🍎🐍 Art As A Consequence #16
🌐 The best in art, crypto and fashion. Meet you in the email body.
Welcome to the sixteenth edition of the ART AS A CONSEQUENCE weekly briefing. From Christie’s 404 website crash to newly obtained tapes of Francis Bacon speaking in privacy about how much he loathes his gallerist, the art world gave us plenty to talk about this week. Coming soon, a new book exploring the NFT boom and its relation to the art industry. Save the date for AI Index: A Machine Room Tour drop and lastly, how did art collectors became fashion’s top target? All of that and more below. So, grab a snack 🍎 and happy scrolling.
Lol (lots of love),
Dimitria
Notable news from the art world 🦋✨
🍎 Ahead of this past week’s grand spring auctions, Christie’s website crashed. The auction house stated that it suffered a cyberattack that took it offline. Despite the incident the sales went on as planned, fetching $114.7M on the opening night. The spring sales typically generate half of the auction house’s annual revenue. Can that be true?
🍎 Followed by a 10 minute bidding war, a painting by Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) fetched $28.5M (from $12-18M estimation) at Sotheby’s in New York setting a new auction record for the British artist. Argentinian developer and businessman Eduardo F. Costantini, the founder of the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires was the winning bidder.
🍎 The Guardian published an exclusive article as it obtained tapes by Francis Bacon revealing his loathing for his art dealers (particularly Marlborough Gallery in London). In a conversation with a friend in 1982, Bacon can be heard dismissing them as “greedy” and the usual art gallery trick: “You can never trust them. They say they have sold things they have not. They buy them themselves, you see – you never know with them.”
Earlier this year, the Marlborough Gallery announced that it will close in June. It was founded by the late Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer in 1946, who turned it into one of the world’s most important galleries.
🍎 In last week’s weekly briefing I included that art dealer Nino Mier was recently accused of underpaying artists, now he is planning to close his three galleries in L.A. Mier’s five other spaces, in Brussels and New York, will remain in operation. He recently shuttered a project space in Cologne, Germany, called “Salon Mier” and last year he closed one in Marfa, Texas.
🍎 Congrats to Damien Hirst for becoming a father again at the age of 58.
🚀 🌞🌛Rise and shine moments from the crypto space
🍎 To add to my juicy art market book collection “Token Supremacy: The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022” by Zachary Small. The author piblished two articles; one on The New York Times as well as on ARTnews with chapters from his forthcoming book which will be released on 21st of May.
"Being open to new technology is part of our responsibility. We are never jumping on new technologies, but rather realizing that we need to keep pace with the world."
—Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s senior curator
Some fun 🗝️ points
(from The Night That Sotheby's Was Crypto-Punked)
From the dramatic Sotheby's auction in February 2022 that marked a turning point for the NFT market. Featuring 104 CryptoPunks NFTs (consigned by 0x650d) that attracted crypto-whales, it ultimately ended in chaos when the seller got “cold feet” and canceled the sale. The auction's failure underscored issues in the unregulated art market, revealing vulnerabilities to financial crimes and the government's reluctance to enforce stricter regulations (issues like money laundering, tax evasion, shell companies etc). There is also plenty of collision between traditional art collectors and the new crypto elite.
A month after the auction storm, the consigner 0x650d announced that his CryptoPunks collection would be used as collateral for a $8.32M loan, unlocking the liquidity of his NFTs while allowing him to “retain upside exposure” through the collectibles. 0x650d was able to use the auction house’s appraisal to legitimize the value of his NFTs. It let him keep his punks, so that he could, theoretically, sell them for more than he would have made at Sotheby’s — and use them as a piggy bank for liquidity in the meantime. It looked as if he’d used the art world as a mark.
Some fun 🗝️ points
(from How Refik Anadol and Digital Art Were Finally Welcomed into MoMA and the Traditional Art World)
How did MoMA leveraged NFTs for financial recovery post-pandemic? Its shift in digital strategy and curatorial practice shifted by being one of the first big institutions to embrace digital art leading to a significant collaboration with Refik Anadol.
Also interesting is to explore the financial impact of NFTs on struggling cultural institutions during the pandemic and their transformative potential. Still some space left in my art market gossip section 👇
💾 📆 AI Index: A Machine Room Tour
27th May 2024
“As soon as the gauge reaches one of these intervals, the associated 10 unique NFTs will automatically be unlocked. Forever. “
On 27 May, Verse will launch AI Index, the first collection of NFTs based on the [aside] protocol in collaboration with Obvious and Ivona Tau. This drop will have the following feature: all purchased NFTs will be locked at mint time and will be unlocked according to the state of a sentiment gauge which estimates people’s feelings towards AI.
Behind the project is Georg Bak, NGUYEN WAHED, and Distributed Gallery
Find out more on verse
🎨👗 How art collectors became fashion’s top target
“A collaboration is meaningful when it is not just superficial, but tackles the themes first raised by artists.”
— Cecilia Morelli, CEO of Galvan
Fashion brands are increasingly targeting art collectors to reach high-spending consumers amid a slowdown in aspirational luxury shopping. This strategic move includes partnerships and sponsorships with renowned art institutions and events, fostering cultural cachet and emotional connections with high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). Gucci's collaboration with Tate Modern for its Cruise 2025 collection exemplifies this trend, as do similar initiatives by brands like Burberry, Tod's, and Rejina Pyo. These collaborations are essential for creating engaged communities around fashion brands, emphasizing authenticity to maintain meaningful engagement.
✨ Louis Vuitton highlights Albert Oehlen in Beijing show
Louis Vuitton’s Espace Culture and Arts Space in Beijing is mounting an exhibition titled Malerei (in english Painting) of work by Albert Oehlen (24 May - 27 October, 2024). The six paintings were made by the artist over thirty years and are part of theFondation Louis Vuitton’s collection. The works—many of which have never been shown before—are being presented as part of the Fondation’s Hors-les-murs, a program that introduces the collection to international audiences in major cities (Tokyo, Venice, Munich, Beijing, Seoul, and Osaka).
🍒 Bonus: Andreas Antonopoulos everyone.
Bitcoin is not money for the internet, Bitcoin is the internet of money. (…) Bitcoin is not smooth jazz, Bitcoin is punk rock. Deal with it.
That’s all frens! 👋 toodeloo
See you next Sunday - if there is a next Sunday.
Visit artasaconsequence.net to discover more about my work in the art industry. You can contact me over email or find me on social media: Instagram | X | LinkedIn
