ART:

This past Sunday night, protestors toppled statues of former U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln as a declaration of “rage” toward the controversial holiday, Christopher Columbus Day. Organizers called the event “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage” in response to the federal holiday named after the 15th-century Italian explorer Christopher Columbus — a polarizing figure who Native American supporters have claimed spurred centuries of genocide against Indigenous populations in the Americas.

“There are three main sources of controversy involving [Columbus'] interactions with the indigenous people he labeled ‘Indians’: the use of violence and slavery, the forced conversion of native peoples to Christianity and the introduction of a host of new diseases that would have dramatic long-term effects on native people in the Americas,” as reported by History.

Protestors threw chains around the Roosevelt monument in Portland, Oregon, officially titled “Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider.” They also splattered red paint on the statue and blowtorched the figure’s base as reported by multiple news outlets including the New York Times. The crowd overturned the statue around 9 p.m. and later directed their attention towards Lincoln’s statue, toppling it eight minutes later. Protesters tagged “Dakota 38” on the base of Lincoln’s statue, referencing the 38 Dakota men Lincoln approved to have hanged after they were involved in a violent conflict with white settlers in Minnesota. 

After tearing down the statues, the protestors began breaking windows at the Oregon Historical Society and also marched to the Portland State University Campus Public Safety office. Local authorities called the event a “riot” and claimed that anyone involved in “criminal behavior, including vandalism” was subject to arrest. It’s currently unclear if any arrests were made.

The Lincoln and Roosevelt monuments are the latest to come down following a wave of toppled statues and protests triggered by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody back on May 25.Anyone venturing to Lower Manhattan in New York City will come across a sprawling, vivid new mural at the historic Houston Bowery Wall. Goldman Properties and Goldman Global Arts connected with NY-based organization Groundswell to plan the collaborative mural led by teaching artist Raúl Ayala. Founded in 1996, Groundswell brings together youth, artists, and community organizations to use art as a tool for social change.

Ayala and a team of ten Groundswell student artists (ages 18-22) recently completed the thought-provoking mural that reflects the unprecedented times we are currently living in amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and global COVID-19pandemic. Ayala describes the mural as “opening a portal” and wants the piece to remind onlookers of “how we exist in relationship to each other, how we hold and take care of our individual, social, and cultural essence.” The dynamic composition features costume-clad humans of different ethnicities alongside surrealistic subjects such as oversized florals, skeletons, sea creatures and other colorful motifs.

“For me, building imagination and sharing knowledge alongside a younger generation of artists is a great manifestation of the fruits of this shift. With this mural, we are also bringing intergenerational participation into a future that honors our past while actively creating a different path of existence,” said Ayala.

Get a closer look at the mural above and then visit Goldman Global Arts’ website for more information.The abstract painter Gerhard Richter has set a new record for the sale of a work at auction in Asia, making him the most valuable Western artist in the Asian market.

Richter’s 1987 work, Abstraktes Bild (649-2), was sold by Sotheby’s to the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, for $214.6 million HK ($27.7 million USD), the highest price achieved for any Western artist in Asia. The work was sold within ten minutes of the bidding opening.

The piece was sold from the collection of the billionaire Ronald Perelman, the owner of Revlon, who in recent weeks has been selling off his collection of modern and contemporary art. Perelman has already sold out works to the value of over $200 million USD.

Richter, whose career has spanned six decades, is widely regarded as one of the most significant living artists. His work has long sold for astronomical prices, placing him in a small group of artists able to command such bidding. Richter himself has commented commented on the inflated value of his work, saying “It’s just as absurd as the banking crisis. It’s impossible to understand and it’s daft!”

Despite the economic turbulence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the upper echelons of the art market seem largely unaffected. Sotheby’s recently announced an upcoming sale in London of Japanese artists, which will include works by Takashi Murakami and KAWS.In September 24, the Keith Haring Foundation launched a massive sale of works from the artist’s estate at Sotheby’s to support the New York LGBTQ+ organization the Center. The online auction titled “Dear Keith: Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring” recently concluded and netted a total of $4.6 million USD. That total amount is triple the amount of the initial pre-sale estimate of $1.4 million USD. 

The sale spotlighted over 140 pieces by Haring including paintings, archival photography and other rare ephemera which costed as low as $100 USD. Lots also included items gifted to the artist by his close friends and ’80s art icons such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. The highest-grossing work was a collaborative installation from 1981 comprised of 19 clear plexiglass slates that were tagged with illustrations by Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura, Rammellzee, Haze, Zephyr, Sniper, CHI-193 and Chino. The work sold for $504,000 USD, snapping up six times its pre-sale estimate of $80,000 USD.

Another key lot was Andy Warhol’s orange and green silkscreen portrait of Haring with his long-term partner Juan Dubose, which sold for $504,000 USD. Roy Lichtenstein’s American flag–inspired print Forms in Space (1985) also sold for $214,200 USD. Moreover, an untitled drawing by Basquiat that portrayed minimalist scrawls made $100,800 USD. On the back of the work is an inscription by Haring that states: “This is the drawing Jean gave me for the Xerox catalog which accompanied the first exhibition I held at Club 57.”

View the entire collection of works from the “Dear Keith” auction by visiting Sotheby’s official website.