ABOVE: Detail from Canaletto’s Venice, the Grand Canal, Looking Northeast from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge (circa 1730), the most expensive art purchase of 2005.

Finally, a list we can approve of. That “greatest painter” nonsense from earlier in the year was a methodological atrocity, based on totally subjective criteria and blut statistical instrumentation. Luckily, the bean-counters at Forbes ride to the rescue today with a rundown of the most expensive art auction purchases of the year. It’s positively mathemagic.

The duopoly of Sotheby’s and Christie’s control 95% of all worldwide art auctions, Forbes notes. Christie’s moved $759 million worth of merchandise through its New York outlet alone, but Sotheby’s had the distinction of hammering the largest single price for a painting this year, a Canaletto (above), which fetched $32.6 million from an anonymous phone buyer. Spokesbots for both Sotheby’s and Christies were preening for the press and remain bullish—well of course they would, wouldn’t they?—for 2006, predicting that all those newly minted Russian oil billionaires and Indian techno-tycoons will move on the art market in a serious way, keeping prices buoyant.

LINK: Forbes > Most Expensive Art 2005

ABOVE: Detail from Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure (1969-70), which was stolen by thieves last Thursday.

Thieves broke onto the grounds of Perry Green, home of influential sculptor Henry Moore, and stole one of the artist’s huge bronze sculptures, the BBC (and many others) report. Reclining Figure, more than two tonnes of hollow bronze, doesn’t, at first blush, seem like something you could just sneak off with, but that’s exactly what has happened. A truck with a crane showed up in the wee hours of Thursday morning, hoisted the hunk of bronze onto its flatbed, and took off. The truck itself had been stolen earlier, and was later found abandoned, sans sculpture.

The big worry is that these thieves had one of two motives: either it’s a fine art theft and they already have a buyer willing to hide the thing (unlikely), or they took it for scrap metal and intend to melt it down. The £3 million sculpture, police say, would yield about £5,000 worth of scrap bronze if it were melted down. Obviously this is a terrible loss for the Moore Foundation and for British art generally, but it’s hard not to marvel a little at the sheer gall of the theft.

LINK: BBC > Reward offer for stolen sculpture

ABOVE: Detail from Robert Mapplethorpe’s Derrick Cross (1985). A show of Mapplethorpe’s fleshy work was recently allowed to proceed in Cuba.

Last day of ADD abridged, we’ve had our share, drunk our fill, etc.

Canucks getting czech Nazi-loot? — A Canadian family is one step closer to reclaiming 140 paintings stolen by the Nazis when they fled Europe (and currently housed in Czech public galleries). Globe and Mail > Family wins battle in Czech court to reclaim art

Prude or Nude in Cuba? — Mapplethorpe show opens in Cuba after hurdling prudish commie censors. Miami Herald > A famously gay U.S. photographer’s work is exhibited in Havana

Islamic Art goes online — Moroccan museum to open online gallery to show off permanent collection of Islamic art. Morocco Times > Virtual museum on Islamic Art in Oudayas

See you Monday, all systems go as usual.

ABOVE: Detail of a model of the proposed West Kowloon Cultural District, designed by Sir Norman Foster. Cultural institutions are beating down the door to get in, says the Art Newspaper.

More info-snacks for your low-calorie enjoyment:

Hong Kong Hype — The Art Newspaper continues a week of strong reportage with dispatch on the $4 billion race to anchor a massive “cultural district” in Hong Kong. The Art Newspaper > World’s top museums compete for Hong Kong development [Via ArtsJournal]

Maya Mural Masterpiece — Researchers have found the oldest known Maya painting, dating from about 100 BCE. NYTimes > Earliest Known Maya Painting Found

Stump the Expert — Ananova (the dumping ground of trashy news worldwide) says a German art expert misattributed a chimp painting to Guggenheim Prize-winner Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Ananova > Art expert fooled by chimp’s painting

C’est tout for today…

ABOVE: concept art by Pixar artist Ralph Eggleston for the Pixar movie Finding Nemo. “Pixar: 20 Years of Animation” opens today at MoMA.

Three more nuggets for your speedy perusal:

Pixar at MoMA — MoMA opens its exhibit of concept art from the last twenty years of digital animation studio Pixar, and some screenings. Newsday > MoMA exhibition celebrates 20 years of art from Pixar

Artless at WTC site — A panel discussion on the arts at Ground Zero asks whether there’s room for culture in the new WTC redevelopment (short answer: no). NYTimes > Controversy Still Clouds Prospects at 9/11 Site

NY Dealer all dealt out — Berry-Hill Galleries declaring bankruptcy amid messy price-fixing accusations. The Art Newspaper > Troubled Berry-Hill Galleries file for chapter 11 bankruptcy

‘Til tomorrow…

ABOVE: Detail from Stephen Foss’s Untitled 18, recently recovered in California after a sting operation.

