Rockefeller's Rothko Sets the Bar... Real High

Ever wanted to own a Rothko? I have. Don't ask me why, but something about these abstracts--we have a print of one hanging in our living room--always gets me thinking, and smiling, and best of all, wondering just what Rothko had in mind in putting these pieces together--which, apparently, is precisely the reaction the artist was always after.

Well, as it turns out, I am now ever farther away from ever actually owning an original. Recently, the Rothko piece pictured here, "White Center", was auctioned off for $72.8 million--making it the priciest piece of contemporary art ever sold.

Christopher Benfey's article in Slate today (see link above) gives not only a good run down of the auction itself, but also what might be behind the newly astronomical number attached to this particular Rothko piece. Regardless, it looks like my prints are going to have to suffice for a long time to come.

To Do: Get Thee to The Gallery, Feminist

I was late in discovering this, so, sadly, you're going to have to run not walk if you'd like to see it before it closes on the 24th. But still important to mention that Ceres has a show up called "Agents of Change: Women, Art and Intellect", a group exhibition celebrating women’s achievements in the visual arts, curated by Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, artist and Dean of Graduate Studies at Maryland Institute College of Art.

The show features the work of artists Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, Ana Mendieta, Renee Cox, Judy Chicago, Kara Walker and the Guerrilla Girls, among others, and represents "a multiethnic, multigenerational selection of work," according to the Times' Holland Cotter. In the same feminist vein, Cotter also recommends fans check out “Re:Generation,” a survey of emerging female artists at Smack Mellon in Dumbo, Brooklyn (closes March 11), as well as “What F Word?” at Cynthia Broan Gallery in Chelsea (closes March 17).