HONG KONG — We’re at the half-way mark of ART HK 2012 and the rain has set in. Unlike sales, which are patchy, the showers are heavy and show no signs of letting up, but the fairgoers are turning out in droves and keeping things busy for the galleries between sales.

Meanwhile here at ARTINFO Hong Kong it's time for us to give our verdict on this year's fair.

— Best Booth: Galerie Gmurzynska called in Zaha Hadid to design their booth, thus blowing all opposition out of the water. That they went on to fill it with the fascinating work of Cubist-cum-Surrealist Wilfredo Lam is icing on the cake.

— Best Alley: Last year ART HK’s ASIA ONE section, devoted to emerging galleries from the region, was tucked away on a separate floor from the main exhibition space. This time around, the booths are at the center of the action, running straight down the middle of the fair on both its two floors. These Asian alleys provide an exhilarating tour, from the strange evolving cityscapes of Jane Dyer at China Art Projects to Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s ladies toting vegetable weapons at Misa Shin Gallery to the sublime simplicity of Song Hyun-Sook's paintings at Edouard Malingue Gallery.

— Best Fix for Abstraction Junkies: This is a tie between the Hans Hartung canvases at Cheim & Read and two major works by Joan Mitchell, one to be found at Acquavella and the other at Hauser & Wirth. These are ravishing works, unmissable.

— Best Display of Focus: The curated presentation of 20th-century German painting at Michael Werner provides a model in focus. In collaboration with Dr. Dimitri Ozerkov, the director of the contemporary art department at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the gallery provides a window on German modernism through key works from artists such as Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Markus Lupertz, and Georg Baselitz.

— Best Way to Brighten Up a Corner: When asked by his gallery Eslite to create a work especially for their booth in Hong Kong, Taiwanese artist Michael Lin asked them for a corner. The resulting work is a joyous example of Lin’s dedication to the celebration of the indigenous designs of his home, the “other China,” Taiwan.

— Best Introduction to Chinese Contemporary Art: There are a number of significant galleries attending from China this year, from Platform China to Beijing Commune to Chambers Fine Art, but perhaps the best sense of the maturity of the Chinese contemporary art scene can be experienced by visiting the booth of pioneer gallery ShanghART. From the canvases of Li Shan, Yu Youhan, and Zhang Enli to the installations by Madein and Zhou Tiehai, this booth shows the weight of talent in the Chinese scene.

— Creepiest Work of Art: This was easily won by Chinese conceptual artist Shen Shaomin for his contribution to the ART HK Projects section of the fair, entitled “I Sleep on Top of Myself.” This installation of life-size domestic animals, minus their fur or feathers, rendered in spooky silica gel and lying on a bed of salt is alarming enough, but the added touch of tiny concealed motors that make these hairless horrors "breathe" is something that quickly outstays its welcome in one's memory. 

— Best Offsite Fun: Here we also declare a tie between the cluster of leading galleries at the historic Pedder Building in Hong Kong’s Central — Ben Brown, Gagosian, Hanart TZ, Pearl Lam and Simon Lee — and Sotheby’s new gallery space at their headquarters at 1 Pacific Place. The latter has given itself over to an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama with a gusto which has included inviting the artist’s studio to deck out their lifts, floors, and signage in trademark dots.

ART HK continues at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre through Sunday May 20.

Click on our slide show for some images from the fair.

1. “Blade Runner” writer Hampton Fancher will script Ridley Scott’s sequel to the movie. [THR]

2. Van Halen have postponed more than 30 of their tour dates amid reports that the band is fighting “like mad.” [RS]

3. 50 Cent is the latest rapper, after Jay-Z and T.I., to echo President Obama’s support of gay marriage, saying that only a “fool” would oppose it. [SOHH]

4. Watch the amusing trailer for “Madea’s Witness Protection” below. [A.V. Club]

5. Twenty-five humorous suggestions for possible new “Star Trek” television spinoffs. [Gamma Squad via Fark]

Previously: Nicki Minaj, “Breaking Bad,” “Cock,” Jack White, and Artie Lange 

PARIS — This Saturday is the eighth annual European Night of Museums, and as night falls 3,000 European museums will be outdoing themselves to show off their collections in the most inventive ways possible. With the support of UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, and the International Council of Museums, the event turns European cultural institutions into vast experimental terrains by bringing cinema, video, music, performance, and contemporary art out to play. Best of all, the evening's events are entirely free. ARTINFO France selected some of the most unusual and inspiring Night of Museums happenings in the Paris area.

