The Greek economic crisis has inevitably affected the country's commercial art market. Elizabeth Louizou founded Harma Gallery in Athens in 2007. It sold contemporary painting, sculpture, jewellery, drawing and decorative objects. Despite a strong presence on the Greek art scene and a prominent location in Plaka, the old Athens neighbourhood beneath the Acropolis, Louizou was forced to close down the space in March last year because of financial difficulties.

"Since its very first exhibition in 2007, Harma Gallery has known great recognition, overcome visitors' expectations and gained popularity and customer loyalty very rapidly. Its market share increased until the last quarter of 2009, when its number of visitors and moreover, sales, gradually started declining," says Louizou.

Louizou set up the gallery at the age of 22 without any financial assistance. "I tried to support it by working a second job but the economy and tourism only got worse. As business is business, all the sentimental part had to be taken aside. A negative balance shows an unhealthy business and I could not support a gallery just for a hobby at the age of 26."

While a few collectors invested in art as prices decreased, the revival was short-lived, says Louizou. "Art is a luxury good. When people are struggling to pay for necessity goods – electricity and taxes – they have to set their priorities accordingly. This has a knock-on effect on the Greek art scene. Art becomes the least priority."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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New York City subway riders trample over thousands of used MetroCards in stations across the city every day.

But one artist has given new life to these abandoned MetroCards by using them to create stunning collages of New York City's greatest buildings, people, and figures.

German designer Nina Boesch, who lives in New York, started making MetroCard collages for friends 10 years ago. Since then her MetroCard art has appeared in exhibitions across the country.

She uses the plain backsides to make grayscale collages and adds color with the yellow-and-blue front sides. In some of the creations, you can even see snippets of NYC's "If You See Something, Say Something" ad campaigns that have appeared on the backs of MetroCards.

Water Tower Skyline, 2011

Coffee Cup, 2011

The Lincoln Center

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Duncan Harris is a Chippenham, England-based video game journalist, or "video game tourist agent," as he likes to call himself.

He's also the mastermind behind DeadEndThrills, a website devoted exclusively to capturing awe-inspiring images of live action gameplay of video games.

What makes his photos different from the average screen grab any gamer could take is the painstaking time and effort he puts into each one.

He explains on his FAQ that every image goes through Photoshop just to ensure that all of the "images are as close to the artists' work as possible."

While different techniques are used to perfect each image (and are listed below every photo), Harris explains that every photo is "grabbed at 216 op in realtime, using FXAA or similar for antialiasing, and then downscaled...in Photoshop."

In an interview with Kotaku—the digital hub for gaming news—Harris described his video game journalism philosophy: "I think what it boils down to is that there's just an awful lot of dumb sh-t in video games, much of it by necessity, underneath and between which is some truly stupendous art."

"Crysis 2" is a first-person shooter game released for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts, Crysis 2 was the first game to showcase the CryEngine 3 game engine.

"Crysis 2" uses the CryEngine game engine. According to the Crytek website, "it's the all-in-one game development solution for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that is truly next-gen ready."

"BioShock" is the first-person, genetically-enhanced shooter game developed by Irrational Games. Played within a dystopian setting, the gameplay is unique and offers stunning images, such as this one.

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Managers at Edinburgh airport appear to have been learning the intricacies of public relations at the feet of Argyll and Bute council, quickly if belatedly reading the chapter marked: The Lessons of Martha Payne.

With all the deftness of a fully-laden Boeing 747, the airport today executed a sharp u-turn on their decision on Tuesday to cover up and then ban a poster carrying a widely-celebrated nude by Picasso from their international arrivals lounge.

This morning, courtesy of the Times, it emerged that the airport's new owners Global Infrastructure Partners had reacted very hastily to a handful of complaints about a large advert for a new Edinburgh festivals exhibition featuring Picasso's Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, which went up there last week.

Apparently, the nude's bare breasts – the poster was deliberately positioned in prime site near the arrivals gate - were regarded by at least one woman passenger (and others) as not the kind of welcome she expected in Scotland. So the airport placed a white vinyl cover over the offending area, as a temporary measure before it was removed.

