Domingo Zapata

Domingo Zapata’s Best-Known Work May Be Himself - NYTimes.com: "During Art Basel Miami Beach in December, for example, Mr. Zapata held a party at the SLS Hotel. He invited more than 2,000 guests, including Lance Bass (’N Sync) and Jill Zarin (“The Real Housewives of New York City”), and sold his fiberglass tiger sculptures to the former football player Jeremy Shockey and other art-struck buyers for upward of $100,000 each. A media release sent out on his behalf proclaimed it “the biggest and hottest party of Art Basel2012.” Yet, for all his P.R. efforts, Mr. Zapata has not exactly been embraced by the serious New York art world.“I don’t know who he is,” said Zach Feuer, the Chelsea gallery owner known for cultivating young artists, when asked about Mr. Zapata’s work. That reaction was echoed by other gallerists along the Chelsea art corridor. . . ."

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Bakehouse Art Complex, Arlys Raymond

Bakehouse Art Complex executive director to retire - Visual Arts - MiamiHerald.com: "Arlys W. Raymond has been with the 26-year-old organization, which is located at 561 NW 32nd St., Miami, since 2007. In a press release, she was credited with overseeing almost $1 million in capital improvements to the facility, which includes 70 studios and other spaces . . . "

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Technology Transforming Museums

‘Tidal Wave of Technology’ Is Transforming Museums - UnBeige: " . . . “Technology provides the context for artworks,” Barton added, then cited the Cleveland Museum of Art, another client. In its Gallery One, visitors can turn tapestries into comic books or film trailers. They can also interact with touchscreens, making faces to express their emotions. The touchscreen then displays the museum’s artworks that match their mood. Technology also plays a role in curation, digitization, and data analysis at museums worldwide, explained Chan “Building digital from the ground up” is a key objective of Cooper-Hewitt’s re:Design campaign. The museum analyzed the colors in its collection, which he said “creates new forms of curation.” They’ve also been incorporating 3-D scanning and printing techniques. As museums take the plunge with high-tech tools, they need to strike the proper balance, panelists observed. As Robbins said, “We need to figure out why visitors are drawn to museum spaces, whether it’s more the art or being social.” Added Chan, “The challenge is to take technology in museums to the places where it makes the most sense.”

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Amazon, Fine Art, Online Sales

from the New York Times--

 . . . Amazon said in an e-mail that the company had no comment about plans for an art venture, first reported by The Art Newspaper. . . . unclear whether the company will focus on lower-end sales of prints and photographs or also try to move into the market for higher priced one-of-a-kind works like paintings and sculpture. The growth of online sales has been fueled primarily by three factors: a broadening base of art collectors around the world; a much greater willingness by those people, both veteran collectors and newcomers, to trust online transactions and buy works after seeing only pictures of them; and a huge amount of inventory in the storehouses of galleries, as a growing number of art fairs and other exhibitions leads to more artists making ever more work. A survey of more than 200 collectors by the international insurance company Hiscox, released in April, found that almost two-thirds had bought art online, without first seeing it in person, and that one-quarter of the collectors surveyed had spent $75,000 or more on works from online sellers or those they had seen only in JPEGs sent by galleries. . . . "

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South Beach Through Paint, Mosaics And Mirrors

"TIMESCAPES" Captures The Vibrancy Of South Beach Through Paint, Mosaics And Mirrors - WSJ.com: "Timescapes draws the eye of the viewer through intricate glasswork and a vibrant color palette. "My goal was to offer our guests a sensory experience through mixed mediums inspired by the natural oceanfront landscape," said Cricket Taplin, who, with her husband Marty Taplin, owns the Sagamore Hotel. "The artwork in the lower flights offers a completely different experience -- it's more symmetrical, more organized. As guests climb the stairwell, the energy intensifies resulting in a more abstract yet rhythmic dialogue. The fifth and final flight is climatic -- it's a complete explosion of color, reflections and textures that dance in harmony with each other and with the oceanfront.""
photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnfull/20130416/DC95492

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Artist as Jeweler, Bass Museum Miami Beach

‘Artist as Jeweler’ exhibition at Bass Museum on Miami Beach reveals unknown skills of well-known artists - Visual Arts - MiamiHerald.com: " . . . The exhibit also reveals significant trends in Modern and contemporary art and highlights the remarkable skills and art-making of some of the world’s best-known names. Part of the reason the Bass pulled this off is French curator Diane Venet’s unique, personal approach. After her own sculptor husband Bernar Venet proposed to her with a silver ring he made impromptu on her finger, she started to ask his artist friends if they had made jewelry not for sale or exhibition, but for family and friends. She then commissioned pieces from the likes of Frank Stella, Kader Attia and other artists whom she thought would not cheapen the process and would take the creation as serious as their art. Eventually she would collect items from artists no longer alive and from across the globe, but pieces that remained true to the initial venture. . . ."

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