"Escape Hotel Stories" by Francisca Matteoli

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
A few days ago I've been invited to a party hosted by Assouline, the famous publisher. It wasn't exactly a party but rather a cocktail in the honor of Francisca Matteoli whose the new book is entitled "Escape Hotel Stories".

Chilean-born with Scottish origins on the mother side, Francisca, spent her childhood in South America. She's now living in Paris after spending many years in Brazil. From all of those trips, she retained a deep love and admiration for Nature, the beauty of landscapes, the serenity and the inspiration she could find... She wrote many travel essays and books. Her last travel book is based on some of the world's most stunning hotels and follow in the footsteps of influential writers and inspirational artists who took refuge in many different places equally serene and inspiring. She brings us into her own world and reveals us all her favorite places where each time a hotel developed a unique relationship with its surrounding universe.

Credit: Assouline
To buy this wonderful book: 
http://www.assouline.com/9781614280477.html

INterview with Michaela Gleave

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Michaela is a young Australian-born artist (1980) whose work questions the passage of time and the relationship to the nature...

1 – Dear Michaela, what made you decide to become an artist? Who are those who influenced you?

« The first job I remember wanting to have as a child was to draw pictures of animals, but growing up in remote and regional Australia being an artist wasn’t something I ever thought of as a possibility.  I didn’t see any contemporary art until I was 18 and spent a gap year in Europe, and experiencing installation art for the first time was tremendously exciting.  I remember a work at the Tate St Ives that included a sea of rotting carrots, and one in Paris which was a giant blanket cubby that had to crawled through on hands and knees.  I was also lucky enough to stumble across the Venice Biennale when travelling through Italy and saw the work of Ann Veronica Janssens.  She had filled the Belgian Pavilion with cloud, completely arresting the viewer’s experience of time and space.  The use of the viewer as a physical agent in these and other works, and the dissolution of the traditional gap between audience and object dramatically changed my perception of what art was and the possibilities available to an artist. »

2 – Some of your works question the passage of time and our relationship with the nature. Environmental problems are important to you?

« I think time is the ultimate sculptural material, virtually impossible to manipulate in any real sense, so the suggestion I saw in Jansenns’ work that this might be possible through art was an important formative moment for me.  Time is a crucial element in my works and generally I have very little desire to make things which will last, due mostly I think to the futility of attempting to do so in the face of infinite time and space.  Creating things which unfold in real time, unmediated experiences of an actual event occurring before the viewer, has always been a key focus of my practice. I aim through my work to connect the viewer to things that are larger than themselves and I’m not interested particularly in making work about people, rather in exploring that which exists just beyond the realm of human perception as a means of questioning how it is that we see, interpret and engage with the world around us.  On a personal level I have a deep love for the natural environment – the beauty inherent in nature far outstrips anything that can be created – but I see the role of the artist as one of asking questions, not dictating answers.....

READ MORE: 
http://www.hauteliving.com/2012/05/haute-art-exclusive-interview-with-australian-artist-michaela-gleave/

‘The Scream’ Is Auctioned for a Record $119.9 Million

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
wwooowww One thing's certain is that the art market is doing well. Here is a great article wrote by Carol Vogel about the new record for a work of art in an auction house:

"It took 12 nail-biting minutes and five eager bidders for Edvard Munch's famed 1895 pastel of “The Scream” to sell for $119.9 million, becoming the world’s most expensive work of art ever to sell at auction. Bidders could be heard speaking Chinese and English (and, some said, Norwegian), but the mystery winner bid over the phone, through Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department. Gasps could be heard as the bidding climbed higher and higher, until there was a pause at $99 million, prompting Tobias Meyer, the evening’s auctioneer, to smile and say, “I have all the time in the world.” When $100 million was bid, the audience began to applaud.

The price eclipsed the previous record, made two years ago at Christie’s in New York when Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” brought $106.5 million. Munch made four versions of “The Scream.” Three are now in Norwegian museums; the one that sold on Wednesday, a pastel on board from 1895, was the only one still in private hands. It was sold by Petter Olsen, a Norwegian businessman and shipping heir whose father was a friend, neighbor and patron of the artist. The image has been reproduced endlessly in popular culture in recent decades, becoming a universal symbol of angst and existential dread and nearly as famous as the Mona Lisa....."

READ MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/arts/design/the-scream-sells-for-nearly-120-million-at-sothebys-auction.html?_r=1&hpw
ALSO:
http://www.hauteliving.com/2012/05/haute-art-“the-scream”-by-edvard-munch-is-a-new-record-for-sotheby’s/