Buying that site was the biggest single item of marketing expenditure by National Galleries of Scotland for their new exhibition Picasso and Modern British Art which opened on 4 August at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in time for this month's Edinburgh festivals.

John Leighton, director general of the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), which runs the gallery, said the airport had also asked for it to be removed, and replaced with something less controversial. He was nonplussed by the controversy. Speaking before the airport relented, he said:

It is obviously bizarre that all kinds of images of women in various states of dress and undress can be used in contemporary advertising without comment, but somehow a painted nude by one of the world's most famous artists is found to be disturbing and has to be removed.

I hope that the public will come and see the real thing, which is a joyous and affectionate portrait of one of Picasso's favourite models, an image that has been shown around the world.

There were several reasons why Leighton was taken aback. The image had been used heavily and without complaint on the London underground for the same show at Tate Britain earlier this year. And it was given prior approval by the airport's managers and their advertising company JC Decaux.

Happily for the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh airport has learnt the lessons which Argyll and Bute council did back in June when they banned the now world-famous and celebrated Neverseconds blog on school dinners by their pupil Martha Payne, and then lifted the ban in less than 24 hours.

The National Galleries of Scotland had been now wrestling with what to do next: the advert took up a large chunk of the advertising budget for the Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition, and there is little time and money left to get approval from the Picasso estate to find a suitably strong new Picasso to replace it. A spokeswoman explained:

The problem is that the Picasso estate has control over the majority of images in the show, and it would be quite a lengthy period of time to get that approval. We'd only just got that ad placed at the airport for the month so it's quite frustrating for that reason.

Apparently it was all down to "confusion" at the airport.

In a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, an airport spokeswoman said:

We have now reviewed our original decision and reinstated the image. The initial decision was a reaction to passenger feedback, which we do always take seriously. However on reflection we are more than happy to display the image in the terminal and we'd like to apologise - particularly to the exhibition organisers - for the confusion.

As well as returning the image to its original display we also hope that the interest assists in further promoting the Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to the many visitors in Edinburgh at the moment.

Leighton has had one wish granted. He said before the ban was lifted he hoped the public "will come and see the real thing, which is a joyous and affectionate portrait of one of Picasso's favourite models". Thanks to the airport, word of the exhibition is, metaphorically at least, now flying around the world. But then Martha could've told anyone that. Her site has now had more than 7.6 million hits.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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LONDON (Reuters) - Modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan could have had a crack at gold in the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics - but is it art or sport?

A mixture of both would be the answer from Slava Corn, the Canadian vice-president of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).

Look past the spangly outifts, fixed grins and thick layers of make-up. Detractors may shake their heads in bewilderment over all this multi-colored kitsch but just watch what the gymnasts can do with a twirling hoop or a swirling ribbon.

"This sport has a difficulty score which is the content and it has an artistic score which is the performance and the presentation," Corn told Reuters.

"It is a sport in our minds but obviously it does have a huge artistic component. For us it is a sport expressed in an artistic way."

Among the gymnasts you can see the wafting and willowy influence of Duncan, widely regarded as the founder of modern dance, whose passion for flowing scarves killed her. Duncan was a passenger in an open-top car when her silk scarf got caught in the wheel axle and broke her neck.

"Ballet and all forms of dance have certainly influenced gymnastics," Corn said.

The music at London's Wembley Arena has been a gloriously incongruous mix.

The Bulgarian team went for a Beethoven piano sonata. Germany opted for "Fast Five Cheeky Bits." Azerbaijan's Aliya Garayeva chose Randy Newman's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" while China's Deng Senyue hoped Michael Jackson's magic would rub off on her with "Smooth Criminal".

Lyrics are banned, the gymnasts can use only the tune as accompaniment. Sounds "such as engines, police sirens and objects breaking are not allowed," the rules state.

