You may have noticed the art market is on a bit of a tear. Two weeks ago, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” broke the record for most expensive artwork ever sold at auction with its purchase price of $119.9 million. The previous record was set in 2010, when Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust” sold for $106.5 million. Meanwhile, the broader “art market” kicked up a nice return last year while the equity market was volatile and sluggish. The widely followed Mei Moses All Art Index rose 10.2 percent for 2011, compared to a virtually flat S&P 500. In addition the most recent ten and five year compound annual returns for art, 4.6 percent and 7.7 percent, exceed S&P 500 returns of 0.0 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, according to Mei Moses data.

You might think all of this would make art investing a pretty appealing prospect. But no. Investing successfully in art has always been a bit of a quagmire: opaque, inscrutable, unpredictable, ruled by passionate collectors and secretive insiders, a dangerous game for amateurs.

One veteran of the art world, Artnet, wants to change all that—to a certain extent. Artnet is hoping to make art investing a little more approachable and transparent with something it’s calling the Bloomberg terminal of the art market. Last week, the firm launched a new set of auction pricing analytics and a new index, which users can then slice up in a dizzying number of ways. In part, the firm says this new index will help financial advisors benchmark and monitor a client’s portfolio of art works much like they monitor the client’s other investments. Instead of keeping any talk of your client’s collection of Lucian Freud and Peter Doig paintings out of the office, you could actually integrate them into his full financial picture.

“This is a phenomenal market, it’s extremely active, there’s a lot of money in it,” says Artnet director of analytics Thomas Galbraith. “At the moment, asset managers have no way of knowing how their clients’ art is performing against their other allocations and that’s what we’ve tried to change.” He continues, “What we’ve been trying to do over the course of Artnet’s life is bring transparency to the market. Some people argue that part of the reason the past 20 to 30 years has seen such an increase in interest and activity in the art market is because that opaque market is starting to get a little bit clearer and a little bit clearer and we are part of that process.”

Artnet has long provided pricing data to industry participants and it monitors 700 auction houses around the world, 2,000 galleries and 8 million works of art, with some price data going back to the 1980s. (Artprice and artinfo also provide art data online.) With Artnet’s new analytics and index, users can track prices across three art genres—impressionism, modern and contemporary—but the firm is in the process of creating sub-indices that would track contemporary Chinese, contemporary photography, pop art and surrealist works.

Users can also track a single artist, a series of works by that artist, a single work of art, or they can create a custom index that represents a particular collector’s holdings, with each artist weighted according to his or her representation in the collection. Artnet’s new program also generates reports that examine other market variables like price volatility and liquidity. For example, you can compare average sales price to expert price estimates, the percent of lots that are sold below and above the average price, as well as sell-through rates (the number of pieces that sell in a year versus the number that don’t sell) and buy-in rates (the number of pieces that sell at auction versus those that go to auction but fail to sell).

So why does the art world need another index when it’s got Mei Moses? Artnet says it offers far greater volume of data, all of these additional metrics for measuring sales rates and pricing trends, and it provides complete transparency on its methodology. Mei Moses, says Galbraith, only measures pricing at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions, which creates selection bias. Artnet also claims that its methodology is better. Whereas the Mei Moses tracks prices of individual works using repeat sales data, Artnet uses the Us government guidelines that appraisers use when they price a work (called USPAP), pulling together pricing of like works, which gives them a greater volume of data to work with.

After the $44 million record-breaking “Sleeping Girl,” the (nearly)-$87 million record-breaking Rothko, and the $120 million record-breaking “Scream”; after an art buying binge totaling nearly $1.5 billion in just two weeks; after the celebrations have ended and the jubilant headlines faded, the bigger question remains: what did this year’s major May art auctions actually mean for the artworld – and, specifically, the art market?

