Iranian cultural riches shine bright: Iftar, Sadeh festival and art of illumination join UNESCO list
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has deaccessioned and returned 44 works of ancient art, following an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and US Department of Homeland Security. The museum announced details of the investigation and its outcome on 5 December, detailing the institution’s cooperation throughout a six-month investigation.
The District Attorney’s investigation began in May of 2023 with a request for documentation for 28 objects in the VMFA’s collection, but grew after “photographs related to sales receipts, invoices and bills of sale; shipping and storage records; import and export documents; consignment agreements; appraisal documentation; provenance and provenance research; catalogues, brochures and marketing materials; and any correspondence” provided evidence for another 29 objects to be examined for potential ties to looting and trafficking, according to the institution.
Reports of increasing gender equality in the art worldhave rarely, if ever, been matched by the data. But sales from the opening day of the Untitled Art fair on Tuesday reveal that 67% of works reported to be sold were by women artists.
The results are not altogether surprising. This year the fair took steps to cultivate a more inclusive platform through its curatorial theme, “gender equality in the arts”, with nearly 60% of all exhibiting artists and 35% of gallery owners identifying as female or non-binary.
Frank Stella’s sons are selling the American artist’s very first Black Painting, with an asking price of $45m, at Art Basel in Miami Beach this week. Painted in 1958 when Stella was just 22 years old, it is the first time thatDelta has come to the market and, if it achieves that price, will make it one of the most expensive works by Stella to have ever been sold.
Never underestimate the importance of good timing, especially during the frenzy of Miami Art Week. The New Art Dealers Alliance (Nada) took this lesson to heart for the 2023 edition of its annual fair in the Magic City—and it has paid off for exhibitors.
After nearly 15 years of opening its expo towards the end of the week, Nada shifted this latest iteration’s debut to Tuesday (5 December).
A market-wide show of resilience, or a collective display of faking it until you make it? That was the question hovering over the first VIP day of Art Basel in Miami Beach on Wednesday. Although the final answer will not become clear until later, results in the early hours of the fair gave reason for at least some measured optimism.
On the opening day of Design Miami’s VIP preview for its Paris debut in October, the design fair made headlines with the announcement that it would be acquired by the digital marketplace Basic.Space. The timing made one thing clear: Design Miami has its sights set on capturing the attention of the next generation—digitally and globally. “This acquisition will get us to where we’ve always wanted to be—just faster,” says Jen Roberts, the fair’s chief executive.
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art, which act as guidelines for how assets, particularly art, seized by Nazi Germany before and during the Second World War can be returned to the rightful owners or their heirs. Though the 11 principles established during the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets in 1998 are non-binding, they have provided a framework to help restitution cases within different legal systems internationally.
For Miami native Richard Arregui, a one-time gallerist and now sales and marketing director at Vivant Skin Care, art’s most important quality is its timelessness. He serves on the board of the revered Miami non-profit Locust Projects and, with his wife Susan, has filled their home in the Ponce Davis neighbourhood with works by a mix of emerging and canonical artists ranging from Tammi Campbell, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Nicola Tyson and Tomm El-Saieh to Alicja Kwade, Robert Rauschenberg and Larry Bell.