Perpetual motion. Poetry in motion. If they can combine the two, the gymnasts are up there with top marks but some real disasters must be avoided.

Never ever let your hoop flutter in the air. Woe betide the gymnast whose ribbon gets knotted. Always balance your ball impeccably like a performing seal. For the club-wielding routine, think drum majorette meets juggler.

In the London 2012 competition, the commentator was lost in admiration for South Korean Yon Jae-son's hoop routine, telling the crowd: "She handled her apparatus magnificently."

The gymnasts in their spangly outfits have to sit in the "kiss and cry" seats in front of the audience waiting to hear their scores.

Detractors may dismiss the sport as being over the top but there is no doubting the skills of the gymnasts who start as young as six perfecting their ball, hoop, club and ribbon routines.

The crowds lapped it up at Wembley Arena, where Olympic "Perfect Six" figure skaters Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill staged their "Dancing On Ice Live" tour.

So what does Corn say to those all too ready to mock?

"Well my goodness if somebody does eight turns on her toes, that's a skill," she said. "If they kick an apparatus with their foot and catch it with their hand, that's a skill. If you understand dance, you can appreciate what they are doing."

(Editing by Clare Fallon)

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A prestigious Australian lawyer who pleaded guilty to stealing high-end pieces of artwork from a restaurant in 2008 has to stay out of trouble for two years. But he won't be going to jail.

The reason? He claims he doesn't remember the crime.

Michael Sullivan's lawyers argued the attorney suffers from dissociative amnesia, a disease that carries long-term memory loss in regards to traumatic events, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Thursday.

Judge Jennifer English accepted Sullivan's explanation, claiming he "had previously lived an exemplary life," ABC News reported Thursday.

English didn't record a conviction for Sullivan but placed him on a two-year good behavior bond.

The case started in December 2008 when security cameras caught Sullivan stealing two pieces of art from an art gallery that also served as a restaurant, The Sydney Morning Herald reported in May.

The art was worth $14,500.

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When Chef Gabriel Kreuther opened The Modern, an upscale, fine-dining restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, he set out to open "the first great restaurant in a museum."

He was recruited in 2005 by famed New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer and together they have created an environment that merges food and art.

Chef Kreuther is from Alsace, France and says he takes inspiration from traditional Alsatian cooking as well as contemporary art and mixes them with local American ingredients to create his menu.

The result is food that rivals some of the works in the museum itself.

Watch the video below to see how he does it.

Produced by Kamelia Angelova & Robert Libetti

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• See Why These Chocolate Bars From Brooklyn Cost $12 Each
  
  
  
  

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Why are Britain's public galleries spurning the generosity of Charles Saatchi? This week it was reported that the collector's personal treasury of late-20th-century British art, worth an estimated £30m and offered two years ago as a gift to the nation, has had no takers.

A proposed deal with Arts Council England has proved elusive. More bizarrely, Tate galleries appear to have rejected Saatchi's offer, as well.

According to a spokesperson for the Saatchi gallery in London: "Nick Serota asked to see the proposal for the gift and a list of all the works which we sent him. He never replied so we took that to mean he wasn't interested." A spokesperson for Tate told the Guardian the galleries had not wished to intervene in ongoing discussions with the arts council. Either way, two years on, Saatchi's gift is without a home. The collector now plans to establish a foundation for the art works, and to appoint a board of trustees to manage it.

I find this snub baffling. There is plenty in Saatchi's collection that would surely become a visitor highlight at either Tate Modern or Tate Britain in London, not to mention the Tate galleries in Liverpool and St Ives. Is Tate Britain really so rich in contemporary wonders that it can afford to spurn Saatchi's collection of Grayson Perry ceramics, or the Chapman brothers' Tragic Anatomies or Tracey Emin's My Bed? Emin's bed caused a sensation at Tate Britain in 1999, when it was exhibited in the artist's Turner prize show. Why wouldn't they want it as a permanent exhibit?

