Ben Affleck — the magnificent bastard-slash-director-actor-writer who last brought us “The Town,” the most Massachusetts-est film since “The Departed” — explores no less exotic territory in “Argo,” the unwieldy, truth-y story of Americans who faked a movie shoot in 1979 Iran as cover for the rescue of six hostages. This is, it seems, a Tinseltown tale like Affleck’s Superman meditation “Hollywoodland”: A roundabout interrogation of the intersecting notions of patriotism, heroism, and entertainment. Just with tight denim instead of spandex. Ben, by the way, looks grrrrreat in those jeans and that beard  — credit due to wardrobe. And casting: That’s Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, and Alan Arkin starring alongside him. This film, in short, looks wicked awesome.

1. Todd Solondz’s next movie, “Dark Horse,” will focus on a man (Jordan Gelber) who lives and works with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow!) and falls in love with a detached woman (Selma Blair). Watch the trailer below. [The Playlist/Indiewire]

2. Against Me! singer Tom Gabel has become the first rock star to announce that he will make the transition from a man to a woman, becoming Laura Jane Grace. [RS]

3. G. Dep, a one-time rapper affiliated with Bad Boy, was sentenced to 15 years after turning himself in for a shooting — and discovering that he had in fact committed murder. [NYP]

4. Promoting, in character, his new movie “The Dictator,” Sacha Baron Cohen endorsed Mitt Romney for president. [NME]
Related: “The Dictator” Trailer: Sacha Baron Cohen’s Strongman Send-Up Looking Pretty Feeble

5. “Hubris” was taken: Bobby Brown has named his forthcoming album “The Masterpiece.” [The Juice/Billboard]

Previously: Samuel L. Jackson, “Mad Men,” the Beach Boys, J.J. Abrams, and Action Bronson

The DividendRank formula at Dividend Channel ranks a coverage universe of thousands of dividend stocks, according to a proprietary formula designed to identify those stocks that combine two important characteristics — strong fundamentals and a valuation

Tiffany & Co. held a cocktail party to present its Rubedo Metal collection made in honour of Tiffany's 175th anniversary. The reception at its Takashimaya store saw media and loyal customers as invited guests...

TORONTO — Crowds gathered on Saturday in anticipation of international art star Zhang Huan and the grand unveiling of his impressive new public sculpture, “Rising,” veritably shutting down one of the Canadian metropolis's busiest streets. The flashy new work was unveiled in a ceremony outside the Living Shangri-La Toronto complex on University Avenue north of Adelaide. On hand were a duo of city councilors and Art Gallery of Ontario director and CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, flanking the Shanghai-based Zhang, who was dressed in head-to-toe grey and a sleek, if modest, baseball cap.

Zhang lead an incense-burning ceremony in advance of the big reveal, and, with the aid of his interpreter, read out a poem, titled “breathing life."

The sculpture rises over a reflecting pool, a light-catching lattice of stainless steel birds ‘fluttering’ around root-like arches. Rumored to have cost in the range of $5 million, the piece was funded by the Shangri-La developers in what amounts to “an over-the-top gesture to the city’s Section 37 bylaw that allows zoning easements like height restrictions in exchange for community enhancements like public art,” according to Urban Toronto’s Craig White.

Toronto is presently in the grip of Zhang Huan mania. Though “Rising” will sit behind a fence over the next few months until the hotel and residences open in August (more birds are yet to be installed as well), an exhibition of Zhang's recent work has just opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Titled “Ash Paintings and Memory Doors,” it features pieces that are — given Zhang’s history of visceral and politically challenging performance — relatively quiet. But more drama can be expected at another important cultural venue in the city, as Zhang's version of Handel’s "Semele" will be staged by the Canadian Opera Company beginning May 9.

As the Chinese art megastar's touch is felt across the city, one thing is noticeably missing — his own body. As Toronto Star critic Murray Whyte wrote, “its imprisonment, abuses, and tests of endurance was the vehicle that made his name as an artist. In authoritarian China, he exerted control in the extreme on the one thing over which he could have dominion: His own physicality.” But, as Zhang said in an interview with Whyte, “Life keeps changing. If we did the same thing all the time, we would be bored.”

