NEW YORK – The perennially popular English band Depeche Mode has joined forces with Swiss watchmakers Hublot, Geneva auction house Patrizzi & Co., and LiveAuctioneers.com to produce an unprecedented and never to be repeated auction fundraiser benefiting Britain’s Teenage Cancer Trust.
Online bidding is now in progress on a series of one dozen unique timepieces, each featuring the artwork from one of Depeche Mode’s 12 studio albums as its watch face. The Hublot watches are one-of-a-kind creations, packaged in exquisitely designed and individually themed presentation boxes. Each box contains not only the wristwatch but also a treasure trove of additional gifts personally chosen for inclusion by the members of Depeche Mode. Each box contains:
– A deluxe vinyl version of the album
– A USB Key containing a digital edition of the album and documentary about the making of the album
– An original album artwork print and a framed gold CD
– A photograph signed by all members of the group who contributed to the album, including Vince Clarke and Alan Wilder, both of whom are founder-members of Depeche Mode but no longer part of the band.
Bidding on the watches will conclude on Feb. 24, 2010. All proceeds generated from the Internet-only auction will be presented to Teenage Cancer Trust on Feb. 26 at the penultimate concert of Depeche Mode’s “Sounds of the Universe” tour in Dusseldorf, Germany. The tour includes a special Depeche Mode charity performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Feb. 17 – remarkably, the band’s first-ever appearance at the iconic venue.
“We are very proud to be able to help Depeche Mode with this important fundraiser,” said LiveAuctioneers CEO Julian R. Ellison. “Since the first teen cancer unit was launched in Britain 20 years ago, Teenage Cancer Trust has worked diligently and creatively to help improve the lives of young people afflicted with the disease. LiveAuctioneers is fully behind this charity, and we’re hopeful that the extraordinary timepiece gift sets in this auction will raise a significant sum for TCT’s ongoing programs.”
Depeche Mode is one of the most successful, influential and longest-running bands to emerge during the new music movement that swept across Britain and the world in the early 1980s. The group has had 47 songs in the UK singles chart and No. 1 albums in the UK, USA and throughout Europe. According to EMI Records, Depeche Mode has sold more than 100 million albums and singles worldwide, making them the most successful electronic music group in music history.
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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Speak & Spell A Broken Frame Construction Time Again Some Great Reward Black Celebration Music for the Masses Violator Songs of Faith and Devotion Ultra Exciter Playing the Angel
The Cyrus Cylinder in situ at The British Museum. Image by Kaaveh Ahangar. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Iran said it will cut ties with the British Museum on Monday, Feb. 8, because of the museum’s failure to lend Tehran an ancient Babylonian artifact described as the world’s earliest bill of rights.
The spat over the loan has long festered between London and Tehran, and comes against the backdrop of increasingly tense Iranian-British relations.
Tehran is under heavy pressure from the West over its nuclear program, and has accused Britain and other foreign governments of interference in domestic policies and of stoking the country’s postelection street protests.
The artifact is a 6th century B.C. clay tablet with an account in cuneiform of the conquest of Babylon by Persian King Cyrus the Great. It describes how Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and restored many of the people held captive by the Babylonians to their homelands.
Called the Cyrus Cylinder, it has been described by the U.N. Web site and elsewhere as the world’s oldest human rights document.
According to officials in Iran, the piece was to have been lent to Tehran by Sunday for an exhibition agreed on by the museum and the Iranian government.
Vice President Hamid Baqaei, who is also the head of Iran’s cultural heritage and tourism organization, was quoted by state Press TV as saying that the ties would be cut on Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear if this has happened.
Baqaei said the British Museum’s failure to keep its promise is “not acceptable.”
He said the British Museum initially was to lend Tehran the Cyrus Cylinder last September but postponed the deal, citing technical reasons and the postelection unrest following Iran’s disputed June presidential election.
“The Cyrus Cylinder has been turned from a cultural issue into a political one by the British,” Baqaei said, adding that Iran “will sever all its ties with the British Museum, which has become a political institution.”
Baqaei said Iran would send a protest letter the U.N. education agency, UNESCO, over the matter.
The British Museum expressed “great surprise” at the Iranian announcement, saying it had informed Tehran and Baqaei himself earlier this month that the loan would go ahead in the second half of July.
Two additional pieces belonging to the tablet that were only recently discovered in the museum’s possession were also to be lent to Tehran, the museum said in a statement, in line with its policy of cultural exchanges with other nations “independently of political considerations.”
“The British Museum has acted throughout in good faith, and values highly its hitherto good relations with Iran,” it said. “It is to be hoped that this matter can be resolved as soon as possible.”
