Art World News

Tattoo products maker Body Art Alliance explores sale -sources

Tattoo products maker Body Art Alliance explores sale -sources

NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Body Art Alliance is exploring options including a sale that could value the supplier of tattoo and body art products at nearly $1 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Hanover, Maryland-based company is working with investment bank Jefferies Financial Group Inc (JEF.N) on the sale process, the sources said, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential.

Body Art Alliance expects to generate about $70 million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in 2023 and about $250 million of revenue, the sources added.

Representatives for Body Art Alliance and Jefferies declined to comment.

Body Art Alliance’s move to explore a sale comes amid a global surge in the popularity of body art, especially among the younger generation. More than 40% of U.S. millennials sport tattoos, according to an Ipsos poll published in 2021. The global tattoo industry is growing at nearly 10% every year, according to some market reports.

The company was launched in 2020 by the founders of four body art companies – FK Irons, Painful Pleasures, NeoMetal and World Famous Ink. It is now affiliated with dozens of global brands that sell tattoo and body art products, which include body ink and piercing equipment, to artists and customers.

Through its partnerships with distributors and other tattoo brands, the company’s products are sold in 45 countries across five continents, according to its website.

Reporting by Abigail Summerville in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Abigail is on the M&A team and writes about consumer and retail deals. She joined Reuters in 2022 from Debtwire where she covered leveraged finance and the primary debt market for three years. Previously, her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and the Boston Business Journal. She majored in business journalism at Washington and Lee University. Contact: 332-261-5948

Arts Economic Development Pilot Program | Government of Northwest Territories

Arts Economic Development Pilot Program | Government of Northwest Territories

The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) is investing $375,000 in a new Arts Economic Development Pilot Program (AEDPP) to help commercial artists in the Northwest Territories (NWT) develop product inventories for sale and/or export products to market.

The AEDPP is part of the GNWT’s overall response to the Arts Program Review. It is designed specifically to support professional artists and the arts organizations collaborating with them. The program aims to improve the ability of NWT artists to expand their business beyond territorial boundaries. Marketing programs already provided by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI) will not change.

To be eligible for the new AEDPP funding, artists must be NWT residents and demonstrate that they create art for commercial/economic purposes. Eligible professional arts organizations must have a current business licence, be registered in NWT Corporate Registries and/or have proof of compliance and have comprehensive general liability insurance.

Quote:

“The NWT’s arts sector plays an important role in diversifying the NWT economy by providing artists – especially those in smaller communities – with employment choices and income opportunities. This pilot program is another step forward for the GNWT in improving programs and services that foster the growth and sustainability within the NWT arts economy.”

–  Caroline Wawzonek, Minister of Industry Tourism and Investment  

 Quick facts

  • AEDPP funding will be administered through department of Industry, Tourism and Investment Regional Offices under the Support to Entrepreneurs and Economic Development (SEED) Policy
  • Applications will be evaluated in the order they are received, and eligible proposals will be granted funding until the allocated budget of $375,000 is fully utilized.
  • All products or activities specified in the application process will need to be created between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024.
  • As much as possible, funding will be allocated equitably across NWT regions.

Related links

For media requests, please contact:

Drew Williams

Assistant Director, Strategic Communications

Industry, Tourism and Investment

Government of the Northwest Territories

Drew_Williams@gov.nt.ca

867-767-9202 ext 63037

Matt Stevens Digitally Conjures Acclaimed Movies Into Hyperrealistic Vintage Paperbacks

Matt Stevens Digitally Conjures Acclaimed Movies Into Hyperrealistic Vintage Paperbacks

All images © Matt Stevens, shared with permission

It’s said that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but both readers and publishers are savvy enough to know that cover design speaks volumes about what’s inside. From the explosive graphics of pulp fiction to the attention-grabbing dust jackets of clothbound copies, cover design visually links to specific genres or series. For designer Matt Stevens, a love for the aesthetics of shelf-worn pocket paperbacks combined with a passion for movies spurs the ongoing series Good Movies as Old Books.