Certainly boredom can be avoided across Toronto, in the coming months, as the "Zhang Effect" continues to demonstrate its reach.

The Brooklyn-based director's second film, which opens for a week-long run at BAM next week, mashes up Philip Roth novels and iconic '70s road movies.

NEW YORK — Last month the Brooklyn Museum honored Lucy Lippard as the first feminist art critic during their inaugural Sackler Center First Awards. This week the museum announced that Lippard's book "Six Years" — which has introduced generations of art history students to conceptual art — will be the subject of what may be the first major exhibition structured around a single tome of art scholarship, "Materializing 'Six Years': Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art."

The show will open on September 14 and continue through January 20, 2013. "My co-curator Vincent Bonin and I have been talking about doing this show for years," Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art curator Catherine Morris told ARTINFO, "and I think the fact that it has remained a pertinent idea speaks to the importance and significance of Lippard’s project."

"Materializing 'Six Years'" is a testimant to the suggestive and creative style of Lippard's writing itself. "Lippard’s annotated approach to collecting information about her peers retains a freshness for readers today because she is purposefully not acting as a filter or a guide, or an authority to the information," Morris said, "but was instead simply interested in following the course of an idea that was in the air — an idea about shifting the status quo and really examining the materiality of the art object."

Morris and Bonin selected some 270 works, which will be organized chronologically into six sections, one each for the years between 1966 and 1971, corresponding to the six chapters in Lippard's "Six Years." Works included will parallel the trajectory of the book, chronicling the emergence of conceptual art from the mid-'60s to the early '70s, with an additional focus on the movement's relationship to feminist art.

"This exhibition — which includes a whole lot of male artists who had nothing to do with feminism, per se," Morris said, "is being sponsored by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art because focusing on the important impact of Lippard’s thinking on the historical contextualizing of Conceptual Art is an example of a feminist curatorial methodology, which we are very much interested in exploring in our exhibitions.

The exhibition will open with a section of works from a legendary exhibition Lippard curated in 1968, "Eccentric Abstraction," including pieces by seminal women artists like Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse, as well as male contemporaries like Bruce Nauman and Robert Morris. Further sections track the international spread of conceptual art, and its practitioners' penchant for both institutional critique and anti-Vietnam War commentary. Later galleries will address how crucial documentation and text became to the process of making and experiencing conceptual art, as well as Lippard's work with the radical Art Workers' Coalition and her many experimental exhibition projects around the world. The final section will take on how conceptual art evolved in the 1970s, to and its relation to protest, performance, and feminist art.

After its Brooklyn presentation the exhibition will travel to two other as-yet-undetermined institutions. An accompanying catalogue to be published by the Brooklyn Museum and the M.I.T. Press will include a forward by Lippard.

"Lucy has deliberately not been involved in the curating of the show," Morris noted. "She has told me her biggest concern is that people understand that this is a show about 'Six Years' and not about Lucy Lippard."

Carrie Underwood easily trounces the competition this week as her fourth album, "Blown Away," debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 267,000 sold according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, are to preside over a White House concert honoring songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

"Lucky Guy," a new biodrama about Pulitzer Prize-winning Daily News columnist Mike McAlary by Nora Ephron, is aiming for a Broadway run in 2013, according to reports. Tom Hanks is reportedly in negotiations to make his Broadway debut in the play.

Six designers were left in the second-to-last episode of NBC’s “Fashion Star” and this time, half got the ax — regardless of whether or not they made any sales. The challenge this week was buyers’ choice, and the buyers stepped into the studios to give the remaining contestants their input on what pieces would make their collections shine.

