Collectors and Collections
Paul G. Allen’s Art at Christie’s Tops $1.5 Billion, Cracking Records
Just when it seemed the high-flying art market couldn’t soar any higher, paintings and sculptures from the collection of the Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, hit the $1.5 billion mark at Christie’s New York on Wednesday night, making it the biggest sale in auction history. The first of two Allen sales, it shattered a six-month-old […]
Know More
Thefts, Fraud and Lawsuits at the World’s Biggest NFT Marketplace
Chris Chapman used to own one of the most valuable commodities in the crypto world: a unique digital image of a spiky-haired ape dressed in a spacesuit. Mr. Chapman bought the nonfungible token last year, as a widely hyped series of digital collectibles called the Bored Ape Yacht Club became a phenomenon. In December, he […]
Know More
The Macklowe Collection Tops $922 Million at Auction
Blue-chip treasures from one of Manhattan’s most acrimonious billionaire divorces on Monday night helped Sotheby’s achieve what it called a record total sale for a private collection of art at auction, $922 million, with fees. Sotheby’s sold its second cache of trophy-name modern and contemporary works owned by the real estate magnate Harry Macklowe and […]
Know More
The Fiddle Leaf Fig Is Dead. What’s the New Popular Plant?
“The ‘It’ plant is the quest,” said Katie Dubow, the president of Garden Media Group, a public relations firm that advises companies on market trends. “Everybody wants to have it, grow it, sell it.” People’s relationships with their plants deepened during the pandemic, industry experts say, and once trendy varieties started to seem dusty. Former […]
Know More
Beeple Is Trying His Hand at Artwork for Walls
A cavalry of crypto enthusiasts funneled into Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood on Thursday evening, waiting outside Jack Hanley Gallery for a chance to meet their online art messiah in the flesh. In the mix were celebrities like Jimmy Fallon. It was a rock-star welcome for Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, who was putting […]
Know More
The NFT Has Changed Artists. Has it Changed Art?
And then there’s the even more slippery genre known as “relational art,” whose goal is to cast light on human interactions by triggering new ones. Back in 1992, the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija crafted the classic example: He began to cook and serve curry to museumgoers, not for the sake of gastronomy — he started […]
Know More
Shelf Life: Our Collections and the Passage of Time
Like a lot of other people, I enjoyed Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World,” a young woman’s coming-of-age story that’s also a spiky romantic comedy of sorts. But the reason I can’t stop thinking about this movie (which I can’t discuss further without risking spoilers, so be warned) has to do with its […]
Know More
After Pak and Beeple, What’s Next for NFT Collectors? Art Made With a Paintbrush
Felix Xu started his NFT art collection by purchasing a Chromie Squiggle, generated by an algorithm. Today, Xu, a 29-year-old Chinese tech executive, has more than 3,000 blockchain-based collectibles. But there is a hole burning in his crypto wallet that he would like to fill with real paintings. His budget stretches toward $500,000 and he […]
Know More
A Sherlock Holmes Mystery at the Grolier Club
This has the makings of a detective story with hints of history: Why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sign a pirate edition of “The Sign of the Four,” the second of the four Sherlock Holmes novels? Conan Doyle hated pirate editions. He was as famous for denouncing pirate publishers as they were infamous for grinding […]
Know More