See Rodin by Torchlight and Flashlight

For the first time, the Rodin Museum in Meudon in the southwestern suburbs of Paris — which is a bit more under-the-radar than Paris's Rodin Museum — will open its doors for European Museum Night. The Villa des Brillants, where the sculptor resided until his death, has been preserved as a studio and museum, and both it and the surrounding garden will be lit by torches so that his work can be discovered in a more intimate and eerie setting. You can pay respects at Rodin's tomb, which is in the garden, next to that of his wife, Rose Beuret, and in the shadow of "The Thinker." Shuttle service will be provided between Paris and Meudon.

In Paris, the famous Rodin Museum in the Hôtel Biron is closed for renovations, but visitors can take guided tours of the garden by flashlight. Rodin's contemporary Etienne Dujardin-Beaumetz already came up with the idea in his "Conversations with Rodin": "You will do well to examine [the sculptures] at night by the light of a lamp or a candle slowly projected on all the surfaces; you will see muscles spring forth that you didn't see before, shapes that you didn't suspect... Sculpture is in movement, it changes with lighting." At the same time, Polish artist Katarzyna Kozyra will project her version of "The Rite of Spring" on seven screens under a tent — pagan, hysterical, and filled with unexpected muscles of its own.

Shop at Rob Pruitt's Flea Market

The Musée de la Monnaie is also undergoing renovations, but will open up its courtyard for Rob Pruitt's flea market from 6pm to midnight. In the midst of tools used for minting coins and medals (the museum is located in an active mint), Pruitt will evoke the relationship between art and money, in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp, who once said that "art is a product, just like green beans." Pruitt has invited 80 contemporary artists — close friends and celebrities, emerging talents and confirmed ones — to take part in a giant flea market, selling objects that are dear to them, whether created or purchased, or things that they simply want to get rid of. At Gavin Brown's New York gallery in 2000, Pruitt inaugurated this new type of artwork, an interactive fair that thumbs its nose at the art industry. He has since done other editions at Frieze and Tate Modern. On Saturday night, he'll welcome Pierre Ardouvin, Camille Henrot, Mohammed Bourouissa, and M/M, among others, for an earthy fair full of good deals that's also a who's-who of the French art scene.

Sweet Sounds at the Grand Palais or the Musée d'Orsay

Take your pick: electronic music among the animals, or orchestral sounds with an Impressionist backdrop. Notable Paris DJ Joakim, founder of the Tigersushi label and the creator of musical gems mixing acid house, metal, and late disco, will be at the "Animal Beauty" exhibition at the Grand Palais. Starting at 8pm, visitors can stroll through the artistic fauna to the tune of Joakim's specially concocted mix, and he'll perform live at 11pm. The atmosphere at the Musée d'Orsay will be quite different, as the museum celebrates its new décor and its expanded Impressionist collection with music in the galleries. The group La Lyre d'Orsay will perform works by composers including Charles Gounod, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Francis Popy.

Explore Outer Space at Versailles

For Parisians who aren't afraid to venture a bit beyond the capital, the Château of Versailles promises a luminous evening. "Passion for the Stars" will offer erudite pleasure-seekers a leap into the past, to the time when the grandiose and festive palace was in thrall to astronomical discoveries. In 1609, Galileo threw the doors to the universe wide open, making astronomy the reigning science of the time. Louis XIV — who was, after all, the Sun King — dedicated each of his palace apartments to the seven planets that were known at the time, and science infiltrated architecture, interior design, and all the arts. Saturday night, Versailles presents an ephemeral display of illuminations, installations, and video projections that mingle astrological and astronomical representations of the past with ultra-precise images from the latest astrophysics labs. This brilliant telescoping of the eras will fill the grands appartements and the famous mirrored hall, the Galerie des Glaces.

A version of this article appears on ARTINFO France.

