News From Around the Art World: July 30th, 2018
How Instagram Became the Art World’s Obsession
AS HE BOARDED a plane for Hong Kong in late 2016, Brett Gorvy, then global head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s, posted an image of a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting on his Instagram feed. Upon landing, he found he had three text messages from clients interested in buying the 1982 work, a portrait of Sugar Ray Robinson and part of an upcoming private-sale exhibition. One client swiftly put the painting on hold and purchased it two days later, reportedly for about $24 million. Today, looking back, Gorvy claims it all happened by accident.
By Carol Kino, The Wall Street Journal
Hannah Litvan couldn't find a job in a gallery. So she opened her own.
When 25-year-old Hannah Litvan graduated from Albion College in Michigan with a degree in art and moved back to her Chicago hometown with dreams of working in a gallery, she had a hard time finding an entry point into the local art scene. Instead of giving up, Litvan made room for herself by creating Ice House Gallery, a multifaceted art space intended to support both emerging and established local artists.
By Anna White, Chicago Reader
‘Black Tiberinus’ stands watch on Riverwalk
Black Tiberinus, referring to the Roman god of the Tiber river, is a three-part geometric structure made of nylon mesh supported by rope from steel columns. The tallest of the structures can be seen from Upper Wacker Drive. Two smaller works are nearby.
By Steven Dahlman, Loop North News
Post-Truth and Proud Of It, A Review of “Truth Claim” at Carrie Secrist Gallery
“Photographs, especially instantaneous photographs, are very instructive because we know that they are in certain respects exactly like the objects that they represent,” writes C.S. Peirce in “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs” (1897). Curators Britton Bertran and Kelly Long pick up the perennial conversation around the indexicality of a photograph and the verisimilitude of an image which has been captured and reproduced by a machine: the camera which has no feeling or emotion, no motivations or goals.
By Lindsay Hutchens, Newcity Art
John Massey’s 1968 graphic banners return to Chicago for 50th anniversary
Five decades after John Massey brightened downtown Chicago with his series of playful graphic banners, reproductions of the local artist’s minimalist designs are returning to the Loop this summer.
By Jay Koziarz, Curbed Chicago