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- Christie’s blockbuster evening sales on Monday point to a bullish market for historic works.
- Reina Sofía’s director says Basque leaders never asked the museum for a Guernica loan, and Spanish politicians technically have no authority in the matter.
- The UK’s culture secretary has been urged to investigate allegations of antisemitism directed at Southbank Centre chairman Misan Harriman.
The Headlines
BULLISH MARKET COMEBACK? There was plenty to write home about from Christie’s blockbuster evening sales on Monday, with record-breaking sales that included an 11-foot-wide Jackson Pollock drip painting that went for $181.2 million, a gilded bronze head sculpture by Constantin Brâncuși fetching $107 million with fees, and a $98.4 million Mark Rothko abstraction from 1964, No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe). But as ARTnews reports, those works were expected to do well. Perhaps just as intriguing, the sale revealed more about the market below $20 million, which saw deep bidding that has been missing from auctions in recent years. Also of note, most of the action came from US buyers, while European and Asian clients stayed mostly on the sidelines or within lower price points. “Collectors have a lot of capital to play with,” secondary-market dealer Evan Beard told ARTnews. “They’ve psychologically adjusted to higher interest rates. The stock market is at record highs and feeling frothy, and the art market has reset to more inviting levels the past few years. The bullish art market is back (but not for young, emerging artists).”
GUERNICA LOAN? WHO’S ASKING? For the first time, Reina Sofía Museum director Manuel Segade publicly addressed a simmering controversy over the Basque government’s request to borrow Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, reports El País. His surprising reasons for not doing so before highlight the politically charged nature of the debacle. “I hadn’t spoken about it before for a very basic reason: this museum hasn’t been asked for the piece,” the director told an audience gathered to celebrate International Museum Day. The request, explained Segade, was only ever made to Spanish President Pedro Sánchez and culture minister Ernest Urtasun. However, “in principle, a president can’t lend it. Basque politicians accused the museum of being politicized based on a technical report,” which determined that moving the painting could damage it, he said. “Taking [their loan request] outside the museum and turning it into a matter of state policy, makes me rather sad.” In another news-making event, Segade spoke in public alongside Prado director Miguel Falomir for the first time in 40 years. The duo addressed their historically frosty relationship, which they hope to continue improving via mutual cooperation, and the endless problem of museum funding. “We compete in the Champions League of museums with budgets from the second division,” Falomir told the crowd.
The Digest
UK’s shadow culture secretary Nigel Huddleston has called for the Arts Council to investigate allegations of antisemitism directed at Southbank Center chairman Misan Harriman, and to review funding for the institution. [Times of London]
The new Centre Pompidou Hanwha museum in Seoul opens June 4 with a major exhibition on Cubism, but some locals question whether Korean culture will be overshadowed by a foreign-branded initiative. [Korea JoongAng Daily]
Guatemala’s cultural ministry is formally requesting the repatriation from Mexico of a Maya stone lintel by the so-called “Michelangelo of the pre-Columbian era,” the artist Mayuy, that was mistakenly thought to be Mexican. [The Art Newspaper]
The Paris-founded CiaciaLevi Gallery is moving it’s Milan gallery to a new, experimental space: an apartment in Turin’s Bottega d’Erasmo building, near the landmark Mole Antonelliana. It will open in September with works displayed in the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom where the gallery owners also live. [Artribune]
Tate Britain has unveiled its new garden project for its first participation at the Chelsea Flower Show, offering a preview of its planned Clore Garden public space set to open in 2027. [London Now]
The Kicker
SKY’S THE LIMIT. British makeup artist and designer Isamaya Ffrench has launched Studio Iron, a gallery and concept store in London that invites artists to create design objects and sculpture, that dissolve boundaries between genres, reports WWD. The first exhibition is a pop-up at Saatchi Yates until June 7, which will later head to permanent digs in Soho. The show includes designs, installations, sculpture, and paintings by Gary Card, Paul McCarthy, Kelly Wearstler, Anne Imhof, Marina Abramović, and emerging talents such as Atelier Formenta, Andu Masebo, and Manon Wertenbroek. For some, it was their first foray into design. Ffrench tells WWD she hopes the space will challenge the hierarchies and labels she finds too narrow in the art world. “Creativity is creativity. It’s all magic,” she said. As such, the objects on view “sit in the liminal space between art and function and design.”