Three days into the Cannes film festival, Marion Cotillard is already being tipped for the Best Actress award for her performance in Jacques Audiard’s acclaimed “Rust & Bone,” which is based on characters in Craig Davidson’s eponymous short story collection. Cotillard plays a trainer of Orca whales at the Marineland Park who has both of her legs amputated after one of them attacks her. In her despair, she turns to a Belgian bouncer and bare-knuckle fighter (Matthias Schoenaerts) who earlier rescued her from a drunken brawl in a club. They become lovers, but she finds that he still wants sex outside their tentative relationship. “It’s a passionate and moving love story which surges out of the screen like a flood tide,” raves The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw.

The lunatics will take over the asylum again: actress Lily Rabe (“Mona Lisa Smile, “All Good Thing”) has been cast as “America’s sweetheart” Mary Pickford in a biopic that will incorporate her co-founding of United Artists in 1919 with Douglas Fairbanks (shortly to become her husband), Charlie Chaplin, and D.W.Griffith. Co-producers Julie Pacino and Jennifer DeLia, who announced the film in Cannes, are currently casting the other main parts, reports Variety. Maybe “The Artists”’s Jean Dujardin could play Fairbanks?

Quoth Eminem: “Where’s Kanye when you need him?” Actually, says Vulture, Kanye West is in Cannes preparing to premiere his short film-cum-installation on Wednesday. Titled “Cruel Summer,” it’s “an immersive seven-screen experience” that was inspired by the G.O.O.D. compilation album produced by Mannie Fresh. If you’re planning to be on the Croisette, you can get tickets here.

Robin Williams, Mila Kunis, Peter Dinklage, Melissa Leo, and James Earl Jones have been lined up for “The Angriest Man In Brooklyn,” which is being presold at the festival. According to Screen International, it’s about “a stand-in doctor who tells an obnoxious patient he has 90 minutes to live.” Phil Alden Robinson (“Field of Dreams”) will direct the comedy, which begins production in September. “The idea of being that nasty and funny is a gift,” Williams said.

The Weinstein Company has been on a spree at Cannes. Before the festival started, writes Anne Thompson, it bought John Hillcoat’s “Lawless,” a Depression-era crime drama about Virginian bootleggers; Andrew Dominik’s gangster film “Killing Me Softly,” starring Brad Pitt; and “Quartet,” first-time director Dustin Hoffman’s film about ageing opera stars (Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, and Billy Connolly) living in a retirement home.

On the eve of the festival, the Weinsteins picked up the Australian film “The Sapphires,” directed by Wayne Blair, which tells the factual story of four Aboriginal girls whose pop group entertained American troops in Vietnam in 1968. It was written by Keith Thompson and the dramatist Tony Briggs, whose mother and other family members performed with the band.

TWC has also bought “The Oath of Tobruk,” Bernard Henri-Levy’s documentary about the last eight months of Muammar Gafaddi’s dictatorship in Libya, Anne Thompson reports. Another acquisition is Christian Vincent’s culinary comedy “Haute Cusine,” based on the true story of Danièle Delpeuch (Catherine Frot), who became the personal chef of the late French president François Mitterand (played by novelist Jean D’Ormesson). Her cooking made her one of his favorites, which did not endear her to other members of his household. According to Thompson, the company is also “expected to nab James Gray’s unfinished New York immigrant drama ‘Low Life.’” It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Cotillard, and Jeremy Renner.

In an unexpected bit of casting news, it was announced that Terence Davies has chosen the Lancashire fashion model and actress Agyness Deyn to play Chris Guthrie in the Scottish coming-of-age drama “Sunset Song,” based on Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s 1932 novel about life and love on a rural farming community on the eve of World War I. Peter Mullan will play her widowed father, who casts incestuous eyes on Chris. The multi-national production, sales, and distribution company Fortissimo Films has acquired the international rights to the $8m movie,writes the Liverpool Echo. Read more ARTINFO news on "Sunset Song" here and on Deyn here.

NEW YORK — At this week's auctions, sales of American paintings in New York reached their highest totals since the bottom fell out of the market in 2008. Christie’s turned in a respectable $27,198,600 on Wednesday, while Sotheby’s netted $34,787,625 on Thursday. More encouraging still, the buy-in rates — 23 percent at Christie’s and 12 percent at Sotheby’s — have not been seen in the category for several years. “We’re seeing a pronounced uptick in the marketplace,” says Eric Widing, deputy chair of the American paintings department at Christie's. “We’ve been waiting for it for some years now, and it’s finally happened.”

