabelle Selldorf, told the New Yorker in 2013. But this did not stop the Judd estate from leaving Zwirner for Gagosian 12 years later.

The handful of galleries at the top of the trade has become known for their lavish treatment of the artists they represent (or want to). But amid a market slowdown, there is talk that production budgets are receiving new scrutiny at galleries including Zwirner.

Asked whether certain artist projects’ ambitions and budgets have been reined in, the Zwirner spokesperson said: “This isn’t true for us. We just realised a very ambitious Yayoi Kusama exhibition across all of our spaces on 19th Street, and we’re looking forward to a museum quality Robert Ryman show in November, curated by renowned former museum director Dieter Schwarz.”

Yet a source working on a Zwirner project says that, while discussions began as open-ended and generous in terms of the artists’ ambitions, they have recently become more focused on product. “We need something to sell,” they say the artist was told.

Real-estate revolution

It is notable that Zwirner, often seen as prudent compared to some mega-rivals, has undertaken an enormous physical expansion over the past decade. In 2013 Zwirner operated three permanent galleries (two in New York and one in London) ); now it controls 12 across Asia, Europe and the US. (Two of the 12 are still under construction; a pair of others in New York and Los Angeles, respectively, are adjacent properties sometimes used to programme a single exhibition.)

Since 2009, the gallery is known to have bought at least $38.4m worth of real estate in the US alone, excluding the now-abandoned $50m tower project with Chaitchik.

Most of this real-estate growth has been compressed into the past five years. “Fortune favours the brave”, Zwirner told the New York Times in 2018, as the gallery unveiled a slew of expansions, from its involvement in the (now-defunct) $50m development at 540 West 21st Street in New York, to a new, leased gallery space in Hong Kong and the acquisition of a $12m warehouse in Queens for art storage and handling.

The gallery opened a branch in Paris in 2019, leasing a space at 108 Rue Vieille-du-Temple. The Covid-19 pandemic put a hold on any further growth in 2020, but Zwirner initiated multiple US expansions starting the following year. It leased and opened the Tribeca property that became 52 Walker, the gallery space programmed and led by Ebony Haynes, in 2021. Zwirner expanded to Los Angeles as well, leasing two spaces at 616 and 612 North Western Avenue in 2021, then spending $6m to buy a third—a purpose-built flagship property at 606 North Western Avenue that is scheduled to open in early 2024. The company also spent $1m on a two-bedroom house around the corner.

Zwirner has recently announced plans for multiple new bricks-and-mortar expansions in New York as well. In February, the gallery acquired an $11.4m property at 533 West 19th street, which will become an 18,000 sq. ft exhibition space renovated by Selldorf. Asked whether the gallery is tailoring the location to any particular artists’ needs, a spokesperson said: “Our new 19th Street gallery is being designed with a focus on ceiling height, natural light, columns and museum-quality services to facilitate institutional loans.”

Zwirner also leased 36,000 sq. ft of office space at 520 West 20th Street in November 2022, when the annual cost of available space in the building was $145/sq. ft, meaning the gallery should be paying slightly more than $5.2m each year in rent. Asked for comment, a gallery spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on our rental agreements, but we can say that David is a good negotiator.” The offices opened this spring.

These expansions were necessary pivots after the Casco project at 540 West 21st Street collapsed. In total the developers’ bankruptcy filing lists $256.7m in creditor claims, including an unsecured claim of $28.8m by DZ 21st Street LLC for a “put option”.

Eyebrows have been raised by the put option, since these agreements can limit buyers’ usual ability to pull out of deals under certain conditions by locking in the sell price in advance. Put options are typically used as tools to hedge against future price decrease and can indicate potentially negative sentiments about the future value of the underlying asset, mostly benefiting sellers more than buyers. They are more commonly bought and sold in the securities markets, particularly the stock market and the foreign currency market, than in real estate.

The presence of the put option is a reminder of the difficulty dealers were facing in finding decent gallery real estate in Chelsea by the mid-2010s. Prices in the neighbourhood had escalated so wildly that a gallery exodus to Tribeca was underway. Few of Zwirner’s rivals who announced Chelsea expansions were able to buy: Hauser & Wirth took a 42-year lease on its new flagship space at 542 West 22nd Street, signing for the property in 2015 and opening after a five-year renovation in 2020. Pace signed a 20-year lease on its new headquarters at 540 West 25th Street in a move that could cost the gallery a staggering $300 million by the time the lease is scheduled to expire in 2038.

