Art of Obama

Art of Obama.com has an ever growing collection of pro Obama artwork online. You can submit your own Obamart by emailing it to contact@artofobama.com with all the appropriate details.

Congrats!

To the capital region's Michael Janis, who has just been selected as the Outstanding Emerging Glass Artist 2008-2009 - from the Florida Glass Art Alliance.

Janis was nominated by Myrna and Sheldon Palley (uber glass collectors whose glass collection makes up Miami's Lowe Art Museum via the just opened Palley Pavillion).

For years I've been telling you: buy Michael Janis now!

Congrats Mike!

Ronaldus Magnus

Nearly 38 million Americans watched inauguration coverage of President Barack Obama on Tuesday, the most popular inauguration day on television since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981.

Nielsen Media Research said Reagan's 41.8 million remains the record.

Details from the HuffPost here.

Also in the HuffPost is this story about MSNBC's poor ratings. I can understand that; during the election year, I was an avid MSNBC watcher.

But somehow now that the election is over, and we're all trying real hard to support the new president, and unity is the word in the air, MSNBC (especially the once fun Keith Olbermann, whose feud with Bill O'Reilly has gone from funny to stupid) seems boring, repetitive and divisive, and more and more a self-licking ice cream that is more and more the exaggerated ying to the FoxNews' yang.

So part of my "change" resolution for 2009 is to stop paying attention to those from the extreme right and the nutty left who profit by feeding us division as the only solution.

And to create more art.

Flying Pigs

The WaPo on flying pigs; read it here.

Christie's woes

“We have begun to implement a companywide reorganization, which includes significant staff reductions, not renewing many consultants’ contracts and the continuation of other cost-reduction initiatives, that will ensure we remain competitive and profitable in 2009,” Christie’s said in a statement on Monday, without saying how many positions might be cut or giving any further details.

In the last months, auction prices dropped together with financial markets, ending a decade-long boom in the art market that was buoyed by record bonuses paid to financial executives.

Read the NYT article here.

The Latest from Pink Line Project

Art Market

...we look at the effect the credit crunch is having on the art world as the new year begins. In the art market, there have been a few early victims of the crisis, including the 18 employees sacked by PaceWildenstein in New York, and the 17 “fabricators” of pill cabinets, butterfly paintings and pickled animals axed by Damien Hirst. “I want to make sure that we are the best swimmers on the block. The luxury of carrying under-performing employees is now a thing of the past,” warned Mr Gagosian, in a similar vein, in the same memo to his staff.

In Miami, the trendy French dealer Emmanuel Perrotin has shuttered his gallery, and now will only reopen it for Art Basel Miami Beach next December. Sotheby’s is also trimming its workforce, and has announced it has abandoned guarantees for the foreseeable future. The firm, and its arch-rival Christie’s, were badly hit by the collapse in art prices during New York’s sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art in November, which garnered only half the expected totals. Those sales were prepared before the autumn, when art prices were still riding high. Some works sold in November for half their low estimates, and up to 75% of the works in some sales were bought in.

Read Georgina Adam at the Art Newspaper here.