Both houses fielded new department heads, Elizabeth Sterling at Christie’s and Elizabeth Goldberg at Sotheby’s, who presented slimmed-down sales and reaped the rewards of careful editing and, for the most part, judicious pricing.

At Christie’s, the somewhat sparsely attended proceedings nevertheless got off to a crackling start with the $60,000 realized for Harriet Whitney Frishmuth’s cast-bronze Martha Lorber (1927) (est. $10–15,000), followed by a strong tranch of modernist works, including Milton Avery’s gangly yet charming Adolescent (1947) (est. $400–600,000), which at least five bidders chased to $1,022,500.

Mary Cassatt’s Sara Holding a Cat (ca. 1907–08) (est. $800–1,200,000), an intimate oil on canvas in which the artist’s exploration of her signature single-child theme reaches stylistic maturity, fetched a sale-high $2,546,500 from a gentleman on his cell phone seated at the back of the salesroom. The same man also claimed Boston School painter’s Frank Weston Benson’s tender Portrait of Gertrude Russell (1915) (est. $1–1.5 million) for a comparative bargain of $962,500. 

Although surpassed in price by a classic Saturday Evening Post cover image by Norman Rockwell, Dreams of Long Ago (1927) (est. $2–3 million), which sold for $2,322,500, a sunlit Giverny picture by Frederick Carl Frieseke, Foxgloves (ca. 1912–13), generated heat, sending the work well above its $1.5-million high estimate to $2,210,500. The same occured with Robert Frederick Blum’s oil on canvas Venetian Gondoliers (ca. 1880–89) ($500–700,000), which was bagged by a collector for $1,142,500.

“We had a solid interest in the Cassatt going into the sale, but the hammer price of $2.2 million went beyond our expectations,” says Sterling. “That’s a great sign for the American Impressionist market, particularly when you couple it with the results we had for the Frieseke.”

The top 10 was rounded out by a Maxfield Parrish, a John Singer Sargent, and a pair of Georgia O’Keeffes: the pastel Lake George in Woods (1922) (est. $300–500,000), which soared to $902,500, and one of her first “bones” paintings from New Mexico, Deer Horns (1938) (est. $1.2–1.8 million), which New York private dealer Baird W. Ryan wrangled for $1,930,500.

Some of the highest-estimated lots, however, failed to gather enough steam for takeoff. In contrast to last November’s record-setting $5,346,500 sale of Oscar Bluemner’s Illusion of a Prairie, New Jersey (Red Farm at Pochuck) (1915), the artist’s similarly-hued Perth Amboy West (Tottenville) (1911) (est. $2–3 million) went nowhere. A luminous Fitz Henry Lane, Gloucester, Stage For Beach (1849) (est. $2–3 million), also sank. (Rumor has it the cows in the foreground may have turned buyers off.)

The Sotheby’s sale was buzzier, thanks in part to the sale’s headliner, the Edward Hopper oil Bridle Path (1939) (est. $5–7 million), put up by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to benefit its acquisitions fund. Depicting a trio of horseback riders galloping into one of Central Park’s distinctive tunnels, the sizable canvas attracted plenty of bidders, and ultimately sold to a private collector for $10,386,500, double its low estimate and the top-earning painting in the category since December 2007.

It was hardly the only bright spot. A splendid George Bellows sporting picture, Tennis at Newport (1920) (est. $5–7 million) — one of only four tennis scenes the artist produced, in verdant greens and lemon yellow — also attracted a pack of bidders. New York dealer Debra Force fought for the Bellows, but it ultimately went to an American collector for $7,026,500. Two different sources said after the sale that the Bellows buyer was James McGlothlin, collector and Virgina Museum of Fine Arts benefactor

Comparatively late in the tight, 59-lot sale, a Frederic Remington oil on canvas, A Halt in the Wilderness (1905) (est. $800–1.2 million), which had been held by the same New Jersey family since its acquisition from Solomon R. Guggenheim in 1919, shot up to $2,770,500, offered by a bidder in the room. The chilling yet compelling Jacklight (1980) (est. $600–900,000) by Andrew Wyeth — a tempera on panel depicting a deer the artist used to observe eating apples, then slaughtered and strung up in a tree — fetched an unambiguously strong sum of $1,538,500 from an American museum bidding by telephone. 