—
Associated Press Writer Danica Kirka contributed to this report from London.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Front view of The Cyrus Cylinder, terracotta, Babylonia (southern Iraq), circa 539-530 B.C. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. View of back of The Cyrus Cylinder, terracotta, Babylonia (southern Iraq), circa 539-530 B.C. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Original Bakelite bangles with newly added Bakelite polka dots. Image courtesy Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions.
DELAND, Fla. – It has often been often said that the antiques business is the ultimate recycling activity, but several dealers who set up at events organized by Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions have taken the idea to the next level. They are recycling the antiques themselves or at least parts of them into new forms and uses that preserve some vestige of the original antique, yet appeal to modern needs and tastes.
Three such dealers were set up at the Jan. 22-24 edition of the Deland Antique Show at the Volusia County Fairgrounds in Deland, Florida.
Bruce and Vickie Pantii of Breezy Palm Trading Company have a thing about plastic. More specifically they have a thing about Bakelite, the early plastic developed by Belgian chemist Dr. Leo Baekeland in 1907. The Bakelite formula was acquired by American Catalin Corporation in 1927 to produce the phenolic resins that are the basis of the durable plastic.
While Bakelite has many commercial and industrial applications, one of the most popular uses was developed in the 1930s when it was adapted to make costume jewelry. Today, the most popular and most expensive of those articles produced prior to World War II are the carved bangle bracelets and figural pins.
Bruce Pantii said that 10 years ago 90 percent of his sales were vintage items and that his customers were requesting Bakelite bangles with polka dots. Few were available, so he decided to make them. Now 90 per cent of his business is custom-made, signed “wearable art” made of pieces of Bakelite. He starts with a plain vintage Bakelite bangle and inserts polka dots made from Bakelite stock, usually 10-inch tubes originally used as stock to make bangles that he has squirreled away over the last twenty years. These new-style bracelets retail from the low hundreds for standard widths up to $500 for the wider ones. To make a more affordable bracelet, five years ago he began casting bangles from a type of acrylic he calls “Vibrulite.” He decorates the bangles with Bakelite dots or bow ties. These sell in the $150 range. Pantii is selling both the medium and the art by recycling old Bakelite stock.
Want to buy a really junky, old, used-up manual typewriter that no longer works? Neither does anyone else. But Roy and Rhonda Barske of Typewriter Jewelry are probably interested. Twelve years ago they started selling antiques and collectibles but couldn’t sell their inventory of used typewriters so they decided to recycle them. How? By using the letter in the keys. They are especially fond of old Coronas because they have the best fonts. They started by removing the Bakelite or celluloid keys with good fonts and incorporating them into custom made sterling jewelry using custom-made molds. They started with bracelets and have extended the line to include necklaces, earrings, pins, rings, cuff links, money clips, badge holders, keyrings and other commissioned items. Pendants and rings range from $25 to $45. Bangles are $35, and full bracelets with multiple typewriter letter keys are $80 and up. If a customer requests a style or item that is out of stock, Roy will make it within 30 minutes out of extra stock carried to shows. One nice source of business for the Barskes is weddings. They custom make pieces for wedding parties and showers at the request of prospective brides and grooms.
John Atkinson of Boston wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he is working on it, one spoon at a time. Actually, he used forks, too, but skips the knives because of the hollow handles. He converts old silver-plated or sterling flatware into silver jewelry with magnetic clasps. He couples the interesting design patterns on the handle of forks or spoons into a custom made bracelet with a clasp. He started as a finder of matching silver patterns but ended up with boxes of unused or unmatched silver items. He then realized he could turn a spoon handle pattern into a key ring and his customers would always have a sample of the pattern they were looking for.
From there he expanded into bracelets and rings and will custom make items on request as you wait. He sells silver bracelets for $20 and silver keyrings and rings for $5. He also has a wide variety of patterns from which choose.
Many of Atkinson’s customers want patterns from a certain year. His main complaint is that good stock is getting harder to find. Most patterns from the 1960s were too plain to repurpose as decorative jewelry, and not as much silver is on the open market today. He has excellent silver pattern reference books and can probably match your silver pattern from his inventory and custom design a ring or bracelet. He said that many people use his service to recycle pieces of family silver rather than passing along entire sets.
These innovative dealers and many others exhibit at the Antique Shows of Florida/Puchstein Promotions venues and the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival. For a complete listing of dates and venues, visit www.floridaantiqueshows.com.