The first pair to go up was Kara Laricks and Nzimiro Oputa. At the advice of the buyers, Laricks went in the opposite direction of her menswear aesthetic, going for a sexier look with a breezy dress and a trench coat. Oputa gave in to the buyers’ suggestion as well, reluctantly making the safari jacket they wanted, along with a pair of travel pants. Laricks finally expanded outside of Saks Fifth Avenue, selling the dress to H&M for $60,000 and the trench to Macy’s for $60,000. Oputa failed to sell either item, even though both were nicely designed. He did, however, get a consolation prize — “You made it very clear that you’ve got what it takes to design a full collection,” Macy’s buyer Caprice Willard told him.

Next up were the two pretty princesses of the group, Luciana Scarabello and Orly Shani. Scarabello decided on a wrap skirt and a cropped jacket and shorts combo. “Would I wear it?” Scarabello asked herself as she modeled her jacket in the mirror. “Yes I would!” Shani was rather annoyed at Scarabello for bringing the jacket back. “You’re recycling designs you did a couple of weeks ago,” she said to the camera. “What the f*ck are you doing?” Scarabello’s choices didn’t impress the buyers either – she did not receive any offers on her pieces.

Shani, whose two-fer turned into a no-no and who has been inconsistent in her designs so far, created a fitted backless dress with panels on the sides that gave an optical illusion of a more flattering figure. We’ve seen this dress before on Kate Winslet, who last year donned a white Stella McCartney version at the “Mildred Pierce” screening at the Venice Film Festival and a red one at the Paris premiere of “Carnage.” A similar Calvin Klein dress was also available last fall at Macy’s. Can we call you a hypocrite, Shani? At least Scarabello didn’t recycle somebody else’s design. That didn’t bother Saks’s Teron Schafer, though. He bought Shani’s piece for $60,000, following a thoughtful pause after Macy’s and H&M declined. Her other ensemble, pants and a blazer with a lace back, was well-made, and H&M took it for $100,000.

The final twosome, Ronnie Escalante and Nicky Poulis, also took a departure from their usual styles. Escalante created an edgy suit with double lapels and wide-legged pants, and a short, sleeveless menswear-inspired dress. Mentor Jessica Simpson loved both. “You are one classy dude,” she told Escalante. H&M and Saks went head to head for the dress, and H&M won with a $110,000 offer. The suit went to Macy’s for $50,000.

Poulis created sailor suit pants against Simpson’s advice, and a blouse for her first look. The second was a one-shoulder diagonal striped dress. No offers were made on the pants (she should have listened to Simpson) and Saks bought the dress.

At the end of the show, the mentors saluted the group and the contestants broke down in tears before the eliminations. Talk about an emotional bunch! Escalante, Oputa, and Laricks (our faves!) made it to the final episode. We’re not sure if the retailers produced a higher quantity of goods or if viewers are suffering from “Fashion Star” fatigue, but all items are still available online, so go get them now!

Related:

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"Fashion Star" Episode 6 Report: A Childhood Tale of Tenacity and the End of the "Two-Fer"
 

"Fashion Star" Episode 5 Report: Window Display Flop and Free Advice From H&M

“Fashion Star” Episode 4 Report: The Case of the Cocky Texan’s Tacky Petticoat and Snarky Celebrity References

"Fashion Star" Episode 3 Report: Party Rockers, a Trapeze Act, and the Return of the Plaid Fabric

"Fashion Star" Episode 2 Report: Jessica Simpson's Odd Dream, Plus Tie Dresses and Tuxedo Pants

NBC's Reality Show "Fashion Star" Fills a Void, With Style

Marina Abramovic can sit motionless for hours, days, and weeks on end, and now you can too! The Abramovic Method, being taught now at Milan's Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC) and in the future at the upcoming Marina Abramovic Institute, is a two-and-a-half hour course in endurance-based performance art for the masses; though not for the faint of heart. "Where is our breathing? What is the situation of our bodies? What state of mind does it take?" are some of the many lessons to be learned, Abramovic shared Monday, during a press preview of her forthcoming Institute. 

The first step — after surrendering all distractions, including your watch and phone; donning an official Abramovic Method Labcoat and set of noise-blocking headphones; and closing your eyes — involves climbing into the Chair for Human Use. The simple seat of wooden planks is outfitted with crystal quartz from Brazil to facilitate a cleansing process. The stones are fixed above the sitter's head and underneath each of the chair's legs so that the pupil is not touching the ground.

