Los Angeles Art Show 2012

The 17th annual edition of the Los Angeles Art Show will take place during this month and will present exciting modifications from its previous editions.

Now under the management of Art Miami, the art fair will debut two separate shows, the LA Art Show: Modern & Contemporary and the Los Angeles Fine Art Show: Traditional and Contemporary. Both shows will take place January 18 - 22, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in West Halls A and B.

The LA Art Show: Modern & Contemporary, aims to showcase not only the works of famous artists such as Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Fernando Botero and Roy Lichtenstein, but also to give the opportunity to emerging artists to show their art to the public.
Contemporary art galleries, dealers and collectors will have the chance to trade information and ideas that may lead to future partnerships.
Video installations, performance pieces and mixed media installations will be some of the art projects present at the show, as well as curated special exhibitions, tours and lectures.

As for the Los Angeles Fine Art Show: Historic and Traditional, it will be focused in offering high quality works of representational art, including pre-20th century Impressionism, plein air paintings and drawings. A selection of contemporay realism will also be included.
This show does not pretend to exhibit a particular art period, but to provide contact with traditional art for those who appreciate it, independently of when it was completed.

Following last year's program, also the annual IFPDA Print Fair will take place in conjuction with the Los Angeles Art Show.
The 27th edition will offer a comprehensive look at Prints in all techniques, including drypoint, etching, engraving, lithography, mezzotint and woodcut.
Dürer, Whistler, Diebenkorn and Ruscha are some of the artists whose works can be found.

With prices ranging from under $500 to more than $50,000, visitors will have the chance to observe and purchase works from different periods and movements, featuring a broad spectrum that will include Old Masters, German Expressionist, antique and modern Japanese, 18th and 19th-century European, 19th-century American, American Regionalist, and Latin American.

Another special ingredient will be the International Vintage Poster Fair, joining the Los Angeles Fine Art Show this year and showing an outstanding selection of 100 years of vintage posters. Poster styles include: Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Mid-century Modern dating from the 1890's Belle Époque to the stylized 1930s, and on through the Atomic Age.
All posters on display will be the original lithographic advertising pieces that were created through the ages to be posted on the street.

All three shows will launch with an Opening Night Premiere Party on January 18, supporting Art of Elysium and its project Bringing Art to Kids and Kids to Art. This project makes possible for special children to participate in school visits to the Getty Museum and enjoy other artistic activities, which are important for their personal development.

The 17th edition of LA Art Show will take place on January 19‐22, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, West Halls A and B.
General admission is $20 and will provide entrance for the three shows.
Ticket information and purchase is available on this page.

Pockets Warhol turns Art into a Monkey Business

A small capuchin monkey named Pockets, alias Pockets Warhol, is causing sensation in Toronto and abroad.
The primate, a resident at the Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary (Sunderland, ON), started expressing his creative muse through paintings that remind the works of Jackson Pollock. The Warhol nickname comes from the fact that volunteer Charmaine Quinn found resemblances between him and the pop artist, which led her to introduce Pockets to non-toxic paint as a way of keeping him entertained: “He looked a bit like Andy Warhol with that wild, white hair,” she said.



Pockets' paintings are already being exhibited at the Sadie's Diner & Juice Bar in Toronto, until February 6, 2012.
The proceeds will go to the Story Book Farm sanctuary, a facility opened by Sherri Delaney 11 years ago with he purpose of rescuing primates from pet stores, private homes, entertainment, research labs and zoos across the country.

The Andy Monument on view until May 2012

Rob Pruitt "The Andy Monument" from Public Art Fund on Vimeo.

Commissioned by Public Art Fund, NY, and created by Rob Pruitt, The Andy Monument was unveiled on March 30, 2011.
The nearly ten-foot-tall chrome finished sculpture is a tribute to Andy Warhol.

Its deinstallation was intended for October 2, 2011, however due to the amazing response to the monument, Rob Pruitt's creation will be on view in the pedestrian mall at the northwest corner of Union Square at 17th Street and Broadway, until May 13,2012

A free audio guide is available by calling 646.862.0945 and a free iPhone app may be downloaded at the Public Art Fund.