The idea for the project dovetailed from a proposal Stevens made to a movie production client. “Often, we try and make the pitch look and feel like something else. Maybe an old manual or a set of vintage baseball cards,” he tells Colossal. “(For) one of the pitches, we were selling a pretty modern idea but in a way that needed to look really old and worn. I really enjoyed the process of putting something in a different context and thought I’d take it on as a personal project.”

Stevens grasps the potential of digital tools to create realistic depictions of analog objects and explains that he’s most interested in the digital world when it can be used to recreate a sensation of tangibility. He says:

I was coming up right as computers were becoming reliable design tools,  and in design school, we still used things like French curves, photocopy machines, and drew a lot of type by hand—because we had to. I really love things that feel handmade, screen printed, printed on a press, worn down…you can see the process in the image and the grit and age.

 

Two digitally-rendered paperback cover designs reimagined for the movies 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and 'Cast Away'

Stevens’ illustrations draw on a look and feel we associate with the well-read and well-loved tomes of the 20th century, from pocket-size mystery thrillers to classic Penguin covers to reinforced library bindings that could withstand hundreds of reads. Complete with bookstore price stickers and creases along the spines and corners, Stevens’ designs look real enough to pick up and crack open. “The covers started out exploring much older books: linen covers with frayed edges and colored foil stamps,” he says. “But as it’s progressed, a huge part of the fun is researching the history of covers of the last century and seeing what I respond to and what makes those particular covers work.”

Stevens just launched a Kickstarter campaign to print a second volume of Good Movies as Old Books, which includes 100 new designs, plus a reprint of the sold-out first volume. See plenty more where these came from on his website and Instagram.

 

A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Point Break.' A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Nomadland.'Two digitally-rendered paperback cover designs reimagined for the movies 'There Will Be Blood' and 'Mission Impossible.' A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Memento.'

A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Ladybird.' A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Get Out.'Two digitally-rendered paperback cover designs reimagined for the movies 'The Fly' and 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.' A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Do the Right Thing.'A digitally-rendered paperback cover design reimagined for the movie 'Fargo.'

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 Matt Stevens Digitally Conjures Acclaimed Movies Into Hyperrealistic Vintage Paperbacks appeared first on Colossal.

Ukraine is tracking Da Vincis and Warhols on the art market to stop sanctioned Russian oligarchs cashing in by selling their assets

Ukraine is tracking Da Vincis and Warhols on the art market to stop sanctioned Russian oligarchs cashing in by selling their assets
A composite image showing, left, Auguste Rodin's bronze

L: Rodin’s “The Thinker.” R: Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn” screenprints.

Timothy Clary/AFP / Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


p” class=”inline-offer pre-churn-offer”>


  • Ukraine has launched a site to track $1.3 billion of art owned by sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
  • The site lists artworks like Picassos and Warhols believed to be bought and sold by sanctioned figures.
  • The nature of the art market offers many loopholes for the transfer of assets, the site says.

Ukraine’s national anti-corruption agency is zeroing in on one of the most colorful — and poorly regulated — places where sanctioned Russians can move cash: the art market.

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention has launched a database that tracks $1.3 billion worth of art it says was recently bought or sold by sanctioned Russian oligarchs, including a Monet lily pond painting, a Da Vinci depiction of Christ, and a Picasso portrait.

The database, it says, will allow art market actors to check that they are not dealing in sanctioned goods. 

“Russian oligarchs, despite the sanctions imposed on them, can still easily hide and launder their money through art objects,” the agency wrote on its newly-launched page. “Painting, sculptures, artistic jewelry — this is exactly what is used as a loophole to circumvent sanctions.”

The site’s “War and Art” section, it said, has the ultimate goal of allowing such assets to be frozen, confiscated, or transferred to Ukraine. 

