sothebys

• An artist-made bot is buying ecstasy pills, and lots of other contrabands, off the Darknet and sending them to art shows. Artists !Mediengruppe Bitnik have designed “Random Darknet Shopper” in order to mine the Darknet and see what comes up. Hopefully the bot doesn’t hire a hitman. What a great story. [Fast Company]
• Michael Connor makes a thoughtful comparison between the troll-heavy conversation around Ryder Ripps’s “ART WHORE” and Andrea Fraser’s one-woman reenactment of a 1991 City Council meeting: a reliving of a bitter argument between many different voices. “Right now, we are seeing a crisis resulting from the perceived erosion of the internet (and of technology in general) as a white male-dominated space”, Connor writes in reference to the trolls who actively work to drown out all other commenters. [Rhizome]
• Christie’s Contemporary Auction last night brought in $852.9 million, trouncing Sotheby’s Contemporary sale earlier in the week, which grossed $343.6 million. Why did Christie’s sale do so well? Rich people are getting richer. There were two big Warhols in the sale, and that market is rigged. Also, according to Manhattan financier, David Ganek, “The quality of the sale was epic.” [The New York Times]
• On the sale, Josh Baer writes,“It would be fascinating if we ever could (which we can’t) know the actual profitability of these mega sales? Certainly all the sales are real, with actual buyers, but are they a bit of haute couture and market share?” I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Shane Ferro and Felix Salmon to explain over twitter. [Baer Faxt]

@artfcity @felixsalmon I think he means the auction houses put a lot of money into the evening sales and they aren’t necessarily profitable

— Shane (@shaneferro) November 13, 2014

@artfcity @felixsalmon Yeah. They often lose money on evening sales. — Shane (@shaneferro) November 13, 2014

@shaneferro @artfcity right, they’re loss-leaders, like the haute couture arms of perfume / handbag manufacturers

— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) November 13, 2014

@artfcity @shaneferro no, the perfume and handbags DO make money. It’s the expensive frocks which don’t. — Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) November 13, 2014

In other words, the evening sales may not make much money, but the smaller deals and auctions do.

• In honor of El Greco’s four hundredth deathiversary year, Kriston Capps writes a useful overview of the artist’s life, career, fade from common knowledge, and revival through artists like Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse. The exhibition “El Greco” will be up at the National Gallery of Art until mid-February. [Washington City Paper]
• Horses that “can’t even” in art. [The Hairpin]
• It is also the philosopher Augustine of Hippo’s 1,660th birthday. [Twitter]
• Probe on a comet! [Reuters]
• It’s going to be cold this week, and all winter, probably. [Animal New York]
• A.O.Scott makes us really want to see “Red Army”, a documentary about Soviet hockey, its greatness, and its dissipation. The early nineties Olympic team was “almost universally regarded as the greatest hockey team ever assembled.” [The New York Times]
• Speaking of former greatness, thanks to Marina Galperina for sending us this link to former fans of the “nonconformist” hard rock band Alisa, twenty years later, in their normal jobs. [Golbii]