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Gutai masterpiece ・ Sadamasa Motonaga’s “Work 145” of 1964

Art Basel opens in Switzerland next week.

London-based Alexandre Carel, former Christie’s Paris wunderkind, Stanford MBA, summer intern in real estate at New York-based, global investment firm KKR (Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts; KKR manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds),

and Paris-based gallery Natalie Seroussi are collaborating to curate a booth

exploring post-war Asian and European abstraction.

Carel and Seroussi’s catalogue “Lands of Abstraction,” prepared for their Art Basel joint exhibition, explores abstract movements that arose almost simultaneously in Asia, Europe, and the United States – all of which “matured in parallel to one another.”

Among the many masterpieces on view will be Sadamasa Motonaga’s almost nine-foot “Work 145” of 1964. Asking price: $5 million.

Sadamasa Motonaga (元永 定正, 1922-2011) was a founding member of Japan’s Gutai Art Association (1954-1972).

His “Work 145” of 1964, last shown in New York at the Guggenheim Museum during the 2013 exhibition “Gutai: Splendid Playground,” reflects Gutai’s deep connection to nature, the process of art making, and life-affirming rationale

Carel and Seroussi write:

“Literally translated as ‘concreteness,’ Gutai’s intention was to impart life to matter and reach pure creativity.

“To artists such as Sadamasa Motonaga …, this goal could only be attained by way of a deep connection between the artist’s hand and his spirit.”

See:

  1. “Massive Motonaga Stars at Carel & Seroussi Booth at Art Basel,” Marion Maneker, Art Market Monitor, 5 June 2018;
  2. 2) “Lands of Abstraction,” Natalie Seroussi Galerie, Paris & Alexandre Carel, London, Art Basel Highlights, June 2018

 

 

#art #arthistory #artmarket #artbasel #gutai #guggenheim #guggenheimmuseum #postwarabstraction #abstraction #japan #natalieseroussi #alexandrecarel #stanford #stanforduniversity #mba #collection #portfolio #collectionsdevelopment #environmentalcollectionsmanagement #co2 #nature #basel #newyork #london #paris #zurich #milan #dubai #hongkong #tokyo #seoul #asia #europe #tech #luxury #design #realestatedevelopment #entrepreneur #investments #investor #privateequity #energy #infrastructure #realestate #credit #hedgefunds

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Henri Matisse: “Flowers and Ceramic Plate” (oil on canvas, 1913)

Dear to the heart and collection of Frankfurt, Germany’s Städel Museum, Henri Matisse painted “Flowers and Ceramic Plate” (“Blumen und Keramik”) using oil on canvas in 1913.

While lovely to our eyes now, Matisse was then not only enjoying color but also experimenting with radically new, in the European aesthetic, perspectives, some well-practiced and well-received in other parts of the world, such as Africa and Japan, and making their way into Europe via trade.

Like Picasso and Braque and their contemporaneous alignment of reduced objects into a shallow space using multiple vantage points (“cubism”), Matisse renders objects placed in close proximity to each other from different vantage points and perspectives.

The flowers are painted as viewed from a side perspective. The ceramic plate is painted as viewed from above.

As the Städel Museum points out:

“This new form of beauty gives preference to the surface over spatial depth and was highly controversial at the time.

“That means the end of the spatial illusionism European painters had worked so hard to perfect over many centuries.”

 

See: “Henri Matisse: Flowers and Ceramic Plate,” 1913 (oil on canvas), Städel Museum

 

 

#matisse #henrimatisse #picasso #braque #cubism #städelmuseum #städel #collection #portfolio #perspective #art #artmarket #modernart #arthistory #ceramics #design #architecture #frankfurt #germany #paris #france #africa #japan #newyork #oslo #dubai #hongkong #shanghai #seoul #tokyo #tech #entrepreneur #energy #co2 #realestatedevelopment #urban #luxury #urbanluxury

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Blackstone Real Estate is optimizing art as a targeted value-add initiative for its NY real estate portfolio

Blackstone Real Estate is optimizing art as a targeted value-add initiative for its real estate portfolio throughout New York City.

Blackstone is initiating a partnership Hunter College to recognize talented emerging artists while concomitantly giving visitors to its building portfolio throughout the city access to unique works of art.

Last week Jon Gray, Global Head of Real Estate at Blackstone, introduced a new exhibition featuring artwork by students currently enrolled in the Hunter College Master of Fine Arts program: Talia Levitt, Madhini Nirmal, Leonard Reibstein, and Andy Van Dinh.

These works of art, both paintings and large-scale works on paper, will be displayed for a year in the lobby of 5 Bryant Park.

