March 13 | Culture, the engine of social wellbeing

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In the news, the TEFAF announces a new report on sales online, the Andy Warhol Museum has a new Director, and it is confirmed, where culture flourishes, wellbeing follows...

Arts project in New York examines the wellbeing of “neighborhood cultural ecosystem”

The Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) aims to move “beyond GDP”, in an attempt to stress the significant impact cultural resources have on social wellbeing. SIAP highlights the fact that social and economic value are inequitable. Our human capacity to live a good life, in spite of financial restrictions, provides the conceptual backbone to the study. The project focuses on neighborhoods, in their intrinsic relationship with cultural practices and the arts, in an attempt to identify those resources that are intrinsic to social wellbeing. Thus far, the study has found that those low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in New York with many cultural resources are generally healthier, better-educated, and safer overall than those with fewer creative resources. Part of an international movement, to go beyond hailing economic productivity as the only means measure in determining the welfare of a society, the project aims to create a model based on human development and social justice. More info available here.


 

Tefaf Spring to debut economist’s online art market report in New York

This May, the inaugural edition of Tefaf Spring in New York will see economist Rachel Pownall present a standalone report focusing on online sales. Whilst compiling data for the Tefaf's report, Pownall made the observation that online sales were having a significant impact on the art market. Announced last Friday at Tefaf's annual symposium in Maastricht, the report will explore the exponential growth of the online market; growth concentrated at the lower end of sales. Her most recent survey revealed that 67% of art and antique dealers expected their online third-party sales to increase.

This will be the first year Pownall has authored the report, taking over from Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics after 8 years in the role. McAndrew will present her first report for Art Basel, in Hong Kong next week. More via The Art Newspaper.

Rachel Pownall © 2017 UM Experts


 

New Director at the Warhol museum: Patrick Moore

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has officially appointed Patrick Moore as its new director of development. After Eric Shiner stepped down unexpectedly last summer to join Sotheby’s as senior vice president in its fine art division, Moore took to the helm, serving as the interim director. Recently, Moore initiated a project to digitize Andy Warhol’s entire body of film works. A project that looks to secure the museum’s ties to New York’s MoMA.

In other Warhol Museum news, Firelei Báez’s solo show “Bloodlines” recently opened with raving reviews. Details via ArtForum.


 

Simon Wachsmuth joins Zilberman Gallery

The artist, who opened “Some Descriptive Acts” most recently at the Zilberman Gallery on March 4, will now be represented by the gallery. The exhibition runs through April 20.

Wachsmuth (Hamburg, b.1964) lives and works in Berlin and Vienna. Last year, he participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions at prestigious institutions including Steirischer Herbst/Kunsthaus Graz (2016), Suzhou Museum of Art (China, 2016), and Neues Museum Nürnberg (2016).

“Qing”, 2016 © Video still- Simon Wachsmuth Courtesy of Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul/Berlin


 

Bill Viola’s ‘homecoming’ exhibition opens in Florence, Italy

In the heartland of those Renaissance masters who deeply inspired his work, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is set to introduce the Florentine public to Bill Viola, four decades after he first worked in the Tuscan capital.

The exhibition "Electronic Renaissance", co-curated by Kira Perov, Viola's wife and career-long collaborator, opened last Friday, and runs through July 23. This comprehensive exhibition will occupy both the Piano Nobile and the Strozzina. Drawing on Viola’s artistic vocabulary and style, the exhibition seeks to interrogate and illuminate the dialogue between Viola’s work and the great masterpieces of the past. The exhibition also includes photos and memorabilia from the two years Viola spent working as a video producer with an avant garde art group in Florence in the mid-1970s. As Strozzi director Arturo Galansino said in a statement this will be “the first time, his installations have been put together with the masterpieces that inspired them."

“Emergence”, 2002 © Bill Viola