Author: Darko Topalski

ZURICH.- Monday’s « Swiss Art » Auction at
Sotheby’s Zurich realised CHF 5,862,875 (€ 3,878,878). The sale was 65% sold by
lot and 83.2% by value. In addition to landscapes and portraits by Hodler from
the private collection of his model Jeanne Charles, works by Ernest Biéler, Max
Buri as well as Giovanni and Augusto Giacometti also sold well under
the hammer of Dr. Claudia Steinfels, Director of Sotheby’s Zurich. Sotheby’s
Zurich holds « Swiss Art » auctions twice a year. The next one will take place
in Spring 2010.

HOUSTON, TX.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
will feature more than 80 paintings, watercolors, and drawings of seascapes and
coastal scenes from the early career of the pre-eminent late-19th-century
American expatriate painter John Singer Sargent (1856—1925), from February 14 to
May 23, 2010. Following a presentation at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
in Washington, D.C., this fall, Houston´s showing is the final stop in the
United States before the exhibition travels to London´s Royal Academy. Dr. Emily
Ballew Neff, MFAH curator of American Painting and Sculpture, organizes the
Houston showing, which is complemented by Houston´s Sargents: a show of some 30
Sargent works from private Houston collections.

NEW YORK, NY.- McCaffrey Fine Art is showing at their
new gallery at 23 East 67th Street the first ever solo exhibition of Kazuo
Shiraga in the United States.He succeeded in creating paintings
of great innovation with his unique style that involved sliding, spinning,
and swirling his feet in mounds of oil paint on large sheets of paper laid
on the floor. By the time of his 1957 “performance painting” on stage,
Sanbaso–-Super Modern, Shiraga was amongst the most avant-garde artists
working anywhere and his work was drawing international attention. 
Kazuo Shiraga: Six Decades which continues through January 23,
2010.

PARIS.- After a
hugely popular four-day viewing in Paris – attended by 1300 people –
today’s sale of exceptional works of art from Africa and Oceania attracted
a packed Sotheby’s saleroom throughout, with ferocious
competition between telephone bidders and collectors in the saleroom.
The sale total of over €5 million ($7.9 million) represented a
selling-rate of 83% by value. Most of the top prices were paid by
private collectors and connoisseurs, predominantly European or American,
all seeking exceptional items in a variety of specialized fields.

LONDON.- Digitally growing plants and a mechanical
eye that mirrors the blink of a visitor’s gaze will be among the digital works
that will feature in Decode: Digital Design Sensations. The
exhibition will show the latest developments in digital and interactive design,
from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations. Curated
in collaboration with leading digital arts organisation onedotzero, there will
be works by established international artists and designers including Daniel
Brown, Golan Levin and Daniel Rozin as well as emerging designers such as Troika
and Simon Heijdens. On display at the Victoria & Albert Museum
from 8 December to 11 April 2010.

PORTLAND, OR.- Beyond Place: Recent Photography
Acquisitions explores place as a subject in photographs by an international
roster of artists. The selected works are mostly free of the human
figure and focus instead on the power of the photograph to imaginatively
transport the viewer, to inspire emotional musings, and to reveal the unknown.
On exhibition through 14 March, 2010 at the Portland Art
Museum.

WASHINGTON, DC.- Since 2005, as part of the
Hirshhorn Museum’s commitment to the creative possibilities of new media,
the Black Box has presented the work of a range of emerging and established
international artists, such as Francis Alÿs, Mircea Cantor, Ori Gersht,
Jesper Just, Rivane Neuenschwander and Guido van der Werve. From single
camera shots to computer-generated animation, the Black Box explores the wide
variety of film, video and innovative media that have become so pervasive in
contemporary art.