Author: Darko Topalski

LONDON.- Christie’s is honored to announce that it
will offer at auction this spring in New York major works from the collection of
the late Michael Crichton. Best-selling author and screenwriter, film director
and producer, Crichton is renowned for his terrifying and sometimes
controversial scientific thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park,
Timeline, The Lost World, Rising Sun, and State of Fear, and for creating the
television series ER. Crichton is also acknowledged as a leading authority on
the American artist Jasper Johns.

HELVOIRT, NL – One of Paul Gauguin’s last major
works is to be offered for sale by the leading international art dealer
Dickinson for a price in the region of €18 million (US$26 million) at TEFAF
Maastricht. Gauguin created this painting during a final burst of
creativity following his retreat to a remote Pacific island as far away from
civilisation as possible. The 23rd edition of the world’s most influential art
and antiques fair will take place at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and
Congress Centre) in the southern Netherlands from 12 through 21 March 2010.

NEW YORK, NY.- An oil painting of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti,
by Louis Aston Knight (American, 1873-1948), is estimated to sell for
$6,000-9,000 at Bonhams in New York and will aid AmeriCares,
the nonprofit global health and disaster relief organization currently
working in Haiti. Born in Paris, Louis Knight studied there under
Robert-Fleury Lefebvre and his father, Daniel Ridgway Knight. He is known
chiefly as a landscape painter and was the recipient of numerous awards during
his lifetime.

MIAMI, FL.- Entering its 22nd year, the highly
anticipated St. Stephen’s Art Show (SSAS) will be celebrating its three-day long
festival from Saturday, February 13th through Monday, February 15th,
2010. The show is presented by St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, a 100
year resident in Coconut Grove, which is celebrating its Centennial in 2010. The
show, known as one of South Florida’s most popular outdoor arts festivals, will
take place on the grounds of St. Stephens Episcopal Church (2750 McFarlane Road)
in the heart of Coconut Grove, Florida.

MALAGA.- The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga
presents Gilbert & George’s first major exhibition in Spain after a ten-year
absence. Jack Freak Pictures, the duo’s most extensive and
ambitious series to date, will travel to six European countries, starting with
Spain, where Málaga will be the first city to present this impressive
selection. Race, religion, sexuality and criticism of the British
establishment are the core themes that this new exhibition explores, whilst the
dominant elements are the red, white and blue, the colours of the Union Jack.
On exhibition through 9 May, 2010.

LONDON.- ‘Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light’ is
the first monographic exhibition of paintings by Christen Købke (1810–1848) ever
to be shown outside Denmark. Købke is arguably one of the
greatest talents of Denmark’s Golden Age, yet a solo exhibition of his work
outside his homeland has eluded him until now. This show will comprise
48 of Købke’s most beautiful and distinguished works spanning a variety of
genres: landscape, topography, portraiture and his charmingly oblique depictions
of national monuments informed by a decidedly avant-garde sensibility.

NEW YORK, NY.- ArtSpeakChina (ASC), the first
online, collaboratively authored bilingual encyclopedia of Chinese contemporary
art officially launched today. Now online at both www.artspeakchina.org  and www.tanyishu.cn , the Wikipedia-style
reference guide provides both English and Mandarin speakers with hundreds of
in-depth articles on Chinese artists and the world of Chinese contemporary
art. ASC’s bilingual, collaborative character helps overcome the
language barrier and is already improving the global availability, exchange and
quality of information about Chinese contemporary art.

Charleston, South
Carolina – The
Gibbes Museum of Art presents the exhibition Lure of the Lowcountry
in the Main
Gallery through April 18, 2010. 
This exhibition features sixteen large scale mixed-media photographs by
artist John Folsom (American, b. 1967) selected from his series entitled Lure
of the Lowcountry. 
Folsom’s photographs depict several locations in the region, including
Palmetto Bluff and Edisto Island, both in South Carolina, along with Cumberland
Island, Georgia.  To explore the
art-historical precedents of Folsom’s work, this exhibition pairs his
photographs with fourteen early Lowcountry landscapes from the Gibbes
collection, including paintings by Thomas Coram and Charles
Fraser.