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Lévy Gorvy’s Brett Gorvy speaks

Lévy Gorvy, the gallery

What we do see ourselves as is a boutique, a haute-couture gallery that ultimately adapts itself and takes advantage of market changes and opportunities but is very sustained and has growth over a longer period of time.

It’s incredibly important to Dominique and myself that we are an individual company. We’ve committed ourselves financially to this project with the understanding that we can work with any business partner where it will be mutually beneficial, with no conflict of interest.

It will also be about painting, because what we really responded to in Dan’s studio is that he’s returning to his roots in a way that’s very much to our own tastes, where it’s less about the conceptual pieces and more about just really beautiful painting.

The only way these kinds of shows can be feasible is if you have a financial commitment and also a focus, which is how this kind of gallery works. Here I mean less from a purely curatorial aspect, and more curatorial in that it’s highly focused on our client base from a business point of view, and on the art-collecting sphere we feel very close to.

Auction background

Working at an auction house is a phenomenal training, obviously—you have access to great art, you have access to an amazing group of collectors who become your friends, and you learn how to work as a team, which is incredibly important within this environment. But you also learn ultimately how to understand the valuation of works of art and price them.

… because of our strong auction background, we have very close ties with now all three auction houses. That gives us an understanding of how markets work and how values work, because we can dissect the results of the auctions at all three houses and know exactly what happened.

Art fairs

If you look at how an art fair can ultimately change, communication will be a large part of it. … So now they’re going to have to get to the fair in the first half hour, because that’s when these things happen. … The key is to get someone as committed as they would be to an auction picture, to the point where the only thing they need to do is see it physically, which is obviously a crucial part.

Asia

I’ve done a lot of work in Asia over the years, and we want to continue our position there. We believe very firmly in the strength of the market there, not just in China but all over Asia, and, having worked there, you know all of the nuances, and who are the people to deal with.

So, from our point of view, Hong Kong is where we’ll have the best access to the top collectors who we can ultimately develop. One of the most exciting aspects about Asia is that the learning curve of Asian collectors is phenomenal. I’ve never come across that speed of understanding markets and artists and desiring to learn more and read more.

And in Hong Kong too—we really need an office in Hong Kong in order to function, because a lot of clients want to have a base outside of mainland China, either because they want to have their assets outside of the mainland or because they prefer that way of buying. It’s like with a lot of West Coast collectors in America—they prefer to come to New York to buy, even if it’s from a dealer who has a gallery out on the West Coast. People buy more when they’re traveling.

See:

“Former Christie’s Rainmaker Brett Gorvy on How He’s Creating a New Power Center in the Gallery World” | Andrew Goldstein, Artnet, 12 June 2017

#art #artmarket #LévyGorvy #DominiqueLévy #BrettGorvy #collectors #collections #Asia #HongKong #Christie’s #Sotheby’s

 

 

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Downtown San Diego | early morning vistas

Early morning vistas.

San Diego is, indeed, beautiful and has what is widely acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best, micro-climate in the United States. Very Mediterranean.

Why “tech”, that I appear to mention so often and that is taking root in the downtown San Diego economic eco-system?

“Tech,” in my mind, is no more than information gathering, processing, analyzing, reporting, and using, with certain questions asked (by people), the questions usually having to do with certain industries (art, finance, transport, design, building and construction, chemistry, physics, aerospace engineering, entertainment, etc.).

Sort of like groups of individual Marines gathering, processing and using information, on steroids.

Why pay attention to tech in downtown San Diego? Some of these companies have just appeared downtown, willy nilly, not according to the city plan. People in the tech industry generally speaking make more money than those working in the hospitality industry (housekeeping, serving tables, etc.). It is money generated here rather than earned elsewhere and brought here by visitors, tourists, and buyers of second or third homes.

 

#SanDiego #downtownSanDiego #realestate #resilience #art #tech #technology #finance #urbanliving #urbanluxury

 

 

 

 

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Benchmarks | the movingly beautiful tracings of El Anatsui’s work

Now on exhibit at London’s October Gallery, Benchmarks are a testament to the richness and elegance of El Anatsui’s creative genius.

A graduate of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, El Anatsui not only believes that, as an artist, he must work ‘with whatever his environment throws up,’ he is passionately curious about the physical history of the materials themselves, the stories they contain and the journeys that bring them into his hands.

The journey countless numbers of bottle tops, several bags of which were eventually discarded by a local liquor shop and happened upon by El Anatsui, have taken along the ways of West African trade inspired his iconic and elegant bottle-top installations and hangings.

Made from thousands of aluminium bottle-tops wired together with copper, the humble materials from which the cloth-like metallic masterpieces are made are embedded with multiple cultural, historical, and socio-political histories. El Anatsui draws out and reframes the stories and journeys behind these histories with the incredible skill, mastery, and grace of a master storyteller and creative genius.

Turning his attention to the tables and smaller flats of wood on which these  countless numbers of bottle tops were pounded, crushed, folded, and pierced as they journeyed and were transformed into works of art, El Anatsui has created the prints which he has, in one of his many moments of genius, entitled “Benchmarks”.