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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
A cast acrylic bangle with back carving and inlay. Image courtesy Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions. A showboard of charm bracelets made from typewriter keys. Image courtesy Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions. An assortment of necklaces featuring typewriter keys. Image courtesy Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions. A man’s ring made from a piece of sterling flatware. Image courtesy Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions. Silver bracelets with magnetic catches made from flatware. Image courtesy Florida Antique Shows/Puchstein Promotions.
LONDON (AP) – It only took eight minutes for a wiry sculpture of a striding man to make history.
After a brief but intense bidding war involving at least 10 prospective buyers, Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I sold at Sotheby’s in London for just over $104.3 million, by a hair the highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction. [ACN Ed.- Skate’s Art Market Research wrote on Feb. 5, 2010 that, while reserving judgment, the Giacometti may or may not have set a new record, depending on which bank’s rate of exchange is used for the conversion.]
“We were euphoric when the hammer came down,” Melanie Clore, co-chair of Sotheby’s impressionist and modern department, said Thursday.
With good reason. More than a year after the global financial meltdown sent values plummeting, art masterpieces are again the commodity of choice for the world’s superrich, and jaw-dropping prices are back.
At current exchange rates, the sale price for Walking Man – which includes buyer’s premium – beats the previous auctionrecord of $104.17 million paid in New York in 2004 for Pablo Picasso’s Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice).
At the same Sotheby’s sale on Wednesday, Gustav Klimt’s landscape Church in Cassone sold for $42.4 million, almost double the expected price. Just over half the lots went for more than their highest pre-sale estimate.
On Monday, rival auction house Christie’s made a solid $121 million at its impressionist and modern sale, with Picasso’s Tete de Femme (Jacqueline) selling for $12.7 million, double expectations.
Christie’s said the results signaled “a buoyant market,” with previously reluctant sellers bringing masterpieces out of the woodwork and wealthy collectors eager to snap them up.
It all looked very different a year ago, when the hedge fund managers and private equity millionaires who had fueled the boom were reeling from the near-collapse of the global banking system.
On Sept. 15, 2008, Sotheby’s started a two-day auction of works by Britart star Damien Hirst that would generate almost $200 million and come to be seen as the end of an era. The same day, Lehman Brothers bank collapsed and the global economy tipped into crisis. The major auctions of contemporary art later that year generated at least a third less money than predicted and many works went unsold. Auction houses slashed prices as collectors held back from putting works up for sale.
Recently, there have been signs of a turnaround. Last November in New York, Sotheby’s sold Andy Warhol’s silk-screen painting 200 One Dollar Bills for almost $44 million, quadruple the pre-sale estimate. Overall, prices there and at Christie’s were stronger than a year earlier.
“I think that confidence will return even more with these big prices,” said Georgina Adam, editor at large of The Art Newspaper.
Experts caution that this week’s results don’t signal a return to the boom of the last decade, when even mediocre works sold for millions.
“I think it would be premature, and possibly stupid, to think that the art market is just going to race along,” said Judd Tully, editor at large of Art and Auction magazine. “I think it does indicate that there are at least a handful of ultra-rich individuals who want these world-class trophies.”
Sotheby’s attributed Giacometti’s high price to its rarity – the 1961 work is the only cast of the walking man figure created during the Swiss artist’s lifetime that has ever come to auction.
Sotheby’s did not identify the nationality of the work’s buyer, an anonymous telephone bidder. Speculation centered on what Adam called “the usual suspects” – Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who spent $120 million on two paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in 2008; an American art-lover such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen; or a collector from a Gulf emirate such as Abu Dhabi, currently building branches of the Louvre and the Solomon R. Guggenheim museums.
The next test of the market will come next week, when the major London houses hold sales of contemporary art. Sotheby’s and Christie’s both predict they will make at least double last year’s tepid results.
Market-watchers are optimistic, but cautious.
“We had this extraordinary bubble in the art market, especially the contemporary art market, and I don’t think it has reinflated on the back of this one sale,” said Robert Read, head of art and private clients at insurer Hiscox.
“We have returned to normality, but we’d forgotten what normality was.”
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On the Net:
Christie’s: www.christies.com
Sotheby’s: www.sothebys.com
AP-WS-02-04-10 1452EST
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Signed Jean Knaeps, Liege (Belgium), this carillon clock with 24 bells has been rehoused in an 11-foot-tall Victorian oak case. Once owned by a clock museum, it sold at Tom Harris Auctions for $45,200. Image courtesy of Tom Harris Auctions.
NEW YORK (ACNI) – Any way you slice it, time is money. The adage certainly holds true for buyers and sellers of antique clocks, especially those who bid online at auctions through LiveAuctioneers.
Auctioneers are finding that collectors looking for higher-grade and scarce models are “winding up” at their sales online though LiveAuctioneers.
