What a $181 Million Pollock Doesn’t Say

$181.2 million for a Jackson Pollock? Astronomical numbers dominated the headlines during this spring’s marquee auctions. But beneath the record-breaking sales is a more complicated story: The art market is not healthy, gallerist Marc Straus writes today. Read on for his take on what the less glitzy lots reveal about the market, and the smaller galleries suffocating while the trophy sales suck up oxygen. 

Here’s a more cheerful story — a new joint project between Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze and Miotto Mosaic Art Studios adorning Brooklyn’s Borough Hall Station. Part mosaic and part collage, it is playful, joyful, and a little bizarre (just how I like it), capturing aliens, birds, and even leopard-headed humans. I think the title of the work doubles as a blessing for the week: “May Your Road Be Light and Fun.”

After spring’s marquee auctions, we are led to believe that everything in our important art universe is doing just fine. It isn’t. The Pollock sucks up the oxygen. It is the lead story — important, yes, but also misleading. $181.2 million for a great Pollock, wisely held back until the market could carry it. Not just the Pollock, but a $107.6 million Brancusi. Much of Christie’s evening sale went smoothly, exuberant and beautifully orchestrated. But not so fast. For in this $1.1 billion evening sale, the number of artworks that hammered below low estimate or went unsold was substantial, roughly 30%, including big-ticket items like Agnes Gund’s Twombly. Plus, many had third-party guarantees, meaning they would not be bought in. | Marc J. Straus

Open Call: The 7th VH AWARD for Media Artists Engaged with the Context of AsiaSupporting media artists with production grants, global exhibitions, and an expanded online residency with Ars Electronica.

What are the bodily characteristics that make a city? That is what I was thinking about while walking through the Bronx Documentary Center’s exhibition Martha Cooper: Streetwise. Martha Cooper is perhaps best known for documenting New York City’s graffiti and breaking culture in the early 1980s, though this exhibition offers a survey of her career from the late 1970s through 2010s in New York, Baltimore, Tokyo, and the South African Township of Soweto. Still, I found myself drawn to Cooper’s images of the city, because they inspired me to think deeply on the physical experience of living here. | Imani Williford

In our media-saturated world, in which everything has been seen and done, leaving us in a perpetual déjà vu state of witty citations, exhumed tropes, or dazzling fabrications, it’s rare to be surprised by an artist’s debut exhibition. There are many reasons why I was instantly taken by the acrylic paintings in Nicola Florimbi’s Rooms at Corbett vs. Dempsey. | John Yau

Independent, critical reporting is increasingly hard to come by. But you can ensure it doesn’t disappear. 

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Rachelle Mozman Solano films, cuts paper, and paints in the solitude of her Brooklyn studio of over two decades.

David Pennington on “Ansel Adams Trust Decries Dealer’s Sale of Photo Colorized Using AI”

Diné weaver and fiber artist Roy Kady sat down for a video interview wearing a shirt that read “Sheep is life.” Kady is a shepherd and an artist, roles he sees as definitively intertwined. “I am first a shepherd, then art comes with it,” he said. Kady’s decades-long career has been one of constant learning, and in recent years, teaching. He shares weaving techniques and Diné stories that he says are too often missing from younger generations. Kady spoke to Hyperallergic about Diné conceptions of gender, apprenticeship in his small Arizona town, and being accepted as a gay man in his community. | Elaine Velie