One
of the recent highlights in the art industry raised the eyebrows even of all-seen-and-everywhere-been
experts when The Scream, a rare version of Edvard Munch's 1895 painting,
was sold at Sotheby’s for the record $119.9m (£74m) after just 12
minutes of bidding and paid by an anonymous telephone bidder (The Scream).
And you can easily spend hours debating whether it was worth any penny, or rather cent, paid for it.
Quite opposite story featured in today's Evening Standard was about a couple, Mercedes and Ian Stoutzker, who announced that they are giving works from their art collection now worth a fortune to the Tate (Couple hands over nine masterpieces to Tate).
Mercedes and Ian began their collection half a century ago on a limited budget though Mr. Stoutzker's decision to change his job of a musician to a banker suggests that the budget was not very "limited".
All this made me think that shall I want a masterpiece in my living room tomorrow, I may want to start looking for it today.
Being supported by the design group Navig8, Nancy Victor aims to provide a space for emerging artists to develop outside the limitations of the commercial sector.
The current exhibition stages the works of Lesley Hilling's who "collages new forms out of salvaged wood - old pianos, driftwood, floorboards and furniture are jigsawed and layered with an obsessive joinery" creating something new from objects that once had a different lift.
And special thanks to Rachael Hill for saving me from totally embarrassing myself by asking if she was the "Nancy" by giving her card and who kindly let me photograph.
vasha Tasha
p.s. I would invest in the 'donkey' though suspect that it may only bring lots of excitement to my year-and-a-half old but hardly any cash in future should I decide to sell.