Zwirner is unlikely to recoup his investment in 540 West 21st Street, given how rare it is for unsecured creditors to receive even a small fraction of the amounts owed by a bankrupt entity. Asked for an update, a gallery spokesperson said: “The project is working through bankruptcy proceedings and while this is ongoing, we were advised not to comment.”

It is unclear how much of the publicised $50m budget Zwirner had spent before the tower project entered bankruptcy. (The $28.8m for the property would not include related expenditures these past five years). Given the steep rise in interest rates since spring 2022, speculation in the trade has been growing over the true scale of the gallery’s loss, which would depend on how leveraged the deal was. But the gallery spokesperson says this is irrelevant: “DZ 21st Street LLC is the holding company for the gallery’s investment on 21st Street and, of course, doesn’t hold any additional leverage. DZ 21st Street LLC has no bank loans nor does it hold a mortgage.”

For context, Zwirner’s London gallery posted annual artwork sales of £40.8m ($50.9m) and a net profit after tax of roughly £2.1m ($2.6m) in 2022, according to regulatory filings of the UK company David Zwirner Limited.

However, the UK figures, and the sums at stake in the 21st Street development, pale in comparison with Zwirner’s global revenues, which have reportedly tripled over the past decade. In 2013 David Zwirner told the New Yorker that a $225m estimate of the gallery’s revenues by Forbes was low. By 2019, the Robb Report relayed that revenues had increased to $800m. Despite the pandemic outbreak in 2020, the gallery “did over three-quarters of a billion in sales”, according to a Freakonomics podcast interview with Zwirner in 2021.

But we are now in a different moment. There is anxiety in the trade about what is to come both short-term and long-term, given the ongoing slowdown in the art market, generational shifts in taste and broader economic changes. Trade sentiment about the future of the market runs from calm concern to latent panic, depending on who you talk to and how leveraged they are. Many are wondering to what extent the phenomenal gains in the art market these past 10 years were an anomaly.

Zwirner remains positive. “We’re in the midst of an art market that has to absorb higher interest rates, something that we have not seen in a very long time,” he says. “I feel we’re halfway through this process. Given the strengths that we witnessed in Basel in June, I am cautiously optimistic for the fall.”

Nestled in the stalks of toadstools and fans of turkey tails, illuminated doors and windows invite us in to Nicole Gustafsson’s growing collection of mushroom dwellings. The artist, also known as Nimasprout, creates vibrant paintings and illustrations of fantastical worlds (previously), and she recently returned to a theme recurring in her practice since the beginning: home.

During the past few years, this theme spurred a series of small paintings featuring houses nestled into the forest floor. When Nucleus Portland supplied Gustafsson with a couple of basic wooden mushroom shapes earlier this year for an exhibition titled Clusters, she created 3D pieces for the first time. She says:

I found smaller wood mushroom shapes that I could keep trying out different ways to alter and make even tinier little houses from. The smaller size also allowed me to make more of an environment to nestle the mushroom sculpture into…It was around here that I started thinking of the project as ‘mushroom summer,’ and I was going to keep working on mushrooms until I tried everything I wanted to.

“Cozy Turkey Tail”

Gustafsson often draws on other peoples’ interests, which inspire miniature circle paintings customized to their favorite species. “Part of the fun of talking about nature with others is finding out what types of mushrooms people really enjoy imagery-wise, cooking with, foraging, etc.,” she says. The commissions are determined using prompts, such as mushroom types, colors, time of day, and weather.

“The idea of being immersed under leaves and tucked away in a cozy space is really appealing,” the artist says. “At a small size, every little leaf and turn around a log can be a whole new world to explore.”

While commissions for new custom paintings are currently on hold, Gustafsson has a range of small works, prints, and stickers available in her shop, and you can follow her on Instagram for updates.

“Dew Drop Glade”

“Lighthouse Mushie”

“Mushroom Grove”

“Mushroom Marsh House”

“Pixie Mushroom”

“Tropical Mushroom House”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Roomy Toadstool With a View: Nicole Gustafsson’s Vibrant Mushrooms Are Move-In Ready appeared first on Colossal.

Spanning more than four millennia of horticultural heritage, a forthcoming tome from Phaidon celebrates the diverse mediums, trends, and traditions of gardens around the globe. Brimming with more than 300 full-color illustrations, Garden: Exploring the Horticultural World encompasses how geography, time periods, and purpose influence myriad landscape designs and gardening culture, along with numerous other art forms.