The works listed in the corruption agency’s current database involve some instantly-recognizable names and images: a $10.4 million model of Auguste Rodin’s “Thinker,” for example, is listed as being owned by Dmitry Rybolovlev, a billionaire oligarch sanctioned by Ukraine, who also owns Monaco’s soccer club.

Ukrainian-born, Russian-Israeli oligarch Mikhail Fridman, who is sanctioned by the EU and the UK, is said to own an iconic Andy Warhol screenprint of Marilyn Monroe worth $38.2 million.

And a Wassily Kandinsky study, valued at $23 million, is listed as owned by Petr Aven, an oligarch sanctioned by the UK who has strong ties to President Vladimir Putin. 

The agency is also asking for open-source information on the ownership of other works. 

Art dealings can be a perfect vehicle for the quiet transfer of assets, largely taking place away from the public eye. There is also no formal register of ownership, making sales very difficult to track.

Similar projects, such as the Art Loss Register, have long been used by art dealers and insurers to check the provenance of an object and to make sure it is not registered as stolen. 

Global Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Market Is Set To Grow At A 3.0% Rate Through The Forecast Period

Global Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Market Is Set To Grow At A 3.0% Rate Through The Forecast Period
Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Market Report 2023

Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Global Market Report 2023

The Business Research Company’s global market reports are now updated with the latest market sizing information for the year 2023 and forecasted to 2032

LONDON, GREATER LONDON, UK, August 8, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ — The Business Research Company’s “Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Global Market Report 2023” is a comprehensive source of information that covers every facet of the market. As per TBRC’s market forecast, the independent artists and performing art companies market size is predicted to reach $280.94 billion in 2027 at a CAGR of 3.0%.

The growth in the independent artists and performing art companies market is due to performing arts companies. Asia pacific region is expected to hold the largest independent artists and performing art companies market share. Major players in the independent artists and performing art companies market include CJ Corp, Cineworld Group plc, AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc., Cinemark Holdings, Inc., PVR Limited.

Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Market Segments
• By Type: Performing Arts, Visual Arts
• By End User: Individual Users, Commercial Users, Other End-Users
• Subsegments Covered: Theater Companies And Dinner Theaters, Dance Companies, Musical Groups And Artists, Other Performing Arts Companies
• By Geography: The global independent artists and performing art companies market is segmented into North America, South America, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Learn More On The Market By Requesting A Free Sample (Includes Graphs And Tables):
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/sample.aspx?id=2169&type=smp

Independent artists and performing art companies are businesses that primarily produce live performances by actors and actresses, singers and dancers, musical groups and artists, and other performing artists. An independent artist refers to a musician or music group that has not signed a record label. Performing art means live performances by actors and actresses, singers and dancers, musical groups and artists, and other performing artists.

Read More On The Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Global Market Report At:
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/independent-artists-and-performing-art-companies-global-market-report

The Table Of Content For The Market Report Include:
1. Executive Summary
2. Market Characteristics
3. Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Market Trends And Strategies
4. Market – Macro Economic Scenario
5. Independent Artists And Performing Art Companies Market Size And Growth
……
27. Market Competitor Landscape And Company Profiles
28. Key Mergers And Acquisitions In The Market
29. Market Future Outlook and Potential Analysis
30. Appendix

Browse Through More Similar Reports By The Business Research Company:
Arts Global Market Report 2023
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/arts-global-market-report

Artificial Turf Global Market Report 2023
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/artificial-turf-global-market-report

Artificial Organ And Bionics Global Market Report 2023
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/artificial-organ-and-bionics-global-market-report

Contact Information
The Business Research Company: https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/
Europe: +44 207 1930 708
Asia: +91 8897263534
Americas: +1 315 623 0293
Email: info@tbrc.info

Check out our:
LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/company/the-business-research-company
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tbrc_info
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBusinessResearchCompany
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC24_fI0rV8cR5DxlCpgmyFQ
Blog: https://blog.tbrc.info/
Healthcare Blog: https://healthcareresearchreports.com/
Global Market Model: https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/global-market-model