The answer comes down to quite good news, but not in the ways you think. In fact, you’d almost be inclined to think otherwise at first look: because behind the peacock-strutting announcements of new records, and despite total auction sales over ten days nearing 1.5 billion dollars (at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury combined), a somewhat different picture emerges – one in which numerous works barely made it past their low estimates, with some selling even below bottom and others failing to sell at all.

Added to that more somber view was Sotheby’s release on May 10 of its first quarter results for 2012, showing a $10.7 million net loss – the result, in part, of a whopping 23 percent drop in the number of works the house hammered down above the $1 million mark and an overall 29 percent reduction in net auction sales from the prior quarter. (Though in fairness, as Sotheby’s officials pointed out, first- and third-quarter figures are regularly lower than those of the second- and fourth, largely due to the annual auction schedules and timing of the top art sales).

The combination – lower values and falling revenues — would appear less than heartening at first. Yet part of this poor showing, I’m convinced, can be ascribed not to problems in the market, but rather, to problems in marketing – or over-marketing, if you will. When Christie’s touted the six Richters in its May 8 sale as ‘an exceptional selection of six important works,” they failed to account for the fact that half of those six weren’t actually all that “exceptional” or “important” at all. Buyers, however, did; they grabbed the two best (“Seestück,” estimated at $10-15 million, which sold on the phone for $19, 346, 500 with premium; and “Abstraktes Bild 798-3,” estimated at $14-18,000, which made a record for the artist at $21,810,500 with premium) – and all but shunned the rest, which sold at or near their low estimates. And Jeff Koons? His day may well be over: a pair of “Cherubs” estimated at $800-1.2 million which at one time would surely have soared well higher, plopped themselves into a new home for the bargain price of $722,500 (premium).

Similar results were felt at Sotheby’s, where, in a sale art commentator Sarah Douglas described as “hit or miss,” two De Kooning paintings, expected to sell high in the wake of last fall’s big De Kooning exhibition at MoMA, did miserably: *Untitled,” estimated at $4-6 million, failed to sell completely, while another changed hands for less than its low $3 million hammer estimate (at $2,882,500 with premium).

Even more revealing were the responses of buyers to two Andy Warhol paintings and one by Jean Michel Basquiat. Warhol’s “Portrait of Jan Cowles” fetched half its low ($1.5 million) estimate, while a “Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup” label (estimate $1-1.5 million) – one of the Pop king’s weakest images – failed to sell at all, as did Basquiat’s “Untitled” from 1981 (estimated at $3-4 million.

What makes this last particularly noteworthy is the fact that, in the same sale, Basquiat’s “Ring” – a much stronger, blood-red canvas – surpassed its $4-6 million estimate, while two nights later, Phillips – the “little kid on the block” – knocked down a record price for Basquiat with its sale of ‘Untitled” (1981), a mixed media on wood from the collection of Robert Lehman and estimated at $8-12 million, for $16 million and change.

All of this sends a clear message that the auction houses – and secondary market dealers – would do well to heed going forward: art collectors – and even speculators – are increasingly well-educated these days, and those who aren’t have the resources to engage informed advisors to do the selecting for them. You cannot hope, anymore, to pass a mediocre painting off as a “landmark” work – or, in an age where auction results are available to all, hide mediocre outcomes with headlines that trumpet “landmark” sales.

This is good news. It speaks to the power of connoisseurship. It speaks to the notion that hype is (finally) over. Most importantly, it demonstrates that even when people buy judiciously, intelligently, and knowledgeably, they are still willing to spend enormous sums of money on truly great works of art, on the icons of our culture. So while the prices may often be crazy, and the headlines often manic, the real picture is one of a market based, yes, on passion, but one touched, too, with a good dash of common sense. Which is exactly as it ought to be.

The spectacular “super moon” of Cinco de Mayo cast a surreal glow over the magnificent Huntington Botanical Gardens for “Art Matters Encore!” the San Marino League’s fourth annual juried art show and sale. About 500 guests turned out for the opening of the quadrennial event, which supports the Huntington’s Japanese Garden, along with fine arts scholarships at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design.

