The Weeks That Were (May 23 – June 13, 2008)

NEW YORK—As the art market hummed along at Art Basel — the world’s most important modern and contemporary art fair, as you may have heard — the U.S. museum world reeled from the news of longtime Philadelphia Museum of Art director Anne D’Harnoncourt’s sudden death.

Furniture and carpets belonging to former dealer Lawrence Salander, who was forced to declare bankruptcy last fall, were sold off, despite objections from the former dealer’s father-in-law that the estimates were too low. The carpets alone brought in $250,000 at Tepper Galleries; the furniture and garden statuary brought $1.6 million at Stair Galleries. This Sunday, by the way, is the last day you can make claims for artworks owed by Salander.

The world’s two top auction houses raised their premiums, but firmly denied that any collusion had taken place. Christie’s will move its London Old Masters sales back to January, when they will again coincide with those of rival Sotheby’s; the house had changed the dates to April three years ago.

The market for Asian art remains strong, despite a major hurdle. The earthquake in China continued to negatively impact auctions there, with a charity auction for the relief effort pitching in to correct things. Not long afterward, Christie’s spring sales of Asian art in Hong Kong took place, and results were up 58 percent from last year. Sales of Russian art in London were reportedly mixed; meanwhile Christie’s broke a record for modern and contemporary Indian art.

Former ad man and current megacollector Charles Saatchi has been busy buying art from Royal Academy students. Meanwhile, the institution is going through something of a shakeup, with one-time wild YBA Damien Hirst being invited to become an Academician (he has yet to accept the offer). And an exhibition put on by recently added Academician Tracey Emin, featuring penis sculptures by Tim Noble and Sue Webster as well as other shocking works, is causing quite the stir in London. English artists want the droite de suite royalty laws to extend for 70 years, but opponents say it will be detrimental to the art market.

Thieves equipped with bear spray and gas masks made off with 12 artworks, mainly made from gold, by late Canadian artist Bill Reid from the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, in Vancouver; some have been recovered. In Dorchester, England, a man found that the engraved cup that had been under his bed for 60 years was a precious gold artifact from the third or fourth century B.C.

The subprime mortgage crisis rippled from the U.S. to Germany: That country’s Museum Zeitraum will not open next month as originally planned because of the collapse of its principal benefactor, the Washington D.C.–based Wassman Foundation, which blamed subprimes for its troubles. Meanwhile, are dealers, collectors, and corporate collectors getting carte blanche at a museum in Leipzig? Some think these commercial interests are getting too close for comfort to the museum world. And the MFA Boston is fighting a WWII-related restitution claim on a Kokoschka painting.

A Magritte museum will move forward in Brussels; Oslo’s Munch Museum is moving across town; Vilnius approved a new museum, a collaboration between the Guggenheim and the Hermitage that will be built by Zaha Hadid; and London is considering a Guggenheim museum to inhabit the Olympic Park after the 2012 Games conclude.

The Vatican is beginning a contemporary art program. According to one study, there are two million people in the United States who consider themselves artists. In New York the artist responsible for the exhibition "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama" was questioned and detained by police. Who did the Louvre call when they needed money to restore a Louis XV drawing room? Why, 1980s supergroup Duran Duran, who else?