Positive debut for Art Basel Miami Beach
The Art Basel Miami Beach Fair opened its 2019 edition on December 5th, with 269 galleries, half of which are from both Americas. Thanks to its collaboration with the town hall, the event now attracts a more local audience. The beginning was promising: on Thursday, the Lelong Gallery had already sold a small size of Antoni Tàpies, a painting by Jannis Kounellis ($ 150,000), pieces by Leonardo Drew ($ 80,000) and Samuel Levi Jones. The mega-galleries made the most significant transactions: Pace sold two pieces of Robert Rauschenberg for nearly $ 1 million, while Zwirner broke away from the paintings of Bridget Riley and Chris Ofili, who made up 1.5 million and 1.1 million respectively.
Discovery of an exceptional prehistoric statuette
Nicknamed the "Lady of Renancourt", a prehistoric statuette 4 centimeters high was discovered in Amiens during excavations conducted by the National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap). Very rare, this statuette carved in chalk represents a steatopyge Venus (particularly marked posterior), similar to others of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.
Death of militant artist Silvianna Goldsmith
Filmmaker and performer Silvianna Goldsmith died last Saturday at age 90 in New York City. She was at the begin with Carolee Schneemann, Nancy Spero, and Maria Lassnig of the Women Artists in Revolution collective - a branch of the Art Workers Coalition that challenged the under-representation of women at the Whitney Biennial. His films of the 1970s speak of eroticism and violence, evoke the Greek goddess Persephone, female orgasm, and gender inequalities ( Orpheus Underground , 1975). She was also a pioneer of eco-feminism, through her street performances around environmental degradation ( Mother Earth Is Poisoned , 1970). seen in Beaux-Arts.
