Click HERE for a questionnaire with Vancouver artist Jeff Wall in this month’s issue of Frieze magazine.

“I get so much from looking at great works, but some days – or even some months – I get more from not looking at them. You experience the art also by being away from it and not seeing it.” – Jeff Wall

Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room, 1978. Image: tate.org.uk

Also, HERE in Art + Auction, Souren Melikian writes on the shifting perceptions in the Old Masters market, where mediocre works are achieving great prices, thanks to scarcity of the real gems.

Art is all about perception. The sales of Old Masters at Christie’s and Sotheby’s New York in January offered a fascinating illustration of how shifts in perception can influence prices. As greater works become rarer, substitutes of lesser quality are being upgraded in status.

Eugene Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1827. Image: evergreen.loyola.edu