connoisseurship and provenance research with laboratory science and proprietary AI, and then backs the conclusion with an insurance policy from an A+ rated global insurer. If a certified attribution is later proven incorrect, the policy will cover financial loss to the artwork's owner.
Stass Shpanin was born in Azerbaijan, formerly the Soviet Union, and has lived in the US since he was a teenager, so he is no stranger to countries and ideologies coming and going, and the imagery associated with them transforming along the way. Images of birds, animals and plants have appeared in the insignia, fl ags and offi cial documents of many states and municipalities for millennia, their meanings often similar yet adjusted to a particular context.
In an age when artificial intelligence (AI) has become the secular religion of virtually every industry discussion, the stark contrast in reactions to its rise is striking. Entrepreneurs around me, from finance to retail, rush eagerly toward AI, chasing better client experiences and smoother operations. Yet the art world continues to treat AI with suspicion, viewing it more as an existential threat than as a potent economic ally, a troubling stance for a market that, over the past two years, has faced multiple macroeconomic shocks.
Recent developments in digital photography have made possible and absurdly easy what was once impossible and unthinkable: dozens of shots per second, shooting in near-darkness, and even video, captured before the shutter is actually pressed.