Oliver Guirdham
The Business Research Company
+44 20 7193 0708
info@tbrc.info
Visit us on social media:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

image

Keita Miyazaki Sprouts Delicate Origami from Welded Car Parts in ‘Excess of Desire’

Keita Miyazaki Sprouts Delicate Origami from Welded Car Parts in ‘Excess of Desire’

“Blue Turmoil” (2023), car parts and paper, 85 x 65 x 55 centimeters. All images © Keita Miyazaki, courtesy of Gallery Rosenfeld, shared with permission

On March 11, 2011, the strongest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history struck just over 80 miles off the coast of the island of Honshu. An ensuing tsunami produced monstrous waves up to 40 meters high that pummeled the coastline and caused numerous deaths, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents homeless and crippling the country’s infrastructure. Artist Keita Miyazaki witnessed the devastation firsthand, and as access to everyday necessities and supplies was disrupted, he began to question Western society’s reliance on industry and material goods, as well as how the contemporary world measures its progress.

In his solo exhibition Excess of Desire at Gallery Rosenfeld, Miyazaki’s sculptures appear to grow from the floor or sprout from pedestals. Metal components meet intricate origami, exploring the dualities of robustness and fragility, the decorative and the utilitarian, and heaviness and lightness. The ends of pipes blossom with colorful fans and spindles of folded paper, juxtaposed with car parts in a reference to the 20th-century automotive boom and advancing technology.

Miyazaki articulates ideas around functionality and decay by welding together fragments of mufflers and engines that no longer operate for their intended purposes. He incorporates carefully selected parts, such as specialized mufflers that were produced illegally in the 1980s and 1990s, which rose to popularity because they could increase the car’s noise level and produce a specific sound. Challenging the frivolity of excess in wealthy society, the artist reframes the components as flourishing, botanical-like forms.

The Victoria and Albert Museum recently added one of the Miyazaki’s pieces to its Japanese collection, and one of his large-scale floor works will soon be on display at the Young V&A in Bethnal Green. Excess of Desire remains on view through September 30, and you can follow the artist on Instagram for updates.

 

“White Ore” (2023), car parts and paper, 72 x 60 x 48 centimeters

Left: “Stereo Order” (2022), car parts and paper, 70 x 50 x 38 centimeters. Right: “Tree of knowledge” (2020), car parts and paper, 250 x 90 x 100 centimeters

“Converted Reality” (2021), car parts and paper, 285 x 90 x 60 centimeters

“Core in Space” (2023), brass, car parts, enamel, and resin, 35 x 25 x 25 centimeters

“Plural Blue” (2023), car parts and paper, 220 x 55 x 55 centimeters

“The Bird” (2023), brass, car parts, enamel, and resin, 45 x 25 x 25 centimeters

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 Keita Miyazaki Sprouts Delicate Origami from Welded Car Parts in ‘Excess of Desire’ appeared first on Colossal.

Suzanne Valadon at Pompidou-Metz — the realist in an art-historical context

Suzanne Valadon at Pompidou-Metz — the realist in an art-historical context
‘Catherine nue allongée sur une peau de panthère’ (1923) © Lucien Arkas Collection

There is only one English-language biography of the French artist Suzanne Valadon — Renoir’s Dancer, a title that doubtless thrilled the marketing department of its publisher, Icon Books. Valadon was indeed a major model and muse, and sat endlessly for the already famous Renoir, but in her lifetime she also became a serious and feted artist in her own right.

Now, as a robust exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz deftly demonstrates, though she posed in a frothy white ballgown for Renoir’s “Danse à la ville”, as the hard-faced girl in Toulouse-Lautrec’s “The Hangover”, and as a sensual siren for Puvis de Chavannes, it is her vibrant paintings, as well as her drawings and etchings, that deserve our attention.

