Short arms, deep pockets

As Over the net noted this morning, Ocula - Australasia's new online fine-art auction site - is up and running.

According to the press release, the site's founders (Simon Fisher and Christopher Taylor) "believe Ocula will stimulate the Australasian market by allowing art enthusiasts to research, buy and sell art around the clock and from any location."

As far as I can figure out, the site is made up of several parts. There's a Galleries section, where invited galleries have profiles that how current exhibitions, listing of their artists, and works by these artists that are in stock.



Clicking around this section however, I didn't find any prices, just instructions to contact the gallery for a price. It's always bemused me that dealer galleries put price lists on their walls but so rarely do so on their websites.

Then there's the Auction section. For a minute I got excited and thought maybe works from dealer galleries were going to be offered for auction, but reading further into the site, it seems to be the traditional model of owners consigning works to Ocula, who show some of these works in their Auckland showroom, but run all the auctions online.



I have to say, when you're on the site this is a little unclear. This work by Shane Cotton that's for sale, for example - is that being offered by one of his dealers, by the artist himself, by the owner (using the site like TradeMe) or by Ocula? I daresay it's all in the fine print (and yes, I am outing myself as too lazy - or frustrated - to open all the headings on the subpages so I can skim for the info I want) but it's not immediately apparent - certainly not with the clarity with which existing auction houses present their catalogues online.




One feature I do really like (squished thumbnails aside) is that Ocula is sucking in sales info from the Australian Art Sales Digest, which shows you how much works by an artist have made in recent sales. As far as I'm aware this information was subscription-based recently, and it's data gold.

The site is also curating art-related articles from around the web - a useful service in itself.



It seems appropriate that the first work I spotted up for sale is by Billy Apple. Bidding appears to be Trade Me style - a suggested opening bid, an auto-bid feature, and a tracking feature. Will people display Trade Me-like ferocity and bidding techniques? Not to mention Trade Me-like loyalty? Only time will tell.

[One final note. It's still not clear to me why auction houses seem to be able to skip copyright clearance on the artworks they publish in their catalogues. Does anyone have an answer on this?}

Today, Best of 3 is wondering ....

... if Art + Object fluffed Don Driver's possum skins specially for last night's Wellington preview.


They were looking exceptionally well groomed. Does this break some kind of conservators' law? Should one brush one's furry mixed media works? Art - so easy to buy, so tricky to look after.

Image
Don Driver, Two Skins with Legging, 1984. Mixed media, 1430 x 810mm. From the Art + Object website.

Friday muster

1.

Australian auction house Deutscher and Hackett get offered a "contentious nude" by Bill Henson, decide to give it a miss - The Australian and Art Market Monitor suggest the decision is based more on a failing art market than the chance of a resurgence of this year's earlier outcry.

2.

As Cheryl Bernstein observes, Pundit's Keith Ovenden is no fan of Fiona Hall. I have no love of the heavy-breathing show myself, but found Ovenden's repeated use of "Ms" Hall condescending. I'm a bit of a bone-picker here - I also loathe it when people write of Rita and Frances, not Angus and Hodgkins - and think a simple surname will suffice. It's Ovenden's first review on Pundit, so time will tell - maybe the next will be of Mr Van Hout's two openings next week?

3.

LACMA are blogging, and in the most recent post, a curator goes that extra mile for the sake of her collection items.

4.

Finally - does your gallery or museum site have RSS feeds? If you do, think about adding them to Ideum's latest project, the RSS feed mixer.

Copywrong?

This Village Voice article caught my eye this week - Artist, Fan Clash Over What Constitutes Online Piracy. Artist Alex Grey has filed a copyright-infringement suit against Juan Pablo Fernandez, a big fan of Grey's work who buys prints legitimately, frames them, then resells them on Ebay.

It's not the on-selling that bothers Grey: it's that Fernandez is making digital images of his work available. From the article:

Whether online photos of artwork constitute illegal reproductions is a murky legal question, but one that is hugely important to sellers on eBay, CraigsList, Amazon, and other venues where people often resell their possessions. While publishing a photo of a copyrighted work for the purpose of reselling it certainly can be legitimate, it's a question of interpretation, says Paul Fakler, vice chair of the New York State Bar's intellectual-property section: "The courts have a lot of latitude on deciding what is fair."