“It’s the convenience factor. A person can save time and expenses by staying at home and bidding through LiveAuctioneers,” said Tom Harris of Tom Harris Auctions, Marshalltown, Iowa.
“It you’re the winning bidder you have the expense of shipping, but it costs you nothing to try,” said Harris, who conducts antique and collectible clock auctions twice a year.”
Buyers save both time and money by searching for valuable clocks being offered at auctions.
“The availability of cream of the crop examples have prompted collectors to online auction portals like LiveAuctioneers,” said Dirk Soulis of Dirk Soulis Auctions, Lone Jack, Missouri.
Soulis believes potential buyers can accurately determine a clock is worth pursuing by examining its listing on LiveAuctioneers.
“You have the ability to post up to 10 images of an item, which can even give some indication of the movement,” he said, referring to the clock mechanism.
“The movement scares a lot of people. They want to see close-ups of the movement – very detailed,” said Jerry Holley, executive vice president and auctioneer at Dallas Auction Gallery. “They want to know if the movement is original to the case.”
Holley said that clock prices in general have slipped in recent years. “A lot of the American-made clocks are fairly common. Prices for the unusual, those in exceptional condition or by a rare maker draw the big buyers,” he said.
Kathleen M. Pica, auctioneer and owner of Auctions Neapolitan in Naples, Fla., said that clocks appeal to two distinct groups of buyers – collectors and individuals who are looking for a clock for decoration.
“For either group it helps to have fabulous-looking shots,” she said.
“Brand is very important. J.C. Brown clocks are very desirable for their cases, but collectors want the original works too,” she said, referring to the 19th-century Connecticut clock maker.
If pictures don’t provide adequate information, she advises asking the seller important questions.
Typical questions are:
What is the condition of the case?
Has the case been refinished?
If the clock is spring driven, in what condition are the springs?
Are parts broken or missing?
Have decorative elements been repainted?
“Surprisingly the question they don’t often ask is, ‘Does it run?’” said Gordon Converse of Wayne Pa., an auctioneer who has appraised antique clocks on PBS Television’s Antiques Roadshow for 10 years. Many collectors don’t often ask the seemingly obvious question about working order because they often have the ability to get a clock running with a thorough cleaning and oiling.
“They often want to know arcane details like the shape of the weights … to confirm their knowledge of what’s original,” said Converse.
Because clocks were in constant use, they are seldom found in perfect condition – finials get lost, glass breaks and parts stop moving. Collectors are not very forgiving, however, when it comes to condition.
“They measure the amount of restoration and it sells accordingly,” said Converse.
Soulis concurred, saying, “Most clocks have turned over a time or two since being in the hands of the original owner. A lot of people like to work on clocks and not all of them are qualified. Collectors want them fresh. … A repainted dial is the kiss of death.”
Pristine, original condition is the ultimate goal for clock collectors.
“That’s true whether it’s a hundred-thousand-dollar handmade clock or a hundred-dollar manufactured clock,” said Robert Cheney, director of Science, Technology and Clocks at Skinner Inc., in Marlborough, Mass.
“If the cataloging, condition reports and photographs are done right, collectors are pretty comfortable bidding online through LiveAuctioneers,” Cheney said.
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Watch for clock sales at these auction houses who us LiveAuctioneers’ Internet live-bidding services:
Auctions Neapolitan
Dallas Auction Gallery
Dirk Soulis Auctions
Gordon S. Converse & Co.
Patrizzi & Co. Auctioneers
Schmidt’s Antiques
Skinner Inc.
Tom Harris Auctions
Copyright 2010 Auction Central News International. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Dallas Auction Gallery sold this 18th-century English chinoiserie long case clock for $5,000 in September. The black lacquered oak case has gilt chinoiserie decoration. It has a brass eight-day time and bell strike movement. Image courtesy of Dallas Auction Gallery. The blue orb held aloft by two maidens contains the movement of this French Louis XV-style clock, which stands 28 inches high. The late-19th-century timepiece sold for $3,000 in September. Image courtesy of Dallas Auction Gallery. Dating to the second half of the 19th century, this French boulle cased bracket clock in an ormolu mounted case stands atop its matching wall bracket. The clock, which has a two- train brass movement striking on a wire gong, sold for $1,900 in September. Image courtesy of Dallas Auction Gallery. The original stencil decoration and reverse-painted glass remain intact on this circa-1830 American shelf clock. With carved paw feet and a wooden geared mechanism, it sold recently at auction for $574. Image courtesy of Gordon S. Converse & Co. The reverse-painted glasses are original to this rare candlestick shelf clock, which has an ingenious ‘wagon-spring’ mechanism. It sold for $1,840. Image courtesy of Gordon S. Converse & Co. One-weight regulator clocks, especially American-made models, are unusual and desirable. Dirk Soulis Auctions sold this one-weight regulator produced by Gilbert Clock Co. in Connecticut to an online bidder for $2,090. Image courtesy of Dirk Soulis Auctions. Close-up shows the carved dog’s head on the Gilbert one-weight regular. Image courtesy of Dirk Soulis Auctions. The Ithaca No. 3 1/2 double-dial parlor clock also gives the day and date. It sold at Dirk Soulis Auctions in November for $2,100. Image courtesy of Dirk Soulis Auctions. Stages of Christ’s life, religious figures, Greek gods and Christopher Columbus are all depicted in this rare animated Black Forest astronomical clock in a golden oak case. Tom Harris sold this extraordinary clock at auction for $50,850. Image courtesy of Tom Harris Auctions.