Valadon, who lived from 1865 to 1938, painted without inhibition or flattery, cleaving to a brilliantly hued realism. Her self-portraits are searing observations of womanhood — in the last of them she is a tough, bare-breasted 66-year-old. Those commissioned by society and friends, from which she made a good living in the 1920s and 1930s, are equally unforgiving. Lucie Valore, a wealthy collector, is shown as puffy and stern. By 1937, when it was painted, she had married Valadon’s son, the painter Maurice Utrillo, and was about to turn him against her.

‘Marie Coca et sa fille Gilberte’ (1913) © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Even close family members don’t escape Valadon’s forensic gaze. In a portrait of her niece Maria Coca and daughter Gilberte, made in 1913, the sitters face in opposite directions and a pall of misery infuses the picture.

At the Pompidou, director Chiara Parisi, who also curated the show, has taken an art-historical view of the artist’s career, and interspersed the assemblage of 130 works by Valadon with a further 40 by her peers. “I wanted to put her in context,” says Parisi. Among them are a gorgeous still life by Cézanne, with whom Valadon shares a palette of saturated colours, and a sensational portrait of Valadon by Toulouse-Lautrec, who was also her lover; it was buried in a store in Wuppertal, Germany, until Parisi dug it out.

‘Autoportrait aux seins nus’ (1931) © Collection Bernardeau

Toulouse-Lautrec’s influence can be seen in works such as Valadon’s “Nude in Boots”, a quick study of a confident showgirl naked but for her stockings and boots. Lautrec also gave her the name Suzanne, although she was really called Marie-Clémentine: the new name was after the biblical parable of Susanna and the Elders, alluding to the amount of time she spent with older men.

Parisi didn’t want to hang Valadon’s appeal on her rollicking rags-to-riches-to-rags life story — such a sensational tale of its times that it reads like the plot of a Zola novel. Valadon came to Paris from the poor, rural Limousin region aged five with her unmarried mother Madeleine. They landed in Montmartre where Suzanne ran riot, played truant and really did join the circus.

‘Le lancement de filet’ (1914) © Centre Pompidou

By the age of 15, she had tumbled disastrously off her trapeze and, after recovering, started making a living as an artist’s model, most notably for Puvis de Chavannes. She had her son Maurice at 18 (fellow artist Miquel Utrillo claimed paternity, though society preferred Chavannes), who went on to be blighted by alcohol and mental illness but became a very successful artist.

By 19, she had started making her own drawings, then Edgar Degas taught her etching. An affair with the overly obsessive Erik Satie (who gets a tiny corner here) was followed by marriage to a stockbroker. But eventually André Utter, a 23-year-old friend of Maurice, swept her away (she was 44), managed her career and spent her money. As did Valadon herself, with a penchant for furs, chauffeur-driven cars and lavish dinners.

‘L’avenir dévoilé ou La tireuse de cartes’ (1912) © Genève, Association des Amis du Petit Palais

Utter also made appalling pornographic paintings, of which there is one on show here, doubtless a self-portrait of a particularly blunt doggy-style encounter, rather incorrectly named “Scène érotique”. Though their relationship faltered, they are buried together in the Saint-Ouen cemetery outside Paris.

“She did want a different kind of life than the one she was born to,” concedes Parisi, who chose the title A World of Her Own for the exhibition. “She was really daring for a woman of her time, a real adventuress.”

Elaborating the story through the art itself, Parisi opens the show with Valadon’s first major painting, made in 1909. A remarkable portrayal of herself and Utter as Adam and Eve, it is most likely the first male nude painted by a western woman. (A fancy garland of fig leaves had to be added when it was shown in the Salon des Indépendants 11 years later.) Next to it is “The Fortune Teller”, an unnerving symbolist scene, in which a lounging Olympia is being read her cards. The future could be bleak.

‘Été, dit aussi Adam et Ève’ (1909) © Centre Pompidou

The strong line that Valadon developed in her early days of drawing, then engraving, often follows through to her paintings: everything from figures to flowers are at times circumscribed with a heavy black line. In “The Blue Room”, from 1923, one of her very best works, the line traces the body of a large woman lying on a couch, a truculent expression in her eyes, a cigarette in her lips. In her pink camisole and stripy pyjama pants, she is categorically modern; this is a face that will never be troubled by anything as submissive as a simper.

