Tomb of Nefertiti // The Future of CBGB // More Keith Haring Wall Art // And a $1 Billion Art Collection

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Buy Amara.

This is a weekly news show where I discuss contemporary events in the art and history fields. I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew.

The show, like the format of this show is one traditionally used by Western brides: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. This week on the show we're going to be discussing the tomb of Nefertiti, the future of a 1970s punk haven,

Yet another piece of Keith Haring wall art, and an art collection being sold for over $1 billion. All that coming up on this episode of Buy Amara. Let's get to it.

So, before we dive into our news stories for this episode, I always like to do our little old news segment. Little old news, that's actually really cute.

So, for our old news, I wanted to touch upon Arkive. So, I've mentioned it in my past two episodes now. I finally got to go through one of the voting procedures, if you will.

This one was really interesting. I'm not going to talk too much about it, but I just wanted to briefly touch upon the process and everything like that. It was a voting process for two digital artworks.

It was very straightforward. I'm in their Discord, like I said, which if you become a member, you will as well,

Be added to their Discord. So, they were just like, "Hey, go vote. It's on the website.

You just use your little username thing, you log in, you get a little description about each artwork, and you just click which one you think that they should acquire." It's really amazing. It's very It was one of those moments where it's just like, "Wow! Like, I'm in the future right now." It's just It's so bizarre.

I

Very much enjoyed it. I thought it was just very nice and easy. I wonder, now as I'm talking about it though, I do wonder if it's kind of a weird sort of phenomena where, you know, you're It's as easy as ordering like Grubhub.

Like, let's say I want, I don't know, whatever, a salad. Who orders a salad through Grubhub? No shade if you do, but I'm just saying, if you order something through a mobile app,

I don't know. I wonder if there's like something that's going to be lost in the future from this process, or, you know, whatever. They do have curatorial calls like almost every week or every month or something like that, so you can be part of the discussion and dialogue and stuff, which is really cool.

It is just so interesting being able to vote like that. Like, it's like a Twitter poll, almost. It's just like, "Boop!

Done. I just decided the future of

This establishment," I guess. I don't know. In my opinion, oops.

I'm just hitting things with my hands. I'm talking everywhere. But in my opinion, it's not something to be taken super lightly cause it is like, well, what are we trying to save for the future and tell people and blah, blah, blah.

But I don't know. It was just really interesting. I also wanted to touch upon I have no updates on the status of Odesa, the port city in Ukraine, being considered a World Heritage site.

I don't have any updates on that yet, unfortunately, but I hope to soon. I also don't have any updates yet or first-person accounts of City by Michael Heizer that I discussed in the previous episode as well. I am dying to hear what it's like.

I really would love to go, but like I said, just got back from Miami, so we are not going on trips anytime soon. But,

If you have gone to City by Michael Heizer, or know somebody who has, comment below, let me know, or just send me an email or something like that, or send me a link to a story or whatever. I'm very curious to hear what it's like, so just let me know. Okay, so now onto the news stories.

I'm going to be dancing to that song like all the time, I can't help it. So, our something old this week is really interesting. It's something very near and dear to me.

I love ancient Egypt, like most other people who even give a shit about history, I find it very fascinating. I'm very much into it, especially, this is going to sound very conceited, but because Amarna was a capital city and my name's Amara, so I don't know, I feel like I have a strong affinity. Also, if you do that little toe chart thing, my toes match the Egyptian ones perfectly.

I have like a little singular bar for my toes, so I don't know, I just I very much enjoy ancient Egypt, and I find it very fascinating. I've watched a plethora of documentarians documentaries. Why did I say it like that?

I've been having trouble pronouncing things this week, I don't know what is wrong with me. But, a plethora of documentaries, which is why I am bringing that up, because

If you have watched any sort of documentaries about ancient Egypt within the last like 5 to 10, maybe 20 years, you will have seen Zahi Hawass. So, he is the previous Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs in Egypt. I had to read that entire title, because I was like, "I'm not going to get that in one go." He

Claims to have solved the mystery of where Nefertiti's tomb is. So, according to Hawass, he and his team have DNA from 18th dynasty mummies, Akhenaten, Amenhotep II, III. They also have two unnamed mummies in their care right now that are labeled KV21A and B, that they hope to be able to announce in October 2022 as the wife of King Tutankhamun, so her name was Ankhesenamun, and her mom, Nefertiti.

So, like I said, again, if you know anything about ancient Egypt, or even like remotely care about it, the tomb of Nefertiti's been something that's been searched for widely cuz it's just really fascinating, really interesting. It's like, "Where are her remains?" Among many other reasons, there's one primary reason why it's been so difficult to locate Nefertiti.