Event chairwoman Penny Grund noted that of the 300 or so artists who auditioned for the show, more than 100 artists were selected, and their work was featured over the two-day exhibit. On May 5, the gala preview soiree - $150- featured three lavish food stations catered by Peggy Dark’s Kitchen for Exploring Foods. Arcadia Florist Margit Holakaui created the enchanted garden d cor with yellow spring blooms, hanging parasols and paper lanterns.

On May 6, the sale was open to the public along with lectures by Tom Krumpak, artist and professor at Long Beach State University and an expert on American and international art, who discussed “Art Off the Radar,” a survey of contemporary artists. Jean Osher, an artist and teacher noted for her still-life paintings, demonstrated her oil-painting techniques.

On June 3, the Opera League of Los Angeles will honor its past presidents at the ninth annual Peter Hemmings Awards Dinner to be held at Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club. Lest anyone doubt the impact that folks in the Pasadena area have had on the success of L.A. Opera, check out the league’s roster of 14 presidents, eight of whom have been San Gabriel Valley residents: Alice Coulombe, Lorraine Saunders, Carol Henry, Joan Thompson, Toni Bird, Molly Siefert, Rebecca Bowne and Warren Schubert.

The grass roots of our own opera company in L.A. began more than 30 years ago when two San Marino neighbors, Alice Coulombe and Lorraine Saunders, who shared an interest in opera, signed on as local directors for the Met Auditions. At the time, the Music Center, which had been contracting with New York City Opera for several productions, was seeking a local support group. Coulombe and Saunders rose to the challenge and soon rounded up a cadre of fellow opera fans to form the Los Angeles Music Center Opera League in 1981 with Coulombe as its first president.

So they had a league with a few hundred members, but no opera company; however, the tide turned in 1984 when the Royal Opera of Covent Garden came to town for the Olympic Arts Festival, and the league was charged with manning a hospitality desk for visitors. Meanwhile, Placido Domingo had added his clout to the ground swell for a Music Center opera company and not only pledged his support but sang the praises of L.A. audiences around the world. Following the festival, the Board set out to enlist a major domo and found Peter Hemmings, of the London Symphony, who became general director of the L.A. Opera and served until he retired in 2000. Coulombe had recruited Pasadena’s Carol Henry for the league, and she succeeded Coulombe and Saunders as League president serving during the establishment of the L.A. resident company, which was launched in 1986, with Verdi’s “Othello” starring Placido Domingo. The rest is history. Henry is now president of the L.A. Opera Board of Directors. What is amazing is that in only three decades L.A. Opera has had a meteoric rise to become the fourth largest company in the U.S. with a world-class reputation. And the league continues to carry out is original mission: to provide hospitality, cast dinners, and fund-raising activities for the company.

The word was heard round the world that Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” sold at Sotheby’s this month for $119.9 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction, but word of who purchased the world’s most recognized painting is yet to be heard.

The purchaser was described by the auction house as “anonymous,” but it could likely be the royal family of Qatar, the tiny oil-rich Persian Gulf state, which was rumored before the May 2 auction to have shown strong interest in the pastel on board expected to bring in excess of $80 million.

Last year Qatar’s ruling family paid more than double that price when they purchased Paul Cezanne’s “The Card Players” in a private sale for over $250 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art. The family has been quietly amassing an enormous art collection ostensibly for the 2014 re-opening of Qatar’s National Museum and in anticipation of the hosting of the 2022 World Cup.

Both Munch and Cezanne painted their masterpieces in several versions — “The Scream’’ in four and “The Card Players” in five — and in both cases each painting was the last of the versions in private hands.

“The Scream” had been for more than 70 years in the family of the consignor Petter Olsen, a Norwegian shipping heir. His plan is, he says, is to use the proceeds from the sale of the painting to build a museum, art center, and hotel in Hvitsten, a small town in Norway where his father, a patron of Munch, and the artist both had homes.