"Crystal is the most simplified computer of the planet," Abramovic said. "If you put in any impulse — that's how you get digital watches — the impulse never leaves the crystal... they have an incredible energy that's been used for healing for so long. They're like regenerators." The cleansing process can also take place on a wooden bed, or underneath a copper framework outfitted with magnets.

To supplement the experience, students will sit next to the Chair for Spirit Use, where an unnamed specter will seat itself. Don't see it? Well, "it’s your problem," according to Abramovic. "It is there."

The Abramovic Method is at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea through June 10. To see more of its furniture, click the slide show. 

Late last year, the mysterious strip of land known as Roosevelt Island became New York City's biggest tabula rasa. As Louis Kahn's Four Freedoms Park began to take shape at the island's south tip, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans for a shimmering new applied science campus to occupy a 2.1-million-square-foot property just to the north. The preliminary master plan, bedazzled with sloping silver forms dreamed up by SOM, secured the bid for Cornell University. But despite adulation for SOM’s thoroughly solar-paneled vision, Cornell has chosen Thom Mayne, the Pritzker Prize-winning principal architect of Morphosis, to design the first building for the new Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute.

"SOM has served us fantastically well," said Kent Kleinman, Cornell's dean of architecture, art and planning, to The Architect's Newspaper. But the gratitude stops there: "No firm is better at turning constraints into creative solutions of astonishing power than Thom Mayne and Morphosis," he continued. While SOM will continue to develop the campus master plan, there was no mention of the firm in the University's latest press release. Mayne and his firm suddenly stole the show, beating out not just SOM for the prized first building commission, but also stealing the competition from a star-studded shortlist including Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Steven Holl Architects.

Since 2009, Mayne and Morphosis have been inextricably associated with the contorting mass known as 41 Cooper Square. The iconic newest addition to the Cooper Union continues to attract visitors like moths to the flame, only to turn them away with its restricted access. As The Architect's Newspaper suggests, the choice of Mayne could very well reflect Cornell's wish for "a traffic stopper on the East River," exactly the opposite of what SOM principal Roger Duffy had predicted for the campus earlier. The only continuity lies in Mayne's collaboration with Arup engineers to meet the long-established net-zero energy goal imposed on the entire campus.

Initial proposals for the new building are expected to be released in November 2012. In the meantime, Cornell's tight-lipped disclosure leaves our imaginations running wild: will Thom Mayne's "astonishing power" be tamed, or is he paving the way for a sculpture garden of LEED platinum monuments?

Only the start of polo season — the playing of the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic, to be precise — can summon thousands of sporty New Yorkers wearing linen and seersucker out of lower Manhattan on an early morning in June. It’s a trek, though what awaits is more than worth it: champagne, long stretches of green grass, a parade of celebrities, and the an appearance by sport’s poster boy, Nacho Figueras

This year, on June 2, the event will take over Liberty State Park in Jersey City, N.J., giving our glorious statue the perfect vantage point to observe the Sport of Kings.

But what about all the other spectators down on the green, gazing into the bright glare of the sun and missing the subtleties of the action on the field?

Well, that’s what the parasols are for. Veuve Clicquot has teamed up with British gamp masters Penelope Parasol to create a new model of the sunny-weather umbrella. It’s as yellow as the bubbly brand’s label, made from silk dupioni, and comes complete with a brass handle.

“We are delighted that Penelope Parasols has created one of their chic parasols especially for Veuve Clicquot,” Vanessa Kay, president of Veuve Clicquot U.S., told ARTINFO in a statement. “The Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic has always been an event where guests dress to the nines, and we are looking forward to the debut of the limited-edition parasols adding even more fun and glamour on the polo field this June.”

To announce the collaboration, the two companies made a video with fashion-friendly DJ Mia Moretti and her musical partner, Caitlin Moe. It’s shot in Central Park, with the two girls frolicking on a picnic blanket, twirling the parasols, popping champagne in white lace. With the carefree skipping and abundance of pearls, it’s got a “Great Gatsby,” Roaring Twenties feel to it. F. Scott Fitzgerald would probably find the allusion quite appropriate. He did write that Tom and Daisy Buchanan “drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.”

