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Mark Leckey wins Turner Prize
Mark Leckey, a 44-year-old artist from Birkenhead, near Liverpool, has won this year's Turner Prize.
The artist, who beat fellow contenders Runa Islam, Cathy Wilkes and Goshka Macuga to the £25,000 award, was favourite to win with works including an animated film lecture extolling his own love of animation and installations featuring Homer Simpson and Felix the Cat.
Leckey's practice, which has gained increasing recognition in the last few years, combines sculpture, film, sound and performance into a highly personal investigation of popular culture and everyday life. As the Turner Prize judges put it: "He celebrates the imagination of the individual and our potential to inhabit, reclaim or animate an idea, a space, or an object."
Rhode works
Remote-control car art from South African artistRobin Rhode's latest work has been produced using a paint-spraying BMW. The customised vehicle, fitted with paint nozzles on its tyres, was steered across a football pitch-sized canvas using a remote-control device operated by the 32-year-old artist.
The process - which took place in an LA movie studio - was filmed to create the ultimate road movie,.which is due to be shown from March 25 in the Vanderbilt Hall in New York's Grand Central Terminal, along with a selection of other works by the in-demand South African artist.
Limited editions prove robust for Phillips
While prices for high-ticket items have plunged in recent weeks, Phillips' end of November New York prints & multiples auction achieved surprisingly sturdy results.
Several major names did struggle, with works by Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang and Basquiat failing to find buyers. Hirst's 2004 'etrahydrocannabinol' also saw $35,000 wiped off its optimistic upper estimate ($40,000-60,000) when it sold for just $25,000.
On the other hand, a surprisingly large number of works made several thousand dollars above their top estimates - among them, coveted editions by Ellen Gallagher, Tom Friedman, Donald Sultan, John Baldessari, and Tom Wesselmann (a Wesselmann nude estimated at $5,000-$7,000 brought in $15,000).
Undoubted star of the show, however, was Brazilian Beatriz Milhazes, whose limited edition prints showed maximim selling power. Three works - all dating from 2003 - were hammered down at $43,750, $40,000 and $31,000. Their estimates? $14-$18,000, $10-$15,000 and $8-12,000 respectively.
New art centre for Shanghai
Landmark 'Peace Hotel' to house contemporary museum
The south wing of Shanghai's Peace Hotel, an enormous art deco remnant of the city's colonial past, is set to house a $30 million exhibition space which will also include studios for resident artists.
Despite the cost, which will be met largely by the Swiss watch manufacturer Swatch, the centre is only envisaged as a temporary guest, although the length of its stay has not yet been finalised. The refurbished wing is set to open in May 2010; the north side of the historic hotel will continue to function as usual.
Hirst again sidelines galleries - or do they sideline him?
Hirst to show in London museum
Not content with flogging hundreds of artworks at his Beautiful Inside My Head Forever auction, Hirst already has his next show planned - and it's not going to take place in either White Cube or Gagosian.
Instead, the artist will present new works in the stately surroundings of London's Wallace Collection, a priceless array of Old Master paintings and 18th Century French furniture housed in a splendid Marylebone townhouse.
Apparently Hirst feels that his "...new works somehow feel like they belong there with other works and objects from other times", all of which constitutes yet another a kick in the teeth for the galleries that nurtured him - or perhaps a reluctance on their part to show him at all.
While his words seem to imply that the pieces in question are already largely complete, the show won't take place until next October - which gives his beleagured market a little time to recover.
Carsten Höller opens Congolese caff
The man behind the Tate Modern's 2006 helter-skelter-style slides and a revolving 'hotel' bedroom - part of theanyspacewhatever currently showing at New York's Guggenheim - has cooked up yet another participatory art adventure. This time it's a fully functioning restaurant / nightclub which aims to present the authentic sights, sounds and tastes of the Democratic Republic of Congo alongside western counterparts.
Aptly named Double Club and due to open November 22nd in London's bustling Islington area, it will offer a selection of Congolese and New British cuisine, a slowly turning dance floor on which DJs switch from Congolese to Western sounds halfway through each rotation, and two outdoor bar areas. While one is decked out in classic cocktail swank, the other looks like it's been thrown together in true shanty fashion.
The project, which will run for six months, is being funded by the Fondazione Prada. Miuccia Prada, head of the fashion empire and avid art collector, is already a keen Höller fan and boasts her own transportation slide at the company's Italian headquarters.
Höller, for his part, is passionate about the African republic which half of his club is meant to represent and has visited regularly for the last eight years.
Whether this makes his latest project more of a whim than bona fide artwork is something you might like to discuss over a dish of conger eel in marantaceae leaves, but in any case, Höller's constant aim to inject fun into the art experience is something few are going to nay-say in troubled times.
The Double Club is at 7 Torrens Street, London EC1
Surprise star at Phillips
Four times high estimate for US painter
Amid the patchy sales typical of last week's New York Fall auctions, one particularly surprising result at Phillips Contemporary and Modern Day Sale on November 14th caught art pundits unawares.
The large work 'Raft' by US artist Jin Meyerson was hammered down at $242,500 (with premium), smashing through its estimate of $40-60,000.
image courtesy Phillips, © Jin Meyerson
Purchased from New York's Zach Feurer Gallery in 2006, the sale is a spectatcularly good one for the young painter, who graduated from the MFA program at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1997. While his work is widely recognised, it has tended to sharply divide critical opinion.
The signature complexity and detail in this particular work clearly proved an irresistible attraction - a subsequently offered abstract from 2004 (smaller, and less representative of his current practice) only reached its $5000 low estimate.
Venice Biennale welcomes (more of) the world
Six new countries to join art-fest
Andorra, Gabon, Montenegro, Pakistan, Monaco, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates are set to strut their contemporary stuff in the 53rd Venice Biennale. Last year's newcomers, Iran, Morocco, New Zealand, and San Marino will also be present for the latest edition when it opens June 7, 2009.
The event's title, 'Making Worlds', which was announced last week by artistic director Daniel Birnbaum, seems particularly apt in view of its increasingly global reach. Next year should see a further slew of participants eager to prove their artistic prowess.
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Stagnating sales for Murakami and Hirst; record prices at Sotheby's and Christie's despite slowdown; Venice Biennale; double helping of culture at the Double Club; new show planned by Hirst...
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