The 1895 version of “The Scream” was not only the last of the versions in private hands, but it also was the only one with a poem written in Munch’s hand on the frame.

The poem, obviously revealing the inspiration for the painting, recalls a walk with friends at sunset when the sky suddenly turned a bloody red. In part, it reads: “My friends walked on/ I remained behind/ shivering with anxiety/ I felt the great Scream in Nature. E. M.”

New York’s May auctions continue this week with the sale of American art on Thursday highlighted by major works by Edward Hopper and George Bellows, each with a a $5 million-$7 million estimate.

Hopper’s 1939 “Bridle Path,” being sold by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with proceeds benefiting its Acquisition Fund, depicts three horseback riders in New York’s Central Park heading toward an ominous black void in the Riftstone Arch.

Bellows’s 1920 “Tennis at Newport” is one of four depictions of the sport that Bellows painted, two of them in major museum collections.

In 1919 while summering in Middletown, R.I., Bellows attended a tennis tournament at the Newport Casino and was so impressed with the sport and the elegant crowd that he painted two scenes, one of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection. Dissatisfied with the compositions of the first two paintings, he completed two more works in 1920, one of which is the painting being auctioned.

Big money continues to pour over postwar and contemporary art. At Sotheby’s Wednesday evening sale, 46 works of the 57 that were on offer sold for $266.6 million.

Gigantic prices were paid for paintings by the most famous artists of the second half of the 20th century. The three most expensive works were iconic pictures executed by artists long dead.

Roy Lichtenstein, one of the shining lights of New York Pop Art, painted “Sleeping Girl” in 1964. The picture was included in the artist’s show that year at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles where it was bought by a couple of renowned collectors, Philip and Beatrice Gersh. The portrait remained in their collection for nearly half a century and never hit the market until this week. Sotheby’s estimate was set at an extremely ambitious $30 million to $40 million, plus a sale charge of over 12 percent. “Sleeping Girl” managed to edge its way up to a world-record $44.88 million.

Moments later, it was Francis Bacon’s turn to cause a stir with a picture also set in the concrete of art history. The British artist painted “Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror” in 1976 and took it to Paris to be exhibited in a one-man show at the Galerie Claude Bernard in early 1977.

The huge composition (198 by 147 centimeters, or 78 by 58 inches), which served as the exhibition poster, was acquired there and then by a European collector who sold it this week.

Never before offered in the market, the Bacon had everything in its favor. The artist’s works are scarce, and its large size made this one rarer still. “Figure Reflected in a Mirror” was further enhanced by its past history. It carried the same estimate as Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl” and realized the same price, $44.88 million.

The third highest price on Wednesday evening was the most remarkable in its own way. “Double Elvis [Ferus Type],” a monumental image at over 207 centimeters high, in silk screen print and paint, was executed by Andy Warhol in 1963, just as Pop Art was taking off on a grand scale.

Warhol has been elevated to the status of a folk hero in the global news media over the past four decades, as has the subject of the picture, Elvis Presley, seen standing legs apart, revolver in hand. Warhol’s source for the image was a publicity still for a movie, “Flaming Star,” starring Presley as the gunslinger Pacer Burton.

But “Double Elvis [Ferus Type]” suffers from a weakness. The grayish hue lacks the punch given by color to the Warhol works that are most admired by his fans. The estimate, $30 million to $50 million, plus the sale charge, was a tall order. Somehow, the gray picture ascended to $37.04 million, which says a great deal about the keenness of contemporary art buyers for very large iconic works with famous names attached to them.

Two lots down, yet another gray image confirmed that the thirst of postwar and contemporary art buyers for very large works signed by artists who rose to world fame in the 1960s is unquenchable. “Untitled (New York City), 1970,” signed by Cy Twombly, could not be further removed from the Warhol.

