MGM Resorts Stages An Art Auction In Las Vegas Motivated by Equity & Inclusion Concerns

BIG MONEY on-the-table

MGM Resorts said the decision to sell the works was motivated by equity and inclusion concerns.

Ari Kastrati, the company’s chief hospitality officer, said in a statement that the resort can be “a tremendous platform for showcasing diverse perspectives within the art community. While diversity has long been in MGM Resorts’ DNA, we are committed to creating an even more inclusive collection that maintains the breadth of our existing portfolio while giving a greater voice to artists from under-represented communities.”

MGM Resorts will devote a portion of the sales proceeds towards acquiring new artworks by a diverse group of artists.

Auctions

Sotheby’s Is Partnering With MGM Resorts for a Mega $100 Million Picasso Auction in Las Vegas

The star lot, a portrait of Picasso's lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, is estimated to sell for between $20 million to $30 million.

Eileen Kinsella, August 11, 2021

https://news.artnet.com/market/sothebys-mgm-resorts-picasso-las-vegas-1997407

In a seemingly unprecedented collaboration, Sotheby’s is teaming up with MGM Resorts in Las Vegas to auction off a rare trove of Picasso works that it expects to rake in some $100 million.

And rather than sell the lots at a marquee evening sale in an art capital like New York, Sotheby’s will stage the auction at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas on October 23.

The sale, which will also be livestreamed and coincides with what would have been Picasso’s 140th birthday (a marketing point organizers have been keen to tout), will feature what Sotheby’s calls “a highly curated selection” of 11 paintings, works on paper, and ceramics made between 1917 to 1969.

The star lot will be Femme au béret rouge-orange, one of the artist’s many portraits of his muse and lover Marie-Thérèse Walter. It is estimated at $20 million to $30 million. Another picture of Walter, 1932’s Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse),sold for $103 million with premium at Christie’s New York in May.

Pablo Picasso, Nature morte au panier de fruits et aux fleurs (1942). Image courtesy Sotheby’s.

Another work, Homme et enfant (1969), which is among the largest paintings Picasso ever executed, encapsulates the artist’s preoccupation with his life and legacy during the late period of his career, according to Sotheby’s. The presale estimate is also $20 million to $30 million.

The sale is rounded out by several works on paper, including a portrait of the commedia dell’arte character Pierrot estimated at $2.5 million to $3.5 million; a wartime still life painted in Paris in 1943, Nature morte aux fleurs et au compotier, that is estimated at $6 million to $8 million; and Aiguière – Visage, a ceramic pitcher that is estimated at $60,000 to $80,000.

The collection also carries a guarantee.

Pablo Picasso, Femme au béret rouge-orange (1938). Image courtesy Sotheby’s.

Sotheby’s and MGM said the sale marks “the largest and most significant fine art auction to ever take place in Las Vegas.”

For a time, the Picasso works were all on view at the eponymous restaurant in the Bellagio, and before the sale, they will travel to Sotheby’s New York galleries for a fall exhibition late next month (September 7 to 13). They return for display to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art from October 21 to 23.

Some highlights will also travel to Taipei and Hong Kong, a reflection of the increasing importance of newly wealthy Asian clients in driving growth in the art market, especially since the pandemic.

Pablo Picasso, Pierrot (1917). Image courtesy Sotheby’s.

MGM Resorts said the decision to sell the works was motivated by equity and inclusion concerns.

Ari Kastrati, the company’s chief hospitality officer, said in a statement that the resort can be “a tremendous platform for showcasing diverse perspectives within the art community. While diversity has long been in MGM Resorts’ DNA, we are committed to creating an even more inclusive collection that maintains the breadth of our existing portfolio while giving a greater voice to artists from under-represented communities.”

MGM Resorts will devote a portion of the sales proceeds towards acquiring new artworks by a diverse group of artists.

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EARNING A LIVING-WAGE HERE IN AMERICA

HHH

Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom rental

About one in seven Americans fell behind on rent payments as housing costs continued to increase during the pandemic

Andrew Witherspoon

the Guardian

 

 

Nearly half of American workers do not earn enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment, according to new data.

Rents in the US continued to increase through the pandemic, and a worker now needs to earn about $20.40 an hour to afford a modest one-bedroom rental.

The median wage in the US is about $21 an hour.

The data, from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, shows that millions of Americans – from Amazon warehouse workers to cab drivers to public school teachers – are struggling to pay rent.