The tables and flats, that after so much pounding manifest a landscape of textured relief, were brought to the studio of Factum Arte, a team of artists, technicians and conservators based in Madrid, London, and Milan. Well known for its synergy of past, present and future techniques, Factum Arte is dedicated to digital mediation – both in the production of works for contemporary artists and in the production of facsimiles as part of a coherent approach to preservation and dissemination, and, much like El Anatsui artistically investigating the journeys and histories of local materials, pushes the boundaries between technology and craft.

At Factum Arte, the tables and flats were

3-D scanned at a very high resolution, routed onto aluminium plates and then printed through an etching press. Black ink was used to access the textural information held both in the intaglio and on the surface; others were worked upon in colour, while others still with chine collé laminates. The artist played with endless combinations and permutations of the resulting prints to create the syntheses

that he calls “Benchmarks” and are now on exhibit at October Gallery.

For one particularly direct work, coloured ink was laboriously dabbed onto dampened Japanese paper overlaying a large and highly textured tabletop, producing a detailed relief print that bears witness to many years of accumulated mark-making.

Genius at work at the interface and interactions of culture, histories, materials, science, technology, trade, media, work, art, and craft. So moving and so amazingly beautiful.

See:

“El Anatsui’s Landmark ‘Benchmark’ Prints at October Gallery” | Nicholas Forrest, BlouinArtinfo, 27 April 2017

Benchmarks: New Prints by El Anatsui | Exhibition at October Gallery, London, 6 May – 13 April 2017

Factum Arte

#ElAnatsui #OctoberGallery #art #materialsscience #technology #FactumArte #prints #bottletops #Japanesepaper #3Dscans

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MIT Media Lab’s paradigm shifting Digital Construction Platform

MIT Media Lab Mediated Matter group researchers realize a paradigm shift in architectural design, construction, and thinking with the Digital Construction Platform (DCP): custom, individualized buildings computationally grown and additively manufactured using on-site environmental data.

The Digital Construction Platform is a single, multi-dimensional system into which data gathering, analysis, design, architecture, and construction have been integrated.

The Digital Construction Platform (system) is operated electrically (photovoltaic charging is discussed), is free moving, and can be used to design and digitally construct, from locally available materials, multi-functional structures of any size in a single build.

Internal structure can be modified in new ways. Different materials can be incorporated and material density varied as design and construction proceeds to provide optimal combinations of strength, insulation, or other properties.

Benefits of structures built with this system include speed to market, less cost, and customization to the requirements of the site and the objectives of the maker.

Designed to be self-sufficient, the platform can be adapted to existing building sites, equipment, and building codes without requiring whole new evaluations.

Data about the site is collected using built-in sensors for temperature, light, and other parameters. This data is used in the design process and to make adjustments to the structure as it is built.

The use of on-site environmental data has many benefits. Data from sources such as derived ground-penetrating radar analysis of the site enables the placement of supporting pillars, for instance, in optimal locations.

On-site environmental data can also be used in the design of walls.

  • The walls may have varying thicknesses depending on their orientation. Thicker, more insulated walls can be built on the north side of buildings in cold climates
  • The walls may be configured to respond to local wind conditions. A relatively simple, yet entirely sophisticated, feature  such as a curve in the walls may help the structure withstand wind
  • The walls may be designed and built to respond to load-bearing requirements. Like columns, walls may taper from bottom to top as load-bearing requirements decrease.

The Digital Construction Platform features a scoop and a tracked vehicle that carries a large, industrial, precision-controlled robotic arm with a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end.

Sourcing and use of local materials is discussed. The platform’s scoop could acquire local materials for the construction. The scoop would be used concurrently to prepare the building surface.

The precision-controlled arm can be used to direct both a conventional and non-conventional construction nozzle. The nozzles can be used to pour concrete and spray insulation material, can be adapted to vary the density of the material being poured, and can mix different materials as construction proceeds.

The precision-controlled robotic arm would also be used to direct additional digital fabrication and effectors, such as a milling head.

The platform embodies a shift not only in design and construction paradigms but a paradigm shift also in our thinking about buildings – from a “machine to live in, made of standardized parts” to “the building as an organism, computationally grown, additively manufactured, possibly biologically augmented.”

“‘The construction industry is still mostly doing things the way it has for hundreds of years. The buildings are rectilinear, mostly built from single materials, put together with saws and nails,’ and mostly built from standardized plans.”

Steven Keating PhD ’16, mechanical engineering graduate and former research affiliate in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab. He led the development of the system as his doctoral thesis work.

From an architectural perspective the project “challenges traditional building typologies such as walls, floors, or windows, and proposes that a single system could be fabricated using the DCP that can vary its properties continuously to create wall-like elements that continuously fuse into windows.”

Neri Oxman, MIT Media Lab Mediated Matter group director and associate professor of media arts and sciences.

The robotic system is described in the journal Science Robotics (26 April 2017) in a paper entitled “Toward site-specific and self-sufficient robotic fabrication on architectural scales” by Steven Keating PhD ’16, a mechanical engineering graduate and former research affiliate in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab; Julian Leland and Levi Cai, both research assistants in the Mediated Matter group; and Neri Oxman, group director and associate professor of media arts and sciences.

