New York – After a six-month campaign, ten days of online sales and three days of dynamic auctions at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, the total for the 1,500 objects comprising the Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller reached $832,573,469 (£613,941,113 / €698,302,524), well exceeding initial expectations and establishing the highest auction total ever for a private collection at auction.
Art News
This week at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York, Los Angeles–based artist and designer Tanya Aguiñiga debuts a body of work representing her social justice-based artistic practice. Aguiñiga’s Craft & Care includes diverse projects and objects, bringing together fiber art, furniture design, performance art, and community engagement to document the lives of people living binationally.
DALLAS, Texas (May 7, 2018) — A collection of fresh-to-market lots from old collections will be among the highlights in Heritage Auctions' Tiffany, Lalique & Art Glass including Art Deco & Art Nouveau Auction May 16 in Dallas, Texas.
"Heritage Auctions established a tradition of Spring and Fall auctions in this category a few years ago, and the May 16 auction does not disappoint," Heritage Auctions Vice President of Special Collections Nick Dawes said. "The property in this auction has not seen the market in decades."
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum presents “Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color,” an exhibition on view May 11 through Jan. 13 that explores the elusive, complex phenomenon of color perception and how it has captivated artists, designers, scientists and philosophers. Featuring over 190 objects spanning from antiquity to the present, the exhibition reveals how designers apply the theories of the world’s greatest color thinkers to bring order and excitement to the visual world.
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will present “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now,” opening May 11, as the first major museum exhibition to explore the art form of cut-paper profiles in terms of their rich historical roots and powerful contemporary presence. Well before the advent of photography in 1839, silhouettes democratized portraiture. Offering virtually instantaneous likenesses of everyone from presidents to those who were enslaved, silhouettes cost far less than oil paintings and could be made with inexpensive materials.
Chicago's unique culture and history, as seen through the eyes of its residents, is on view in a striking new photography exhibit opening at the Art Institute of Chicago on May 12. In his 1951 book "Chicago: City on the Make," Nelson Algren offered bittersweet praise for the city: “Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies.
Pace Gallery is honored to present an exhibition of Robert Irwin’s new sculptures. In his 90th year, Irwin, who pioneered the Southern California-based Light and Space movement, continues to present radical new ideas of how space is perceived. Irwin’s work across different media is conditional and responsive to specific environments.
Christie's started off a big week of auctions with a bang last night. Their 19th & 20th Century Art Evening Sale, the first in a series of auctions of the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, totaled over $646 million dollars. Touted as the most valuable collection ever offered at auction, all proceeds will go to some of the many charities the Rockefellers supported.
The Design Museum in London presents Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier, a major exhibition exploring the late designer’s unique creative talent and the timeless beauty of his work.
Envisaged and curated by Monsieur Alaïa and Mark Wilson, Chief Curator of the Groninger Museum, the exhibition comprises designs stretching throughout Alaïa’s career from the early 1980s to his last creations. The display provides a unique examination of the designer’s personal approach that defied the rules of fashion. Alaïa would work on certain pieces for years at a time and would display his creations when they were ready, not when the fashion season dictated.
The seventh annual Frieze New York Art Fair, which ran May 4-6, featured more than 190 galleries, curated awards and special sections, a robust talks schedule, and vibrant performance art. The fair, just one in Frieze’s multinational series that includes both a masters and contemporary edition in London and a new iteration in Los Angeles, was housed in a redesigned, labyrinthian temporary structure that stretched across New York City’s Randall’s Island Park.