Starting May 12, you can pick up a parasol for the ferry ride if you buy on the company’s website, or you can snap one up once you get to Liberty State Park.

It costs $189, but it’s worth every penny. We attended the wonderful spectacle last year, and the sunshine isn’t the only thing you need to look out for. A parasol provides much-needed protection from the torrents of champagne spraying through the air. It also works as a great accessory for table dancing. And if drinking all morning and afternoon makes you sleepy, you can hide your napping head behind the parasol’s yellow silk.

Just don’t drop it when you go to stomp the divets during halftime. People take that tradition very seriously, and things get messy. 

“Bandmates,” Charlyne Yi’s new web series (or random one-off), is a lot like Charlyne Yi: A real-seeming fake thing. Or possibly a fake-seeming real thing. In the most literal sense it is an improvised six-and-a-half-minute comic sketch in which her character auditions to form a band with another character, played by Fred Armisen. There are two funny parts: When Yi, responding to Armisen mentioning the ad he posted, simply says “I’m in” (the band, that is); and when she counts off the beginning of a “song” only to simply keep cracking her drum sticks together.

Armisen mirrors her, performing something like the same “song” after she finishes, which is about as funny (and about as annoying) as a child repeating your every word. But it highlights just how different Armisen and Yi are: He’s constitutionally incapable of inhabiting any character, remaining the same lightly ironic, sort of goofy, weirdly charmless Fred Armisen whatever role he’s in. Like Armisen, Yi always seems to be “herself.” But unlike Fred, she’s sunk into some kind of deep-cover performer thing. It’s like she incepted herself, and every time she has to play a different part, she descends another level into the dream-state. (How else to explain her role on “House”? Or her sitting for a promotional interview about her role on “House”?) Which, returning to “Bandmates,” would make Armisen Cobb’s top — a totem connecting her to reality, the authentic improv actor that she started out as. But really, what do we need that for?

NEW YORK — Trophy hunting for postwar name brands continued to spark the art market at Sotheby’s $266.6-million evening contemporary sale as no less than three paintings easily hurdled the $30 million mark. The tally more than doubled last May’s $128.1 million total as 32 of the 46 lots sold made over one million dollars.

Five artist records were set. Of those, seven exceeded the $10 million mark, including the tied top lots, Francis Bacon’s ferociously distorted “Figure writing Reflected in a Mirror” (1976) and Roy Lichtenstein’s pretty though vacant “Sleeping Girl” (1964). Both paintings sold to separate telephone bidders for $44,882,500, exceeding identical pre-sale expectation of $30-40 million. Though wildly different in subject matter and taste, the two performed like identical twins, with bidding opening at $22 million, attracting at least five bidders and quickly ticking skyward at one million dollar increments until $37 million when it dropped to $500,000 jumps.

Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern specialist Charlie Moffett took the winning bid on the Bacon, repeating his feat of last week when he won the Edvard Munch “Scream” for a world-record $119.9 million. The bidders were anonymous. One of the Bacon underbidders was dealer David Nahmad, a player not previously known for chasing the legendary Irish painter.

The 36-square inch Lichtenstein, described by Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s star auctioneer as “the cover girl of the night,” nicked the artist's previous record set by the comicbook text bubble, “I can see the whole room!...and there’s nobody in it” (1961), which sold for $43.2 million at Christie’s New York last November against a $35-45 million pre-sale estimate. 

The severely cropped image of the snoozing Pop Art blonde, resplendent in uniformly applied Benday dots, resided in the collection of L.A. art patrons Phil and Bea Gersh since they acquired the work from the storied Ferus Gallery in 1964. Mrs. Gersh paid $1,000 for the canvas, according to Irving Blum, the impresario of the epoch-making gallery. (Efforts by Sotheby’s to market the Pop image as a kind of American Marie-Therese didn’t quite make it.)

