This is an interesting little list from the Financial Times. They have been able to "rate" the top 100 "power players" in international art - evidently they do this every year. See the whole story here. Whether you believe the list or not it makes for curious reading... I've included it because everyone loves lists.

(Last year’s ranking is indicated in brackets)

1 (78) Damien Hirst - artist

2 (1) Larry Gagosian - dealer/gallerist

3 (13) Francois Pinault - owner of Christie’s /collector

4 (3) Nicholas Serota - museum director

5 (2) Glenn D Lowry - museum director

6 (22) Eli Broad - collector/philanthropist

7 (5) Sam Keller art fair director - Art Basel, in Basel and Miami

8 (11) Iwan Wirth - dealer/gallerist, Hauser and Wirth

9 NEW Bruce Nauman - artist

10 (34) David Zwirner - dealer/gallerist

11 NEW Herzog and de Meuron - architects

12 (8) Ronald Lauder - collector/philanthropist

13 (23) Richard Serra - artist

14 (15) Marian Goodman - dealer/gallerist

15 (6) Dakis Joannou - collector

16 NEW Brett Gorvy and Amy Cappellazzo - both work at Christie’s

17 NEW Thomas Krens and Lisa Dennison - museum directors

18 (21) Marc Glimcher - dealer/gallerist, Pace in New York

19 (17) Charles Saatchi - collector

20 (41) Neo Rauch - artist

21 NEW Bernard Arnault - collector/owner of LVMH

22 NEW Richard Prince - artist

23 (19) Leonard Lauder - collector/philanthropist

24 NEW Steve Cohen - collector

25 (12) Gerhard Richter - artist

26 NEW Tobias Meyer - top contemporary person at Sotheby’s

27 (27) The Konig family - German family who run art bookstores and museums

28 (10) Takashi Murakami - artist

29 (31) Maja Oeri - collector and money behind Schaulager in Basel

30 (26) Nicholas Logsdail - dealer/gallerist Lisson in London

31 (49) Jay Jopling - dealer/gallerist, White Cube in London

32 (36) Barbara Gladstone - dealer/gallerist

33 (32) Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, art fair directors of Frieze in London

34 NEW Jeff Wall - artist

35 NEW Renzo Piano - architect

36 (77) Simon de Pury and Michael McGinnis - at auctioneers Phillips de Pury and Co

37 NEW Paul McCarthy - artist

38 (41) Gerd Lybke - dealer/gallerist Eigen + Art in Berlin

39 (45) Ed Ruscha - artist

40 (25) Peter Brant - collector

41 (40) Don and Mera Rubell - Miami collectors

42 (94) John Baldessari - artist

43 (44) Paul Schimmel - chief curator at LAMOCA

44 NEW Robert Mnuchin and Dominique Levy - dealer/galleris, L&M in New York

45 NEW Marlene Dumas - artist

46 (46) Matthew Marks dealer/gallerist and art fair director - Armory in NYC

47 (24) Adam Weinberg museum director - the Whitney in New York

48 (38) Sadie Coles - dealer/gallerist

49 (14) Rem Koolhaas - architect

50 (57) Victoria Miro - dealer/gallerist

51 (88) Alfred Pacquement - museum director, Pompidou Centre in Paris

52 NEW Peter Doig - artist

53 NEW The Mugrabis family - collectors

54 NEW Anselm Kiefer - artist

55 (55) Lurhing and Augustine - dealer/gallerist in New York

56 (42) Max Hollein - museum director in Frankfurt

57 (47) Ingvild Goetz - collector in Germany

58 NEW Chris Ofili - artist

59 (68) Thelma Golden - museum director/curator in New York

60 NEW Philippe Vergne - chief curator at the Walker in the US

61 (59) William Acquavella - dealer/gallerist in New York

62 (18) Jeff Koons - artist

63 NEW Allan Schwartzmann - art advisor in New York

64 NEW Harald Falckenberg - German collector

65 NEW Phillipe Segalot - art advisor

66 (93) Gerhard Steidl - book publisher, Steidl

67 NEW Iwona Blazwick - museum director, Whitechapel in London

68 (75) Harry Blain and Graham Southern - dealer/gallerist, Haunch of Venison in London

