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London Art Market: First Half 2024 - A Period of Strategic Evolution. The first half of 2024 has marked a significant transformation in London's art market, characterized by strategic institutional initiatives, notable market achievements, and expanding collector demographics. Key institutional developments began with the Royal Academy's "Entangled Pasts, 1768-Now: Art, Colonialism and Change," featuring over 100 major works that created unprecedented dialogues between historical masters and contemporary artists. This groundbreaking exhibition demonstrated how cultural institutions are actively engaging with complex historical narratives while maintaining artistic excellence. The market demonstrated remarkable resilience across multiple sectors. Christie's achieved a significant milestone with Magritte's "Empire of Light" reaching $121,160,000, while Sotheby's strategic presentation of two Botticelli works successfully bridged the gap between Old Masters and contemporary collecting patterns. Phillips continued to strengthen its position through carefully curated sales emphasizing diversity and emerging talent. Works on paper emerged as a particularly dynamic sector, evidenced by the successful London Original Print Fair at Somerset House and several significant gallery presentations. Notable among these was Francis Picabia's "Women: Works on Paper 1902-1950" at Michael Werner Gallery and the comprehensive Frank Auerbach charcoal drawings exhibition at The Courtauld. The photography market showed substantial development during Photo London, where traditional practices merged with technological innovation. Contemporary art galleries have transformed their programming to reflect changing cultural perspectives, actively championing voices from diverse backgrounds. Through thoughtful presentation of newly discovered talents, Black artists, younger creators, and women artists, galleries are reshaping the artistic landscape. This evolution has resonated powerfully, attracting a new generation of collectors who seek art that reflects their lived experiences while enriching the broader cultural dialogue. The period also witnessed significant market expansion at entry-level price points, with plenty of sales opportunities across venues. This suggests a healthy ecosystem capable of sustaining both blue-chip sales and new collector acquisition. The art market is successfully balancing traditional strengths with strategic innovation, particularly in digital integration, diversity initiatives, and collector base expansion. Our full article has been prepared for Vitruvian Art Collectors Club. To discover more see the link in the comments. Below is my video diary - a snapshot of events we attended in first half of 2024. More to follow! https://lnkd.in/esfsD-Px #ArtMarketAnalysis #LondonArtMarket #MarketDevelopment #ArtBusiness #CollectorInsights #ArtInvestment #ContemporaryArt #ArtMarket2024 #MarketTrends

The global art market is a multi-billion-dollar industry, playing a significant role in cultural exchange and economic development. While its artistic roots stretch back centuries, China’s art market has boomed in recent decades, becoming a major player on the global art scene. In recent years, the Chinese art market has witnessed a meteoric rise, solidifying its position as the second-largest globally in 2023, following the United States.The rise of the Chinese art market in the 1990s The 1990s heralded significant changes in China’s socioeconomic landscape. The emergence of a new economic elite fueled a growing demand for luxury goods, including art. Simultaneously, China became increasingly appealing to foreign investors, paving the way for a burgeoning art market. This period saw the establishment of pivotal institutions such as the Red Gate Gallery and the Yan Huang Art Museum, signaling a renewed interest in both traditional and contemporary Chinese art. The art market mosaic: Insights into the Chinese art collectors Consumer demographics: Generational preferences Chinese collectors are well-informed and conduct thorough research before making purchases. This is increasingly recognized by global family office advisers and banks, which see higher demand for art advisory services among leading auction houses and private museums in China. These services include impartial expertise on the art industry, collection governance, and legacy planning. Older generations in China have traditionally focused on collecting old masters and traditional Chinese art forms such as porcelain, calligraphy, vases, and ink painting. Younger generations, on the other hand, are increasingly interested in Western contemporary art, leading to a shift in collecting practices. It is not uncommon for younger collectors to sell traditional Chinese artworks to acquire contemporary pieces. The old art objects are becoming very rare and sacre as reproductive art objects are scattering around in the market . For those who hold old pieces are very precious . An important celadon kiln in ancient China, it was one of the six famous celadon kilns in the Tang Dynasty. The kiln sites are distributed in the area of  Fengcheng City Jiangxi Province  . This place belonged to Hongzhou in the Tang Dynasty, so it was called Hongzhou Kiln. Hongzhou Kiln started in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and went through the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, and the Five Dynasties, with a history of about 800 years. It mainly fired celadon with a darker body color, applied with  makeup soil , and the glaze color was mostly brown, which was consistent with the description of "Hongzhou Porcelain Brown" in Lu Yu's " The Classic of Tea " in the Tang Dynasty . There is also a kind of green- glazed porcelain with a darker tone and bright gray-green.