I know this is an American example, but I had been wondering recently: do auction houses have to get copyright permission to reproduce artworks in print and online catalogues, or is this covered by the 'fair use' clause of copyright law? Does anyone know?

Weekend reading

Who'd have thunk it? Men's Vogue has an auction blog. Check out their art auction posts here. Sample quote:

Larry Gagosian hung on longer than most, taking his leave during lot 81 (a pedestrian Monet being sold by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); he took home Picasso's Homme a la pipe for $16.8 million perhaps for a new Russian client. Christie's owner Francois Pinault stayed the course, looking down on the sale from a skybox window where he could be seen leaning into an outstretched arm as if he were trying to make a move on someone.

In other news:

Paul Goldberg on the new New Museum of Contemporary Art building

Richard Lacayo on a MoMA extension

Art you didn't know you needed - portraits of muttniks

Points

This is the first image I've seen from Jake Chapman's and Dinos Chapman's Frieze Art Fair project, where queues of people are forming at the White Cube stall to hand over their pound notes - whatever value they choose - and have the Queen's face doodled over by the artists.

I'm interested to see what happens to these works after Frieze. Will people hold on to them, or will they get flicked off at auction in six months? The Chapmans are making a point by selling cheap art - just like they made a point at last year's Frieze by selling expensive sketch portraits - but can the point survive in the secondary market?

Photograph by Martin Godwin, from the Guardian website.

Sales round up

Damien Hirst's business manager Frank Dunphy has told media that the Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull has been sold to a group of investors for US$100 million in cash.

"Private dealer" Richard Polsky suggests that usually "buyers operating at the $100 million level would get a discount", but no go, says Dunphy.

Laurence Graff, London jeweler and art collector, "looked at the skull when it was on show and didn't buy it". He doubts that it was bought by "diamond people".



The sale of Shaun Gladwell's Storm Sequence at Sotheby's Melbourne on Tuesday night for AUS$84,000 is being reported as the first digital installation sold at auction in Australia.


In the same sale, Eugene von Guerard's The Great Lake, Tasmania went to "property developer Max Moar and his former wife, Iris Lustig, for their corporate collection" for $1.86 million. The painting was sold by "Victoria's cash-strapped National Trust".

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Bill Bleathman made a call for the work to remain in Tasmania earlier this month - the painting was showing in the Gallery at the time as part of a state-wide touring exhibition staged by the National Trust to promote the work prior to the auction.

Images, from top:

Damian Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007. Image from the Bloomberg website.
Shaun Gladwell, Storm Sequence, 200. Image from the Sherman Gallery website.
Eugene von Guerard's The Great Lake, Tasmania 1875. Image from the Melbourne Age website

Everything - really, everything - you need to know about buying art at auction

Over August, Art and Auction magazine have been running a series of articles by Judd Tully, looking at the ins and outs of buying art at auction:

Salesroom Confidential - are you in the skybox, the 10th row, or the B room? how do you read the bidding? are you interested in bottomfishing (buying a work after the sale)?

Covert operations - chandelier, shill and ring bidding explained.

Snaps, signals and signs - what did that arched eyebrow mean?



The article is accompanied by a nifty photo gallery, with cartoon portraits and written sketches of the major auction house figures. For example:

Jussi Pylkkanen, President of Christie's Europe, 44, Finnish

Famed for his aristocratic bearing and almost snobby delivery. Can at times be agonizingly slow, due in part to the spike in phone bidding, although lately has speeded up his march through ever-larger London sales. Style: a tad pompous and some say patronizing, but with the boyish enthusiasm to get the job done.

Tobias Meyer, worldwide head of contemporary art, Sotheby's, 44, Austrian

Cool, poised, glamorous face of Sotheby’s. Although not everyone warms to his imperial style, undeniably a pro, cutting a trim figure at the podium, announcing bid increments with a Teutonic crispness while keeping the body language simple. Style: strong and confident if a bit impatient at the rostrum.

Images: From the Art and Auction photo gallery. From top to bottom: cutting the bid; Henry wyndham, Sotheby's; Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's.

Getting lucky in the auction room

Charlotte Higgins reported in yesterday's Guardian on the sale of an 18th-century painting in an auction in Market Harborough, Leicestershire:

The estimate on the picture was £300-£500. When its turn came last Tuesday at Gilding's - a small, family-run auction house that holds about 45 sales per year - something truly extraordinary happened. "The atmosphere in the room became very tense - the bidding just went on and on," said the auctioneer, Mark Gilding. The final hammer price was £205,000.

