Identities ii – Can Dagarslani

Can Dagarslani’s search for identity

We’re always interested in architects who carry a camera and document their surroundings or daily lives. We even recently published a book of great photography by one such architect, John Pawson under the name A Visual Inventory. While what he does is very different Istanbul-based architect Can Dagarslani’s off duty photographic exploits caught our eye recently. We were especially drawn to his latest series of photographs, Identities i and ii and dropped him a line to ask him about them.

Warhol’s Elvis sells for $81.9m to help Christie’s smash auction record

“Money, money, money,” quietly noted one private dealer as bidding on Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) soared past $70m at Christie’s on Wednesday night. The bidder had a point: that piece helped nudge the sale of postwar and contemporary art to a record total of $852m. At nearly 7ft and taken from a publicity shot for the King’s 1960 movie Flaming Star, the painting – which features three identical images of musician in a gun-slinging pose – topped out at $81.9m with auctioneers’ fees, ahead of Warhol’s Four Marlons, which came in at $69.6m.

Paris Photo’s Thomas Zander on this year’s fair

How do you get a booth at Paris Photo? Via Thomas Zander and his colleagues. The Cologne gallerist and photo dealer is one of the eight selection-committee members who vet and approve applicants to the world-famous Parisian photo fair, which takes place this week, 13 – 16 November. Zander, whose Cologne gallery represents Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand and Candida Höfer among others, has a background in both photography and fine art, and is well placed to comment on how Paris Photo is faring, in the age of Frieze and Art Basel. Read on to learn how a change of location altered everything, why the fair is reaching out to art collectors, and what kind of problems the Düsseldorf School has wrought on the history of photography.

Visitors Flood Imperial War Museum on WWI Centenary

After its £40 million ($64 million) redevelopment, the Imperial War Museum in London (IWM) reopened this summer to accompany the centenary of World War One. The Wall Street Journal reports that visitor numbers have surged since the museum reopened its doors, jumping from 3,000 visitors a day to 8,000 – double the museum staff’s expectations. According to curators at the museum, if a visitor spent just 15 seconds at each exhibit, it would take five-and-a-half hours to see all of the 1,300 items within its galleries. The museum is dedicated to every conflict in which the British have been involved, spanning from 1914 to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It now boasts some impressive new galleries and features, including a 52-foot-long, 8-foot-high recreation of a WWI trench and an atrium designed by star architect Norman Foster.

Berlin Wall art comes to London

Berlin Wall artist Thierry Noir, who spent five years in the Eighties defiantly painting the western side of the wall, has been painting a large mural outside the German embassy in Belgrave Square and in several rooms in what used to be the East German Embassy. This artistic initiative – “East Meets West: Bringing Down the Wall” – was organised by the German Embassy and the Howard Griffin Gallery to mark the 25th anniversary tomorrow of the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Painting in such a setting this week has been very special,” said Noir, a Frenchman who moved to West Berlin in the early Eighties. “I have a simple message: don’t repeat the mistakes of our parents. The Berlin Wall has gone but there are many other walls.”

New media curator plans to decode Italian identity

The new media specialist Vincenzo Trione has been chosen to organise the Italian pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (9 May-22 November 2015). Trione’s proposed exhibition “Codice Italia” (Code Italy), which the Italian culture ministry selected from a shortlist of eight, will be “an attempt to reflect on Italian identity”, he told the Italian magazine Artribune. He said 10-12 artists, including “masters of the 1970s” and young artists under 30, would be invited to present works. Trione is the professor of art and new media, and the vice-president of the faculty of arts, tourism and markets at the IULM communications university in Milan. At 42, he is the youngest curator ever chosen for the Italian pavilion.

Heirs of ‘Nazi art hoarder’ Cornelius Gurlitt pledge to return collection to rightful owners

The family heirs of Cornelius Gurlitt, the German recluse who was discovered to have a hoard of suspected Nazi-looted art in his Munich apartment, have declared that if they inherit the collection they will immediately return any looted artworks to their rightful owners. Gurlitt, who died in May at the age of 81, left his entire art collection to a Swiss art museum in what was widely seen at the time as a final act of revenge against the German authorities for trying to part him from his beloved paintings.

World’s Biggest Art Collector Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani Dies at Age 48

Once widely regarded as the world’s richest and most powerful art collector, Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani of Qatar died suddenly at his home in London on November 9, age 48. Details of his death have not been announced, although initial reports say it was from natural causes. A cousin of the Qatar’s current Emir, Sheikh Al-Thani served as the country’s president of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, from 1997 to 2005. During his tenure, he oversaw the development of the oil-rich nation’s ambitious plans to build an extensive network of new schools, libraries, and museums. He also spent well over $1 billion on art purchases during that period, more than any other individual, according to many art-market observers.