Today we introduce ADD Abridged, a less wordsome variation on ADD, which will last the rest of the week, for a number of reasons, all too crushingly dull to detail here. Our windedness will elongate again, as per usual, next week.

Sting in San Fran — Your average thieves-steal-car, car-contains-art, police-establish-complex-sting-operation love story. SF Examiner > Stolen art recovered after sting operations

Bi(ennial) in Shanghai — Shanghai unveils theme of 2006 Shanghai Biennial: “Hyperdesign,” to be dress rehearsal for 2010 World Expo. Xinhua > 6th Shanghai Art Biennial slated for next Sep

Indian income increase — Fledgling Indian contemporary art auction house Saffronart sets record with $12.5 million sale. Rediff > Auction of India art fetches Rs 55 cr in NYC

See you tomorrow with more extra-concise goodness…

ABOVE: Detail from Gauguin’s Eiaha Ohipa (’Do Not Work’ Tahitians in a Room) (1896). It was one of 55 works from the Pushkin Museum briefly impounded in an unrelated trade dispute; Russia is furious.

Russia is only the latest in a long line of European nations slamming their art collections shut to foreign museums, The Art Newspaper revealed on Friday. Although their article focsuses on the impact the chill will have on England, it has ramifications throughout Europe. The Hermitage has apparently threatened to stop all its loans of artworks in Britain, including the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, unless the UK provides explicit assurances that Russian-owned artworks on loan will not be seized in trade disputes.

Russia has reason to make such demands: On November 15, 55 works from the Pushkin Museum were impounded at the Swiss-German border after a Swiss firm persuaded customs agents to hold the shipment based on claims it is making against the Russian government for the UN oil-for-food programme. The 55 paintings, collectively worth an estimated $1 billion, were essentially held ransom at the behest of private interests in order to extort $100 million from the Russian government. Only a handful of European countries explicitly forbid such pawnsmanship (France and Germany included), so Russia’s decision to demand immunity from art seizures will affect dozens of countries and hundreds of institutions. It’s almost like a curtain—a curtain made of some strong, possibly metallic material, does this ring a bell?—has lowered across Europe.

LINK: The Art Newspaper > Russia threatens to end loans to UK

ABOVE: Dan Rockmore, as profiled in the current issue of Wired. Rockmore is using crazy software to verify the authenticity of Rembrants.

OK, in the second Wired missive this week (we know, we know), we delve ever-deeper into tech geekery, with a profile of Dan Rockmore, a mathematician who is tweaking noses in the lofty world of art appraisal by using computers to scan Rembrandt paintings and digitally break them down into glorified spreadsheets to prove or disprove their authenticity. He says that the intuitive things that appraisers and experts look for—the density, length, direction of a stroke, along with other variables unique to one painter—is really just a big math problem that can be solved with the right software.

Naturally, this has thrown the fear of god into some boffinesque people, who are having visions of their jobs, like so many loyal human employees before them, replaced by a machine. But the stakes are high, and the finances even higher, as the number of genuine Rembrandts, once counted around 700, continues to drop (it’s less than 350 now). As the scarcity rises, prices are going up for the genuine article, so techniques with the whiff of objective, chilly science about them have increasing appeal for collectors with money on the line.

LINK: Wired > The Rembrandt Code

ABOVE: Simon Starling’s jury-rigged hydrogen moped, part of his work Tabernas Desert Run, in turn part of his Turner Prize-winning installation. Sayeth the Telegraph: “meh.”

Blowback from the Turner announcement on Monday continues to roll in; The Telegraph’s take on it today focuses less on Simon Starling and the goodness/badness/indifference of his shed-and-bicycle derived works, but contemplates the total mainstreaming of the whole modern art movement. Non-winner Darren Almond’s interview with Channel 4 on Monday night, says Mark Hudson, had all the grit and revolutionary panache of a Jamie Oliver kindergarten Christmas Special (the interview was actually filmed in Almond’s catalogue-photogenic kitchen). Where’s the spitting in the face of convention? Where’s the countercultural angst?

Hudson recounts an anecdote (which sounds made-up to us, but still amusing) in which painter Stuart Davis presents Picasso with a petition asking for more acceptance of modern art among American establishmentarians. Picasso refused, saying that acceptance would defang modernism of its killer instinct. As the 2005 Turner award was given out on live TV with millions watching, it seems safe to say that contemporary art—some of it, anyway—has been accepted by the mainstream. But does that spell its death?

