At the end of each week, Whitewall is here to help sift through the news so you don't have to. After the jump, find what's worth reading from this week's news.
1. Gallery owner Yvon Lambert will close his gallery in London at the end of this month, leaving the gallery with spaces in New York and Paris.
2. As the value of the pound plummets, Paris steps up to take London’s place as Europe’s center of the art market.
3. The March 17th Christie’s charity auction held in Paris for cancer organization, AVEC, managed to raise more money than expected. Although there were no minimum prices set, the auction brought in 4.6 million euros, coming in well above the expected 3 million.
4. After the cancellation of the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, the postponement of Art Moscow a month later, and with the Moscow Biennale still looking for sponsors, the contemporary art scene in Russia’s capital seems to be losing steam.
5. Philanthropist Leonore Annenberg passed away on the morning of March 12th. When Mr. Annenberg died in 2002, their art collection, worth over a billion dollars, was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
6. New York State Legislature introduced a bill this week that would make it illegal for museums to de-accession artworks in order to cover basic museum costs. This comes after outrage in response to Brandeis’ revelation that they would be shutting down the Rose Art Museum and selling the collection.
7. Jerry Saltz’s brutal review of Lisa Yuskavage’s current show at David Zwirner in this week’s New York magazine reflects a sentiment commonly held among many art critics. What sold well in the art boom now feels “suddenly dated.”
8. Forbes.com in an article this week entitled “Bailout Billionaires” mentions the names of some major collectors and patrons of art, like Eli Broad. As these supporters suffer, so do the arts institutions.
9. Chris Burden’s show at Gagosian’s Beverly Hills branch, scheduled to open early this month, has been indefinitely postponed. It seems even the art world couldn’t stay clear of R. Allen Stanford’s $8 billion Ponzi scheme.
