As a regular seasonal response, the Metropolitan Police Service is increasing the number of high visibility reassurance patrols around the Canary Wharf estate, including armed police officers, mounted police and specialist dog units. The increase in patrols is not in relation to any specific information or incident and colleagues are advised that there will be random checks of pedestrians and vehicles. If you are stopped by a patrolling officer, please be patient and cooperative.
"However as Beckwith and McDonald remember, by then it had become more difficult to sustain a collaborative approach, and as time went on there were fewer meetings with fewer attendees. The group's research and production methods began to resemble those of the exquisite corpse, with images assembled bit by bit, each collaborator adding to the composition in sequence. This tendency ran contrary to the privileging of process and collaboration that [Colin] de Land had insisted on, and threatened to move them towards the mire of the blinkered, career-obsessed art world."
– Jackie McCallister, A.C.2K, A.F.A., Co., C.d.L. Afterall 22. [Note: article regarding the group Art Club 2000, which was active from 1992-1999.]
"What a day was this!... On that day, 30,000 of the finest animals in the world were concentrated within an area of four or five acres. They had been pouring in from ten o'clock on the Sunday evening, insomuch that by daylight on the Monday they presented one dense animated mass, an agitated sea of brute life. All around the market the animals encroached on space rightfully belonging to shop-keeping traffic... for the cauldron of steaming animalism overflowed from very fullness."
George Dodd, The Food of London quoted in Hungry City by Carolyn Steel
"In last year's issue of this annual paper, we ran with the headline - The End or a New Beginning? One year on, it's clearly a new beginning. The art market ended its spring/summer season on a more optimistic note than many had predicted. Sales in Hong Kong, New York and London were clearly showing signs of a market levelling out. In June, London's contemporary evening sales raised £42.3 million against a low estimate of £42.6 million. although the total was 76% lower than June 2008, it was still an encouraging 63% higher than what was achieved in February 2009. Global stockmarkets have experienced a rapid price appreciation since reaching a low in March this year. However, the market runs the risk of running out of steam as the recovery in the US seems to be dragging on longer than expected, increasing the danger of a double-dip recession – which could have consequences for the art market recovery process. So where is the contemporary art market going from here? Sideways, is the most likely scenario. The results from the recent contemporary art auctions in New York were encouraging, and came in-line with the market expectations. Sotheby's sold 75.1% by lot and 85% by value, raising $5.5 million, which was roughly half the amount raised in September 2008 ($10.5 million). Christie's achieved a similar result, with 83% sold by lot and 88% sold by value. (...) ArtTactic's most recent US and European Art Market Confidence survey in June 2009, also confirmed that confidence is coming back, after a 81% drop in December 2008. The survey indicated that the downturn in the contemporary art market could end sooner than initially anticipated, with 64% of the respondents believing the contemporary art market could rebound within the next 1-2 years." – ArtTactic; An Insider's View to the Art Market, Autumn 2009 (a free newspaper handed out on the streets in front of Regent's Park, London, site of Frieze Art Fair)
3 October 2009
"Familiar with contemporary literature, film, philosophy and science, the young artists are extremely articulate – many earn M.A.'s as a credential for teaching. And like many of their peers, they are also into marijuana and LSD. ... The life style and perceptual distortions of drugs are simply taken for granted the way abstract expressionists took drinking for granted." –Howard Junker, Newseek, summer 1968
"Despite his admiration for Fried, Wall is generous when it comes to Minimalism [to the extent] that a work by Carl Andre [that] is similar in scale to Las Meniñas inspires him to a rather bizarre fantasy in which he is standing on an Andre while looking at Las Meniñas." – Sven Lütticken, Secret Publicity