LINK: Telegraph > What’s really shocking about modern art

ABOVE: The SMS Guerilla Projector (left) used by the Troika group to cast messages (right) on public—and occasionally private—spaces.

As regular readers will know, we lean pretty strongly toward the “graffiti can be art” perspective, instead of the “graffiti is always and forever vandalism and destruction, and only slightly less punishable than post-office massacres” view. Here’s evidence to the former, for all you not-yet-converts out there. The current issue of Wired includes a feature on graffiti artists working with materials other than aerosolized acrylic and the back walls of 7-11s.

New York artist fi5e uses a projector to instantly throw a tag onto an otherwise unpaintable object, including the archway at Washington Square Park and the side of St. Vincent’s hospital (he was a little miffed because Wired fumbled the terminology in its writeup). The Troika group in London use a self-constructed “guerilla projector” connected to a Nokia cell phone to project text messages up to 80 feet away. And the PIPS:lab art collective in Amsterdam uses a long-exposure photograph and lights of different strengths to allow volunteers to draw in thin air. All of it’s completely engaging, reasonably innovative, and leaves your local 7-11 unscathed.

LINK: Wired > Graffiti Hackers

ABOVE: Detail of Simon Starling’s Shedboatshed, part of Starling’s Turner-prize-shortlist exhibit. Starling was named winner yesterday.

The Turner circus packed up its tent and rolled out of town yesterday, as it was announced that Simon Starling would receive the £25,000 prize. Although the show [link has audio] of all four Turner-shortlisted artists continues until January 22, yesterday’s announcement, which was made live on Channel 4 in the UK, really marks the high point of the whole Turner gong-show. The remainder of the exhibit is pretty much mopping up.

Starling’s work, which includes a self-built electric bicycle and a shed that he rebuilt as a boat and then as a shed again, is all about reusing and recycling, and the jury said in the Tate’s press release that they “admired his unique ability to create poetic narratives which draw together a wide range of cultural, political and historical references.” Each of the other three shortlisted artists receive £5,000; the prize loot this year was put up by Gordon’s Gin, which seems like an awfully low-rent gin to be sponsoring the world’s biggest contemporary art prizes.

LINK: BBC > ‘Shed boat’ artist takes Turner

ABOVE: detail from Laird Hamilton’s Power (2005), which is a picture of the artist’s back and—seriously—comes with an edible strip that tastes like seawater and Hamilton’s skin.

The phrase “there’s no accounting for taste” has seldom been so applicable. The Associated Press has gone nuts for a little temporary gallery set up by Visionaire magazine that features edible taste strips, just like those revolting little Listerene breath strips, except in a rainbow of odd flavours. The magazine took 12 concepts and doled out one each to 12 artists, who provided one artwork and collaborated with International Flavours & Fragrances Inc. on a flavour to go along with it. Tastes include “Art” (adhesive spray and gluestick flavour); “Luxury” (fresh pine cone tips); “Adrenaline” (jet fuel and metal); “Mommy” (condensed milk); and “Life” (fresh soil). Laird Hamilton’s photo, of his own back, is accompanied by a strip that tastes like his back. Ew.

Anyway, the exhibit is in Miami until the end of today and then will reopen in Manhattan in mid-December, where it will remain until the end of February.

LINK: Miami Herald > Exhibit invites visitors to taste art

ABOVE: Carl Beam’s Whale 10. Some of Beam’s artwork was the subject of an Art-flip scheme, apparently a common tax-evasion practice in Canada.

Here’s something to brighten your day as we begin this darkest of winter months: obscure Canadian tax law! Hurrah! The Federal Appeals Court last week ruled that Caedmon Nash, of British Columbia, and two other individuals, couldn’t claim the hefty tax benefits which came from donating art to Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. The reason they say Nash et al. aren’t playing by the rules is because they bought artwork in bulk, held on to it for a few months, and then after an appraiser for the university had significantly bumped up the value of the art, donated it for the tax credit. Revenue Canada says this is a tax dodge, and the court agreed (this time).

The math is creative, as is so much math in tax law: Nash borrowed $9,000 and bought 85 works by artists including Carl Beam, Russell Noganosh, and Richard Bedwash. A few months later, he donated the pieces (keeping one as a memento), with a magically increased assessed value of $30,000, which was good for a $13,000 tax credit. Profit: $4,000. Canada is apparently working to close this little loophole, but at the moment, it’s in the interest of donors to pull the buy-low-donate-high move, and it’s in the interest of the institutions they donate to to keep on hiring appraisers with an optimistic outlook.

LINK: Globe and Mail > Art-flip schemes flop