Things are looking up!

Canadian collectors have stepped up and bought David Altmejd’s installation from Venice for the Art Gallery of Ontario. Toronto collectors George Hartman and Arlene Goldman purchased the multifacted mirrored installation on the AGO’s behalf, where it will be installed at the centre of the newly Gehry-renovated contemporary galleries.

David Altmejd, The Index (detail) 2007. Image: andrearosengallery.com

Read the full article in the Globe and Mail HERE.

While the worldwide hype around contemporary art in the past few years has led to the increased power of commercial galleries - one hears of Chelsea gallerists deliberately withholding work from not-illustrious-enough collectors - it has also led to the increased power of the buyer. Charles Saatchi has set the standard, and with more collectors opening their own museums, attracting media attention and publishing catalogues before selling work at auction, sales results for new work by young artists have gone through the roof.

This trend may be nearing its end - see Eli Broad’s comments below - but in the meantime, many collectors have become more knowledgable and are consequently working directly with artists, nurturing often temporary projects in the style of public art organizations like Artangel in the UK and New York’s Creative Time, and often installing them off the beaten art-world track.

Mike Nelson’s upcoming work for Creative Time, A Psychic Vacuum. Image: creativetime.org

Canada has yet to embrace this trend, but Francesca von Habsburg, daughter of the legendary late art collector Baron Hans Heinrich , is something of a pioneer. She has erected a pavilion on the island of Lopud, off the Dalmatian Coast, which is a collaboration between Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (who made the huge amber sun in London’s Tate Modern in DATE) and architect David Adjaye (See VoCA below).

Read about the commission HERE

Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project, Tate Modern, 2003. Image: londonphotos.org

Read the article on on Bold Commissions HERE.

Dealer extraordinaire Larry Gagosian, meanwhile, contrary to what you might expect, is averse to one-off sales, preferring to work over the long term with collectors.

“Mr Gagosian is a master not just at selling, but, even more importantly, at selling to the right collector at the right price; for it is not just the deal that is at stake but the global market perception of that artist. For this reason Mr Gagosian avoids what he calls “impatient money”, which sees art only as a quick investment. It is this ability to understand art as a matter of love as well as money that has given Mr Gagosian so much power—not just to make himself a fortune but to shape the taste of a generation.”

Read the full article on Mr. Gagosian HERE.