Saatchi's offer also includes Richard Wilson's tank of glittering, eerily reflective black sump oil, 20:50. Emin's bed has its detractors. But 20:50, first created at Matt's Gallery in 1987, is not a piece of "young British art", a part of YBA culture; it does not represent an art trend or a celebrity artist. For me, it is simply a modern masterpiece, a contemporary classic. So why doesn't Tate Modern want it? The Bankside museum has just opened a sublime new space called, for God's sake, The Tanks. 20:50 could have been commissioned for it.

Perhaps there have been arguments behind the scenes about curatorial influence (Saatchi loves to curate: does he want a say in how galleries show his collection?) Perhaps there have been quibbles about obligations to show the work continuously, rather than keeping it in storage. This is speculation: those involved have said they do not wish to comment further.

But I do know that Tate prides itself on a very different aesthetic take on contemporary art from that identified with Saatchi. The Tanks, for instance, opened with a festival of live art. Love it or loathe it, this is the kind of stuff Saatchi would not touch with a bargepole. His art collecting in the 1980s and 1990s, a period when he was central to new British art, was strong on shocks and thrills, low on the sort of cultural theory that loves such forms as live art. By contrast, Tate has tended to champion what it sees as the "real" international avant garde, artists who are big on theory, and weaker when it comes to image-making power.

Tate did not light the fire of modern British art; Saatchi did. It was he who threw money at Damien Hirst when he was young and new and dangerous – and genuinely worth paying attention to. If art is about the new, we ought to have greater respect for Saatchi's championing of the Young British Artists, at a time when they really were young. The Tate made no such bold commitment, and now appears to want to write his achievement out of history.

A legacy of startling, provoking and occasionally genuinely great art stands as a testimony to Saatchi's guts. It is idiotic to reject his gift.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Burning Man is in a few weeks. Are you ready? Veteran Burner Deborah Schoeneman shares her essential information. It took years of experience to master it all.

BURNING MAN, Nevada – So you're going to Burning Man for the first time?

I hope you got a ticket. If you didn't, you may have to shell out major cash to get one off Craigslist — if you're lucky. And that's not where the money drain will end.

I first started going to Burning Man in 1999 and I've been nine times. (I think.) It started as a cool festival in the desert where my architect friends from college built art projects. Now it's where my rich friends party. The evolution of Burning Man has coincided with my getting older and increasingly preferring creature comforts, so I'm not complaining. I could go on and on why I love it, but this is just a survival guide, so I'll rein it in.

BEFORE YOU GO

1. Find a Theme Camp

First of all, read the official first timer's guide on the Burning Man web site.

Find anyone you know who is connected to a big, established theme camp and try to get in. These people don't have to be your best friends, but you want to camp with them because they have figured out things like outdoor showers, bathrooms, and massive shade structures — and they will likely have power that you can use. Ideally, you'll go with friends and make your own sub-camp. You will have to pay in cash and some kind of chore to be a part of a theme camp. Do it. Or else it is a lot more work and expense. Also, the theme camps have the best real estate and your friends will be able to find you if you tell them in advance where you're camping because the big camps are on the official map.

2. Food & Booze & Drugs

Big camps are filled with veterans who will be nice and helpful. They will also solve the food and water issue with a camp meal plan and communal kitchen. This will help you avoid the trap of bringing shitty food like mac 'n 'cheese in a box and Ramen that you don't want. Coconut water is like a heavenly nectar there, so bring a ton. And don't be an idiot and forget water if you're camping solo, which I strongly don't recommend, in case you haven't figured that out by now.

Limit your booze intake. One shot of tequila or one glass of wine go a long way, and alcohol totally dehydrates you. If you're going to do drugs, at least wait until you have acclimatized and know your way around. Moderation really is the best option.

3. Shelter: RVs & Air Mattresses

I've camped in a tent, an Airstream, and an RV. If you can afford it, get an RV. You will be very happy to have your own bathroom, kitchen, bed, and air conditioning. If you can't, at least rent a minivan with removable seats. You can sleep in it — and keep your stuff relatively dust-free. If you're broke, bring a tent, a tarp, and an air mattress, which is a must because the ground is hard and dusty. It's brutally hot during the day and freezing at night, so come prepared for both extremes.