Garden highlights a vast range of art and ephemera, including plans for historic royal properties, how-to guides, maps, and representations in pop culture. From a Japanese tea garden fashioned from LEGO to an 18th-century Mughal garden in India to Monsieur Plant’s hydroponic system inside an iMac, the expansive tome showcases the immense breadth and imagination in gardens of all shapes and sizes.

Pre-order your copy on Bookshop.

Casey Boyden, “Japanese Tea Garden” (2007), LEGO, 10 1/4 × 17 3/4 × 11 3/4 inches. Image courtesy of the artist

Hafiz Nurallah, “A View of Shalimar Bagh, Srinagar, from the Polier Album” (c.1780), opaque watercolor heightened with gold on paper, 9 ½ × 14 ½ inches. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s

Christophe Guinet (Monsieur Plant), “Plant Your Mac!” (2020), mixed media, 23 5/8 × 12 5/8 inches. Image © the artist

John Haynes, “The Physic Garden, Chelsea: A Plan View” (1751), engraving with watercolor, 24 ¼ × 18 ¾ inches. Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection, London

Bernardino de Sahagún, “General History of the Things of New Spain: The Florentine Codex” (1577), ink on paper, each page 12 ¼ × 8 ¼ inches, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Claire Takacs, “Trompe l’oeil, Schwetzingen Palace, Mittelbau Schloss, Germany” (2016), photograph, dimensions variable. Image © the artist

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article An Expansive New Volume Cultivates Our Global Love for Gardens appeared first on Colossal.

Crypto analysts across the world are caught in a tight spot over deciding which are the best altcoins to buy now. Some experts are claiming that the leading meme coin Shiba Inu ($SHIB) will continue its growth momentum in the coming months. While  another group of analysts believes that the market is likely to pivot and push the growth of Stellar ($XLM) and Domini.art ($DOMI).

While analysts’ observations about Stellar and Shiba Inu are not surprising given that they are top altcoins that have posted impressive market performances in the past, the mention of Domini.art, however, does come as a surprise as the cryptocurrency was launched just a few months ago.

Powered by the Ethereum network, Domini.art is a cutting-edge platform that facilitates investment in luxury artworks with cryptocurrencies. The platform can be credited with bridging the gap between blockchain technology and the art investment landscape.

Domini.art: Helping crypto users explore new avenues with art investment

Domini.art aims to democratize the art investment landscape by enabling even an average crypto user to invest in high-end and blue-chip creations. The platform has roped in a team of experts who carefully create a customized collection of art pieces by iconic artists. The artworks are tokenized and minted as NFTs which are then made available on Domini.art’s NFT marketplace. To purchase these NFTs, one would have to acquire the platform’s native cryptocurrency, the $DOMI token, which can be bought on presale. Plus, these NFTs can be fractionalised, so crypto users have the option of either buying the entire asset or a part of it.

What makes the $DOMI token a good crypto to buy is its anti-inflationary character or deflationary model. Under the model, the token supply is maintained in a way that it always is less than the market demand. When the supply exceeds the demand, the additional tokens are burned or destroyed. As the supply remains scarce, the price fluctuations are minimized and the token value stays stable.

An important reason why the $DOMI token’s popularity has been rising consecutively is the rewards that token holders get. For instance, the platform offers a tiered membership program where depending on the number of tokens they hold, a token holder is allotted a tier. With each tier, $DOMI token holders can look forward to exclusive perks like enhanced customer support, discounts, and early access to artworks, among others.

Domini.art is being called one of the best crypto investments of 2023 as it enables its users to leverage a wide array of opportunities like staking. By staking the $DOMI token, holders can earn attractive rewards. The longer the period for which the asset is staked, the higher will be the rewards.

Shiba Inu team to renounce burn portal for $BONE

Shiba Inu is one of the most traded meme coins in the world and is inspired by a Japanese dog breed. Its primary native token is $SHIB which is used for various transactional purposes on the network. The second token released by the Shiba Inu team is $BONE which is used for governance and the third token $LEASH has been created to reward loyal Shiba Inu supporters with special privileges.

The platform was recently in the news after the Shiba Inu team stated that it would be establishing a new ecosystem for the $BONE and renouncing the burn portal and contract designed for it. The ultimate goal for this complex process is to bring greater safety to investors, preventing anyone, including admins, from exploiting the process. The development shows that the $SHIB community is both active and transparent, creating a safe environment for $SHIB to continue to grow and prosper, which is good news for long term investors.

Stellar’s Decentralife series to feature blockchain innovators

Stellar is among the top crypto coins of 2023 and has carved a niche for itself by enabling crypto users to make lightning-fast and cost-effective online payments. Its native cryptocurrency, $XLM is the official medium of exchange of the Stellar ecosystem.

