October 6 | Contemporary Arts Society and Frieze unite to support British museums

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In an attempt to address the astronomical prices prices paid for contemporary art in the UK — which deter museum directors across the nation from purchasing new works — Frieze London and the Contemporary Arts Society (CAS) have joined forces to create a new acquisition fund which will help support museums in Britain.

According to a report published earlier this year by Arts Council England and the New Local Government Network, investment in arts and culture has fallen by £236 million since 2010, something that the fund set up by Frieze and CAS seeks to combat. This year's inaugural fund of £50,000 has been awarded to the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, which purchased two works at Frieze London: Dispossession(2013), a video installation by the French artist Kader Attia, and the film Peripeteia (2012) by the British artist John Akomfrah. More info on Financial Times.

London’s Tate announced that it has acquired 10 works from Frieze London as part of the Frieze Tate Fund initiative, which this year was £150,000. Tate used the money to acquire six works by Turkish artist Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin from Rampa, Istanbul; three works by Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes from Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo; and one work by Malaysian artist Phillip Lai from Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London. More on Blouin Art Info.

Due to the sharp rise in national security costs following last year's terrorist attacks in Paris, France’s Minister of Culture and Communication Audrey Azoulay has said she will be increasing funding for French museums to almost €2.9 billion in 2017, the largest amount of government money allocated to the arts in the country’s history. France’s parallel drop in tourism — there were one million fewer visitors to Paris from January to June this year than there were for the same period in 2015 — is another factor in Azoulay’s decision. Under next year’s funding program, acquisitions budgets for national and regional museums will be increased by 12%, and museum budgets will see an overall increase of 5%. More details via Arforum.

After a relatively successful auction in London last night, Phillip’s chief executive Ed Dolman has announced that the auction house will host its first ever contemporary art and design sale in Hong Kong on November 27. Jonathan Crockett, who was appointed as the company’s head of 20th-century and contemporary art last March, said that due to the fact that Asian collectors are largely buying Western art, “most of the [Hong Kong] sale is Western, although we expect more Asian lots to be consigned.” At Phillip’s London auction, the total came in at £15 million or £17.9 million including fees, with 94% sold by value. The top lot in was Warhol’s 20 Pink Mao’s (1979), which sold for £4.1 million. The Art Newspaper has more.