So, when her husband Amenhotep IV like ascended to power, he basically did away with the entire traditional schema of what Egyptian society was like. So, instead of being a polytheistic society, which it was, so many different deities, he actually made it monotheistic, so you worshiped the sun god Aten. So, Amenhotep actually changes his name changed his name then to Akhenaten, and he moved the capital city from Thebes to a hastily built capital called Amarna.

So, once he died though, the traditional culture was brought back, and you had polytheistic deities and things like that. So, kudos to him for trying something new, but maybe don't try to rewrite your entire culture or civilization or things like that.

Like I said, when he died, his like all the traditional stuff was brought back. His memory was essentially just erased, and his burial chambers and things like that, same with his wife Nefertiti when she passed away a few years after, they were just removed from history. There was no trace of where they were laid to rest.

So, I am very excited to see if this is even like King Tut's wife, or if it's Nefertiti, so his wife's mother. I'm very curious, I cannot wait to see what happens, so next month, October 2022, we will find out, and that's a wrap on this section.

Get it? Cause mummies, they're all wrapped up.

Whatever.

Okay. So, our something new this week, if you are at all I have like so many specifications for my stories, I guess, this week. If you are at all a like an original punk aficionado, or even just give a shit about punk history or the history of New York City, you will have heard of CBGB.

CBGB was a legendary like punk rock and roll kind of dance club, bar thing. They closed in 2006, so they were open in the '70s and '80s, so like, they were like peak, like,

Amazing acts. I would have loved to have been even just alive at that time. But, so like, The Ramones, Iggy Pop, Sex Pistols, Blondie, like, all these like, amazing acts passed through CBGB.

So, the venue actually closed down in 2006, and it became, I think, a John Varvatos shop, or something weird like that. But now, it's being converted into an art gallery. So, it's going to be called Amanita.

They'll have their first gallery showing starting September 29th, so just like, very soon, in just a couple days, at 313 Bowery, which is the address for CBGB. So, Amanita's actually like a series of art galleries. They have one in Florence that opened March 2021.

Amanita was conceived by the grandson of Cy Twombly, Caio Twombly. I actually have no idea how to pronounce his name, I'm so sorry. And, Tommaso Rositani Suckert, whose great uncle, Curzio Malaparte, was an Italian artist.

Like I said, already have a gallery in Florence, so I'm very excited for when it actually opens in New York City. I think I will probably pay pilgrimage there not only to see the amazing art collections, but

They also are going to be keeping part of the famed bathroom of CBGB. So, if you've watched any, I, apparently, I watch a lot of documentaries, but if you've watched any documentaries, read any books, or anything like that about CBGB, you'll know that their bathroom was like notorious, like, absolute shit hole, disgusting.

I've been to some pretty bad venue bathrooms before, so I can only imagine if people were writing about this bathroom for decades afterward,

It must have been really fucking gross. So, yeah, so they're going to be saving like a little corner of the bathroom, allegedly. Their first exhibition's going to be Leonardo Meoni.

He does these really beautiful, kind of like illustrations or paintings on velvet. They're really like, beautiful and amazing. So, if you're in the New York City area, go check them out.

Let me know how it is in the comments below. I'll live vicariously through you until I can get there myself.

So, our something borrowed this week is yet again another piece of Keith Haring wall. So, apparently, this was a thing that he enjoyed doing. Just teasing.

So I covered a piece of wall art that was being taken from his childhood home that he drew right before he passed away in episode one, so go check it out. In this episode, though, we are talking about a piece of art that he created at Bard College. So, again, it's a series of, oh god, sorry, my Amazon delivery person just scared the fuck out of me.

Whew!

Anyway, so, again, we're looking at a series of radiant babies, which is like his quintessential piece, like you know that's Keith Haring. So, he drew five of them on this piece of wall in 1981, when he went to Bard College. So, he was invited there to speak about like the merits of graffiti, or the ethics of graffiti, sorry, not the merits, the ethics, and he drew on the wall with magic marker, so it was just there.

Apparently, an art history professor by the name of Tom Wolf removed that section of wall from the building and had it in his office for almost like 50 years. That sounds like some weird shit that I would probably do, so I can't fault him for that. It's

There are like positives and negatives to doing that, but I'm glad he at least like preserved it, seemingly. So, Wolf is retiring now, so plans are underway to find this section of wall a new home, and according to Bard College, it's going to be permanently on view at the school's Center for Curatorial Studies, thanks to a $3.2 million donation. $800,000 of that came from the Keith Haring Foundation.