Finally, one artist record was set at the Sotheby's sale: for David Johnson, whose View from New Windsor, Hudson River (1869) (est. $300–500,000), came in at $722,500. Western art got a boost from New York’s J.N. Bartfield Galleries, which snapped up five lots, including Charles Marion Russell’s watercolor The Tenderfoot (1900) (est. $600–900,000), for $932,500, bound for a private collection.

As at Christie’s, the high prices at Sotheby’s were often the result of multiple bidders, rather than the two-way trophy tussle seen in recent seasons. But setting aside the choicest pieces, an estimate north of $2 million — especially if it’s not attached to a name-brand artist — seems to be the breaking point in this category. That said, Ryan points out, “Half a million goes a long way in American art. You can get a really great thing for $600,000 instead of a mediocre Cindy Sherman.”

Whether it’s the mission to bring his $25 million dollar “Train” to the High Line or calling his own artwork “empty,” artist Jeff Koons never ceases to be an art-world enigma. His appropriated sculptures, from “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” porcelain pieces to the enormous “Balloon Flower (Magenta),” incite both staunch criticism and astronomical auction records. The artist also experienced heartbreaking tragedy when his ex-wife and former muse Ilona Staller kidnapped their son Ludwig in 1994. This year, Koons has four solo exhibitions planned around the world: one in Basel, two in Frankfurt, and one in St. Petersburg, Fla. ARTINFO caught up with Koons at the Whitney Museum of Art during the Wall Street Journal’s Donor of the Day Celebration to ask him what to expect for the last show at the Whitney’s Breuer building, how the High Line “Train” efforts are going, and why he calls his art “empty.”

What did you mean when you called the art at your Fondation Beyeler retrospective “empty”?

What I was speaking about is that artwork, objects, they’re transpondent. You try to pack them with information, that when somebody looks at them, they’re able to have an internal discourse, and when I say that these objects are kind of empty, what I meant is the art’s not there. The art happens inside the viewer, and these objects direct, and communicate to people, and try to manipulate how they feel about a situation, or the type of sensations that they can have. Art happens inside them. Art isn’t something that’s external. It’s always inside the person.

How does it feel to be the last artist to show at the Whitney’s Madison Avenue space, and the only artist to take over the majority of the museum?

I’m really thrilled because I enjoy the place that the Whitney has had in my own life as an artist – of being an open door kind of place to young artists coming to New York. They always have the opportunity at the Biennials for artists. You always felt as though there was a sense of inclusion, but the exhibitions that they’ve had over the years have been really informative to a young generation of what’s possible in the dialogue of art, and so I’m really thrilled to have my New York exhibition here.

Can we expect any new works from you?

Absolutely. I’ll be showing the newest things up to that moment that I’m working on. I’ll be showing the antiquity series that I’m working on now. I’m just going to try to give an overview of my work from when I first moved to New York, which was around the very beginning of ’77 up to the present day, so by the time of the exhibition, it will be close to four decades.

Any updates on the High Line “Train”?

I’m really thrilled at the possibility, because it’s only a possibility that the train could come to the High Line, but if it would become a reality, I think it would be wonderful. It’s a piece I designed to function as a rallying point for a community that people would gather around it and be able to experience something which is moving and demonstrates the power and intensity of life experience and at the same time inform us of the warmth of our community.

Are there any fundraising efforts going on?

I’m sure the High Line would be involved with that. I’m sure that they would love to find donors to be involved with it, but if it can be a possibility here in New York in my hometown, that would be great.

With your current Fondation Beyeler retrospective and the announcement of your traveling 2014 retrospective, it feels like the year of the Jeff Koons retrospective. Where do you feel like you’re at in your career?

Being able to have the opportunities to have my work be engaged in different communities — right now this year, the work is going to be shown in Switzerland in Basel, in two exhibitions in Frankfurt, and later this year in St. Petersburg, Florida. It’s always exciting to be able to have a dialogue with the community. Also, as an artist, you always are able to view your work and see it in a different light.