4. Stuff: What to Bring

Burning Man is supposed to be commerce-free, but it's really not. Bring cash and a ton of shit. 

The first timer's guide lists the basics, but the most important things are a bike, a Camelbak, a headlamp, and glow-in-the-dark bracelets and necklaces that come with fasteners so you can attach them to your stuff so you can find them at night. Tons of baby wipes. Ambien or some other sleeping pill, earplugs, and salty food like almonds and jerky. (The salt helps you retain water and avoid dehydration.) The things you will want to eat are salty meats and fish, dried fruit, fresh fruit, and tons of juice. 

You can't have too much lip balm.

Goggles to block out the dust. Army Navy stores are good for this. Get cheap ones and bring at least two pairs. Ditto for sunglasses. You will lose them. Bring a bandana or disposable dust masks from a hardware store. Dust storms are totally fine, just stop wherever you are, duck into a yurt or teepee, take it easy, make new friends, and don't panic. The only thing you don't want to do is fight it and try to get home. 

There's a medical tent so you don't need to go crazy bringing first-aid stuff, but definitely pack Band-Aids, Advil, and saline spray for a dry nose because that's gross to share.

Do not bring any shoes that will give you blisters!

Bring some classy stuff, too. Bottles of rosé and kombucha, dark chocolate, smoked salmon. You will make way more friends with that stuff than with furry neon toys. 

Pretty much everything you bring will get ruined, so don't bring anything fancy except for a decent camera with a ziplock bag to keep it in.

5. Costumes

Costumes really depend on your style. My advice is to bring a bunch of accessories like medallions, hats, sunglasses, and sarongs. Jumpsuits and fur coats are great, too. It's not about dressing up as, say a witch. It's about looking like a cool robot or gypsy. Keep your feet covered as much as possible to avoid crazy dry cracked toes. Don't buy a ton of stuff at American Apparel (metallic bikinis, etc.) because every newbie does that. 

6. When to Go and When to Leave

Arrive early and depart early and stay for a least three nights. It's so much effort to get there, so you'll want to settle in. Burning Man is mellow and great early in the week. I like to go from Monday to Friday. If you go early, you can watch the art installations and theme camps get built. The dance parties are smaller and the crowd is older. By Thursday it's amateur hour, full of raver kids on drugs waving glow sticks.

7. Pro Tip: Book a Hotel

Book a nice hotel room at Peppermill Resort in Reno for a night en route home. You will want a very long shower and room service. They have rooms with Jacuzzis. Spring for it and book it now because they fill up. Nothing is worse than driving around Reno desperate for lodging. Maybe you'll even find a new special friend to share it with you. This is part of the Burning Man magic.

Check out the rest of the tips at Fathom > 

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French daily Libération has a story on what is possibly the worst restoration job ever inflicted upon a classical painting. 

The work, a simple 19th century portrait of Christ by Spanish artist Elias Garcia Martinez housed in a church outside of Saragossa, was ambushed by an 80-year-old painter who had "good intentions" but who left it in "a poor state," according to local authorities.

That understates it a bit — check it out:

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Yesterday, the world collectively guffawed at the horrific "restoration" job performed on a 19th century painting of Christ in Spain.

Today, the woman responsible for the work responded.

FranceTV (via LeMonde) tracked down the woman, an octogenarian whose name is not given, and she said she received full permission to do the job.

"We perform all our own repairs in the church," she said. "The priest asked me to do it — he knew full well. How could I have done it without permission?"

The site reports professional restorers are descending upon the church, in a town outside Saragossa, to see if any aspect of the original work can be saved.

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The Beatles weren't much known for their painting skills, but a rare canvas painted by all four band members while they were holed up in a VIP suite at the Tokyo Hilton in 1966 is about to hit the auction block.

Each band member painted one corner of the 30x40 canvas, called "Images of a Woman," during their one and only trip to Japan. It was given to the president of a Beatles fan club in Japan after it was completed.