Described in the auctioneer's catalogue as "18th-century continental school, half-length portrait of an aesthete", it depicted a black-clad, bearded man, his face half turned to the right, a rather distant, soulful expression in his eyes.

Speculation is now abuzz that the work is actually an early Titian, dating between 1510 and 1520, and possibly worth something in the region of £5 million. The buyer has not come forward - the vendor picked the work up in an estate sale in 1974.

Stories like this make me happy - I like that there's still room for surprises and discoveries 9and, I guess, false attributions) in today's art market. I do wonder though if the vendor will be pleased that the work sold for 400 times its top reserve, or pissed that they unknowingly let a £5 million Titian slip through their fingers?

Webbs - taking it to the mat

Perhaps as a profile-building exercise in the face of the new Art + Object auction house publicity attack, Webbs have just been announced as the presenting sponsor for the Arts Foundation's New Zealand Award for Patronage. The news isn't posted on either the Webb's or the Art Foundation website, so here's the release:

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SPONSOR ANNOUNCED - WEBBS (FINE ART AUCTIONEERS)

The Arts Foundation of New Zealand is proud to announce a new partnership with Webb’s - Fine Art Auctioneers.

Webb’s are the Presenting Sponsor of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage.The annual Award honours a philanthropist for their generous support of the arts. In 2006, the inaugural recipients were Denis and Verna Adam.

The 2007 recipient of the Award will be announced at a special ceremony on May 8th at the Auckland Art Gallery.

“As a company with an in-depth understanding of the quality of art, the Arts Foundation is proud to be associated with Webb’s”, said Ros Burdon, Chairman of the Arts Foundation.

“We are grateful for Webb’s generous support of the Arts Foundation and their contribution to recognising our leading arts patrons.”

“Webb’s has strongly supported the visual arts in New Zealand since its inception over thirty years ago”, said Peter Webb, Director of Webb’s.

“We have done this by pioneering a sound secondary market for local works of art; by cataloguing and displaying such works in a professional manner and by initiating ‘collectives’ to further introduce buyers into the market.

"It therefore makes perfect sense for Webb’s to give its enthusiastic support to an award that recognises the vital role of the patron and donor in the world of the arts. Without the foresight and generosity of patrons, we as a community would be very much the poorer.”

The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage is made annually to a person, couple, or private trust for outstanding private contributions to the arts. The recipients of this Award will, in time, constitute a grand circle of patrons whose generosity has impacted significantly on New Zealand, by nourishing, enriching and bringing us closer to the artistic world.

Honoured for their philanthropy, the recipients are celebrated as role models for all those who are passionate about the arts and as inspiration to those that wish to support the arts to do so at any level.

To demonstrate that patronage is alive and well the recipient is provided the task of distributing $20,000 (gifted by the Arts Foundation) to artists or arts projects of their choice.

The Foundation intends the gifting of funds to the arts as an appropriate reward for the patrons and a direct honour of them as experts in supporting the arts.

“Through its association with the Arts Foundation, Forsyth Barr too understands the value of patronage, so we are delighted to welcome Webb's to the family of supporters and sponsors.

"Their support for the Arts Foundation of New Zealand's Award for Patronage speaks volumes of their understanding of the vital role that Patrons play. We look forward to joining with them and the Arts Foundation on May 8 in Auckland," said Neil Paviour-Smith, Managing Director, Forsyth Barr.

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Webb's was established in 1976 to bring to the New Zealand market a higher level of professionalism in the selling of works of art in all categories by auction. Since that date the company has grown to become a leader not only in selling fine art but also in the specialist fields of decorative arts, jewellery, estate, household effects and wine under the hammer.

Webb's auctions are a great place to learn about the markets for art, antiques and collectables. Webb's conducts more than one hundred and fifty sales each year from its salerooms off Broadway, in Auckland. The sales attract art and antique dealers and collectors from all over New Zealand, and frequently buyers from locations abroad.

Bringing sexy back

Oestrogen met testosterone on Frontseat on Saturday morning, with Josie McNaught's interview with the four guys behind the new Art + Object auction house.

"Josie McNaught meets the lads who are taking on the auction industry's old guard" - TVNZ website