69 NEW Howard Greenberg - dealer/gallerist in New York

70 (61) Max Hetzler - dealer/gallerist in Berlin

71 (72) Francesca von Hapsburg - collector, philanthropist, museum owner

72 (56) William Eggleston - artist

73 (9) Robert Storr - curator/academic

74 NEW Perry Rubinstein - dealer/gallerist in New York

75 (20) Zaha Hadid - architect

76 NEW Stefan Edlis - collector

77 NEW Alanna Heiss - museum director/curator, PS1 in New York

78 NEW Thaddeus Ropac - dealer/gallerist in Paris

79 NEW Ann Philbin - museum director, the Hammer in LA

80 (30) Daniel Buchholz - dealer/gallerist in Cologne

81 (81) Maureen Paley - dealer/gallerist in London

82 NEW Shaun Caley Regen - dealer/gallerist in LA

83 (50) De la Cruzes - collectors

84 (85) Charles Esche and Vasif Kortun - curators

85 NEW The Christos - artists

86 (86) Hans Ulrich Obrist - curator

87 (84) Spruth Magers - dealer/gallerist in Cologne and London

88 NEW Richard Schlagman - book publisher, Phaidon

89 (82) Miuccia Prada - collector

90 NEW Christopher van de Weghe - art advisor

91 NEW Frank Dunphy - business manager to top London artists

92 (90) The Cisneros - collectors/philanthropists

93 NEW James Lingwood and Michael Morris curators – Artangel in London

94 NEW Yvonne Force - art advisor

95 NEW Christian Boros - collector in Germany

96 (98) Harvey Shipley Miller and Andre Schlectreim - curators in New York

97 NEW Rachel Whiteread - artist

98 NEW The Essels - collectors

99 NEW Tadashi Kawamata - curator

100 NEW Sebastian Lopez - curator

The Neon Museum "Boneyard"
OK, here's my scandal - this is tailor made for me. The "Boneyard" has what I actually find of most interest in Las Vegas. A link of the past, all placed in a junkyard setting in a crappy neighborhood. All the history is there - Binions, Golden Nugget, Showboat, et al. I'm not a huge Vegas fan - its interesting from a anthropological view - but I don't really get the desire to act stupid and pay for every bad decision you might make. That said I did make 200 dollars on blackjack - I view this as a fluke, not the way it should be. Back to the "Boneyard" it's two reasonably sized lots holding about 200 old neon signs. Some of these are intact and some are not - it hardly matters. One thing that is there is the old "Silver Slipper" which used to be on top of the Silver Slipper hotel/casino, until Howard Hughes bought the casino and took the sign down - because the slipper distracted his view from Caesar's Palace.

Photos to come tomorrow

While in Vegas I visited a total of one gallery. S2 art in the Venetian Hotel. They are a show that sells mostly real america pop - Peanuts art, Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are), Bob Cane (Batman), etc. This is not my usual taste in galleries, however I really enjoyed myself - the collections showed some amazing iconic images - I'm totally in love with the Bob Kane Batman and Robin drawings - I wish I had the 60,000 for them - it a no brainer. One note here - amazingly nice gallery rep - John Graff. I have rarely spoken with a gallery rep about a multitude of things over such a short period of time (20 minutes or so).

I ate really well in Vegas.
Aureole - best known for its "wine angels" and three story wine cellar - "people come for the wine and come back for the food" - we were told by the manager, and it's true. I had a trio of tuna and followed that with oxtails and filet, Catherine had the raw sampler followed by the sea bass. This is one of those great leisurely meals that just rolled on and everything fell into place. The wines that we tasted were also paired just right for the plates. Desert was beyond expectation - I don't go on about deserts (and I wont now) but it was amazing.

Bouchon
Bouchon is the "French Bistro" developed by chef Thomas Keller, best known for his California restaurant "French Laundry". We had a fun and really good meal here - great low key atmosphere and a well balanced menu, great wines and we skipped desert. Bouchon is very similar to Les Halles (DC location, 1200 Penn Ave.) - both in price and quality. As Martha would say - both are good things.

My half assed review of Las Vegas galleries including my trip to the Neon Museum's "boneyard". BTW had some great meals there as well. I'm not talking about a buffet either.

Having now visited the ~scope art fair in three cities, I report with confidence that a hotel bathroom is not an ideal setting for viewing art.

