hong kong art fair: a feint whiff (of business and ai weiwei)

Judd Tully provided excellent HK art fair coverage for artinfo.com. He noted that In the first few hours of the preview, one dealer sold to a European collector she already knew. Another gallery that featured a Chinese star “fielded significant interest” at $2 million and then sold a print for $15,000. A New York gallery sold Asian art to a US museum and NY collector, well worth the trip, I am sure. But there was an actual sale to an actual Chinese: a watercolor for $5,000. So the good news is that there truly is a burgeoning Asian art scene…if your goods are $5,000 or less. In the coming years though, it seems all but certain the machine will gear up to join the international parade assimilating wave after wave of art. I was surprised Judd didn’t mention Ai Weiwei which must have been like a stale cloud hanging over the fair; or maybe, with business as usual there was nothing more than a feint whiff.

Good Housekeeping

I went to a dinner tonight for The G.R.E.A.T. initiative: Gender rights and equality action trust. In the news recently Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as the chief of the International Monetary Fund after allegedly chasing down a house keeper in a hotel suite, forcibly coercing her into blowing him then having blood letting anal sex. On the other hand, an example of the way an enlightened gentleman treats his housekeeper, Arnold Schwarzenegger had consensual sex with his overweight, aged, Hispanic cleaning lady for years and years, who wore his wife’s clothes and jewelry during the act in the martial bed and reared a child by him. They all cohabited for ages sort of living like Bin Laden and his wives but Arnie’s wife had no idea. Chivalry lives.

garoffice

I decided to convert a garage in my house into an office emulating a Hirst vitrine by erecting a glass wall to view a car like sculpture, and worked with Ab Rogers to carry it out. When we drive we can’t see the design and when we park, we leave them. The cars ended up swallowing more and more space until now the snout of one is lodged under my desk. I have the lungs of a mechanic but one that doesn’t understand motors: once the key turns I draw a blank. With a car habit, a mechanic is both therapist and medicinal-in our case its been a bit of role reversal-I now teach about vehicle design, having commissioned and lectured on cars and he's begun making conceptual art after hanging around for so much and for so long.

Intelligence Spared

I recently participated in a debate at Saatchi organized by the group Intelligence Squared as a last minute fill in when Matthew Collings double booked. Though I found the premise jingoistic and ridiculous (“The best, most interesting art today is from Asia”) it all went rather well and I was asked to join for another on occasion of the upcoming Hong Kong International Art Fair. Just as time was drawing near and with no indication from the organizers, I coincidentally bumped into one of the principals who stated, oh you never confirmed. Whenever I am asked to do anything of the sort I am always so surprised and flattered by the offer I’ve yet to decline; so, that I didn’t confirm was disingenuous at best. Having lunch with a writer friend the other day, I mentioned my dejection at having been unceremoniously dumped from what I thought would be my virgin voyage to the land of unimaginable opportunity. Funny he said, as he was invited on a panel that he was eagerly anticipating. Funnier, when he described the topic of the discussion, he had in fact been chosen to replace me. Ha ha.

Pee & Poo

Our two "toy" poodles are house trained. They only go in the house. Last night I went cascading across the floor like dancing on ice after sliding in shit in my foyer. The result resembled a Richter abstraction. They say Pollack was inspired peeing on a rock-does Richter have any dogs?

olympic waterboarding

showing a picture of osama with a hole in his head “is not who we are", says obama. but waterboarding has become a national sport.

ps: i asked my 11 year old how to spell osama and he said write obama and change the b to and s.

starving collectors.

just travelled back from berlin gallery weekend; the dealers and all the collectors were seated in the rear of the plane, and two of the duos of first-namer artist celebs, gilbert & george and tim & sue, were sat in business. today, it’s starving collectors (and dealers), and the prosperous artrepreneurs throwing them crumbs…