Amazon in the frame for a chunk of the Big Apple's art market; Middle March? More like Middle-earth...

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

Alice Jones
Thursday 23 May 2013 15:54 BST
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Amazon to enter the art market
Amazon to enter the art market

Amazon appears to be entering the world of fine art. The global online retailer sent a round-robin email to gallerists in New York last week inviting them to a launch event for its Fine Art Gallery.

The new site, which would allow customers to buy original artworks from a marketplace of selected galleries, would be pose a threat to other online art galleries like Artsy or the UK’s Saatchi Online, although Amazon UK had no comment on a similar UK initiative when contacted.

The email, which was reprinted on the Hyperallergic art blog, invited interested galleries “to learn more about connecting with new customers and driving sales on our platform.” And about paying tax on those sales too, of course.

Middlemarch? More like Middle-earth...

How best to put Middlemarch on stage? Very slowly. A new adaptation of George Eliot’s masterpiece will open at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond in October but audiences will have to wait until December to get the full story.

The actor Geoffrey Beevers (currently playing the Equerry to Helen Mirren’s Queen in The Audience) who adapted Eliot’s Adam Bede for the theatre in 1990 has split the novel into three shows - Dorothea’s Story, The Doctor’s Story and Fred & Mary – which will open in October, November and December respectively. Brave souls wanting the full whammy will be able to book into “Trilogy Saturdays” from the end of December.

“It would probably start at 11am and run through until 10.30pm (with breaks in between for lunch and dinner)”, I’m told. Pack a cushion.

Also in the Arts Diary

Arterial motive? Visitors to artist Andrei Molodkin's new show asked to contribute their own blood

Being Robin Wright: The actress' career plight plays out (both animated and live-action) in The Congress

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