That Valadon needs reintroduction as an artist is not just a matter of misogyny, or class, though both have certainly played their part in the obscurity that has enveloped her reputation since her death. She was a realist painter, a figurative painter, and though touched by Fauvism, impression, symbolism and even classicism, she deliberately chose not subscribe to any school. (Berthe Morisot, upper class and a rare female member of the Impressionists, has been far more easily absorbed into the story of art.) Meanwhile, tastes were changing as she neared her death. From early in the 20th century, Cubists, Constructivists and Surrealists were changing the artistic landscape and Valadon’s style was going out of fashion. 

‘La Chambre bleue’ (1923) © Centre Pompidou

Now, though, it seems that Valadon’s skill and confidence as an artist have prevailed. She has a sense of volume that shows a unique understanding of the body in space that she may have learnt first as a sitter, then as a painter: less an autodidact than someone whose education was entirely experiential. Her pictures have a sculptural force and an unflinching presence that has not gone away.

In 1930, the French art critic René Barotte said: “I do not know what will last of the visual art of our era, but Valadon’s work, elaborated in solitude, will remain outside time, like something at once sensitive, pure and strong.” Nearly 100 years later, this exhibition proves him right.

At Centre Pompidou-Metz until September 11, then Musée d’arts de Nantes, October 27-February 11 2024. centrepompidou-metz.fr

A Berlin Show Celebrating Dealer Rudolf Zwirner Brings Together 80 Works by Artists He Championed, From Bourgeois to Warhol

A Berlin Show Celebrating Dealer Rudolf Zwirner Brings Together 80 Works by Artists He Championed, From Bourgeois to Warhol

How have some legendary gallerists contributed to the making of art history? An exhibition at the PalaisPopulaire in Berlin is honoring the discerning eye of Rudolf Zwirner, one of the most influential art dealers of all time, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Born in Berlin on July 28, 1933, Zwirner and his then wife Ursula Reppin opened his eponymous gallery in Essen, Germany in 1959, quickly expanding to a second location in Cologne (formerly Kunstmarket Köln) in 1963. He is usually credited with having invented the art fair after co-founding Art Cologne with fellow dealer Hein Stünke and artnet’s founder Hans Neuendorf in 1967. Perhaps most impressive of all, Zwirner brought international attention to the German art scene at a time when it had been greatly diminished by the economic ruin of World War II, Nazi suppression of “degenerate” art, and the exodus of many well-established Jewish dealers.

“When we started what became Art Cologne, there were just six of us who sold contemporary art, so it was really a risk,” Zwirner told Artnet News in 2021. “There was very little interest in contemporary art at that time. Now, there are 3,000 galleries in Germany that focus on it.”

In 1992, he retired as an active gallerist but his son David Zwirner, who was born in 1964, has become an art market giant with galleries in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Paris.

Bringing together some 80 works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, other private collections and museums, the show tells Zwirner’s life story and demonstrates his celebrated ability to spot talented artists in the early stages of their careers and support them in becoming successes.

Over decades, he worked with many of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art whose works are in this survey, including Louise Bourgeois, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, and David Hockney. A few standout examples from the more distant past include those by Tiepolo, Dürer, and Gaspare Diziani.

See a handful of works from the exhibition below.

Henri Rousseau, The sign as a painter (1903-10). Photo: Alistair Overbruck, © Courtesy Sammlung Zander.

Matija Skurjeni, Surprise Visit (1958–61). Photo: Alistair Overbruck, courtesy Sammlung Zander.

Astrid Klein, Untitled (I hermetically locked a man in the room) (1980). Photo: Timo Ohler, © Astrid Klein, courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers.

Michael Müller, Epiclesis (2022) from the series “Hades.” Photo: Mathias Schormann, © Studio Michael Müller.