That contribution was matched by the George Soros and Mary Louise Hassel Foundation. I have no idea how to say that, so that is how I am saying it. So, they matched the contribution.

I'm very curious where the rest of that money came from. Well, maybe from your tuition, Bard College students. Yeah, again, another piece of Keith Haring wall.

I'm curious I feel like this needs to be a thing. Like, I feel like some institution needs to make a Keith Haring wall

Exhibit of some sort. I don't know what that would entail, but now that all these pieces of wall are just floating around the world, I think that'd be very interesting. Maybe that'll be something that I do, or Arkive.

You should look for these wall pieces, actually. I'd be very into that.

I can't help but dance to that music, I don't know why. Anyway, so, our something blue and our final story for this week is going to be about a massive art collection that is being sold in a couple months, November 2022. So, there's a series of paintings that are going to be auctioned at Christie's in November, November 9th and 10th to be specific.

This is going to be from the Paul G. Allen Collection, and it's split into two parts, so like I said, the 9th and the 10th. Not that ridiculous, but there's a lot of art that's being sold at this auction.

So, Allen was the co-founder of Microsoft, so he has beaucoup bucks, like money galore. He died in 2018, so now his massive art collection's being auctioned off. So, I'm going to tell you a little bit about his collection, there isn't a whole ton that's known about it currently yet.

It's supposed to be on a traveling exhibition around the world throughout October, so hopefully we can get some photos and things like that, or more information. What we do know, though, is, so, his collection spans 500 years of art. Artists included are Jan Brueghel the Younger, J.

M. W. Turner, Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, Jasper Johns, Georgia O'Keeffe, Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, one of my favorites, René Magritte, also one of my favorites, and many, many others, apparently.

I think even the grandson of Sigmund Freud, Lucian Freud, he has a couple of his pieces as well. There are also going to be a variety of mediums included in this auction, so he had painting, sculpture, and mixed media. I personally am most intrigued by a painting by Georges Seurat called Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Small version), from 1888.

In this painting, I'm looking at it right now, if you're watching on YouTube, I'll have it up here on the screen for you. Sorry podcast listeners, you will have to search for it yourself. In this painting, so, you have three nude ladies, blah, blah, blah, pointillism, beautiful, wonderful, whatever.

There's a miniature version of A Sunday on La Grande Jatte in the background. I live in Chicago currently and at the Art Institute, La Grande Jatte is like the, I guess, kind of our Mona Lisa, in a way. Either that piece or a couple others, but we'll talk about that maybe in a future episode.

Maybe we'll go on a field trip or something. But, seeing La Grande Jatte in here is just very cute. I don't know why.

I very much love seeing it in this context, I just think it's fun, I don't know. Then I'm like, "Are we in his studio or something?" Cuz if he's working on La Grande Jatte, I don't know. I have a million and one different questions about this piece, and I'm definitely going to be looking at it a bit further.

So, anywho, that is the piece that I'm most excited for, and get this, apparently, this piece is estimated to possibly sell for over $100 million. Not going to lie, if I had that amount of money, I'd probably consider it. I'd probably consider a lot more things before buying this painting, but including like philanthropic pursuits and things like that, but that would be a very fun artwork to have because then you have this like, iconic piece of pointillistic art within another iconic Georges Seurat painting.

I don't know, I love the meta nature of it. Art within art. So, besides that piece, this collection is also very interesting because it's slated to sell for over $1 billion, a billion with a B, B, that is wild.

So, there are 150 artworks that will be sold. The Les Poseuses, Ensemble is slated to be one of the higher ranking ones, the higher monetary value ones, same with the Van Gogh and things like that. Allegedly, all the proceeds will be dedicated to philanthropy.

There's no specific anything that has been publicly shared yet. That's what Paul G. Allen had in his will, I guess, is that he wanted the proceeds to go to philanthropy, so if you're a philanthropy, enjoy the money.

And like I mentioned, the collection's traveling around the world throughout October and then it'll be on auction at Christie's in November.

So, that'll do it for this episode of Buy Amara. I hope you enjoyed. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to subscribe, and like the video if you liked it.

Also, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, so you can do that, too. You can send me any stories you find particularly interesting. Just email them to me, or you can comment them below with like the link, or whatever, whatever works for you.

You know, I'm just I'm very easygoing, so it doesn't really matter to me. Again, thank you so much for listening slash watching, and I hope you're entertained by some of this art news this week. Yeah, that'll do it for this week.

Again, I'm Amara Andrew, and never stop creating.