Lorton Meteorite. Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian. WASHINGTON (AP) – An out-of-this world rock has become the center of a down-to-earth dispute over who its rightful owner should be.
The tennis ball-sized meteorite plummeted through the roof of a Virginia medical office just after dusk on Jan. 18, the same time as people reported seeing a fireball in the sky. It plunged through the ceiling of an examination room and landed near the spot where a doctor had been sitting a short while earlier.
“I’m the most likely person to be sitting in that place where it hit,” Dr. Marc Gallini said. “It just wasn’t my time, I guess.”
He and fellow practitioner Dr. Frank Ciampi say their first thought was to give the rare find to the Smithsonian Institution, which offered $5,000 for it. Within days, it was sent to the National Museum of Natural History for safekeeping.
The doctors are worried, though, that their longtime landlords plan to stake their own claim to the space rock. The collectors market for meteorites can be lucrative.
Gallini, who has run his family practice in Virginia, since 1978, said he notified his property owner, Erol Mutlu, of plans to hand the object over to the Smithsonian, which holds the world’s largest museum collection of meteorites. Gallini says he got Mutlu’s permission. Later in the week, though, Mutlu sent the doctors an e-mail warning that his brother and fellow landlord Deniz Mutlu was going to the Smithsonian to retrieve the rock, Gallini said.
He wouldn’t share the e-mail exchange with The Associated Press, but The Washington Post reported that Erol Mutlu wrote that “it’s evident that ownership is tied to the landowner.”
“The U.S. courts have ruled that a meteorite becomes part of the land where it arrives through ‘natural cause’ and hence the property of the landowner,” the e-mail said.
Deniz Mutlu later appeared to back away from the claim, saying the family was making no such demands and the meteorite is safe for now at the Smithsonian. He added, however, that he didn’t know how long it would remain there.
A lawyer representing the landlords would not comment Tuesday.
The doctors hired their own lawyer and demanded the Smithsonian not release the meteorite until the ownership question was resolved. The lawyer plans to ask a court to rule.
“We really want this to end up in the right place,” Gallini said. The doctors plan to donate the money from the Smithsonian to Haiti earthquake relief, he said.
The Smithsonian won’t comment on ownership and said in a statement that it will “retain possession of the ‘Lorton Meteorite’ until a legal owner has been established.”
The Smithsonian collection includes about 15,000 meteorites; of those, 738 were gathered shortly after they fell from the sky. The Lorton meteorite came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, curators said.
It has a blackened outer surface from burning through the atmosphere, said Tim McCoy, a mineral sciences curator at the Smithsonian. Inside are flecks of metal and thousands of tiny rocks containing “the primitive stuff left over from the birth of the solar system,” he said.
That material allows scientists to look back about 4.6 billion years, McCoy said.
The last meteorite known to strike a building was in New Orleans in 2003, said Linda Welzenbach, the museum’s meteorite collections manager. There were other finds that year in the Chicago area.
Space rocks can fetch thousands of dollars from collectors. Meteorite hunters descended on Washington’s Virginia suburbs to look for other remnants of the Lorton meteorite.
One was Steve Arnold, co-star of the new Science Channel TV show, Meteorite Men. Arnold estimates the Lorton meteorite could bring $25,000 to $50,000 on the open market, unless more pieces turn up. But he said Tuesday that none turned up from his search around the doctors’ office.
Meteorites have been the subject of legal disputes before. In the early 1900s, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled a 15-ton meteorite belonged to the landowner on whose property it likely landed, not the person who found it.
The doctors’ attorney Marvin Miller said Virginia law differs and favors the tenant.
As of Tuesday, the land owners had made no formal demands, but Miller said he would soon ask a court to decide.