From Artforum.com

The vandalization of Elmgreen and Dragset's sculpture Prada Marfa brought a lot of attention to the work, Greg Harman writes in the Houston Press. Gallery-hoppers in Marfa started scanning eBay daily, awaiting the re-emergence of the stolen Prada shoes (all for the right foot) and bags, while local sheriff Tom Roberts told the press he was on the lookout for a one-legged woman with a taste for high fashion. Fairfax Dorn, co-founder of Ballroom Marfa, which helped the artists install Prada Marfa, said she believed the job was done by someone in town. A jealous artist, perhaps. Inevitably, rumors started to circulate that the crime had been an inside job committed by the artists themselves, who would have driven by the store on their way back to the airport the morning of the robbery. "It's funny how some people believe that artists would be so keen on press coverage and fame that they would be even willing to destroy their own art work in order to get some attention," the artists responded.

Read it all in the Houston Chronicle

The J. Paul Getty Museum, which recently returned ancient artifacts believed looted from Italy, is facing a similar accusation from Greece, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. The Greek government in May formally renewed a nine-year-old demand that the museum return a gold funerary wreath, an inscribed tombstone and the marble torso of a woman, all believed to date from around 400 B.C. The museum bought the items in 1993 for $5.2 million. Greece contends the items were stolen from archaeological sites and illegally smuggled out of the country. The Los Angeles Times, citing interviews and law enforcement records, reported that the wreath was bought for $1.15 million from a Swiss art dealer by Marion True, the Getty's former chief curator of antiquities.

Read the whole stary at the San Diego Union-Tribune

Over 20 Old Masters downgraded in scholarly investigation. In preparation for the Barnes Foundation's move to downtown Philadelphia, a survey of its collections has resulted in many reattributions.

The first scholarly survey of the Barnes Foundation’s collection since it opened in 1922 is confirming what trained eyes have long known: many of the collection’s 120 Old Master paintings are not what the foundation has said they are. Some 22 works formerly attributed to Bosch, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, El Greco, Watteau and others have been reattributed by scholars taking part in the Collection Assessment Project, which has been examining the foundation’s roughly 9,000 objects and works of art over the past four years...

From the Arts Newspaper - read the rest there.

The People's Liberation Army, the world's largest standing army, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bring back Chinese art treasures like those now in the homes of collectors including Ronald Lauder, chairman of Estée Lauder International; Tsui Tsin-tong, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong manufacturing and property company CNT Group; Jack Wadsworth, advisory director of Morgan Stanley; and Leon Black, founder and president of Apollo Advisers, A. Craig Copetas reports in the International Herald Tribune. Facing an acute art shortage, the Chinese government plans to construct one thousand new museums by 2015, including thirty-two in Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics and one hundred in Shanghai before the opening of the 2010 World's Fair, according to reports in China's government-controlled media. The People's Liberation Army, or PLA, has so far targeted only Chinese art. But analysts say the army's strategy over the next five years is to dip further into China's foreign-currency reserves—about $711 billion, the second biggest after Japan, and growing—to buy and barrack celebrated Western masterpieces, often at prices above their auction-market value.

From the International Herald Tribunne

Two previously unseen paintings by Leonardo da Vinci have gone on public display for the first time in Italy, the BBC reports. One is an alternative version of da Vinci's famous painting known as Virgin of the Rocks, with the infant Jesus and the infant John the Baptist. The other shows Mary Magdalene, thought to have been completed by Leonardo with the help of one of his pupils about 1515, shortly before his death. Both are being displayed at Ancona's Mole Vanvitelliana museum.

From the BBC

Lets start in Phoenix - Bentley Projects is clearly the most impressive gallery space I've seen. I'm not talking about just in Arizona, I mean anywhere. Its a freestanding space - an old warehouse turned into 4 massive gallery spaces with great light and plenty of room - It allows for simultaneous exhibitions without it seeming like one big room with four "solo" shows. Each space is clearly defined and similar but different. The sculpture garden leading from the parking lot to the front door is a real bonus.

Lets get to the work. Currently there are two solo shows and a large gallery collection on display. Michael Eastman (below) is a photographer from (I believe) the mid west, has a great series of images of deserted cities and interiors from the mid west. They remind me of Robert Frank's photography - but without people. I'm clearly underselling the work here, so for that I apologize. However its great work. In the main gallery, a recent Vernon Fisher (painted and drawn on blackboard - above) is flanked by two Jim Dine Sculptures, one grouping of hearts, and the other 3 massive (13 feet maybe) venus figures of painted wood. I can drop the big names but I also really enjoyed work by Robert Kelly, Dale Chihuly, and Will Berry.



