Archinect - News

Sotheby's purchases Marcel Breuer's Brutalist Whitney for a rumored $100 million

2023-06-01T17:56:00-04:00

Sotheby’s said Thursday that it has purchased the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1966 Brutalist building by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue and will move its headquarters there from York Avenue in 2025. The deal — which Sotheby’s and the Whitney refused to confirm in response to queries from The Times in April — finally resolves the fate of the Breuer building, which has hung in the balance since the Whitney moved down to the meatpacking district in 2015.

The auction house will operate a rotating exhibition space out of the building — in addition to hosting live auctions — beginning in September 2024. There are no plans for the subterranean level restaurant at this time. The Frick Collection, which has been leasing the building since the Met walked away in March of 2020, will officially move back into its $160 million Selldorf Architects-renovated original East 70th Street location in the months prior.

The New York Times reported a source mentioning the deal, which was brokered between the current landlords Whitney Museum and Sotheby's, was worth approximately $100 million. Sotheby's CEO Charles F. Stewart explained to the paper that it was simply a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we couldn’t pass up."

For sale in LA: a building with a Banksy OR a Banksy with a building?

2022-09-05T09:00:00-04:00

In 2010, while in town for the Los Angeles premiere of his documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” the British street artist Banksy left a gift for fans: a mural of a girl on a swing, dangling beneath the five-foot red “A” of the word “PARKING” on a gritty downtown lot. Now that girl — as well as the historic building in the downtown fashion district that serves as her canvas — is for sale to the highest bidder.

The historic 26,000-square-foot Downtown Los Angeles building was purchased for $4 million three years prior to the popular documentary's premiere and underwent a $1.8 million renovation before its then-owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April this year.

Art dealer Jeffrey Deitch says the 12- by 33-foot mural’s intrinsic value merits a different kind of appraisal. (“This is free public art. It is not meant to have a commercial value and be resold. That’s not the intention of the artist.”) The best estimate from the previous owners was reportedly $16 million without the girl, which Sotheby’s placed at a minimum of $10 million standing alone. A resolution will come when the building goes to auction on October 6th.

The Sicilian mansion from Godfather III is up for sale

2022-01-13T19:16:00-05:00

The opulent Sicilian castle featured in the third installment of The Godfather franchise has just gone on the market. For a cool €6m prospective buyers can expect 22 bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a wine cellar, an artist’s studio, a library, a private chapel and 2.1 acres of parkland.

The fate of the sizable art collection located inside the house remains an important (and much more valuable) question as so far only the in situ works that exist in the house have been confirmed included in the sale. The manse was commissioned as a collector’s de facto private museum by a Baron at the end of the 19th century. The collection reportedly includes lots of Byzantine artifacts and several paintings by the Baron’s grandson Paul, who was a post-War artist of some repute within the country.

The 43,000-square-foot Neo-Gothic residence has 22 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a library, small chapel, and wine cellar brought together by a central marble staircase. The property includes a two-acre park and is set amongst a small coastal town overlooking the Ionian Sea.

"It is a property that expresses a strong character and enjoys enormous potential, for its history, its location, its architecture and its spaces," the head of Residential Italy Diletta Giorgolo wrote in an email to Travel...

ONE Sotheby's unveils new digital twin NFT home project

2022-01-07T16:37:00-05:00

Together, ONE Sotheby’s International Realty and Voxel Architects, along with general contractor and NFT collector Gabe Sierra, are introducing the first ever ‘MetaReal’ mansion that includes a real-world home and a virtual counterpart in the metaverse. The virtual home will live within The Sandbox metaverse. The buyer of the NFT asset will also acquire ownership rights of the physical home, set to be completed in Miami in Q4 of 2022. This is the first time something like this has been done.

The company picked the up-and-coming virtual design firm that has rapidly gained a reputation for its metaverse designs hosted by platforms like Decentraland. Under a licensing agreement, the real estate entity leases its name from the -year-old auction house, which itself has dabbled rather extensively in virtual architecture since the trend began to take hold of the art world.

The digital twin created by Voxel will serve as the basis for the physical home, which will be completed by the end of the year. The transaction will be completed using Etherium according to a firm-sponsored Medium post about the project.

Decentraland's Max Stealth Gallery. Image courtesy Voxel Architects. From the recently published article, "Decentraland is playing host to six-figure deals as architects begin to embrace the metaverse"

“In the future, we think it will be commonplace to have a metaverse extension of your home,” virtual realtor Gabe Sierra explained. “As experiences become more and more imme...

Refik Anadol unveils ‘first-of-its-kind’ AI artwork NFTs

2021-09-17T11:37:00-04:00

Refik Anadol Studio has announced details of their Machine Hallucinations -Space: Metaverse NFT Collection, which is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s Hong Kong. To create the NFTs, Anadol has minted a machine’s memories and dreams of space onto the blockchain, manifested through eight unique artworks. The works are set to become the first-ever examples of immersive digital experiences being converted into NFTs.

