1. Fox is throwing next season’s hopes behind Dallas, with two shows set in the city premiering in the fall. There’s The Good Guys, which you will be able to read about in the June edition of the print product (available online Thursday), and the Jon Voight-staring Lonestar, described as “Dallas with con men, but hopefully not the ‘it was all a dream’ plotline.”
2. The Dallas Morning News reports on the Hoffman Rothko law suit, mentioning that the painting wasn’t the only work sold after the DMA hosted the Fast Forward exhibit in 2007. In a comment on Glasstire, art gadfy “Council for Artists Rights” questions whether this kind of open ended donation allows for ulterior motives on the part of both the collector and the museum:
Is the museum a willing partner to donor’s visions of reaping financial windfalls by acquiring artwork, letting it accrue the museum’s prestige with the resultant exponential increase in monetary value when later sold? Savvy museum-goers and others come away with that perception.
The question is not a new one. Last year there was a good deal of grumbling in the art world when a New Museum trustee exhibited his collection at the museum.
3. The DMN piece mentions that the Rothko market is hot right now. But why are some artists in financial vogue, while others aren’t? That’s the question raised in this Wall Street Journal article. Despite the record art sales at recent auctions, the pieces that are moving are generally safe bets, artists like Renoir, Monet, Giacometti, and Jasper Johns. Edvard Munch, Richard Prince, and Damien Hirst are not as hot. And then there are the artists who never appear at auction, reports The Art Newspaper. Artists like DMA favorite Sigmar Polke move privately or through galleries, saving them from the haphazard free for all of the auction block: “The nature of our gallery, from the very beginning, has been based on placing artists in collections that matter,” says [gallerist Gordon] VeneKlasen.
