Author: Ann Williams

The 11th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong opened its doors earlier this week, with a steady stream of eager collectors descending on the fair, which this year features 242 galleries from 40 countries and territories. Waiting in line to get in were two young Asian collectors, including Youngho Kuk, a South Korean fashion designer, he said. Art Newspaper that, armed with a budget of between 30,000 and 70,000 dollars, he wanted to buy some “art installations”.Other young Asian art buyers were also on hand for the VIP preview, including Ruby Huang, a Hong Kong collector who works in finance.…

An extensive exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s work will open next year at Hong Kong’s M+ Museum, and will feature his work alongside pieces by modern and contemporary Asian artists. All works in the exhibition, Picasso for Asia: An Interview (March 15 to July 13, 2025), on loan from the Musée National Picasso in Paris.Picasso for Asia: An Interview It will feature over 60 works by Picasso (1881–1973) from the late 1890s to the early 1970s, alongside over 80 works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ collection. “The exhibition takes a new and unique approach to interpreting Picasso’s legacy,…

Bahman Mohas, Untitled (Fifi) (1964)Modern and Contemporary Middle East, Sotheby’s, London, April 25Estimate: £150,000-£200,000Bahman Mohasses, called the “Persian Picasso”, painted this work during a prosperous period of his career. It focuses on a faceless female fictional character, Fifi, who appears in a number of his works over the decades, including the same Sotheby’s sale (also estimated at £150,000-£200,000). This character also inspired the title of a documentary about Mohasses, Fifi Howl of Happiness, released in 2013, three years after his death. The film documents Mohasses’ last years, living alone in a hotel room in Rome, and also captures the moment…

More than 400 workers at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), a member of Local 535 of the Public Service Employees Union of Ontario (OPSEU/SEFPO), went on strike Tuesday (March 26) over low wages due to the rising cost of living. As a result, the museum has been closed to the public since Tuesday.According to a statement from the union, after ten months of meetings, negotiations with the museum’s administrators broke down. The union says AGO’s latest offer fails to make significant improvements on key issues, including wage increases and protections against the hiring of precarious part-time workers.”As public service…

XVII By the end of the 19th century, Europe was beginning to see China as more than the legendary land of Marco Polo. As luxury goods—especially porcelain—flowed west and scientific tools and ideas flowed east, the two civilizations were a little more familiar and a little more envied. This period of what might be called respectable greed ushered in a golden age of collecting, with the French royal court at Versailles, then Europe’s finest, and its Chinese counterpart, the imperial court of the Forbidden City in Peking, buying, commissioning or simply receiving. from both worldsNow, the remnants of those two…

Inigo Philbrick, the shameless art dealer who was found guilty of an $86 million fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison, has been freed. The seven-year sentence (including two years already served) was handed down in May 2022, meaning he will serve just under four years of the seven-year sentence.Philbrick’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, confirmed his client’s release: “Yes, Inigo is out of jail and at home with his family.” He announced before his release Daily Mail, citing a Federal Bureau of Prisons source who said he was released in February. according to Vanity Fairhe was released in January to…

After a three-week strike, on March 26, management of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass Moca) and its union (United Auto Workers Local 2110) reached a tentative agreement. Mass Moca union members voted the same day to ratify the new contract.”We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with Mass Moca that raises minimum wages and improves working conditions,” the museum union’s bargaining committee said in a statement. “We are eager to return to the jobs we love.”The agreement establishes a new minimum wage of $18 an hour and includes annual wage increases. According to the union, 58%…

ArtElizabeth FazzareMelissa Cody. World Traveler 2014. Courtesy of the artistAnnie Albers Red Meander 1954. © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2024 Photo: Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art. Since the earliest days of textile art, believed to be around 10,000 BC, abstraction has been used to convey meaning. Although the theme of an abstract work is not so clearly communicated, these textures are embedded in the politics of their time. In ancient Andean communities, for example, colorful geometric patterns on wool were used to communicate messages across linguistic and geographic boundaries.…

ArtElizabeth FazzareMelissa Cody. World Traveler 2014. Courtesy of the artistAnnie Albers Red Meander 1954. © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2024 Photo: Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art. Since the earliest days of textile art, believed to be around 10,000 BC, abstraction has been used to convey meaning. Although the theme of an abstract work is not so clearly communicated, these textures are embedded in the politics of their time. In ancient Andean communities, for example, colorful geometric patterns on wool were used to communicate messages across linguistic and geographic boundaries.…

ArtElizabeth FazzareMelissa Cody. World Traveler 2014. Courtesy of the artistAnnie Albers Red Meander 1954. © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2024 Photo: Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art. Since the earliest days of textile art, believed to be around 10,000 BC, abstraction has been used to convey meaning. Although the theme of an abstract work is not so clearly communicated, these textures are embedded in the politics of their time. In ancient Andean communities, for example, colorful geometric patterns on wool were used to communicate messages across linguistic and geographic boundaries.…