See:

“System Can 3D Print an Entire Building” | Science Daily, 26 April 2017

“MIT Develops a System Than Can 3D Print the Basic Structure of an Entire Building” | SciTechDaily.com, 27 April 2017, Source: David L. Chandler, MIT News

Publication: Steven J. Keating, et al., “Toward site-specific and self-sufficient robotic fabrication on architectural scales,” Science Robotics 26 Apr 2017:Vol. 2, Issue 5, eaam8986; DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aam8986

#architecture #design #construction #tech #realestate #resilience #smartluxury #art #MIT #MITMediaLab #3Dprinting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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smart luxury | private museums & the sharing of art & knowledge

“We wish to share and interact with more people and encourage our friends to share their collections too. Only thus we can grow and learn from each other.”

Wanwan Lei and Li Han of Beijing share their motivation for opening their collection to the public through the establishment of a private art museum.

Larry’s List predicts that private museums,  70% of which have been founded since the year 2000 and whose resources and funding do not rely on public support, will increasingly cooperate with each other in the future.

Networks have been founded to increase partnerships between private museums in support of the loaning of works of art, the presentation of traveling exhibitions, and the sharing of knowledge.

See:

“Private Art Museum Report” | Larry’s List, December 2015

“Larry’s List is launching the Private Art Pass 2017 – The Ultimate Privilege Card for the Art World” | Larry’s List

#art #collections #collectors #privatemuseums #realestate #resilience #finance #smartluxury #luxury #urbanluxury

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smart luxury | Tesla surpasses Ford & GM in market value

Tesla has surpassed Ford and GM in market value.

Investors investors are betting that the world’s appetite for electric vehicles will continue to grow and that Tesla will grow with it.

Although the big automakers are financially healthy and produce the best-selling types of vehicles, like trucks and sport utility vehicles, they are perceived as lagging in cutting-edge technology like alternative power and autonomy.

See:

“Tesla Hits a New Milestone, Passing G.M. In Valuation” | The New York Times, 10 April 2017

Tesla

#luxury #urbanluxury #smartluxury #energy #smartenergy #alternativepower #Tesla #resilience #finance #automobiles #transit #smarttransit #urbanplanning #design #climatechange #art #smartart #collectionsmanagement #realestate

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art & architecture | Selldorf Architects designs new premises for Berlin’s Esther Schipper

New York’s Selldorf Architects is designing the new gallery in Berlin’s Potsdamer Strasse gallery district for Esther Schipper.

The new Esther Schipper gallery address is:

Esther Schipper
Potsdamer Strasse 81
10785 Berlin

The gallery will be newly situated in a former printing and warehouse facility. The premises offer a 5,800-square-foot exhibition space split into a large primary room and a smaller, 1,500-square-foot space.

See:

“New Project: Esther Schipper gallery in Potsdamer Strasse” | Selldorf Architects, 1 March 2017

“We are moving!” | Esther Schipper

#art #artcollections #luxury #urbanluxury #architecture #realestate #Berlin

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smart art | collections storage

The American Alliance of Museums will meet on Sunday, May 7 to discuss “sustainable collections storage, strategies for our future.”

Facing increased energy costs, changing standards, and issues brought about by climate change, institutions are reevaluating their facilities, collections storage, and operations.

The May 7 discussion will include a review of building site and architecture, environmental control systems, lighting, and waste.

Speakers will explore practical, pressing, and efficient measures to reduce carbon footprints while maintaining the paramount goal of preserving collections.

See: “Sustainable Collections Storage: Strategies for our Future” | American Alliance of Museums, 2017 Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo

#art #artcollections #collections #collectionsmanagement #artstorage #collectionsstorage #smartart #luxury #smartluxury #urbanluxury #resilience #realestate #museums

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smart art | preventive conservation in China

Based on a nationwide investigation of the current state of preservation of museum objects in China, around 51% of the 35 million museum objects show different degrees of deterioration.

In China’s present situation, preventing damage to museum objects is much more cost-effective than allowing damage to happen and then treating it.

By 2013, the number of museums in China had increased to 3354 from 3055 in 2012, among which the number of private museum is 811. The number of museum visitors annually is 600 million.

Based on China’s national long-term outline plan for museum development (2011‒2020), we expect that by 2020 there will be one museum for every 250 000 people, compared to one per 400 000 in 2014, and that 20% of museums will be privately funded.

Owing to the impressive number of museums opened in the twentieth century, a large number of objects has been accumulated and has often been left in unsuitable environments, resulting in irreversible damage. Treatment of individual objects cannot meet the ever-increasing demand.

Rather than treatment after they show signs of degradation, looking for preventive conservation solutions becomes the most important museum function.

See:

“Overview of preventive conservation and the museum environment in China” | Nan Feng, Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun, China, published online on 12 August 2016

#art #artcollections #smartart #smartluxury #urbanluxury #collectionsmanagement #China #museums #preventiveconservation #realestate #airpollution #climatechange #risk #riskmanagment