360 DEGREES Weblog

Kraken Opus, that luxury publisher that produces premium, outsized editions on subjects including sports teams, celebrities, fashion and art, is pushing the boundaries of luxury to a new level this year. For $75,000, they are offering a book celebrating the cricket star Sachin Tendulkar’s career. A pint of Tendulkar’s blood was mixed with paper pulp for the signature page of the book. Only 10 editions of the Tendulkar Opus are made and all of them have been sold out already. Kraken will also be offering a $40,000 limited edition book about the Ferrari automobile for the Ferrari fans. The ‘Enzo’ edition book will showcase rare images of Enzo Ferrari’s villa, Formula One racing pits action and the signatures of all living Ferrari champion drivers. Only 399 copies of the Ferrari Opus will be made available. Sought by the most careful collectors, the luxury publications by Kraken Opus are bought as investments and at times, they sell for prices that are you normally pay for original works of art.

Art collector Charles Saatchi is famous for his patronage which has made the careers of British artists like Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst, fueling the trend for young British artists in the 1990s. Now the ad man has announced that his lifetime of collecting will be Britain’s gain. He has announced plans to donate his London gallery and 200 works as a new public art museum. The impressive gift is worth more than 25 million pounds. The Saatchi Gallery will be renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art, London.

Pieces being donated include Emin’s “My Bed” and Richard Wilson’s “20:50,” a room filled with oil. Saatchi, who is married to celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, is an insatiable collector and even after the donation he will still own many, many works. The donation, no doubt, will allow him to go on collecting while helping insure that contemporary art has a place in Britain’s future. The works that Saatchi favors are at time controversial and often challenge the nature of what really makes something “art.”According to an article in Art Daily, Rebecca Wilson, associate director of the Saatchi Gallery, said that the gift also includes other works that can be sold to buy new acquisitions to help grow the collection. She referred to is as being a “very agile collection that can respond quickly to developments in contemporary art from all over the world.”

The owner of the building that houses the gallery on London’s King’s Road, Cadogan Estate is hoping that the new museum will stay put in the same place. The staff and management team are also staying the same. What is changing is the name and the knowledge that the gallery, while still the result of one man’s obsessive art collecting, is now a gift to the city he lives in.

The Wall Street has been an inspiration for several things, like the famed newspaper and a range of jewelry collection as well, among many other things. But this time, it was the vintage cast iron remains that were a landmark for the corner of Broad and Wall Street that went under the hammer this week at Christie’s. The historic sign post, which saw the bombings in 1920 and the stock market crash in 1929, was touted to fetch anything between $60,000 and 80,000. The hammer went down at $116,500; the winning bid for which was placed by a phone bidder.

It’s been a rough few weeks on the stock market, the ghosts of September 2008 seem to be haunting the Street. Now there’s some art to go along with that feeling. Artist Michelle Rogers has created an urban poster project placed on Broad Street beside the New York Stock Exchange entitled “My God, My God…The 3 Stock Traders.” The artist will present large poster reproductions of her oil paintings of stock traders “in panic mode” directly at what she terms “the scene of the crime”.

Rogers took her inspiration from no less than Venetian master Titian’s portraits of figures looking up to the heavens in fear. Rogers’ stock traders also appear to be gazing skyward in similar poses but they are looking at screens watching numbers tumble. The art makes a strong statement, “I want the Wall Street guys to know, that they are not the masters of the universe and to accept that they have caused great pain in the world and they need to make it right” - said Rogers on her website. The project was also exhibited during the 53rd edition of the Venice Biennale on the Grand Canal.

Rogers is an Irish artist who has created many powerful paintings including “9-11 Memorial,” a tribute to those lost on September 11. Other paintings have explored issues of war and conflict.

I don’t understand why people who bid for priceless want their names to be withheld. I mean, come on the IRS is bound to find out right? Anyway, a 1932 painting titled “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso painting has become the most expensive art work to be auctioned as it earned $106m, at Christie’s New York. Held by the late Los Angeles collectors Frances and Sidney Brody since the 1950s, the painting was won by an unnamed bidder through the telephone.

This is the pool art by artist Leandro Erlich at the 21st Century Museum of Art in Kanazawa, Japan. Two acrylic glass plates about a foot apart are filed with water and on top of these plates an additional 5 inches of water create the optical illusion.

If drinking shots is an art, so is presenting. The designer vodka bottles have added to the whole experience for vodka lovers. And, unless you are a vodka connoisseur, a designer bottle is a big appealing factor to decide a purchase. We have recently told you about Medea vodka programmable bottles and the Grey Goose 150th anniversary edition, Gold Elk is the ultra premium version of Black Elk, a premium vodka from the Finnish Lapland. The shape of the bottle is very simple but very sexy, in glass with matte black finish.Read more: http://www.bornrich.org/#ixzz0mPFdM6XW

In the luxurious world of automobiles, there lies a cadre that appreciates the sculptural elements of the fine engineering through their expression on canvas for rest of the world to treasure its lasting effect. Swiss artist Dante belongs to one of those cadres and his limited edition DB5 is sure to drive the collectors and enthusiasts to the Top Marques show in Monaco as this 1:4 scale sculpture goes on display next month. Using Aston Martin’s classic model as the basis, Dante has finished the sculpture in gold, and comes on a polished, piano black plinth, complete with their own lighting system. Priced at $135,000, these sculptures are limited to just 10 units.

Banksy returns to LA and one of his first new pieces has already been spotted. The new piece can be found between 4th and LaBrea in Los Angeles and includes the usual sense of humor of the artist.

Artist John Pugh created these amazing 3D murals to combine art and architecture, so “the viewer is perplexed as to where reality begins; once captivated, the viewer enters into another dimension of time and place.”