Image copyright: Refik Anadol Studio for Sotheby’s

The eight works consist of an immersive physical experience, three infinitely generative data paintings, three unique AI data paintings, and a one-of-a-kind robotically-produced AI data sculpture. Following their online auction from Sotheby’s Hong Kong from September 30th to October 4th, the works will be exhibited at the Digital Art Fair in Hong Kong from October 1st to 17th, 2021.

Image copyright: Refik Anadol Studio for Sotheby’s

“Since 2015, I have been speculating the relationship between the human mind, architecture, ...

Paul Rudolph's Walker Guest House in Florida heads to auction

2019-12-04T18:45:00-05:00

The Walker Guest House, completed by Rudolph in 1952, will be part of Sotheby's Important Design auction on December 12, with an estimated value ranging from $700,000 to $1 million. The midcentury structure was previously on the market for a reported $6,795,000, an endeavor that ultimately ended with no sale.

The pavilion-like guesthouse makes use of a square plan, split into four quadrants: one with a living room, another a dining room, a bedroom, and and finally section shared by a kitchen and bathroom. Rudolph incorporated 12 large panels around the perimeter of the structure, three on each of the four sides, allowing the flexibility of privacy and shade coupled with light and a connectedness to the surrounding landscape.

“With all the panels lowered the house is a snug cottage, but when the panels are raised it becomes a large screened pavilion,” Rudolph said about the home. “If you desire to retire from the world you have a cave, but when you feel good there is the joy of an op...

Today Sotheby's unveils its newly expanded and redesigned New York galleries by OMA

2019-05-03T19:15:00-04:00

Today Sotheby's unveils its redesigned and newly-expanded gallery located in their global headquarters in New York. In collaboration with Sotheby's by Shohei Shigematsu and OMA, the redesign features updated exhibition spaces that provide optimal spatial layouts for their vast art collections. Comprised of 40 public galleries and nine private sales salons, the new space has become the premier location for art exhibitions in terms of scale, quality, flexibility, and scope. Able to accommodate a wide range of art at varying scales, the new space increases Sotheby's exhibition size from 67,000 to more than 90,000 square feet, which is an expansion equivalent to two acres.

Sotheby's NY by OMA. Image © Brett Beyer Photography

CEO of Sotheby's Tad Smith shares, "Our ambition was to co...

OMA reorganizes Sotheby’s New York City HQ as a four-story art department store with 40 galleries

2019-02-22T14:23:00-05:00

The art market is rapidly changing, and even the big players aren't immune to the need for adjustment: auction power house Sotheby's today revealed a few conceptual glimpses into a dramatic reorganization and expansion of its NYC headquarters at 1334 York Avenue.

The redesign, led by OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu and Associate Christy Cheng, optimizes the currently inefficient, sprawling distribution of locations of employee, client-serving and back of house spaces throughout the massive building; increasing the available exhibition space from 67,000 to more than 90,000 square feet—the equivalent of two acres.

Aerial sketch. Credit: OMA New York.

"Our conceptual proposal clarifies the overall flow through the building by restacking and consolidating complementary programs while freeing up space for improved connectivity and openness—new retail, gallery and client spaces span the first four floors to better engage clients and visitors," explains the project description.

F1 Lobby. Cr...

Sotheby's in talks with Saudi Prince to build contemporary art program in the desert

2018-12-27T15:47:00-05:00

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has set multiple ambitious agendas for his desert kingdom. Turning it into a major cultural destination may end up being one of the highest-profile. For part of the plan, the Saudi government has turned to Sotheby’s, the biggest U.S. auction house, and Allan Schwartzman, the co-chairman of its fine art division.

The largest auction house in the US, Sotheby’s, is in talks with Crown Prince HRH Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to build a cultural center in the northwest deserts of Saudi Arabia, according to Bloomberg. The contemporary art program is to be located in the Al-Ula region, which contains the country's first UNESCO World Heritage site and is an archaeologically rich area built up over 2,000 years ago.

Allan Schwatrzman, co-chairman of Sotheby's fine art division, sits on the advisory board of the Royal Commission for Al-Ula, which helps oversee the region's development. He also leads Sotheby's art advisory firm Art Agency Partners, which has submitted the plans for the future sprawling arts and cultural destination. The project is currently in the exploratory phase—says a spokeswoman for the royal commission—and has begun inviting a dozen or so artists to submit proposals for the site.

Given the mounting pressure to address connections to the Saudi Arabian government in t...

Ettore Sottsass works in David Bowie's Memphis collection head to auction

2016-10-13T13:22:00-04:00

On November 11th in London, Sotheby's will be auctioning off the late great David Bowie's Memphis, Milano collection, which includes works by architect and designer Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Cibic, and Michele De Lucchi, among others. The works embody the Memphis movement's 1980s philosophy of 'New Design' which basically serves as the thesis for postmodernism, or as the movement's website puts it, "a new expressivity in the form of new shapes, materials and patterns."

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