Author: Ann Williams

‣ The strange sales practices of Birkin bags are the stuff of legends and nightmares, so it is interesting that there is a complaint against Hermès for these sales practices. For that Fashion businessRobert Williams has the story: Lawyers for the plaintiffs say Hermès is in violation of US antitrust regulations, which define certain practices of bundling goods or bundling with other purchases as an abuse of market power. “The tying product, Birkin bags, is separate and distinct from the tying products, which are ancillary products that consumers are required to purchase,” the complaint states. “Plaintiffs have alternative choices for…

Undergraduate internships at the Smithsonian’s Latino Museum Studies Program at the Smithsonian’s National Latino American Museum have been opened to students of all races, following the settlement of a lawsuit that said the program was discriminatory. CNN the reports The suit was filed in February by the Texas-based United States Alliance for Equal Rights against the museum’s director, Jorge Zamanillo, and Crosby Kemper, director of the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The lawsuit said the program had not hired any non-Latino interns since it began operating in 2022. Related Articles “When the alliance sued,” the American Alliance for Equal…

ArtArtsy Editorial”The Art We’re Obsessed With” is a new monthly series honoring the works of art that the Artsy staff can’t stop thinking about, and why. From unknown artists our editors encounter at local shows to artwork that goes viral on our platform, these are the artworks we’re obsessing over this month.Sonia Jia, The echo of the melody2023Every time I come across one of Sonia Jia’s intriguing paintings—which are popping up all over my feed—it feels like stepping into an archaeological site. Rendered in dark pinks, purples and beiges, her canvases appear to be soaked in sediment, like cave drawings…

Visitors have returned to Hong Kong’s museums as the Special Administrative Region’s lockdowns and travel restrictions have ended.Since opening in 2021, M+ has become Hong Kong’s most popular art museum. It received 2.8 million visitors in 2023—38% more than in 2022, when it was closed for 89 days due to the pandemic—making it one of the 20 most visited art museums in the world, according to M+. Art NewspaperThe annual visitor survey, published this month, has seen more visitors than Florence’s venerable Uffizi galleries and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. It was the most visited art museum in Asia, after the National Museum…

Forget Bubbles: Is Jeff Koons a Swiftie?Jeff Koons is making a splash in Hong Kong this week with an exhibition of his first works at the Art Intelligence Global space in Wong Chuk Hang (until April 26). Called Jeff Koons: 1979-1999the show includes its title porcelain sculpture Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988), a high-kitsch representation of the late Thriller the pop star and her favorite chimpanzee. The work is making its debut on these shores, Koons said Prestige magazine: “I think this is the first time that Michael Jackson and Bubbles will come to China, so it’s exciting,” he said.…

When Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Ghana on an official visit in 1999, the British High Commission called in Gerald Annan-Forson for a private photo session with the monarch. A few years earlier, Annan-Forson had made a habit of standing in front of Buckingham Palace with the dream of one day taking pictures of the Queen or the royal family. The commission’s request was surprising. “I said, ‘Well, wait a minute. He’s coming with all these reporters. Why me?'” he recounted, talking to ARTnews In a recent interview from Accra, the capital of the West African country. “They said, ‘Well,…

Kicking off Christie’s Asian Art Week in New York, a complete set of Katsushika Hokusai’s “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” fetched a landmark price of $3,559,000, setting a new auction record for the artist. This sale underscored the enduring demand for Hokusai’s work: Last year, a single print The Great Wave off Kanagawa It sold for $2.76 million at Christie’s, setting the artist’s previous auction record.The entire set was collected over 11 years by collector Jitendra V. Singh, a former professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “It is a once-in-a-generation honor to offer the complete set…

For his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, American artist Glenn Ligon has created several new paintings that expand on his celebrity. the stranger series, which started in 1997. The works on display at Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong are based on James Baldwin’s 1953 essay. Stranger in Town, the writer reflects on his encounter with the inhabitants of a Swiss mountain town where he had never met a Black person before. Ligon’s powerful compositions explore the visibility and invisibility of the Black experience, drawing Baldwin’s words on canvas and covering them with charcoal dust. says Ligon Art Newspaper about…

For the businessman and museum creator named among the world’s top 200 collectors ARTnews last year, Nanjing-based Wu Tiejun is remarkably cautious. He never gave an interview about his collection and refused to give a picture of it Art Newspaper along with this questionnaire.Wu prefers to focus on the Nanjing museum, which he founded in 2017 through his real estate development company Deji Group. The Deji Art Museum is located on the eighth floor of the group’s large office and luxury shopping complex, Deji Plaza II. A second location, designed by architect Kengo Kuma, is planned for 2026 near the…

Welcome to episode 227 of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their field of work. This week, artists depict the unseen, engage with nature while working indoors and treat their studio as a permanent exhibition. Want to participate? Check out our new submission guidelines and share a little about your studio with us through this form! All media and workspaces are welcome, including the home studio. Paloma Vianey, Washington, DC Describe an average day in your studio. As a full-time artist, I spend most of my day in my studio. Arriving in the morning,…