“That’s the fairest way to deal with things for everybody’s sake,” he said.
___
On the Net:
National Museum of Natural History: http://www.mnh.si.edu/
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Photo by Robert Lememeyer, courtesy Art Gallery of Alberta.
EDMONTON, CANADA – The newly reconstructed Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) in downtown Edmonton opened to the public on Jan. 31, 2010. The 85,000 square foot gallery, designed by Los Angeles architect Randall Stout, features three floors of exhibition space to showcase historical and contemporary Canadian and international art. The opening marked a major milestone in the AGA’s New Vision project and fulfills its goal of creating an art gallery of national significance for the Province of Alberta.
“It is the AGA’s dream that a rebuilt, renewed Art Gallery of Alberta will serve as a cultural centre of excellence for the Alberta community today and beyond, for generations to come,” said Allan Scott, Chair, AGA Board of Directors. “Our new building was planned, designed and constructed by an extremely talented and dedicated project team and the tireless AGA staff. The team deserves a great big thank you from everyone.”
An official ribbon-cutting ceremony followed more than 10 years of planning and three years of construction. The Art Gallery of Alberta’s New Vision building project has been funded by an $88 million capital campaign, with major support from all three levels of government as well as tremendous private sector donations.
The hour-long private opening ceremony was led by the chairman of AGA’s Board of Directors, Allan E. Scott. Also in attendance were Canada’s Minister of Public Works and Government Services, The Honourable Rona Ambrose; Minister of State, Western Economic Diversification, The Honourable Lynne Yelich; Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, The Honourable Norman L. Kwong; Minister of Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, The Honourable Lindsay Blackett; and His Worship Mayor Stephen Mandel from the City of Edmonton, as well as the gallery’s architectural team, Randall Stout Architects Incorporated.
“As we open our doors to our new facility, we embrace a most ambitious agenda. It is an auspicious day for Edmontonians and Albertans as the AGA takes its place amongst great Canadian art museums with enormous enthusiasm and tremendous capacity,” says Gilles Hébert, AGA Executive Director. “We are committed to being leaders in the field and to providing our visitors with exceptional experiences. And this facility is perfectly suited to the bold future we envision.”
Celebrating its prominent location on Sir Winston Churchill Square in the heart of the Arts District in downtown Edmonton, the design of new AGA extends the Gallery into the community, welcoming visitors to experience art first hand. The design takes inspiration from the city of Edmonton’s unique northern environment and urban grid. Angular windows are juxtaposed against a winding 190-meter steel ribbon that references the forms of the North Saskatchewan River and Aurora Borealis. The movement of this continuous stainless steel structure through the gallery’s interior and exterior reinvents the museum’s public spaces, continually connecting visitors with their downtown surroundings.
The building is crafted from three key materials: patinaed zinc, high performance glazing, and stainless steel. These materials reflect Edmonton’s dramatic weather pattern and the extreme contrast of the long days of summer and the short days of winter, allowing the building to transform in response to its natural surroundings.
Randall Stout Architects, Inc. (RSA) was selected from 25 international submissions during the spring of 2005, to redesign the former gallery building originally designed by Edmonton architect Don Bittorf in 1969. The RSA design was chosen by a selection committee and announced on October 15, 2005. The new building has nearly doubled the area of the former gallery and its environmental controls meet the highest museum standards.
The new AGA also includes an expanded education facility, the Singhmar Education Centre for Art Education, as well as upgraded art-handling facilities and celebratory public event spaces. Highlights include a fully outfitted theater; a museum store, Shop AGA; a ‘floating’ room, the Borealis Lounge; a relaxed fine dining establishment, Zinc; as well as the L1 Espresso Bar and 3rd floor Terrace Café. The AGA is directly accessible from Edmonton’s underground light rail transportation system (LRT) entrance.
Inaugural exhibitions feature significant works by artists from Alberta, Canada and beyond, including masters Edgar Degas and Francisco Goya, celebrated Canadian photographers Yousuf Karsh and Edward Burtynsky and internationally renowned Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. The new AGA also includes The BMO World of Creativity, an interactive children’s gallery that will focus on the theme of architecture for the opening year with the exhibition Play on Architecture! Two outdoor spaces have been added to the Gallery, which will feature sculpture by Alberta artists Ken Macklin and Peter Hide. A wide-range of public programs, including family activities, late night events, lectures, films and more, will animate exhibitions at the new AGA.