The Andy Monument: photos, videos and articles

Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, NY and created by Rob Pruitt, the nearly ten-foot-tall chrome finished sculpture of Andy Warhol was unveiled on Wednesday March 30 at Union Square, just outside the building that housed Warhol’s Factory for more than ten years in the 70s and early 80s.

Several photo illustrated articles have been published, and videos have been made about the statue. You can see them on the website exclusively dedicated to The Andy Monument.

Photo by James Ewing

Andy Warhol's Self-Portrait (1963-1964) sold for $38 million at Christie's

After the recent financial crisis that also affected the art market, the major auction houses have assisted since the recovery to continuous records. A sign that high-end and insightful art collectors continue to have the means to acquire valuable artworks and believe that art will continue to be a good investment allied to an aesthetical value.

The recent evidence is Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, which took place in New York on the 11th of May and realized $301,683,630 (£184,026,630/€211,178,100), with 95% sold by lot and 99% sold by value.
In this sale, where only three of the 65 works on offer failed to sell, a total of seven new world auction records were established.

Cy Twombly, whose Untitled from 1967 realized $15,202,500; contemporary artist, Urs Fischer, whose Untitled (Lamp/Bear), realized $6,802,500 – six times the artist’s previous world auction record; Richard Diebenkorn, for Ocean Park #121, from 1980 which brought in $7,698,500; Anselm Kiefer, whose Dem Unbekannten Maler (To the Unknown Painter) from 1983 realized $3,554,500.
The sale of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled color coupler print from her 1981 Centerfold series was not only a world auction record for Sherman, but represents a new world auction record for any photograph, thus setting two world auction records for the same work.

But the highlight of this evening sale was Andy Warhol's Self-Portrait, an acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, in four parts overall: 40 x 32 in. (101.6 x 81.3 cm.) that the Pop artist completed between 1963 and 1964 and was bought for $38,442,500 (buyer's premium included), establishing a new world record for a portrait by the artist.
Acclaimed in every Warhol monograph and exhibition catalogue as his first seminal self-portrait, it was part of the Barron Family collection and was sold be Florence Barron who had commissioned the work for $1,600 nearly half a century ago, making payments on an installment plan.



All eight works by Warhol offered at auction were sold for a combined total of $90,988,000, including another self-portrait, a synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas 106¾ x 106½ in. (271.2 x 270.5 cm.) painted in 1986, previously belonging to Anthony d'Offay, London.

Another relevant result for Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale (sale 2440 of May 11, 2011) was Mark Rothko's Abstract Expressionist masterpiece from 1961, Untitled #17, having achieved $33,682,500.

Buyers (by lot / by origin) were 61% American, 23% European, 3% Asian and 13% other.

The Andy Monument by Rob Pruitt

Commissioned by Public Art Fund, NY, a nearly ten-foot-tall chrome finished sculpture of Andy Warhol created by Rob Pruitt, will be unveiled tomorow in the Union Square, Pedestrian Mall at 17th Street and Broadway, just outside the building that housed Warhol’s Factory for more than ten years in the 70s and early 80s, tomorow Wednesday March 30 at 11:00am.

Inspired by Warhol’s art and life and a tribute to the late artist, The Andy Monument will stand on the street corner, just as Warhol did when he signed and gave away copies of Interview magazine which he founded in 1969.

Based on a combination of digital scanning of a live model and hand sculpting, Rob's creation aims to represent Warhol as a ghostly, silver presence: a potent cultural force as both artist and self-created myth. The chrome figure wears his signature fright wig and carries a Polaroid camera around his neck. In his right hand he carries a medium brown bag, which Rob imagines to be filled with copies of Interview magazine.

In the likeness of what is becoming common these days, interaction through the use of technological devices and social media will be made possible.

The sculpture created by Rob Pruitt will stand in the Union Square, NY, until May 13, 2012 (updated).

Photo by James Ewing