Back to Scottsdale. Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Has four shows currently, one a design show of coffee cups and pitchers, I love coffee so it was a nice way to start even though these kind of shows do very little for me. The other three shoes, Bruce Nauman, Monique Prieto, and a overview of photography collected in the region were compelling to say the least. So much has been said about Nauman in the past couple of years, that I wont paraphrase here. The show consists of five video works and one lithograph - "pay attention" (1973). To me the crowd favorite of Nauman's video work is "Clown Torture" with its inclusion in this show it remains that way. A curious note about SMOCA is that each show at the end has a space for people to post notes about the show - and the clowns still grab the attention there as well.

Monique Preito delivers a great group of 9 paintings - from 1995 to 2005. Preito's forms - blobs and dangly shapes create a absurd and beautiful space that allows her to metaphorically discuss issues of art history, motherhood, race relations - these themes are not overt but bubble underneath the surface of these lush, clean, and taught images. I think her work is a must see.

Galleries of note:
Victoria Boyce Galleries, currently showing Marilyn Szabo. these are interesting but as a whole the exhibit seems unfocused somehow - almost as if Ms. Szabo is still looking for a direction to follow - and if it were up to me, I'd suggest following the ideas in "X's and O's" (2001)

Chairoscuro, has a group show up currently but will soon be showing Hunt Slonem. In the current group show I noticed a very nice set of Robert Mangold prints, as well as a painting by ex washingtonian Henry Leo Schoebel. I became familiar with HLS work in 1985 when I was working for Osuna Gallery - we showed him as well as Chip Richardson and Patrice Kehoe in that one year span. HLS moved to new york that year and we never heard too much after that - his work was some of my favorite DC work at the time. Fast forward to 2005 and HLS has been in Arizona for quite a few years - still doing good work although I miss his earlier broader color palette.

Bonner David Galleries, Has a group show up - some interesting artworks are here. Keep an eye on this one because it is about to hit a point where it must go one way or the other in how the gallery presents its self - either presenting the work in a more serious way or more boutique like, always filling the walls salon style, lets hope for the first.

Concerned that artist Andy Warhol was involved in the interstate transportation of obscene material--in this case his movie "Lonesome Cowboys"--the FBI once sent two of its agents to scope the film during a San Francisco festival. Though not as polished as Pauline Kael or Roger Ebert, the agents still get two thumbs up for delivering this marvelously entertaining report. Prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and Arizona subsequently declined to prosecute Warhol on obscenity charges.

From the smoking gun follow this link>>

I guess I'll hit scope miami for part of a day as well - it's at townhouse. 150 20th Street (at Collins Ave.)
Miami Beach, FL 33139

See you there...

I've been super busy with real-life things lately, so I will hit and run a few stories today (see below) but will get back on track the middle of next week.

http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/

Edward Winkleman has been putting together the best art blog (in my opinion) for the last few months - If you aren't reading it, you might like to - follow the link above.

Continuing their crossbreeding of white cubes, Scandinavian artists Elmgreen & Dragset have created a monument to minimalism à la mode with their latest project, “Prada Marfa.” Located in the barren West Texas landscape, the duo has planned a full-size Prada shop that will be permanently on view from October 1. The store, a new neighbor to pilgrimage sites of Land Art art such as Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation, has been realized with the support of New York 's Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa, and will never be open to customers. Rather, it will be left to the elements, providing the unlikely fate of desolation and entropy for the fashion powerhouse. According to the Art Production Fund, Prada has been extremely cooperative with the project, offering assistance with every detail from its Pantones and logo to furniture and interior design. The sun-dried boutique will be stocked with a fresh array of the Fall 2005 line, dating the time capsule for any anthropologists or archaeologists who happen to be passing in the distant future. (from Flash Art)

www.pradamarfa.com

The curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum who is facing trial in Italy on charges that she conspired with dealers trafficking in looted antiques has retired to concentrate on her legal defense, ABC News reports. Meanwhile the Getty has agreed to return to Italy three of the forty-two disputed archaeological treasures curator Marion True acquired. "The works are returning without an admission of guilt on the part of the Getty, but also without us withdrawing our accusations," Italian Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione said Monday

I read the book "Fun While It Lasted" last year by antique coin dealer and ex Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall - he basically talks about the Getty as a place where he was able to "fence" artifacts with questionable provenance for quick cash - the pace that the Getty bought artworks in the eighties is legendary so its possible. But really, until the USA, England, and France start to admit that there are tons of looted treasures from other countries in our museums, this problem is not going to go away.

At the same time is alot of this "spoils of war"? and how does that count?