Another later and larger Lichtenstein, “Sailboats III” (1976), also drew five competitors and ran up to $11,842,500 (est. $6-8 million). It last sold at Christie’s New York in May 1998 for $2,205,750. That healthy jump pretty much reflects the buoyant state of the current market.

Even with the big shot prices, including Andy Warhol's iconic “Double Elvis-Ferus Type” (1963), which sold to New York dealer and Warhol market maker Jose Mugrabi for $37,042,500 (est. $30-50 million), the atmosphere in the room felt sleepy, as if Lichtenstein’s girl cast a low-blood sugar spell. “I felt everybody was falling asleep tonight,” said Manfredi della Gherardesca of the London based MDG Fine Arts Ltd. “There was nothing here I would kill for.”

Still Gherardesca snared Yves Klein’s “Untitled Monogold” in gold leaf on pressed wood board from 1959 for $1,538,500 (est. $700-900,000), a work which last sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2001 for £201,500 ($293,988) and Damien Hirst’s butterfly-encrusted and gloss paint tondo, “Awakening” (2007) for $1,650,500. Asked about the 84-inch diameter Hirst, Gherardesca said it was “playroom decoration.”

Growing more serious, the art advisor noted, “there is a great need for quality and that’s what drives the market. Buyers are so active, they’re sucking up all the material.”

That seemed the case as Cy Twombly’s handsomely scribbled blackboard composition in house paint and wax crayon, “Untitled (New York City)” (1970) made a record $17,442,500 (est. $15-20 million), selling to L.A. dealer Stavros Merjos, beating the mark set at Christie’s New York last May (2011) when “Untitled” (1967) sold for $15.2 million.

Not surprisingly, works by Gerhard Richter continued to captivate the market as yet another variation on his "Abstraktes Bild,” lusciously squeegeed in red, green, and yellow hues from 1992 and measuring a trophy-sized 78-by-63-inches, made $16,882,500 (est. $8-10 million). New York dealer Dominique Levy of L&M Arts was one of the underbidders.

L&M had more luck with Alexander Calder’s sublime mobile in red, “Sumac VI” (1952), nabbing the sculpture for $5,906,500 (est. $2.5-3,5 million). L&M founder Robert Mnuchin bid for the gallery.

Another Francis Bacon oil-on-canvas entry, “Study for a Portrait” (1978), measuring just 14 by 12 inches, sold to New York collector Donald Bryant for $4,282,500 (est. $4-6 million). Bryant sat in the front row, biding his time until the Bacon appeared. “This is my first Bacon,” said the collector afterwards, “and I should have bought one years ago, but it’s a good way to get into the Bacon market. I need to have more than one.”

Bryant, long known for his contemporary art holdings, said he was moving more to Old Masters. “I’m not buying much of contemporary art anymore. It’s a total change for me.” Bryant also said a strong point of the work was its subject, that of the darkly handsome John Edwards, a close friend of Bacon’s. It last sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2008 for £2,036,500 ($4,047,098), a wash for the seller and a possible boon for the newbie Bacon collector.

While both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have seemingly relegated more cutting-edge contemporary art to day sale events, there were a few exceptions here, including Glenn Ligons’s polemical oil stick, gesso, and graphite-on-linen composition, “Black Like Me #1” (1992), which sold for a record $1,314,500 (est. 600-800,000).

Even with all of the higher-flying lots, quieter entries also made an impression, such as the early and rarified Arshile Gorky abstraction, “Khorkom” (ca. 1938), which sold to New York dealer Jack Tilton for $2,770,500 (est. $3-4 million). “People are looking for the trendy thing and not the connoisseurship thing,” said Tilton, expressing delight in his purchase. “They’re not a lot of those early Gorkys.”

Exiting Sotheby’s, the York Avenue sidewalk was dominated by security guards and NYPD, on guard for the continued protests of a union dispute involving locked out art handlers. The huge prices realized inside the building seemed like a cruel reminder of the situation on the ground.

The contemporary evening action plays its third act Thursday at Phillips de Pury & Co.