The work is abstract, not figural. A dark gray panel is covered with regular lines of rhythmical white scribbling. Sotheby’s expected it to be knocked down between $15 million and $20 million. It fetched $17.44 million, setting one more world record.

Had Sotheby’s been lucky enough to garner as many imposing post-World War II works as Christie’s there is little doubt that the Wednesday session would have aroused the same enthusiasm. The enormous prices paid for the Lichtenstein, the Bacon, the Warhol and the Twombly demonstrate that buyers were as eager as ever.

But seen together, the 57 lots that came up at Sotheby’s made up a far less impressive sale. Several lots sold on just one bid and 11 of them fell unwanted in an atmosphere that was quite dull during the second half of the session.

Yet demand was strong enough throughout for works of lesser importance to do very well as long as they lent themselves to instant identification.

Lichtenstein’s “Sailboats III, 1974,” was brilliantly sold at $11.84 million, even though this later period of the artist is less sought after. On its appearance at Christie’s in May 1998, the price paid by the consignor was a more modest $1.37 million.

In a surge of bidding unprecedented in art market history, Christie’s Tuesday evening sale of contemporary art took in $388.5 million, the highest amount ever in that field.

A world auction record was set for a work of contemporary art when Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” painted in 1961 sold for just under $87 million. Christie’s estimate was $35 million to $45 million, plus the sale charge of more than 15 percent. Christopher Burge, who conducted the session with exceptional brio, brought down his hammer on the $77.5 million winning bid after one of the longest bidding matches yet witnessed in a contemporary art sale.

The Rothko had everything going for it. Acquired from Marlborough Fine Art in London in 1967 by David Pincus, one of the leading American collectors in the second half of the century, the picture, consigned from the connoisseur’s estate, had never appeared in the market during the intervening 45 years.

Rothko, who died in 1970, was the dominant force in the New York abstractionist movement of the 1960s, and “Orange, Red, Yellow” can convincingly be argued to be the most powerful of all his pictures. That record leaves well behind the previous highest price paid at auction for a Rothko when “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)” sold at Sotheby’s in May 2007, for $72.8 million. The market was then peaking on the eve of the 2008 recession, which makes this week’s new record all the more impressive.

The price that greeted “Orange, Red, Yellow” was the most spectacular of 14 world records established on Tuesday.

Two of these were set for American artists who, like Rothko, are at the heart of post-World War II art history and are held as blue chips of 20th-century art.

Jackson Pollock’s “Number 28, 1951,” an abstract composition, soared to $23.04 million, doubling the $11.65 million achieved in May 2004, when “Number 12, 1949,” appeared at Christie’s.

The record Pollock picture, also consigned from the David Pincus estate, is the first of the paintings made by the artist between 1951 and 1952 in the drip technique that gives the paint surface a deep relief. The dazzling rhythm of the swishing white, gray and black curves has a hypnotic quality that accounts for the astonishing price paid this week.

The three-dimensional oeuvre of Alexander Calder inspired comparable enthusiasm. “Snow Flurry,” done around 1950 in painted sheet metal and wire, became the American artist’s most expensive hanging mobile sold at auction as it made $10.38 million, doubling the highest expectations pinned on it.

A world record was also established for a standing mobile. Halfway through the sale, “Lily of Force” executed in 1945 went up to $18.56 million. This exceeded by half the ambitious estimate quoted by Christie’s for the Calder.

Among the American artists that have been less prominent on the art scene, Barnett Newman, who died in 1970, made the most spectacular jump. “Onement V,” an abstract composition of deep blue bands painted in 1952 realized $22.48 million, dwarfing the $5.19 million paid four years earlier at Christie’s for an untitled 1969 composition in ink.

European artists represented by significant works triggered the same irrepressible enthusiasm. The French artist Yves Klein’s “FCI (Fire Color I),” nearly 3 meters, or 10 feet, long completed in 1962 shortly before his death, brought an astounding $36.48 million. This is far above the previous record set at Sotheby’s in May 2008, with “MG9,” done in gold leaf, which sold for $23.56 million.

