On 8 March, Sotheby’s auction house in Amsterdam auctioned off Dutch art belonging to cigarette makers BAT (British American Tobacco) to the tune of a record 13.6 million euro, the highest total for an art auction in the Netherlands. All but four of the 161 lots offered in Amsterdam found buyers.

Back in October 2008 we posted about a major art sale due to cigarette factory closing in Zevenaar, which is where some of these works used to hang, like Karel Appel’s ‘Tête Tragique’ (shown here), a 1961 oil on canvas, which sold for close to 493,000 euro.

(Links: bloomberg.com, nrc.nl, Photo: fast.mediamatic.nl)

A painting by French neo-impressionist Paul Signac and estimated to be worth 100,000 euro has been discovered in Hotel Spaander in Volendam, spokes person Marcel Rutten confirmed to AD yesterday.

The painting was a payment for the painter’s stay at the hotel in 1894. Hotel Spaander has a collection of about 1,400 paintings. It billed itself as a painter’s hotel back in the day, still does, and apparently it was not uncommon that residing artists paid their bills with their art. The Signac’s value though was unknown to management, which estimates that this is the best paid bill in its history.

The Signac representing a view of the harbour used to hang off a rusty nail in the lobby. Artists who wish to stay at the hotel can still do so in exchange for paintings, as long as the subject is Volendam, according to RTL Nieuws.

Signac was a contemporary of Vincent van Gogh, with whom he corresponded.

The painting’s true value was discovered during the preparations of an exhibition of the hotel’s art for the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen.

(Photo of the roof of Hotel Spaander by Flickr user FaceMePLS, some rights reserved)

Should you happen to find yourself in the slow train between The Hague and Rotterdam, you might come across this monthly fanzine made by Schiedam artist Ronald de Graaff and friends.

Zienzine is set up as a platform for contributing artists. It is distributed for free (in the train, and at the addresses of some of the makers), which is why each edition is limited to 250 copies. The editors are trying to put back issues on the web for those who don’t often find themselves in the slow train between The Hague and Rotterdam, but so far have only managed to make issue 0 of the five that have been published available for download.

The first issue contains stories about Volkswagen plagiarism, pinhole photography, and doodles and cartoons. There is also a recipe for vegetarian boerenkoolstampot. If you want to know how not to pronounce this word, see here (featured earlier).

I discovered Zienzine from the print edition of Zone 5300. Zone’s latest is filled with comics from Flanders, and may be had for a few more days. It appeared last December, but I could not review it then. TNT Post never delivered my issue, and I finally got to rectify that last week.

Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle has a painting in its collection that it claims was made by Van Gogh. The painting is called De molen ‘Le blute-fin.’ According to the museum, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has confirmed its authenticity.

Although it was known in the art world that this painting existed, people so far have refused to attribute it to Vincent van Gogh. According to NRC it has motifs that were atypical for the 19th century painter. It was originally discovered in 1975 by Dirk Hannema, the museum director who let himself be fooled by Han van Meegeren’s fake Vermeers, and that also would not have helped.

See also: ‘Hidden’ painting by Van Gogh discovered, about a different painting.

Says Dan Schwartz:

In 2006, Laarman’s Bone Chair revolutionized the design process by using an algorithm to translate the complexity, proportion and functionality of human bone and tree growth into a chair form. The algorithm, originally used by the German car industry, enabled him to reduce and strengthen his designs by optimizing material allocation, weight and stability, while minimizing material input. In his own words, he sculpted “using mother nature’s underlying codes.”

The upcoming exhibition is the culmination of five years of trial and error, exploratory material research and his continuous quest to translate science into functional objects of beauty, now on a monumental scale. His new body of work expands on his core investigations; it includes Skyline Storage, Fractal Bookshelf, Stair Cabinet, and Half Life Lamp, a sustainable lamp made from living cells.

The upcoming exhibition will start March 4 at Friedman Benda in New York.

See also: WirePod by Joris Laarman.

(Source image: Susan Grant Lewin Associates)

Designed by Belgian artist Carsten Höller, you are looking at a revolving hotel room installed in Rotterdam’s Boijmans van Beuningen Museum. You can book this art hotel room for somewhere between 275 and 450 euro a night and have access to the entire museum to visit and enjoy in peace. The big glass plates that the furniture is placed on is what revolves very slowly.

This hotel room is part of an exhibition by Höller entitled Divided Divided, running until 25 April.

(Link: rtl.nl, Photo: boijmans.nl)

We try to stay away from politics, but when candidates come up with cool posters like this, it’s hard to ignore them.

Philip Akkerman made this. He is an artist and a ‘list pusher‘ for the Stadspartij of The Hague. Municipal elections take place every four years, and the next one is on March 3. Several 24 Oranges commenters, by the way, will be running for office this year.

Link: Trendbeheer.

Last night, a group of young artists hung up their own works of art in three major Dutch museum, the Groninger Museum in Groningen, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht and Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle. This act of protest was meant to draw attention to the fact that not just established artists should be in museums, but young, up and coming artists as well.

This morning the Bonnefanten Museum (shown here) said that they found a large black-and-white photo in the old art wing, while de Fundatie found a small colour painting among its collection. Both museums were closed at the time and neither of them has any idea how the art got there. Employees of the Groninger Museum saw a big object in their security cameras and when they went to check it out, the big object had disappeared. Spooky.

So besides this stunt making the news and all, it also tells me how useless the security actually is at all three museums.

(Link: depers.nl, Photo of Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht by Peter Zoon, some rights reserved)

This artwork called ‘Sports jacket ball’ was made by Dutch artist Sander Reijgers. His work caught my attention because it uses sports fabrics as well as actual blow-up dolls. This football with a black blow-up doll is appropriately called ‘Black Woman’ and yes, I dare speculate it’s a nodd to the 2010 World Cup football in South Africa.

(Link: trendbeheer.com)

This photograph taken in 1977 of murdered, controversial gay politician Pim Fortuyn is up for grabs on ebay, bidding starts at EUR 495. If we can trust the description, it was ordered by Fortuyn, was never published and is authentic, on proper paper and all that jazz.

Pim Fortuyn, leader and founder of the LPF (Pim Fortuyn List, a party named after him) was murdered at the Hilversum mediapark (where all our radio and telly is located) by Volkert van der Graaf, a Caucasian male (that has to be said) who was upset at Fortuyn’s harshness towards Muslims.

(Link: parool.nl, Photo: Ebay)