Tectonic Gothic - art exhibition, Titus Schade The contemporary visual artist Titus Schade, a native of Leipzig, is currently the subject of the first-ever exhibition outside Germany devoted solely to his work, now taking place under the title ‘Tektonik’ in neighbouring Luxembourg, at the Konschthal gallery in Esch-sur-Alzette: https://lnkd.in/eUFxzJFb For the rest of this text plus images, see: https://lnkd.in/e557AUwt The exhibition consists of 70 works, executed over the last fifteen years. There is an informative accompanying booklet with several essays by experts. The majority of Schade’s canvases are what might be called architectural fantasy in the line of De Chirico, foregrounding buildings empty of human life. Among the diverse images are: apartment blocks; angular, gabled half-timbered houses; vertical churchlike structures; empty warehouses; and sinister windmills, one of them a 3D model. All these and more form a built-up scenario, fitfully illuminated by light sources in the shape of moons, bonfires or candles. Schade’s spatial world is free of all direct human presence. Indeed, it is all but free of any living things whatever (there are no animals or birds), except for a single recurring motif of pointed, slim green trees. Schade’s imaginary space may be perceived as uncanny, or else viewed as postapocalyptic – as the exhibition title might suggest, the product of a civilizational tectonic shift. There are no vehicles, nothing in motion; the candles and bonfires suggest that someone is needed to light and survey them, but if post-disaster there are new masters of the universe, nowhere is it indicated who they are. There are images of (male) human beings, mostly rather archaic-looking - but these are painted heads or murals, and not a single full human body is represented. The dominant colours are grey and brown - suitably melancholy - tempered by the occasional red, green or blue. There are possible literary analogies. The enigmatic windmills may recall the Quijote; there are tall metallic structures resembling the Martians of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. The deserted urban space might remind Narnia devotees of Charn, the dead city from which C.S. Lewis’ evil witch originates. The artist’s very forename could recall another fantasy chef-d’oeuvre, Mervyn Peake’s neo-Gothic Titus Groan trilogy and its dark oneiric architecture, though Titus is a German name and any connection may be fortuitous. (...)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ #NOTE My art is completely different of what others say today that they make contemporary art. "Simplicity is not a goal in art, but simplicity is achieved even without intention, penetrating the true meaning of things." ( Constantin BRÂNCUȘI ) * “The simplicity is the last sophistication”- Leonardo da Vinci. Art and what we see of it today and if it is something that interests you. Speaking of the artistic aspect, I will refer to Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Klee, Paul Klee being an abstract artist at the Bauhaus School, invited to teach there by Walter Gropius, the architect who founded the school in the 1920s. . I fear that, pathetically, the central idea of the art of the day will be stolen and reinterpreted, thus somehow justifying the empty talk of pseudo-arts that want to be contemporary. Another approach to the desperate moods of contemporaries without imagination and ideas is to randomly mix broken lines and dirty colors, and with the complicity of the curator to explain at the opening, that it is your vision and understanding to make (here I am being kind) art. with the opening of the possibility of "thematization" (thematic art) of these two poles together, the danger of art being, on the one hand, completely emptied and, on the other, liquidated, the authentic seems to disappear. Here, this is also well reflected in the increasingly frequent overlaps between the main engines of contemporary art: international biennials and art fairs. Biennales increasingly focus on showcasing established artists who paint on commission from gallerists to become alienated or market-discovered artists. This provides them with financial, logistical and communicational support, while art fairs increasingly enthusiastically organize satellite, discursive and performative programs, exposing (self)critical voices, reclaiming their share of the symbolic capital that accompanies such gestures, thus providing some kind of protection. against the charge of "shameless speculation." I would like to mention here that talking about the intelligence of contemporary man, it seems that it has stopped a little, even more, in some countries there is a regression. It is mentioned in a statistic. Yes, that's since I went back to public speaking with the idea of "skills": "No theory, just skills." In the current generation it is said that: why should I read books? "No one wants to learn concepts, theories, because one click away, they can find everything. This is how memory is neglected, and memorization is a training of the mind to increase intelligence.