For the poorest Americans, market-rate housing is out of reach in virtually all of the country. And it’s not just big cities skewing the data. A two-bedroom rental – a reasonable size for a family – would stretch the budgets of renters in most US counties:

The federal government has long used 30% of income as a threshold for affordable rent. For affluent households, this still leaves plenty of money for essential purchases, but research has found that low-income families begin to cut back on necessities when housing costs exceed the 30% threshold.

Minimum wage isn’t enough to afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the US

For those earning the lowest wages, the housing situation is even more dire.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but some states, counties and cities have established higher minimum wages – the highest being $16.32 an hour in San Francisco.

>>>Still, there isn’t a single US county where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a modest two-bedroom rental. <<<

It’s worth noting that relatively few Americans – about 250,000 – earn the federal minimum wage. Another 865,000 workers earn less than that amount, largely because this group includes tipped workers who can legally be paid less than the minimum wage (their tips are supposed to make up the difference).

But this data shows that even considering places with a higher minimum wage, the legal wage floor in every US county is not enough to afford a modest two-bedroom.

Rent in most US metros has increased since the pandemic

Even as the pandemic threatened many Americans’ ability to find work, the cost of housing continues to increase. . .But since February 2020, average prices in 82 of 101 of the top US metro areas increased more than 5%. Among the cities with the largest increases are Boise, Idaho, (+21%), Riverside, California, (+17%), and Phoenix, Arizona (+17%).

SEE RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG for rents in Mesa that were provided by Apartment Leasing.com

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RAPID SPRAWL (Not Good or Very Bad) > I Love Time-Lapse Maps: Accelerating 10 Years of Explosive Growth

Thousands of moving data-points seen in a few seconds can say much more than waiting for an entire decade - ten years - to 'do a count" to tally-up Census figures in the places where they happened. Here's a very quick insert of non-static kinetic visual infographics taken from a recent analysis in The Washington Post . . .In the South and Southwest the cities of Phoenix, Houston, and Las Vegas have seen explosive growth over the past 20 years.

Maricopa County which encompasses Phoenix - added the most developed land since 2001: more than 270 square miles

A Washington Post analysis of data released by the U.S. Geological Survey this summer highlights where the most development has taken place. Suburbs are sprawling out in Arizona and Nevada as industries move to the Sun Belt, retirement communities are popping up in Florida as the baby boomer generation ages, and oil and natural gas wells have emerged across North Dakota and West Texas.

HOUSTON AND PHOENIX

 

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About this story

Editing by Lauren Tierney, Kevin Uhrmacher and Tim Meko.

The Washington Post analyzed data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Land Cover Database to visualize the growth in developed land between 2001 and 2019.

Developed land refers to any 30-meter by 30-meter area of land identified by the USGS as containing any impervious surface, such as roads, buildings or other human-made structures. The USGS utilizes Landsat satellite imagery, road locations and other inputs to produce this data set.

Data is not available for Alaska and Hawaii.

County-level estimates for 2001 and 2019 were calculated using 2019 county boundaries.

Water data is from the National Hydrography Dataset. Road data is from Natural Earth.

 

 

 

Where America’s developed areas are
growing: ‘Way off into the horizon’

Uneven development across the country has been driven in large part by rising housing costs, according to Albert Saiz, an associate professor at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

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Arizona IRC Public Meeting Listening Tour 8.9.21 (Maricopa County)

This public meeting of the Independent Redistricting Commission took place here in Mesa three days ago at the Mesa Convention Center. Hizzoner John Giles showed up first to hog the introduction - admitting for the first time in public that the City of Mesa did practice racial discrimination for Mexicans and Blacks using 'racial covenants' in certain neighborhoods. That's no secret he said to acknowledge the city's history that's usually skimmed over. At the same time he seemed to state that almost to head off any assertions that could be made for a new Re-Segregation in some of the city's mostly-white master-planned communities and subdivisions, including those at Eastmark and Cadence that are included in Community Facilities Districts along the Outer and Inner Loops. He also 'piggy-backed' to publicize that the City of Mesa has its own Redistricing underway to redraw and re-map the six City Council districts to equalize populations that have shown uneven expansion into certain districts. Next up is a speaker from the Salt River Pima Maricopa Nation, reminding everyone that native peoples were the territory's first inhabitants in boundaries adjacent to Scottsdale and Tempe...More speakers are announced. This is three-hours-and-twenty-eight minutes:

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