COURTESY SOTHEBY’S
BREXIT
In spite of fears surrounding the Brexit vote, the London Impressionist and Modern auctions got off to a strong start. Pablo Picasso’s Femme Assise (1909) sold for $63.7 million—a new record for a Cubist painting. [The New York Times]
But then, on the evening before the vote, a Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern work flopped. Combined, all of the work went for just $37.8 million, making it the worst major sale in its category in over a decade. [Bloomberg]
Wolfgang Tillmans: “It worries me a great deal to see how Britain, the cradle of democracy, has become an experiment in irrational propaganda against a project that was founded to be, and at its heart still is, the largest peace project in history.” [Time Out London]
AMERICA
Two women are claiming they were unaware that, for a Laura Lima project at the ICA Miami, they would have to vaginally penetrate themselves using a rope. The museum and artist allegedly pressured the women into doing this, without the women’s consent beforehand. (Ed. Note: Representatives of the museum have challenged the New Times story, telling ARTnews that only one woman participated in the work in the manner she claims to have as described in the New Times article; both participants had been fully briefed; and both had signed a written agreement that reads “ICA Miami and the Artist do not require or recommend the placement of certain physical objects in the Contractor’s body and any decision by the Contractor to do so is entirely by the contractor’s own free will.”) [Miami New Times]
Here’s a recap of how USC’s Roski Art School MFA program lost all of its students. [The Daily Beast]
Cerith Wyn Evans at Galerie Buchholz in New York. [Contemporary Art Daily]
MONEY
Clara Drummond is the winner of this year’s BP Portrait Award. She’ll now receive $44,000 in prize money and a commission at London’s National Portrait gallery. [Artforum]
Art dealer Judith Hess is selling her condo for $4.5 million. The listing comes with art by Richard Prince and Jeff Koons. [The New York Post]
TRANSFORMATIONS
Fear not: Peggy Guggenheim’s prized Picasso oil painting The Studio (1928) has been restored to its original brightness. [The Art Newspaper]
“As in all other corners of public and private life, the advent of social media has transformed the ways in which artists interact with each other, their public and the institutions that govern their careers.” [The Los Angeles Times]