Louvre considers moving Mona Lisa to underground chamber to end ‘Public Disappointment’. In the current setting, visitors need to stand in a long line to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503) for a few seconds to take pictures and selfies with the famous painting. This experience is often annoying and disappointing for tourists, with one recent analysis of 18,000 reviews deeming the Renaissance portrait “the world’s most disappointing masterpiece.” Da Vinci’s iconic image of an almost-smiling woman is protected by bullet-proof, anti-reflective glass, along with tightly-controlled temperature and humidity settings to ensure the painting’s conservation. In an effort to remedy this situation, the Mona Lisa may be moved to an underground chamber, according to a report in The Telegraph Tuesday. Louvre director Laurence des Cars recently suggested the relocation of the popular artwork to a dedicated room constructed in the institution’s basement. The Louvre receives nine million visitors annually, and according to museum officials, the Mona Lisa is the main attraction for 80 per cent of those people. During especially busy days, 250,000 people stand in the waiting line. The painting’s popularity has prompted other attempts to improve the viewing experience, including a repainting of the gallery’s walls from eggshell yellow to midnight blue in 2019, as well as a shift in the queuing system for visitors. A new underground chamber for painting would be part of a future “Grand Louvre” renovation, with a new entrance to the museum. Visitors would bypass the glass pyramid entry and be lead directly to underground rooms: one for the Mona Lisa and the other for temporary exhibitions. The budget for the Louvre’s overhaul is estimated at €500 million, according to Le Figaro. But the French economy has yielded worse-than-expected debt and deficit forecasts, resulting in President Emmanuel Macron’s government trying to reduce state spending by €25 billion in its next annual budget. The Mona Lisa was also the site of a protest in January, after activists threw pumpkin soup at it. The painting suffered no damage, but the incident was denounced by culture minister Rachida Dati as an attack on French heritage. #artcollecting #artexhibition #artmuseum #artinvesting #artinvestment #artcollector #artnews #artworld #artmarket #artmarketnews #artauction #artgallery #artfair #arthistory #artworld #fair #worldrecord #modernart #impressionism #postwar #contemporaryart #monalisa #louvre

Louvre considers moving Mona Lisa to underground chamber to end ‘Public Disappointment’. In the current setting, visitors need to stand in a long line to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503) for a few seconds to take pictures and selfies with the famous painting. This experience is often annoying and disappointing for tourists, with one recent analysis of 18,000 reviews deeming the Renaissance portrait “the world’s most disappointing masterpiece.” Da Vinci’s iconic image of an almost-smiling woman is protected by bullet-proof, anti-reflective glass, along with tightly-controlled temperature and humidity settings to ensure the painting’s conservation. In an effort to remedy this situation, the Mona Lisa may be moved to an underground chamber, according to a report in The Telegraph Tuesday. Louvre director Laurence des Cars recently suggested the relocation of the popular artwork to a dedicated room constructed in the institution’s basement. The Louvre receives nine million visitors annually, and according to museum officials, the Mona Lisa is the main attraction for 80 per cent of those people. During especially busy days, 250,000 people stand in the waiting line. The painting’s popularity has prompted other attempts to improve the viewing experience, including a repainting of the gallery’s walls from eggshell yellow to midnight blue in 2019, as well as a shift in the queuing system for visitors. A new underground chamber for painting would be part of a future “Grand Louvre” renovation, with a new entrance to the museum. Visitors would bypass the glass pyramid entry and be lead directly to underground rooms: one for the Mona Lisa and the other for temporary exhibitions. The budget for the Louvre’s overhaul is estimated at €500 million, according to Le Figaro. But the French economy has yielded worse-than-expected debt and deficit forecasts, resulting in President Emmanuel Macron’s government trying to reduce state spending by €25 billion in its next annual budget. The Mona Lisa was also the site of a protest in January, after activists threw pumpkin soup at it. The painting suffered no damage, but the incident was denounced by culture minister Rachida Dati as an attack on French heritage. #artcollecting #artexhibition #artmuseum #artinvesting #artinvestment #artcollector #artnews #artworld #artmarket #artmarketnews #artauction #artgallery #artfair #arthistory #artworld #fair #worldrecord #modernart #impressionism #postwar #contemporaryart #monalisa #louvre https://lnkd.in/e_Hk9fNx

