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A few days ago Sotheby’s auction house announced that on 1st July, during the “Contemporary Art Evening Sale” that will be held at the London venue in New Bond Street, a very interesting work will be auctioned, a work that is interesting not only for economic-artistic reasons, but also because it has been for years a masterpiece in the hands of the star system world.

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“Photographs”,  held on 17th May 2008 by Phillips de Pury & Co. London auction house, realized takings equal to 1,325,835 pounds. An interesting sale offering some of the most important names of historical and contemporary photography: Man Ray, Henri-Cartier Bresson, Irving Penn, but also Helmut Newton, David LaChapelle, Cindy Sherman and Andres Serrano.

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Recently Italy has been proving to be a rather “sanctimonious” country towards contemporary art. In short, we are before a nation that is shocked ridiculously by old artistic ideas. For instance, the case of the crucifixion theme: inventing a variation on the theme of the Christ’s death is sure to cause a polemic. History is full of this type of examples.

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Paduan artist Maurizio Cattelan, since the beginning of his howling rise in the contemporary art system, has always managed to make a strong impression, causing the printed media and websites of every type to talk about him constantly. An emblematic case occurred on 6th May 2004, when the city of Milan woke up bewildered to one of his works installed in Piazza XXIV Maggio. Three plastic manikins, representing children hanging from the branch of a large oak tree, provoked a great emotional impact and a huge psychological stir.

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A few months ago our Magazine had already announced the auctioning of Andrè Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism at Sotheby’s auction house in Paris.
At long last, the sale took place on 21st May achieving great results. Indeed, the auction dedicated to books, manuscripts and photographs, which included some of Andrè Breton’s works, fetched 6,052,780 euros. An extraordinary sale whose absolute protagonists were the French’s poets manuscripts, presented for the first time on the art market and belonging to a collection of the writer’s first wife, Simone Collinet.

The ‘Ancient Paintings and Drawings’ exhibition held on 28th Nay 2008 at Christie’s auction house Milan, totaled 3.756.239 euros, with 87% of sales. For the first time, unpublished work by Giacomo Ceruti, also known as Pitocchetto, was presented.

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On 27th May, Sotheby’s Milan housed “Modern and Contemporary Art”, a very interesting auction that totalled 12,368,680 euros. Of the 345 lots presented to the public in the saleroom, during the three rounds, the works of some great artists stood out, pieces that have marked the evolution of the history of Italian art, such as “Achrome” by Piero Manzoni (estimate 500-700 thousand euros, sold for 800 thousand euros, rights excluded) or a beautiful painting executed by Giuseppe Santomaso in 1959, which from a pre-sale estimate included between 120 and 180 thousand euros, achieved 110,000 euros (rights excluded), while another work from 1978, valued at 120-180 thousand euros, sold for 210,000 (rights excluded).

In the last days, it has been reported that the Russian government has been accused of having censuring conducts towards art. The case was raised after the repeated accusations made against the editor of the Andrei Sakharov Museum, who may even risk going to prison due to his exhibition “Forbidden Art 2006”.
On May 14th , the association Human Rights Watch denounced what is defined “an action of persecution” towards Yuri Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum. The cause of the Russian government’s fierceness against the museum director would be determined by the exhibition planned by the latter, a production called “Forbidden Art 2006”, which opened its doors in Moscow in March 2007.