The eye-popping sale price of US$69 million on March 11, 2021, for a non-fungible token created by the digital artist Beeple sent shock waves through the art world. More multimillion-dollar sales of these digital assets that exist on a blockchain and are maintained on networked computers soon followed.
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Five exciting African museums to add to your travel wish list
Museums don’t often feature on vacation itineraries. That’s probably because people think of these spaces as dull houses of antiquities. But there are few better ways to learn about a country’s history, its people and their cultures than by visiting a museum.
Read MoreThe advantages of museum philanthropy that builds staff diversity rather than new wings and galleries
Retired financier Oscar Tang, along with his wife, Agnes Hsu-Tang, are giving the Metropolitan Museum of Art US$125 million. Their gift, announced in November 2021, will help pay for a long-planned renovation of the New York City museum’s Modern and Contemporary Art wing.
Read MoreWhy a 110-million-year-old raptor skeleton should never have been sold at auction for over US$12M
In mid-May, Christie’s auction house in New York sold a raptor skeleton (Deinonychus) for US$12.4 million. This represents a failure to protect and share our natural history with everyone.
Read MoreBurn, Break, Bulldoze: Is It Ever Okay to Destroy a Piece of Art?
The fate of US artist Sam Durant’s piece, Scaffold, is currently in the balance. The art piece, a two-story wooden structure, which draws its form from gallows used in 1862 to kill 38 Dakota Indians, has been removed from Minnesota’s Walker Art Centre after protests from the Native American Dakota Sioux community.
Read MorePublic Vs Private Art Collections: Who Controls Our Cultural Heritage?
The BMW Art Guide 2016 lists 256 private collections worldwide that are currently open to the public. But this figure omits the swiftly increasing number of multi-million dollar, independently operated gallery spaces that are stimulating audiences’ enthusiasm for art. Privately owned museums are on the rise and they’re dramatically changing the cultural […]
Read MoreInstagram Is Changing the Way We Experience Art, and That’s a Good Thing
With 800 million users and growing, it was perhaps inevitable that Instagram would shake up the art world. The social photo platform has been accused by the media of fanning a narcissistic selfie culture. But in galleries, research is showing that the negative aspects are far outweighed by the positive. […]
Read MorePrivate Collectors Are Saving Australian Art, but They Can’t Do It on Their Own
Within the year, Melbourne will have two new contemporary art spaces. Buxton Contemporary opened in early March and the new wing of Lyon Housemuseum will launch in 2019. These are just two of many acts of largesse that have made substantial private collections available to the Australian public over the past two decades. Since […]
Read MoreWith Commercial Galleries an Endangered Species, Are Art Fairs a Necessary Evil?
Although record numbers of people are flocking to exhibitions in the major public art galleries, foot traffic into commercial art galleries is dwindling at an alarming rate. Embarrassed gallery directors of well-established and well-known commercial art galleries will quietly confess that frequently they scarcely get more than a dozen visitors […]
Read MoreNo God but God: a Breathtaking Exhibition Bringing Islamic Art Out of the Shadows
Nearly 15 years later, following a string of mostly modest exhibitions towards this aim, AGSA presents its most expansive and ambitious exhibition of Islamic art yet: No god but God: The art of Islam.
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