There's no official estimate from auctioneer Philip Weiss Auctions as to how much the piece could go for, but according to Paul Frasier Collectibles:

The work was sold to a dealer in Osaka for approximately $191,000 in the mid-1990s and appeared again in 2002 on eBay, though it is not certain the exact amount it sold for. A Liverpool Echo report before the sale suggested that the painting might achieve as much as £350,000.

The auction, which also includes artwork by Frank Zappa and a jacket worn by late rapper Biggie Smalls, will take place in Oceanside, NY September 14.

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The "Hollywood" sign in Los Angeles is one of America's best known icons, but most people only see if from a distance.

The section of Mount Lee where the sign is located is a steep and dangerous place. Photographer Ted VanCleave recently got special access to the sign, which is closed by the public, and snapped some photos giving a rare perspective of the 45-foot-tall letters and the city below.

He described the arduous trek to the sign for us in an email:

To get to the Sign, [Hollywood Sign Trust] staff drove me to the mountain top above the Sign via gated fire roads. These roads are also off-limits to the public. Once on top of Mount Lee, I was let through a locked gate. There is a tall chain link fence behind the Sign protecting it from visitors. Then because the terrain is so steep and the dirt and rocks are so loose, we had to rappel down a thick rope, carrying my camera gear in my backpack and I had to wear hiking boots. There is only a very narrow path in front of the Sign to access it. So shooting it is a challenge. In addition there are rattlesnakes in the area, so during the summer you have to be mindful not to step on one. 

Despite the hazards, he managed to capture some beautiful pictures. He shared some of them with us. Check out the rest on his Kickstarter page.

Overlooking Los Angeles with Artist's Shadow in the Lower Left

Behind the Y Overlooking Lake Hollywood

Looking Up at OH

WOOD Front to Back

Uneven terrain creates staggered letters

The view from above

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Spanish artist Ana Soler has made an incredible art installation of suspended bouncing and rebounding tennis balls as a metaphor of action and reaction.

Her "Cause and Effect" piece includes some 2,000 tennis balls suspended with very fine nylon thread throughout the Mustang Art Gallery in Alicante, Spain.

The installation invokes a sense of stopping time and reflecting on consequences, but since we are in New York and the U.S. Open just started, we can't help but think about tennis taking over the city for the next two weeks when we look at photos of this art work.

See also a video about the "Cause and Effect" installation here >

See also a video about the "Cause and Effect" installation here >

See also a video about the "Cause and Effect" installation here >

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Now that the dramatic dispute over socialite and philanthropist Brooke Astor's $100 million will has drawn to a close, it's time for her possessions to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Items from the late Mrs. Astor's two residences—her Park Avenue duplex apartment and her country estate Holly Hill—will be sold from September 24-25 at Sotheby's. The auction proceeds will benefit some of her most beloved charities,

The pre-sale estimates vary widely, from a measly $80-$120 for a pair of palm tree candlesticks, to $300,000-$500,000 for an oil painting by John Frederick Lewis.

The catalog offers a glimpse into a few of the deceased socialite's passions, among them a life-long interest in China and 19th century paintings of dogs. It also illustrates the cultivated and elegant aesthetic she was known for, with a touch of the unexpected and whimsical.

We've highlighted some of the more significant pieces from Astor's collection that will appear on the auction block.

This oil painting by John Frederick Lewis dates from 1868 and is signed by the artist in the lower left corner. Sotheby's Estimate: $300,000-$500,000.

27 emeralds and roughly 90 carats worth of diamonds make up this gorgeous Bulgari necklace. Sotheby's Estimate: $250,000-$350,000.

A pair of rare and unusual Chinese porcelain vases dating from the Qing Dynasty circa 1740. Astor was well-known for her interest in Chinese culture. Sotheby's Estimate: $80,000-$120,000.