Last year’s Costume Institute exhibition, “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” surpassed your 2008 sculpture show to become the eighth most-visited exhibition in the history of the Met. Do you feel threatened that this year’s show, “Schiaparelli & Prada: Imaginary Conversations,” might do the same?

I really have no idea, but I know that I enjoy so much having an exhibition at the Metropolitan, because it’s such an incredible museum, and to be able to have contemporary art and the audience for contemporary and also pull people in to look at the classical works, or to look at Baroque paintings or the Old Masters, it’s fantastic. And the same with people who go to see an Old Masters painting, to end up wandering to see another exhibition. I think Miuccia’s exhibition with Schiaparelli is fantastic. It’s an incredible installation, it’s really interesting and engaging, and it has the energy of the avant-garde of the 20th century. It has that whole feeling of “We can change reality.” And Alexander McQueen’s show was great too, but I’m very happy to be a part of the history of the Met too.

You’ve been very active with the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children since your son’s abduction. Have you met parents who have gone through similar ordeals who have been able to get their children back?

Through the National Center and International Center, I’ve met a lot of different parents, and some parents have had success. These stories touch everyone, and they touch a lot of families where we’ve all known somebody and maybe there was a parental abduction or we know from just reading the papers, abduction of children in our communities, so this always touches everyone. We were hearing the numbers today … the return of 167,000 children is an amazing accomplishment.

In Clip Art, ARTINFO video editor Tom Chen, photo editor Micah Schmidt, and performing arts editor Nick Catucci choose five of the most visually engaging music videos from the previous week or so, and present highlights from each in a video supercut, plus a slideshow of stills. Today ...

Nicki Minaj dramatizes a love triangle with Nas and Chris Brown in the hyperreal “Right By My Side.”

“Join My Militia” finds Mykki Blanco writhing and rhyming like no one is looking.

For “Hustle Bones,” Death Grips threw all their contraband in the drier.

“Sinful Nature” by Bear in Heaven makes a slow-moving ‘80s tornado.

Kindness find common ground in “House.”

Previously: Canyons, London, SpaceGhostPurrp, Grimes, and Danny Brown

This morning, in Menlo Park, Calif., Mark Zuckerberg stepped up to a platform surrounded by other Facebook employees, picked up the bell that had been placed at the podium, and rang it. With that, shares of Facebook began trading on the Nasdaq market. It was the third-largest offering in the history of the United States.

And what did Zuckerberg wear on this historic occasion? A hoodie sweatshirt, like he does every day.

He might not have the most advanced taste in style, but the CEO of the world’s largest social network may have to start paying more attention to the fashion industry. The public offering — and increased cash flow — will usher in a time when Facebook will become more and more profitable each year, attracting new and innovative ways for all industries to capitalize on collaborations with the company.

WWD takes a long look at how the fashion industry will be further immersing itself in the business of Facebook. Advertising will still be key, though some experts from the industry believe in a precise blend of different avenues: shopping apps, buzz-building methods of ginning up the “likes” that can make a brand go viral, and the communities that come together at fan pages.

The offering could also spur on Facebook’s in-house development in a way that would build on the fashion industry’s presence on the social network. Facebook could add to its open-graph platforms, which would allow activity on other sites — such as, say, buying new Corgi socks on jcrew.com — to appear on your timeline. The socks are obviously awesome, so your friend sees them on Facebook, and clicks “purchase.” Now there’s more money in Mickey Drexler’s pocket.

But what Facebook does not appear to be doing is targeting the fashion industry specifically, even as some similar Internet companies have begun to reach out to the runway in a big way. Amazon has made a serious effort to attract the houses of high fashion, even co-sponsoring the Costume Institute Gala and having its CEO, Jeff Bezos, co-chair the ball in a Tom Ford tuxedo. On a smaller, but still relevant, level, Tumblr hired style writer Valentine Uhovski to be the company’s Fashion Evangelist. Yes, his official title at Tumblr is Fashion Evangelist.