In a recent development, Stellar announced the launch of ‘Decentralife’, a series of interviews featuring innovators building problem-solving remittance solutions with blockchain technology. Many analysts feel that Stellar’s recent move aimed at publicizing cheaper and innovative remittance methods might help in ensuing a price surge for the $XLM token.

Conclusion

There is little doubt about the fact that Domini.art, Stellar, and Shiba Inu are innovative crypto projects which have utility-centric models. However, when it comes to growth potential, Domini.art steals a march over the other two. Analysts credit this advantage to Domini.art’s one-of-a-kind model where crypto users can earn long-term returns with a budget-friendly investment option. At the same time, a deflationary token and a cutting-edge security framework ensure that their assets are well secured.

Learn more about $DOMI here:

Visit Domini Presale | Join Our Community

Disclaimer: This is a paid release. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily represent those of Bitcoinist. Bitcoinist does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of information available in such content. Do your research and invest at your own risk.

Those who recently descended on the South Korean capital for Seoul Art Week undeniably had a fun, if hectic, experience amid festivities anchored by Frieze Seoul and Kiaf Seoul. There were of course countless openings, VIP previews, and artist studios visits. But the machinations went beyond art—rubbing shoulders with Squid Game star Lee Byung-hun, or a member of K-pop sensations BTS and/or Blackpink, was no more a fantasy for many a visiting fairgoer last week.

As many art-world players recuperate from the eventful week, some are also contemplating the future. As the art-fair calendar in Asia becomes increasingly crowded, including by several events with global ambitions, some are starting to look more closely at the math underpinning the fairs. Amid the macroeconomic situation and a global art market correction, many are questioning if the market in South Korea, or even Asia overall, can sustain such a saturated schedule.

Many gallerists exhibiting at both Seoul fairs last week told Artnet News that sales were obviously slower than last year. Seoul sales reported by galleries mostly clustered around five-digit figures. Only a handful, at Frieze, achieved six or seven-digit sales figures.

Meanwhile, some collectors who traveled to Seoul told Artnet News that they went home empty handed.

That leaves some doubt as to how enticing the city’s Art Week will be going forward.

“If Frieze Seoul can’t invite foreign collectors [to] Korea, we will face a limit,” Lee Joon Yub, director of the Daegu and Seoul-based Gallery Shilla, told Artnet News.

South Korean singer G-Dragon attends the Photo Call for ‘Chanel x Frieze’ cocktail reception event on September 06, 2023 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by The Chosunilbo JNS/Imazins via Getty Images)

Crowded Calendar

Ever since the stringent Covid travel restrictions were lifted gradually across Asia, just as Frieze Seoul was launching its first edition a year ago, the number of art fairs in Asia branded as “international,” has sprung up. Art SG in Singapore and Tokyo Gendai in Tokyo, both operated by the Art Assembly, have been added to the docket, while existing fairs including Art Basel Hong Kong and Taipei Dangdai (also by the Art Assembly) strive to revive their former glory, now that they can again welcome foreign visitors.

But to some galleries from Asia, keeping up with the busy schedule—which for some includes fairs in other parts of the world—is becoming more and more challenging, especially when sales don’t always meet expectations. Some gallerists said the cost of staging a booth in the region can go up to six digits, including booth rent, shipping, and hotel and travel expenses. “We barely broke even,” said one gallerist who showed at one of the aforementioned fairs.

Others complained that they could not make meaningful contacts during some of these fairs, as cultural barriers proved harder to surmount than expected. Some buyers who bought intensively during Covid have also slowed down their art purchases, another Seoul-based gallerist said.

Some questioned if the traditional art fair model—that is, bringing sellers to a convention center in various cities for just a few days—is the answer for the Asian market in the long run, especially when not all Asian cities have a large number of affluent art buyers. “The markets in some of these cities are still very nascent and it’s hard to justify and support over 100 galleries at each fair while ensuring each gallery is happy with sales,” an Asia-based gallerist said.

Installation view of Kiaf Seoul 2023. Courtesy Kiaf Seoul.

Urgent Need for “Asia-Level” Collaboration 

While global brand names originated from the west such as Art Basel and Frieze have helped to stimulate the Asian market by launching outposts in the region, galleries in Asia nonetheless feel an urgent need for collaboration to make the art-fair trade sustainable there.