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Christie's highly-anticipated evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art is already poised to set records this November. Wassily Kandinsky's "Study For Improvisation 8" (1909) is expected to fetch $20-$30 million at auction, potentially surpassing the previous Kandinsky record by $10 million.

The painting depicts a conquering hero wielding a golden sword, and exemplifies the bright colors and early abstract techniques the Fauvist painter was known for.

If the estimate price is met, the painting has the potential to set a new record price for a work by Kandinsky at auction. The current record was set in 1990 for $20.9 million.

The work of art is offered from the Volkart Foundation collection, a charitable trust founded by the Swiss commodities trading firm Volkart Brothers, with proceeds from the sale will benefit the Foundation.

Since 1960, "Study For Improvisation 8" has been featured at the Tate Modern, Kunstmuseum Basel, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montréal, and many others. Though widely exhibited throughout Europe, Christie's pre-sale exhibition will mark this important work's first foray into the United States. It will be included at a public exhibition at Christie's Rockefeller Center Galleries from November 3-7, 2012.

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — If dead men don’t tell tales, they certainly don’t sell medals awarded to them over 80 years ago.

That was the message delivered by Chinese art collectors when they refused to enter a bid for a medal awarded to late dictator Chiang Kai-sheik on Aug. 24. The medal was put up for sale in Hong Kong despite Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense saying it was a fake. According to the ministry, the real medal was buried with the generalissimo in 1975.

The botched auction is just the latest contentious sale in China’s booming art market, which according to industry research outfit Artprice, overtook both the US and the UK as the world’s largest, with $4.79 billion in sales last year.

But some experts say there’s more to those numbers than meets the eye, pointing to an industry riddled with forgeries, money laundering, bid-rigging and fraud.

“A lot [of the buying] is artificial. In the auction business it’s called show bidding. Their own captive demand is always available to drive the prices and the volume,” said Sergey Skaterschikov, founder of Skate’s Art Market Research.

“The Chinese market is really big on money laundering. The good thing about art from that perspective is you can always say I bought it for $100 and now it’s worth $10 million. It’s very difficult to argue with that because of poor transparency of the art price.”

Skaterschikov, and others, say that art has surpassed real estate, stocks, gambling in Macau and overseas bank accounts as the method of choice for dodgy businessmen and corrupt officials to hide their ill-gotten gains.

In some cases the bids themselves are used to pass bribes, where buyers intentionally overpay for shoddy pieces in order to legally pay the seller.

In one high-profile incident last year, a Chinese businessman had a fake ancient jade burial suit made up. After getting a group of appraisers to verify its authenticity, and value it at a staggering $375 million, the businessman used the suit as collateral to secure a $100 million bank loan.

“The figures are huge because they fetch very high prices. There is a hidden process of laundering through buying and selling of counterfeit and real paintings and antiques in this region,” said Lo Shiu-Hing, and expert on transnational crime at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

In an old money part of Taipei, and just down the road from the National Palace Museum and the world’s greatest Chinese art collection — which was itself stolen and transferred to the island following the Chinese revolution — Huang Hung-jen contemplates the state of a market once dominated by Taiwanese collectors.

“Most people in China are investors as opposed to collectors. It’s an investment above all else. They want to make on it fast. But the real winners are collectors. They buy and keep pieces for five to 10 years. By the time they put them up for auction the resale is five to 10 times higher,” said Huang, who racked up a decade’s worth of experience in Taiwanese auction houses before being handpicked to run a Chinese firm’s Taipei office.

“Investors have problems with forgeries, but we are OK, because our experts catch that. But cosigners have given us pieces [that were forgeries] so many times. We can’t do anything about it. We just let it go and say ’we can’t accept this item.'”

Perhaps given the success Huang and his company have enjoyed recently, they can afford to be generous.

At its June show in Beijing, Huang found the Taiwanese collector that sold a 1964 landscape by Chinese painter Li Keran for $49.24 million. Li is famous for paintings that celebrate Cultural Revolution protagonist Mao Zedong. An anonymous buyer from the Forbidden City picked up the painting — a record for a Li piece.