Ghostly ochre female figures outlined by purple hazy halos appear in the composition executed with dry pigments and resin on panel. The elaborate process used by Klein in his so-called “Fire Paintings” required female studio assistants to stand in the nude in front of vast panels on which they pressed their bodies and left impressionistic imprints.

It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed since the Antique Garden Furniture Show & Sale bowed into the New York Botanical Garden, formerly known as the Bronx Botanical Garden. Here is an event that has kept its focus and, under the direction of show manager Catherine Sweeney-Singer, improved with age and shied away from some of the questionable objects that have worked their way into other shows as vintage garden elements. A vetting crew, with limited time keeps an eye on the objects being shown and makes corrections to age dates when necessary.

This year several of the regulars dropped from the show, but four new faces joined the remaining 26 exhibitors and put on a fine display. Catherine altered the floor plan slightly, giving some of the dealers more space, and the final look came off pleasing to the eye. And it was obvious that the dealers brought their best, from a great variety of planters and urns to statues in all manner of materials.

And while the inventories varied from booth to booth, so did the success of the show, with some of the exhibitors experiencing the “best show ever at the garden,” to those who are looking forward to a better time next year. The show is generally staged the last weekend in April, so 2013 dates will be preview on Thursday, April 25, and running over the following three days. This year the show opened to a very well-attended preview on Thursday, April 26, and continued for the next three days. Buying at the preview was not as strong as in years past, but things picked up in the days following, with some excellent sales on Sunday.

A pair of cast stone frogs, circa 1920-1930, fashioned as fountains, acted as greeters from the corner of the booth of Howard and Linda Stein of Solebury, Penn. At the other end of the booth a large three-dimensional sign, tin letters, spelled out “SEEDS”, and the center of the booth was dominated by a large flower sorting table from a shop in Galveston, Texas, gray painted with a 2-inch lip around the top, circa 1946.

Flower frogs, in all shapes, forms and material, numbering more than 100, filled a half-dozen shelves in the booth of Bob and Debbie Withington, York, Maine. Turtles, fish, birds, swans, ducks, frogs, starfish and ceramic shells were among the forms offered. The booth was designed in two parts, with a 14-foot wrought iron fence and swinging gate separating the two, but not obstructing the view of the entire booth. The fence, circa 1930, was French origin and decorated with brass leaves. An impressive statue, “The Tempest” by Milton Hebald, circa 1955, was cast in bronze and from the Sharon, Conn., estate of George T. Delacorte Jr of Dell Publishing.

Bruce Emond of Village Braider, Plymouth, Mass., never ceases to come up with some show-stopping objects. This year great interest was paid to a 69 inches high and 63 inches in diameter thick pottery jar that was on the grounds of Vinland (Twombly House), next to Ochre Court. It is reputed to have been recovered from a 30-foot deep excavation at St Paul’s Church in Rome and presented to Catherine L. Wolfe of Vinland in Newport on June 22, 1884. It is of the age of St Paul himself, 2,000 years. It attracted attention from just about everyone at the show, including Martha Stewart, but sold very early at the preview to a New York City resident who is taking it to his home in Washington, Conn.

Each piece could fetch tens of thousands of pounds when it is auctioned next week. But despite the high price tag, this is one collection of artwork unlikely to find its way into the austere corridors of Sotheby’s.

This Friday, former Libertines frontman Peter Doherty is to auction off paintings smeared with his own blood, as well as prized possessions including his private diaries, military jackets from the band’s glory days, guitars and a selection of personal trinkets.

