by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Woman smoking
ON THE REBOUND: Successful auctions last week in New York, including better than expected sales for two major stars, show an improvement in the market for Latin American art. New York’s two major auction houses brought in a total of $34 million in sales. Christie’s sold 69% of its offerings for nearly $17.3 million while Sotheby’s auctioned 70 percent for $16.8 million.
The figures are a “safe indicator that the market is strong,” according to Virgilio Garza, director of Latin American art at Christie’s, which sold the monumental bronze sculpture Mujer fumando by Fernando Botero for $1.14 million. A water color on paper by Botero, Mother and Child, sold at $600,000, a record for the Colombian artist.
The biggest seller at Sotheby’s was a rare abstract painting by Roberto Matta, Desnudos infinitos, auctioned at $2.49 million, the second-highest auction price for a work by the Chilean artist. The auction house saw an increase in interest in abstract Latin American art: Tríptico con Amarillo by Venezuela’s Jesús Rafael Soto sold for $326,500 and a work by Brazil’s Sergio Camargo was sold for $1.59 million.
CHANGE OF VENUE: Next year’s Billboard Latin Music Awards will be held in Puerto Rico, organizers announced. “The move to Puerto Rico is a very exciting opportunity for Billboard as it extends the increasing international presence of the brand and allows us to expand the Billboard Latin Music Conference audience,” the trade publication’s publisher, Howard Appelbaum, said in a statement.
It will be the first time the awards ceremony is held outside of South Florida. The April 29 ceremony will be broadcast by Telemundo.
Leading up to the awards show, the annual Billboard Latin Music Conference will be held April 26-29 at the Condado Plaza hotel in San Juan.
ONE LINERS: Univisión Communications Inc. has entered a deal with YouTube which will make the network’s original content — shows such as El Gordo y la Flaca and Primer Impacto — available online beginning in January… WDAV (89.9 FM), a public radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina, will dedicate one of its high defi nition digital channels to Concierto, the country’s fi rst classical music radio service in Spanish… and Mexican singer-songwriter Joan Sebastian has become the fi rst artist born in Latin America to design a line of Gibson guitars… Hispanic Link.