Nobody knows for sure how much of China’s art market is bogus. But one thing is for sure, it’s not just a Chinese problem. The Association for Research into Crimes against Art estimates that art crime is the third biggest grossing criminal activity worldwide, behind only drugs and arms trafficking.

The association estimates that the art market brings in as much as $6 billion annually, saying that those funds are used to bolster organized crime syndicates. Still, experts say that like so many other industries, the gold rush is happening faster and stronger in China than anywhere else.

“The art world is very slow to wake up to the new reality. When they wake up to the fact that the economic power has shifted towards Chinese players there will be mayhem,” said Skaterschikov. “But people are very quickly going to learn that there is none of this spiritual art buying and collecting that they're used to from American or European buyers. This is driven by other motives.”

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Last May, Sotheby's set a record with the sale of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" for $119.9 million. Purchased by financier Leon Black, it was the highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction.

Now, Sotheby's wants to profit from the Munch mania by offering three Andy Warhol prints inspired by the Norwegian artist. "The Scream (After Munch)," "Eva Mudocci (After Munch)," and "Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton's Arm (After Munch)" all date from 1984 and come from a private European collection. The combined presale estimate is £500,000-£750,000, or roughly between $800,000 and $1.2 million dollars.

The Sotheby's Sale of Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints will take place in London on September 19, and features about 200 prints from the last five centuries. The auction will include a woodcut by Munch himself of "The Girls on the Bridge" from 1918, currently on show at the Tate Modern (presale estimate: £180,000-£200,000).

Matisse, Banksy, Picasso, Rembrandt, Miró, Man Ray, Koons, Hirst, and Goya are among the other big-name highlights. But it is Warhol with a whopping 24 prints who will be the most heavily-featured artist at the auction.

Now meet the 10 biggest art collectors of 2012 >

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It looks like anger at Wall Street has found its way to Nevada's Black Rock Desert and to the raucous rhompus that is the Burning Man music festival. 

A group of attendees lead by California artist Otto Von Danger, burnt down a stylized replica of Wall Street on Saturday night for a piece of "dialogue driven art" called 'Burn Wall Street' (h/t Daily Intel).

The Burning Man version of Wall Street included life sized buildings labeled "Bank of Un-America," "Merrill Lynched," "Goldman Sucks," and "Chaos Manhattan."

It reportedly cost around $100,000 to build.

Here's Von Danger's explanation of why he did it:

Burn Wall Street (“BWS”) is a very political piece that stems from a neutral point of view. We see the Tea Party and the Occupy movements as very similar. They are both well-intentioned groups of Americans that know that things must change.

Unfortunately, one group has been hijacked by Right-wing extremists and the other by Left-wing extremists, and both groups have been used as pawns through the use of political wedges to keep each other from the actual goal of reforming Wall Street and saving our economy.

But the people who are responsible for fixing this are not the 1% or the 99%–we need 100% of Americans to step up to the challenge to fix this. So BWS is asking these disparate groups to put down their Bibles and their Communist Manifestos in order to unite, share ideas and come up with actual solutions from a rational perspective.

You can watch a video of the whole thing burning down below:

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A model arrested in Times Square in August 2011 has won a $15,000 settlement from the city in a suit claiming officers wrongly arrested her for public nudity.

Zoe West's year-long suit against the city stems from her participation in a "full-body" painting exhibition in Times Square, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

West's entire body was covered in paint and she had just taken off her G-string for the finishing touches when police arrested her, according to her lawsuit, which the city has offered to settle for $15,000.

“In order to determine that she was fully nude, you had to get much closer to her than most people get on a first date,” West's lawyer Ron Kuby told the Post, adding that "public nudity is legal in New York City as long as it’s done for purposes of a performance, exhibition or show.”

West was never charged in the incident.

“Given the police idiocy, one wonders where the boobs really are,” Kuby told the Post.

DON'T MISS: Man Claims NYPD Employee Took His Benz For A Joyride And Ran A Red Light While He Was In Jail >

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