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Welcome
to marcspiegler.com, an online archive for my published
articles. Feel free to e-mail
me with comments, criticisms, and questions.
I was a
journalist for more than a decade, first based
in Chicago and then in Zurich. Since becoming one of Art
Basel's directors in September 2007, I have not written
any articles, or updated this website.
Obviously, I did a lot of writing
on the arts - especially towards the last part of my journalistic
activity. Yet the articles here range wildly in topic,
length, style and venue - everywhere from ArtNews to Sports
Illustrated, by way of Arena and suck.com (no, that's
not a porn site). Which made me either a wide-ranging
writer or a dilettante. You decide...
The categories (listed above
right) are a little haphazard. When in doubt, I have put
an article on multiple pages. Also, a lot of my older
work - such as almost all my 1990s architecture-and-design
writing in Metropolis magazine - is not online yet. And
may never be.
In February
2007, I launched the group
blog www.artworldsalon.com
with two friends, András Szántó and Ian Charles Stewart.
It's a moderated digital discussion forum, focused
upon the fast-paced transformations taking place in
the global artworld, including: the economic shifts
roiling its markets; its internationalization and
expansion; the impact of technological developments;
and the rapid changes in the broader perception of
the artworld and the artworld’s perception of itself.
I still read Artworld Salon, but I
haven't written for it since I started at Art Basel.
Fortunately, an able and international group of contributors
joined Andras and Ian in keeping the discussions there
vibrant. Check it out.
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Featured
article: New York Magazine |
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"Is
Terence Koh’s Sperm Worth $100,000?" |
January 8, 2007 |
Linked
here
With his first New York City
museum solo show about to open at the Whitney, I tracked Terence
Koh's three-year rise from working anonymously as "asianpunkboy"
to being an art-market It Boy - a trajectory made possible
by collaborating with balls-out art dealer Javier Peres. Now
comes the hard part: Keeping the spotlight. |
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Featured
article: New York Magazine |
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"The Hunt for Red Collector"
August 21, 2006 |
Link
When an unknown buyer won Picasso's
"Dora Maar au Chat" for
$95 million at Sothebys, it ignited an artworld parlor game.
Trying to track down the mystery man, I talked to sources
on four continents and then laid out my quest as a whodunit
with Russian overtones.
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Featured
article: The Art Newspaper |
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"Do
Art Critics Still Matter?" | April
2005 | View
Article
This hard look at the sorry position of today's critics was
rapidly translated into French,
German
and Norwegian,
and launched
many blog comments, emails and discussions. |
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Featured
article: Art + Auction |
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"Negative
Charges" |
February 2005 | View
PDF (2.5M)
An investigative piece
detailing the controversy and lawsuit surrounding 921 negatives
from the estate of Mali's Seydou Keita, commonly considered
Africa's greatest photographer. Amid charges and counter-charges
of forged documents, exploited artists and other chicaneries,
truth at times seemed a mirage.
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Featured
article: Art + Auction |
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"The
Devil and the art detective"
July 2003 |
View
PDF (362 KB)
An extensive profile
of Clemens Toussaint, who at the time ranked among the most
controversial men in the European artworld. In part because
he's a tempestuous maverick in a milieu of complicit discretion.
But also because art restitution is a minefield of ethical
dilemmas and conflicting "realities." Roaming from
1930s Germany to present-day Monte Carlo, this article ranks
among my best ever. |
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