It’s now possible to get inside the $50 billion art world with Sotheby’s Institute of Art Online. You can study from anywhere in the world. All you need is a computer and  you can study everything from understanding trends in the art market to using art as an alternative investment to the history of museums and more. It is all at your fingertips, taught by the Institute’s leading faculty as well as some of the world’s most important experts in the art world, from bankers to  historians to gallerists to international art lawyers.

With Sotheby’s Institute Online you can get inside the art world, learn about the art market and the vibrant international art scene from any computer anywhere. You’ll gain unparalleled access to Sotheby’s Institute of Art faculty and experts as well as a network provided by the online learning system. You’ll attend lectures, interact with faculty and other students and participate in discussions all via computer. A free, fully-online student orientation begins before each session. In addition, you’ll also have access to telephone technical support from noon to midnight each day.

The Guardian newspaper

has just published an interview with James Lingwood and Michael Morris, who this year are celebrating twenty years leading Artangel, the London-based art world production company. They are the impresarios that brought us Rachel Whiteread’s House, back in 1993, and more recently expanded their geographical reach by helping Roni Horn to construct her magical Library of Water in a distant part of Iceland.

 Artangel are a fascinating example of how the art world has evolved new forms to answer to the dramatic changes that art itself has experienced since the 1960s. And it is changes and evolutions such as this that we will be tracking in the new online course, Introduction to Contemporary art, that Sotheby’s is initiating next week. We sweep over the whole history of what has come to be called “contemporary” art, from the emergence of Pop in the 1950s and 1960s, to the latest developments in the commercial galleries. Some surveys of the period are presented as a series of artists and styles, each coming after the other in a plodding progression, but this course breaks that history into living traditions. We look at how Pop art inspired the work of contemporaries such as Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami, and how Conceptual art has seeded the ideas of young artists such as Tino Seghal and Douglas Gordon. And, throughout, we keep an eye on the changing institutions of the art world, from commercial galleries to auction houses to public agencies such as Artangel.

 Morgan Falconer

Rembrandt's Night Watch

Van Gogh's Sunflowers

Following this, are more specific genres of writing for students to explore – gallery notices for works on the wall and more general, longer exhibition introductions as well as brief catalogue descriptions of the artworks. Discussions centre around the best ways to balance facts for the visitors without being intrusively instructive or “lecturey”…

Other opportunities are for journalistic exercises, learning to be a reviewer for a national paper, or preparing and writing an academic paper, or a fully-fledged essay for an exhibition catalogue (all these are optional). So, how many yellow can you discern in the Van Gogh sunflowers?

James Malpas

Our online courses launch at the end of March, and we’re already getting some previews. Here’s one from Clare Solery writing for the MuseumStrategy blog.

And in other news close to home, Students from Sotheby’s Institute of Art MA programs now have the opportunity to study Interior Design at New York’s prestigious New York School of Interior Design as part of a new collaborative degree program. Read about it HERE.

David LaChapelle sues Rihanna over copyright infringement

Though he describes himself as a good friend of hers, the fashion and art photographer David LaChapelle has decided to settle his differences with the pop star Rihanna in a place where friends don’t usually end up: court. Mr. LaChappelle, known for his candy-colored, sexually over-the-top images, claims in a suit filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan that Rihanna helped herself to too many of the images in the recently released video for her sexually over-the-top song “S & M.”

Read this transcript from a recent NPR news report

Learn more about international art law in new ONLINE classes at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.

Gagosian Gallery’s new exhibition by Francesco Vezzoli is a valentine to our obsession with fame, fortune and fashion and a rather hilarious send up of commerce as our modern religion. But is the work worth the trip to chelsea? how much should we care about supermodels with needlepoint tears and Vezzoli’s mother dressed as the virgin mary singing pop tunes? Are we supposed to be outraged? Is the commentary anything new? This is certainly not new territory for Vezzoli, whose work has explored the themes of fame, sex, blasphemy and sin for many years. The New York Times blog calls it “irreverent” in this post from last week. What do you think?

Join the conversation about contemporary art in New York with our new online classes starting in March. The class on Contemporary Art is taught by Sotheby’s Institute’s own Stephen Pascher.

Check out this video from Sotheby’s Institute about Contemporary Art . Professor Anthony Downey takes you inside the exciting contemporary market with the unique Sotheby’s Institute approach.

Learn more with Sotheby’s Institute’s new ONLINE courses in Contemporary Art. Classes begin in March.

Now you can study online with Sotheby’s Institute of Art wherever you are in the world. A range of courses lasting from 2 to 8 weeks will soon be available online with our new distance education study platform. All you need is a computer and you can gain privileged access to the art world and educate your opinion at any time of the day or evening. It’s as easy as clicking here to sign up for courses starting in March.

With Sotheby’s Institute Online you can get inside the art world, learn about the art market and the vibrant international art scene from any computer anywhere. You’ll gain unparalleled access to Sotheby’s Institute of Art faculty and experts as well as a network provided by the online learning system. You’ll attend lectures, interact with faculty and other students and participate in discussions all via computer. A free, fully-online student orientation begins before each session. In addition, you’ll also have access to telephone technical support from noon to midnight each day.

Learn about art as an alternative investment, or trends in the international art market. Find out what is hot in contemporary art or take that art history class you have always wanted to take. It is all at your fingertips, taught by the Institute’s leading faculty as well as some of the world’s most important experts in the art world, from bankers to  historians to gallerists to international art lawyers.

Courses offered from March 2011:

Art as an Alternative Investment

Understanding Trends in the Art Market

International Art Business Law

Writing for the Art World

Introduction to Contemporary Art

Inside the New York Art World

Introduction to Art History