“Blood plays the starring role in my work. Sweat and tears are often waiting in the wings,” Doherty said of the auction, referring to his unusual painting style. The musician, who has been trying to make a name for himself as a fine artist, uses a technique he calls “arterial splatter”, in which he squirts his blood from a syringe on to canvas, or cuts a finger and draws with it. The highlight of the sale is likely to be a collaborative painting by Doherty and his friend Amy Winehouse, called Ladylike. It features a small self-portrait scrawled in the late Back to Black singer’s own blood and is expected to fetch 50,000-80,000 when it is sold at the Cob Gallery in London.

Auctioneer Edward Rising told The Independent of his “great excitement” at selling the picture, predicting that the “popularity of these two legends will certainly help drive up the pr ice”. An undisclosed percentage will be donated to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which aims to help young people.

The auction follows a 10-day exhibition of Doherty’s work, On Blood: A Portrait of the Artist, which took place at the gallery in February and during which more than 15 of the 20 blood paintings and prints exhibited were sold. The highest price fetched was for Salome, the blood and ink cover artwork for Doherty’s 2009 solo album Grace/Wastelands, which went for 7,000.

Winehouse’s Ladylike was also exhibited at the gallery in February but was not put up for sale “due to its personal nature”. Doherty said of the collaboration: “Amy was on the phone to her dad when she did that [painting]. She said, ‘Dad, I’m with Pete and he’s making me draw with my blood!’ He didn’t like me much, her dad.”

Doherty is a collector of curiosities, a selection of which also went on display earlier this year. They were not for sale, but the gallery said that due to “huge interest”, in particular his diaries and his writing bureau, Doherty was including some in the auction.

The diaries are expected to fetch up to 9,000, and his writing desk, a French floral piece he has engraved with profanities, is estimated at 6,000 to 12,000.

From oil, acrylic and watercolour paintings to mixed media, ceramics, pottery, jewelry and photography, a wide variety of original work was on display at 22 studios around the county on Saturday, May 5, and Sunday, May 6.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said potter Keith Lewis of Dorchester, who was participating in the tour for the second time, displaying about 75 pieces of pottery at the Ingersoll Creative Arts Centre. “It’s an opportunity to get people to see your work.”

Tillsonburg resident Gloria Gignac and her daughter, Michelle, were among those browsing the items on display at the Ingersoll Creative Arts Centre on Saturday. They said they expected to visit at least eight studios before the day was over and were looking to purchase a watercolour painting.

“We just spend the whole day (on it),” Gloria Gignac said. “It’s a great outing. You get a broad spectrum of what’s available in locally made crafts and arts.”

Photographer Cathy Bingham of Woodstock, who was also among those who had her work on display at the Ingersoll Creative Arts Centre, has participated in the tour the past three years.

“What I love about it is all the people I get to meet,” she said. “The sales are a bonus.”

Most of the images Bingham showcased were captured in Oxford County.

“I’ve travelled the world, but you don’t have to go far to find really great images,” said Bingham, who had prints, cards and images on canvas for sale.

Painter Shirley Hokke, who has participated in the tour since it was established five years ago, had her work on display at her home in Otterville.

“(The tour) is an opportunity for artists to share what we enjoy and create,” she said. “Certainly the public would not be disappointed if they came by during the tour. We feel, as artists, that we have quality one-of-a-kind pieces.”

Hokke said she had people from as far away as Montreal and Northern Ontario drop by during the tour while others came from closer to home, including Embro and Hickson.

Bruce and Ruth Hartley of Innerkip stopped at Hokke’s home on Saturday.

The couple are not only art enthusiasts, but artist as well. Bruce is a photographer and Ruth is a potter and they have had their work on display during previous studio tours. This year, they decided to participate in the tour by visiting as many studios as they could.

Often the most popular installations in the Museum of Modern Art’s atrium are the most unusual. There was the time

when the performance artist Marina Abramovic sat stock-still for 700 hours, staring at the hundreds of worshipful

visitors who came to gaze into her soul. And the time when the artist pair Allora & Calzadilla presented “Stop,

Repair, Prepare: Variations on ‘Ode to Joy’ for a Prepared Piano.” The two cut a hole in the case of Bechstein

baby grand and set it on casters, then hired musicians to play Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from inside the hole

while maneuvering the piano slowly through the space. There was also the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s

rotating metal fan, which swung from a cable just above head height.

