Sam Leach scores Archibald/Wynne double

26Mar2010

Adelaide-born, Melbourne-based artist Sam Leach has become only the third artist to win both the Archibald and Wynne Prizes in the same year.  The previous artists to achieve this feat were Sir William Dobell in 1948 and Brett Whiteley (who also won the Sulman) in 1978.  Leach's diminutive oil and resin on wood portrait of comedian-singer Tim Minchin won the $50,000 Archibald Prize, while his Proposal for landscape cosmos took out the $25,000 Wynne.

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Cultural buzz in Dubai outweighs sales success

22Mar2010

"100% Increase in Sales" is the headline in the local press reporting on Art Dubai.  However, this economic buzz is not as strong as the cultural buzz that is vibrating through the exhibition halls.  The place is swarming with artists, curators and educators from around the world.  The energy is not around who is buying the artwork but who is reacting to it and how.

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Bulletin from Dubai

19Mar2010

A set of three photographs entitled Maria by Iranian artist Newsha Tavakolian depict an Iranian man who has had a sex change operation to become a woman. It was these photographs that caused the greatest stir when the exhibition Iran Inside Out, now showing in Dubai, was exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York.  Whilst homosexuality is a crime and is forbidden in many Islamic countries, including Iran, sex change operations are condoned by Shi'a thinkers since it allows homosexual men and women to change their genders and ent

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On the Merry-go-Round at the Fairs in New York

6Mar2010

Mixed reports are coming out of New York as the Armory Show and its 11 satellite fairs get under way this weekend.  Several heavy-weight galleries, such as Gagosian and Barbara Gladstone, have declined to attend for a second year running.  But this has given smaller galleries the opportunity to make the move into the main arena.  Apparently many significant American and European collectors and glitterati have been sighted but gallery owners are mixed in their reports of sales performance to date. 

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