About the Art Gallery of Alberta:
Founded in 1924, the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is the oldest cultural institution in Alberta and the only museum in the province strictly devoted to the exhibition and preservation of art and visual culture. Serving both the city of Edmonton and the province of Alberta, the Gallery maintains a collection of nearly 6,000 objects. The AGA is focused on the development and presentation of original exhibitions of contemporary and historical art; on building national and international curatorial partnerships for the creation of new exhibition projects; and on the development and delivery of a program of touring exhibitions that disseminate contemporary and historical art within Alberta and across Canada.
The AGA is a not-for-profit organization that relies on the generous support of its Members, donors, sponsors and government. The Art Gallery of Alberta is grateful for the generous support of the many public and private donors and sponsors who have made the AGA’s New Vision possible, as well as the ongoing support of the City of Edmonton, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts and our Members.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – The undercover operative in a federal bust of artifact trading collected around $7,500 a month for secretly recording transactions with collectors and sellers across the Southwest for more than two years, new court papers say.
Ted Gardiner, a Utah antiquities dealer, got an initial $10,000 payment before the sting operation began in earnest, then collected regular monthly payments throughout 2007 and 2008, according to FBI disclosures in court files.
Gardiner is still being paid for helping agents prepare for nearly two dozen court cases, and he will receive more money if he testifies, according to papers in one of the cases. Gardiner had received $162,000 in payments plus expenses, for a total of $224,000, when most of the arrests were made in June.
The operative has no felony or misdemeanor convictions or charges pending against him nor immunity, U.S. Attorney David Gaouette in Colorado said in papers filed in the case of Robert B. Knowlton, a former used-car salesman caught up in the dragnet.
Gaouette disclosed a wealth of information on Gardiner, including a copy of his FBI contract. In Utah, lawyers representing 21 of the original 26 defendants have complained that authorities here have yet to give up the information.
Gaouette wrote in court papers that Gardiner had used drugs and abused alcohol in the past, but has nothing worse than minor traffic citations on his record. The FBI and U.S. Bureau of Land Management obtained his cooperation without any inducements other than payments, and without any threats, the U.S. attorney said.
Knowlton, 66, who ran a Web site from Grand Junction, Colo., called Bob’s Flint Shop, was accused of selling three items taken from federal land to Gardiner: a pipe, a Midland knife point and a Hell Gap knife. He has pleaded not guilty, and a trial is set for March 29.
Knowlton recounted for investigators how he got involved in the business _ with a major setback. He made his first serious purchase in 1997 from a Colorado antique dealer.
“I spent probably close to $25,000 and they were all fakes, the whole bunch of them,” he said, according to an interview by Bureau of Land Management agents that was made part of his court record. He then sought an education in artifacts to avoid getting scammed again.
The federal investigation, one of the largest of its kind, peeled open the black market trade in artifacts taken from federal or tribal lands in the Four Corners region. The relics, some believed to be thousands of years old, can sell for thousands of dollars apiece. Federal authorities say they often end up in the homes of wealthy collectors in the Southwest and beyond.
Gardiner, who ran an artifacts business called Gardiner Antiquities, provided federal agents at the outset with all of his business records, access to his Web site and computers and a list of dealers and collectors, according to the court papers released last month. He spent $335,000 buying artifacts for the government, consulting the FBI before on how much to pay for each item.
Gardiner’s largest paychecks ended last summer, but the FBI has continued to pay him “small” amounts for his cooperation, the U.S. attorney in Denver said. When asked about it, the FBI in Salt Lake City refused to confirm Gardiner was still on the payroll.
Knowlton’s is the only case scheduled for a trial. Last week, lawyers in Utah told a federal magistrate that a handful of the defendants were expected to settle charges with plea bargains. Others defendants are fighting charges.
Two of the 26 defendants – one a Santa Fe, N.M., salesman, the other a prominent Blanding, Utah, physician, James Redd – committed suicide after their arrests.
Separately, Redd’s wife and daughter surrendered their own vast collections, pleaded guilty and were sentenced last summer to terms of probation. The rest of the defendants have pleaded not guilty. Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Left to right: Mark Del Vecchio, Wes Cowan, Garth Clark. Image courtesy Cowan’s Auctions.
CINCINNATI – Wes Cowan, president and principal auctioneer of Cowan’s Auctions, and Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, both of Clark + Del Vecchio Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M/, have announced a partnership to bring modern and contemporary ceramics to the international art market through focused, selective and scholarly semiannual auctions. LiveAuctioneers.com provides Internet live bidding for all Cowan’s sales.
The planned 20th-century and Contemporary Ceramics auctions will blend Cowan’s stellar reputation as an auction house with Clark and Del Vecchio’s impeccable credentials as writers, critics, historians, curators and consultants to leading museums, as well as 30 year’s experience as top ceramics dealers. The first of the new auctions, scheduled together with a daylong seminar on the ceramics marketplace, will take place sometime in the fall.