Blackstone is the world’s largest real estate private equity firm with $102 billion of investor capital and $200 billion of gross assets under management.

Blackstone seeks to acquire high quality investments at discounts to replacement cost. The company improves the properties through hands-on management and targeted value-add initiatives.

The breadth of Blackstone’s real estate portfolio provides valuable real-time proprietary market data. Blackstone believes this information enables the company to identify mispriced and/or out-of-favor asset classes more rapidly than its competitors.

Blackstone real estate also operates one of the leading real estate finance platforms, including management of the publicly traded Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE:BXMT).

See:

“Blackstone Partners with Hunter College for Student Art Exhibition at 5 Bryant Park” | Blackstone Blog, 12 June 2017

Blackstone Real Estate

#art #realestate #finance #risk #collectionsmanagement #portfoliomanagement #HunterCollege #HunterCollegeMFA #NewYork #Manhattan #Blackstone #privateequity #riskanalysis #risk management #collections

 

 

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楊詰蒼 | Earth Roots @ Ink Studio, Beijing

Beijing’s Ink Studio presents Earth Roots, a survey of Yang Jiechang’s One Hundred Layers of Ink series.

Born in Guangdong Province in 1956 and a 1982 graduate of the Chinese Painting Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, calligrapher Yang Jiechang (楊詰蒼) was selected to participate in the 1989 group exhibition Les  Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Yang Jiechang arrived in Paris in April 1989 without works to show, however, as they had been detained at the Chinese border. So he responded extemporaneously.

Retaining his native medium, he distilled all that he knew and experienced into a simple procedure: the repeated application of ink with a brush on paper, day after day and layer upon layer, until the fibrous surface hardened into a thick, densely textured relief with a metallic sheen. As blackness turned paradoxically luminescent, it gained the dimensions of space and time, becoming a record of his actions and being. 

The resultant One Hundred Layers of Ink series departed strikingly from traditional ink paintings and resembled rather color fields and other modernist idioms,

but for Yang it was calligraphic practice in its bare essence, and was grounded moreover in the multilayered polychrome court painting of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

Four large rectangular works were exhibited at Les  Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Artsy describes Yang Jiechang’s multimedia works as combining  traditional Eastern and Western modes of representation, a confluence he calls “Eurasian.” Based in Paris and Heidelberg, Mr. Yang states, “Eurasia is the land I experience everyday in my life: I am from Canton, China, my wife is from Germany, our children are Eurasian. We feel this land; this disposition and lifestyle bear a lot of possibilities and power.”

Works from the One Hundred Layers of Ink series are in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum; Cantor Center for the Arts, Stanford University; Deutsche Bank; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Hong Kong Museum of Art; M+, Hong Kong; and University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong.

Other of his works are in the collections of Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley; François Pinault Foundation, France; Fukuoka Art Museum; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; Ministry of Culture, France; Rockefeller Foundation, New York; and World Bank, Washington, D.C.

See:

“Earth Roots” | Yang Jiechang Paintings, 1985-1999, 10 June – 12  August 2017, Ink Studio, Beijing

Yang Jiechang | Artsy

#YangJiechang #InkStudio #Beijing #calligraphy #Artsy #artcollections #collectors #art #artmarket

 

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art as asset class & financial tool | a perspective

While established as an asset class, a store of value that may appreciate over time, and a financial tool, collateral for “art loans” for instance, art remains highly illiquid, is traded in an unregulated market, does not generate an income, and comes with high ownership costs.

See Annelien Bruin’s discussion in Tang Art Advisory’s blog and in Trust & Estate Magazine’s Art, Auctions & Antiques section

“The Reality of Handling an Art Portfolio for Growth” | Tang Art Advisory, 8 March 2017

“The Reality of Handling an Art Portfolio for Growth” | Annelien Bruins, Trusts & Estates Magazine, Special Report: Art, Auctions & Antiques, March 2017

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art + tech | is the digital age killing art?

How do art and technology interact? Is the digital age killing art?

Rebecca Cairns of the Hong Kong Tatler speaks with the founder of the online contemporary Asian art platform ArtShare, Alexandre Errera.

Prior to founding ArtShare in 2012, the French entrepreneur graduated from the London School of Economics with a degree in international relations and worked for three years in finance at Morgan Stanley in London.

Note Mr. Errera’s discussion of factors such as

  • the physical viewing experience
  • authenticity
  • accessibility
  • increased exposure to artists and works of art
  • confidence in internet platforms
  • trust
  • potential for growth in digital art
  • online sales
  • consolidation

See: “Is the Digital Age Killing Art?” | Rebecca Cairns, The Hong Kong Tatler, 16 February 2017