The Galleries Association of Korea, organizers of Kiaf, invited representatives from Taiwan Art Galleries Association and Asosiasi Galeri Senirupa Indonesia to the Seoul fair this year; all these galleries associations are members of the Asia Pacific Art Gallery Alliance (APAGA), which was founded in 2015. Other members include galleries associations from Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong.

“There have been talks about cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, and Seoul racing to be the art hub in Asia,” Hwang Dalseung, chairman of the Galleries Association of Korea, told Artnet News. “But what about just having healthy competition among these cities? Shouldn’t we gravitate the art world to a broader region, like Europe and Americas? We need to work on an Asia level.”

Hwang revealed that galleries associations from three Asian regions are expected to join the alliance in the near future. He is also expecting exchange with Taiwan during the upcoming 30th anniversary of Art Taipei, which runs in October and is organized by the Taiwan Art Galleries Association.

Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK), which will return for a third edition from October 27-30, could serve as a reference for a more collaborative model. The young fair, founded in 2021, will be featuring 26 Japanese galleries as “hosts,” sharing booths with 27 galleries from the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific, in addition to the 11 galleries presenting artists with specific connection with Japan’s former ancient capital. Following that weekend will be the return of Art Week Tokyo, which saw a successful experiment last year by bussing VIPs to local galleries, institutions, and private collections.

“Collaborative fairs like ACK may work better as Japanese galleries help western galleries, and the price of doing the fair is not as prohibitive,” Amanda Hon, co-president of Hong Kong Art Gallery Association, told Artnet News. “Art Week Tokyo, on the other hand, allow collectors to really discover the galleries, history, and culture in a much more in-depth way than simply going to an art fair.”

Artist Priyageetha Dia, featured at Yeo Workshop’s presentation at Frieze Seoul 2023. “Collaborations with other like-minded galleries in that market” could be a better alternative to art fairs in Asia, noted the gallery’s founder Audrey Yeo. Image courtesy of Yeo Workshop. Photo by Jonathan Tan.

Indelible Impression

Despite the slow sales at the recent Seoul fair week, confidence in the South Korean capital remains high. Some collectors and art patrons traveling to the city said the art on show at the fairs was “so-so,” but they were all impressed by what the city has to offer as a total cultural experience.

“Don’t just look at the art fairs,” Hong Kong collector and fintech exec Alan Lau, who visited Seoul’s art week for the first time, told Artnet News. “It is the cultural economy [that matters] and Korea is creating an alternative model of cultural tourism. They will have more international visitors.”

Seoul-based collector JaeMyung Noh personally welcomed nearly 300 visitors to his private collection during Art Week, including many museum groups and art professionals from the U.S. and Europe. He agreed that the market in Korea is not booming like it was two or three years ago. “However, I see many companies in Korea wanting to so something about art. Not just buying art, but collaborating or doing art-related projects,” he said, adding that attention that South Korea gets from the global community comes from “not just the Korean art scene but also the culture, food, K-pop, and drama (thanks to Netflix).”

Visitors look at an artwork named “Weave Magenta, 2023” (R) by artist Sean Scully during the Frieze Seoul 2023 art fair in Seoul on September 6, 2023. (Photo by Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images)

Lee of Gallery Shilla said Korean collectors respond to conceptual work more in recent years. The gallery paid homage to Italian conceptual artist Piero Manzoni’s Artist’s Shit (1961) in its booth, “The Great Shit Show,” at Kiaf this year. The gallery invited fairgoers to place silent bids on an installation by art collective El Grupo X, with each sealed can allegedly containing lyophilized feces from a different anonymous art world figure. Eventually, Artist’s Shit landed the highest bid and sold for $20,000. “We didn’t expect sales from our show. But the collectors know how to enjoy this,” Lee said.

And while Frieze and Kiaf have just wrapped up, another new fair is going to make its debut in Seoul. Staged by the organizers of Art Busan, Define Seoul will take place from November 1 to 5, 2023, in the Seongsu district’s Layer Studios and Andy’s 636 spaces. With South Korean designer Teo Yang as its artistic director, the boutique fair features a mix of 25 art galleries and design studios, and targets local collectors in their 30s and 40s. Works on show are expected sell for between $20,000 and $1 million, according to Seokho Jeong, managing director of Art Busan.

“Sales have slowed down in terms of total sales volume but … the collector base in Korea has noticeably expanded and widened in the past five years, mainly led by [collectors in their 30s and 40s],” Jeong said. “The key local players, including ourselves, must continue to think hard how we can have more active, strong programs that could reach the global audiences on our own, instead of expecting Frieze and other international galleries to make it all happen for us.”

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