Next will be a garage sale. MoMA curators and officials have already started clearing out their closets and attics

to recreate “Meta-Monumental Garage Sale” by the Brooklyn artist Martha Rosler.

First presented at the University of California, San Diego, in 1973, it’s a multimedia installation and performance

in which the merchandise is artfully arranged and all for sale. Buyers negotiate directly with the artist.

“It’s a way to involve the audience and show them how art is generated,” said Sabine Breitwieser, chief curator

of media and performance art at MoMA. It’s also a comment on public and private space and of course the adage that

one person’s trash is another’s treasure.

Soon the public can join in donating things. On May 12 and 13 and June 3 you can drop off merchandise from 1 to 4

p.m. at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, and on May 19 and 20 and June 2 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Modern in

Manhattan. Food and other perishable items, liquids, weapons and toxic or hazardous materials will not be accepted.

MoMA officials are also reaching out to colleges in the city to see if students have furniture or other objects they

want to part with. Depending on how much merchandise it gets, the museum may accept donations further into June.

The artist Kiki Smith describes her latest project, “Chorus,” opening May 23, as “an intersection between

medieval pageantry and an early 1920s Busby Berkeley film.” She has sprinkled what is called the Last Lot — a 70-

by-100-foot empty slice of theater district real estate at 46th Street and Eighth Avenue — with stained-glass

stars, a nostalgic nod to the glamour of old Broadway. An etched metal figure of Josephine Baker will stand amid the

star sculptures.

“The history of Times Square has been erased and made boring,” Ms. Smith said, recalling the gritty days of

burlesque clubs, peep shows and tenements.

Stained glass is a medium she has embraced in recent years, having worked with the architect Deborah Gans on a 16-

foot-high window for the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side. She has also created work using cast

glass, blown glass, Schott crystal, fluorescent tubing, lamp glass, industrial sheet glass and mirrors.

The stars she has made for the Last Lot, Ms. Smith said, are a metaphor for the star power of Broadway itself, and

the sculpture of Baker will be “like one of those life-size cutouts that stood in old movie theaters.”

The project was commissioned by the nonprofit Art Production Fund, in collaboration with the Times Square Alliance

and the Shubert Organization, which owns the chain-link-fenced lot and has donated it temporarily for art projects.

It’s becoming something of a tradition that once or twice a year Peter Brant invites an artist up to his three-

year-old foundation in a converted 1902 stone barn on the edge of a field in Greenwich, Conn., and lets him or her

have the run of the place. Over the years artists like Urs Fischer, Josh Smith and David Altmejd have created

installations there. Mr. Brant, the publisher and newsprint magnate, is known as a prescient collector who started

buying artists like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince before everyone

else. He also likes his by-appointment foundation to showcase less obvious artists from his collection.

While Karen Kilimnik, a Philadelphia artist, has a huge following in Europe, she is hardly a household name here. “

I’ve been collecting her works for seven or eight years now,” Mr. Brant said in a telephone interview. “I think

she’s one of the great American artists. She’s off the radar, living in Philadelphia in her own world.”

A bit of that world — magical, romantic and nostalgic — has been created in Greenwich. Her exhibition, which runs

from Saturday through September, includes installations, paintings, photographs and drawings made from 1982 to this

year. Some are site specific, like the “Fountain of Youth,” which consists of six feet of boxwood hedges, grass,

ivy and a stone garden fountain as well as glass perfume bottles on the upper gallery, while below will be a

chinoiserie-theme installation where early drawings will hang with custom wallpaper, furniture, garden seats, fans

and lanterns. “I’m still working on an entrance of snow drifts,” Ms. Kilimnik said.