Blind Alphabet: A Exhibition at Oliewenhuis Art Museum Oliewenhuis Art Museum is showcasing Willem Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet A, a conceptual art project emphasizing the tactile experience over visual perception. Boshoff, known for his exploration of language and touch, advocates that touch provides a more intimate and immediate connection to the world than sight, which he views as distant and superficial. His work seeks to challenge negative metaphors about blindness, such as “blind fool,” by highlighting the tactile wisdom of blind individuals, referred to as “chirosophists” or "hand-wise." The Blind Alphabet A project emerged in the early 1990s when Boshoff was compiling a dictionary for blind people and became fascinated with obscure words describing form, structure, and texture. These terms, often unfamiliar even to experts in sculpture, inspired Boshoff to sculpt tactile shapes that visually impaired individuals could explore. Each piece corresponds to a descriptive word starting with the letters A, B, or C, with Braille plaques providing further information. The exhibit at Oliewenhuis includes selections from Blind Alphabet A, focusing on objects beginning with the letter "A." It aims to honor the expertise of blind individuals in touch awareness while educating sighted audiences on the depth of tactile experiences. The project reimagines the role of art galleries by presenting blind individuals as educators, using touch to bridge understanding. The acquisition of this work for the museum's permanent collection was made possible through donations from First National Bank and the National Council of Women of South Africa, Bloemfontein Branch. For more information, contact Oliewenhuis Art Museum at 078 968 4300 or via email at oliewen@nasmus.co.za.

#SeoulArtWeek is coming to an end – it was truly exhilarating, full of wonderful exhibitions, #luxury brand collaborations, and of course – the main course – Korea International Art Fair & Frieze Seoul art fairs. So much so that I truly did not have enough time to process all of the events, so today I just want to share an article by ARTnews for you to understand how important the Seoul art scene has become on a global level. From the article: "Talk of a turbulent art market in the West has been met with signs of growth in Asia. That all made Frieze Seoul, whose opening was held this week, an important event for market observers, as it allowed them to take the temperature of the market in Asia. One thing was clear: many dealers here seemed willing to take risks. While quite a few booths were lined with paintings, as is common at art fairs, a number also contained sculptures, installations, and videos—mediums that are not always guaranteed to sell as well. Still, it’s also worth noting that few works sold for more than $500,000 and that many galleries said they sold pieces without disclosing their prices. (...) One of the highest-priced works at the fair altogether came not from a mega-gallery but from PKM, a veteran Seoul space that sold a $1.5 million painting by Yoo Youngkuk, an artist widely considered one of the pioneering abstractionists in the country. (...) In a statement, gallery cofounder Rachel Lehmann said, “The energy at Frieze Seoul this year has been exceptional. Koreans came in full force and we’ve had success placing works by our Korean artists, particularly with collectors from East and South East Asia, including a number of first time buyers from the region.” https://lnkd.in/gu9Bm_pw

Let’s talk a little bit about Travel… The Louvre Museum, located in Paris, France, is one of the most famous and largest art museums in the world. Here are some key facts about it: 1. History and Origin: The Louvre was originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century by King Philip II. It was transformed into a royal palace in the 16th century before being converted into a public museum during the French Revolution in 1793. 2. Size and Collection: The Louvre is the world’s largest art museum, covering an area of approximately 782,910 square feet (72,735 square meters). It houses over 380,000 objects, with around 35,000 works of art on display, spanning from ancient civilizations to the 19th century. 3. Iconic Masterpieces: The Louvre is home to some of the most famous works of art, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the ancient Greek statue Venus de Milo, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. 4. The Pyramid: The Louvre’s iconic glass pyramid entrance was designed by Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei and inaugurated in 1989. It serves as the main entrance to the museum and has become one of its most recognizable features. 5. Visitors: The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, attracting millions of visitors each year. In 2019, it welcomed approximately 9.6 million visitors. 6. Departments and Collections: The museum is divided into eight departments: Near Eastern Antiquities, Egyptian Antiquities, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Islamic Art, Sculptures, Decorative Arts, Paintings, and Prints and Drawings. 7. Napoleon’s Influence: During Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign, the Louvre was known as the Musée Napoléon and expanded significantly. Many of the artworks were acquired as spoils of war, though many were later returned to their countries of origin. 8. Underground Complex: Beneath the Louvre lies an extensive underground complex, including the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall and additional exhibition spaces. 9. Artistic Legacy: The Louvre has been a source of inspiration for countless artists, historians, and writers. It has also been featured in popular culture, including in films like “The Da Vinci Code.” 10. Virtual and Global Presence: In addition to its Paris location, the Louvre has expanded its reach globally with the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a satellite museum in the United Arab Emirates. The museum also offers virtual tours and online exhibitions for global audiences.