“The decision to have this happen outside New York was guided by two factors,” Clark said. “We did not want to live in the shadows of the New York modern and contemporary art sales and we needed a venue with historical connections to ceramic art. In 1876 Cincinnati became the birthplace of modern ceramic art in America. What could be more apropos?”
The auctions will be focused around studio pottery and ceramic sculpture from 1918 to the present, but will not include art pottery.
“We’re very excited about this unique opportunity,” said Cowan. “We’ve all been thinking about an auction venue focusing exclusively on 20th-century studio and other ceramics, which has never been done before. It’s the perfect storm. Cowan’s has the reputation for honesty and integrity that Garth and Mark have been looking for in an auction house, and from my standpoint, I’ve rounded up the foremost scholars on the subject.”
Consignments for the inaugural auction will be accepted through August, with generous terms offered.
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About Cowan’s Auctions, Inc.
As one of the nation’s leading auction houses with sales approaching $20 million, Cowan’s has been helping individuals and institutions build important collections for more than a decade. The company’s four divisions of American History, American Indian and Western Art, American and European Fine and Decorative Art, and Historic Firearms & Early Militaria hold semiannual cataloged sales that routinely set records for rare offerings.
Through its extensive mailing list of more than 33,000 collectors, dealers and institutional clients, each Cowan’s auction typically attracts more than 1,000 bidders from across the globe. To learn more about Cowan’s visit our website at www.cowans.com.
About Clark + Del Vecchio
Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio founded Garth Clark Gallery in Los Angeles in 1981 and opened a second space in New York in 1983, at 24 West 57th Street. They were soon established as the preeminent international dealers in 20th-century ceramics and have organized eight major international symposia on ceramic history and criticism, published numerous books and catalogs and received a number of prestigious awards, both lifetime achievement and honorary doctorates. In addition Clark was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London, and was the only practicing dealer to receive the College Art Association’s Mather Award for distinguished achievement in art journalism. They now live in Santa Fe and work as private dealers. They are in the process of organizing two traveling exhibitions, Christine Nofchissey McHorse and Diego Romero. Clark is in the process of finishing two books (his 52nd and 53rd), Lucio Fontana Ceramics and Homage To R. Mutt: Writing on Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain since 1917. To learn more about Clark + Del Vecchio visit www.clarkdel.com.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Left to right: Mark Del Vecchio, Wes Cowan, Garth Clark. Image courtesy Cowan’s Auctions.
LiveAuctioneers’ custom-designed app for Google’s Android open-source mobile platform is now available.
NEW YORK – Smart-phone auction bidding is no longer a function confined exclusively to the iPhone and Blackberry. LiveAuctioneers.com, the Manhattan-based company that provides real-time Internet bidding capability to more than 900 auction houses worldwide, has released a custom-designed live-bidding app for use with Google’s revolutionary Android platform. The app, which is available free of charge, was created by LiveAuctioneers App Technologies to enable users to bid in auctions through mobile devices other than Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry.
“Last year LiveAuctioneers developed apps specifically for use with the iPhone and BlackBerry, but that still left out millions of people who use other brands of mobile phones and hand-held devices. Google’s open-source Android platform has made it possible for our technology to interface with many popular brands of mobile phones,” said LiveAuctioneers CEO Julian R. Ellison.
Billed as “the first free, open-source, fully customizable mobile platform,” Android is available on phones by such makers as Motorola, Samsung, Panasonic and Dell, using major network providers including Sprint, T-Mobile and Vodaphone. Motorola’s “Droid” phone was developed specifically with Android apps in mind and is available through Verizon.
Using the LiveAuctioneers Android app, bidders can view auction catalogs, leave absentee bids or bid in real time in any LiveAuctioneers-supported auction as it is taking place.
“The LiveAuctioneers Android app features virtually all of the same functionality as our iPhone app but has its own distinct look,” said Ellison. “Now if you’re away from your computer and want to bid in a LiveAuctioneers-supported sale, you don’t have to have an iPhone in order to do it. The Android app is a welcome addition to our ever-increasing roster of custom-designed apps.”
To download the free LiveAuctioneers Android app, click on the market logo on the Android platform of any compatible mobile phone or device and run a keyword search for “LiveAuctioneers” or download directly here.
Founded in November 2002, Manhattan-based LiveAuctioneers.com provides real-time Internet bidding capability to 906 auction houses in a dozen countries. LiveAuctioneers.com has opened up once-exclusive sales to the cyber community worldwide through online publication of auction catalogs, and universally accessible Internet live bidding. For further information, log on to www.liveauctioneers.com.
