$85m hole / Momart
comeback / Arab in a cage / Angelina as Madonna
(Wednesday 24 January 2007)
A "silver-dollar-size hole"
compiled by Marguerite White and
Cristina Martín de Vidales
We
reported a few months back the little accident which
Picasso's
painting, Le rêve,
suffered
(click here).
The owner of the painting, Steve
Wynn, was about to sell the canvas for $139m when he accidentally poked
a hole in the painting with his elbow.
 |
| Pablo Picasso: Le
rêve; image held
here |
Some
months after the accident, Wynn is
claiming from his insurers the $54 million dollars by which
his wayward elbow devalued from
the painting. Even when the canvas has been restored,
specialists believe it is now worth only $85m, not the agreed sale
price of $139m.
Is this
what they mean by elbow work?
Sources:http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1989525,00.htmlcontent
Momart correction
We reported last
Friday on "secret payouts" relating to the Momart fire in 2004. Momart
has come back to us with this clarification:
Dear Sirs
Re: Article in Guardian – Jan
15 2007
With regard to the article by Sandra Laville printed in The Guardian on
15th January 2007, which was repeated by you on Friday 19th January,
Momart wishes to make the following comment:
The article is inaccurate in a number of respects and shows a
fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the dispute which
arose in 2004 and the settlement which was reached in the summer of
2006. When that settlement was reached six months ago, the
parties to the dispute jointly agreed a statement as follows:
"Momart
is
pleased to confirm that an agreement has been reached in
final resolution of all the matters arising out of the fire at one of
its fine art storage facilities in May 2004. There has been
no admission of liability on behalf of Momart and all parties are very
happy that this has been resolved. Momart looks forward to
continuing to serve its clients in the fine art community."
It is usual in such cases that the parties maintain
confidentiality. For that reason Momart is unable to comment
further on the recently published article, other than to reiterate that
it is grossly inaccurate, and that it cannot have been based on
information from any party who knew the terms of settlement.
Momart did not refuse to comment when approached by the journalist who
wrote the recently published article. Following an initial
phone enquiry, Momart requested that any questions be submitted by
email so that they could be considered. No questions were
received.
Yours sincerely
Eugene Boyle
Managing Director
22 January 2007
Through the bars
compiled
by Marguerite
White and Cristina Martín de Vidales
The
group show Paranoia
has been touring in Britain and it opened on 11 January in
the Freud Museum, London. The
group has
many artists from diverse ethnic and cultural
backgrounds, among them Doug Fishbone. On
this occasion, Fishbone (well known for his performance of dumping
30,000
bananas in Trafalgar Square, as well as other dumpings of bananas
elsewhere) is showing Performance
with
Arab, in which a young
British muslim sits in a cage dressed in traditional Arab
clothes. This work was originally created
for GROUND
ZERO, an
exhibition in response to 9/11. Now
in London, which had its own 7/7 terrorist attack, Fishbone
explains, "the intention is the same: to examine the increasingly
problematic relationship between the British and the Arab world, the
absolute terror that
Arabs inspire in the mainstream population."
 |
| Doug
Fishbone: Young Muslim man in a cage, 2006, installation in Leeds City Art
Gallery; image held here |
Modern religious
painting?
compiled
by Marguerite White and Cristina Martín de Vidales
While
one religion - Islam - is the object of much western fear and the
subject of Fishbone's piece above, another religion may be becoming
overassimilated into western consumerism. Blessed art thoug:
under this
title, a
line from a Catholic prayer, we can see Angelina Jolie
hovering
over a market checkout line. The work has received wide coverage prior
to its outing at the Miami Art Fair
 |
| Kate Kretz: Blessed
art thou, 2006,
oil and acrylic on linen; image held here |
The
location and title are not just by chance; everything
depicted has been
carefully chosen by the artist, Kate Kretz, who explains the message of
her work: "our culture deifying
celebrities and consumers 'hungry' for information about the
celebrity's private life."
The
acrylic and oil painting depicts Angelina Jolie as the Virgin
Mary, holding her newborn daughter, Shiloh, and the children Maddox and
Zahara. Jolie has been chosen, according to the artist not only for her
beauty, but
for
her behavior and the good she is doing for the world through her
example. The work is on show at Art Miami 2007 which began last
Saturday.
Most
recent news items:
• aica.ie / this time Momart gets burned / mummy man (Friday 19 January 2007)
• Bbeyond and Stone 'performance' (Tuesday 2 January 2007)
• Able for art / UM gets dosh / Void fills with pub (Friday 22 December 2006)
• Crawford double / Churchill not cheap (Thursday 21 December 2006)
For a full list of news items, click here.
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