Gerhard Richter, Bomber (1963). Photo: © Gerhard Richter 2023.

Gaspare Diziani, Cane and Abel (early 18th century). Photo: Lea Gryze.

“A Life in Pictures: A Portrait of Seeing for Rudolf Zwirner” is on view at the PalaisPopulaire by Deutsche Bank, Unter den Linden 5, Berlin, through August 14.

More Trending Stories:  

A Sculptor’s Lawsuit Against Kevin Costner Over Artwork She Created for His Planned Luxury Resort Will Finally Go to Trial 

Creepily, the Woody Allen Romp ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ Channels the Book That Outed Picasso’s Treatment of Women 

JTT, the New York Gallery Known for Minting Star Artists, Is Closing After More Than a Decade 

The British Library Has Discovered Scandalous Details Censored From the Official Account of Elizabeth I’s Reign 

Whether Painting Indoors or Out, Canadian Artist Keiran Brennan Hinton Imbues His Serial Studies With Intimacy and Devotional Intensity 

This Bonkers ‘Whale House’ in California, Inspired by Antoni Gaudí’s Architectural Whimsy, Comes to the Surface for $3.3 Million 

How the Many Dilemmas of Hannah Gadsby’s Anti-Picasso Show Feed Our Contemporary Cultural Doom Loop 

Researchers Have Found Hidden Details in Ancient Egyptian Paintings Using Portable Chemical Imaging Technology 

Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.

Phillips launches Dropshop, selling newly commissioned works direct from artist to collector

Phillips launches Dropshop, selling newly commissioned works direct from artist to collector
image

The art market is shifting into a new phase. Gone are the distinctions between primary and secondary markets, with galleries overseeing the former and auction houses the latter. Artists, too, are seeking new forms of representation, bypassing the traditional dealer model and selling directly to collectors from their studios.

In this vein, Phillips has announced the launch of Dropshop, a digital platform offering monthly limited edition releases of newly commissioned art and objects. The first “drop” features one hundred bronze crowns that look like inflatables, alongside a large-scale drawing of one of the crowns, by the Australian artist Cj Hendry. Prices will be released on 20 August when the “drop” goes live.

Phillips makes the bold claim that it is the “first and only platform in the international auction sphere that partners with working artists, making their work available for immediate purchase”. The emphasis here is on “immediate purchase”. According to a spokesperson for the auction house, this “buy it now” function sets Phillips apart from Sotheby’s primary market channel Artist’s Choice and auction veteran Simon de Pury’s company, which also consigns works from artists’ studios.

Christine Miele, who was appointed Phillips’s retail sales director, ecommerce this spring, notes how the pandemic began to shift buying habits. As she puts it: “Collectors not only became comfortable with transacting on the back of social media engagement, but they often actively sought it out. For quite some time, artists have also been interested in playing a more active role in their markets.” Miele thinks Dropshop will “change the long-held dynamics between these two groups […] as we expand beyond the model that has defined us for centuries”.

She also notes how artists are increasingly showing “a much bigger interest in taking an active role in self-representation”, adding: “Given this, we’re looking closely at what features an auction house should embody going forward, and I think this is a natural next step in the evolution of this industry.”

A possible sweetener for artists to collaborate with the auction house is the promise that, in line with the UK’s artist resale royalty rate, artists will receive 3% from future sales of their works through Phillips (the US does not operate a royalty system). However, the royalty is forfeited if the work is resold elsewhere. “We can only control this if the work is brought back to Phillips, but would love for this to eventually be an industry-wide initiative,” says Miele, who joined Phillips from the Kehinde Wiley Shop having previously run the mid-century design gallery reGeneration in New York for nearly three decades.

Miele remains tight-lipped about future “drops”, except to say that the firm has lined up “blue-chip artists to those newer to the secondary market”. She adds: “We envision the platform as eventually supporting all the categories that Phillips has to offer—from editions to objects of design and potentially even jewels.”