“Tumblr ultimately is filled with the most creative people in the world,” Uhovski told Fashionista after he was hired in April. “It’s the most visual, most addictive, and most immediate forum for fashion. And a blogger from Croatia is just as important as Prabal on Tumblr.”

And while any brand would love to have a look from its new collection get 10,000 notes on Tumblr, the real money is in Facebook and its 900 million users. With increasing profit and cash flow, it’s possible Facebook will expand its official ties with high-end lines and offer a more comprehensive way to show and share your best finds with your friends.

If that ever happens, maybe someone can help Mark Zuckerberg buy a nicer sweater.

NEW YORK — The 500-plus designers gathering in Midtown at the Javits Center this weekend for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair will be vying for the attention of potential producers, buyers, and retailers of their work. On the last day of the four-day affair, they let the masses in to ogle the latest high-design and luxury goods, but what are us regular folk to do during the rest of New York Design Week? We suggest heading south to a more accessible, more interactive destination called the NoHo Design District.

The annual takeover of the area stretching between Bowery and Broadway was launched in 2010 by Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer, the former editors of I.D. magazine who currently run the design and culture blog Sight Unseen. "We wanted that extra element of independent designers," Khemsurov told ARTINFO. "We had a specific point of view that we wanted to express that we felt was missing. It's supposed to be the young, fun, edgy, multi-disciplinary place for art." This is the third year the pair have stormed the neighborhood and filled it with four days of interactive exhibitions and events, from storefront installations at Areaware and the Future Perfect, to a Bowery Hotel bash decorated with vignettes by lighting whiz Lindsey Adelman.

This morning, ARTINFO took a tour of one of NDD’s central hubs, the Standard Hotel East Village, whose first two floors have been taken over by an international set of designers, craftsmen, and general visionaries. The first thing visitors will see while approaching the hotel entrance is Irish woodworker James Carroll, along with the freshly cut trunks of ash trees, old-fashioned woodworkers' tools, and mountains of wood shavings. He's the central attraction of "Making 01," a show of Irish handmade crafts presented by homegoods brand Makers & Brothers (comprised of brothers Jonathan and Mark Legge, and makers like Carroll). Carroll will be there in person constructing three-legged stools for about ten hours every day, nestled next to shelves full of the crafts of his homeland, like plush mice crafted from tweed, an Irish textile mainstay; hand-finished linen; and handwoven baskets.

Inside the hotel, "Scale" presents the architect as designer, showcasing the works of hybrid building- and furniture-making acts like Snarkitecture and Studio Dror. It's an exploration of objects as manifestations of the architects' aesthetics, just adaptively resized for practical use in the living room. Equal parts whimsy, brilliance, and absolute uselessness, Patrick Gavin's "Disc & Sculpture" pieces are strewn about the floor like tiny monuments, built for no other purpose than to be in the way. Hernan Diaz-Alonso, an architect of swiftly sloping lines in the tradition of Zaha Hadid, echoes the style of his structures in "Le Chaise Grotesque #2," a sinister loveseat that brings to mind a drop of ink suspended in water. Our personal favorite: Jonah Takagi’s "Range Life," a coffee table throwback to the modernist age. Its mixed use of glass, metal, concrete, wood, and poignant accents of color would make the Eames's Case Study house proud.

The aptly-named and appropriately-situated "Hotel California" offers as a tour of young West Coast designers on the sunny second-floor deck, where Taidgh O'Neill's 101 Chandelier evokes a linear pencil sketch made with wood beams. Matt Gagnon's Knit Fort — an expandable, tulip-shaped structure of interlocking wood — sits in the corner looking at home near the hedges, as it clearly belongs in a backyard. "It's an object but also a space, with no real practical use," Gagnon modestly told us, although he proposed a few great impractical ones — living room cabana or outdoor shower, just to name a few.

Back downstairs, "Sonos Listening Library" looks at sound in a novel, conceptual manner: as an integral component in the design of a room. A Soundelier, the collaborative effort of Lindsey Adelman's light fixture-crafting prowess and Kiel Mead's quirk, hangs a handful of Sonos Play 3 speakers from the ceiling. Also in the library is the Panther, a sofa much less intimidating then its name suggests, crafted from plywood and soundproof foam. Each purposefully emits or absorbs sound to round out the overall construction of the space.

As thought-provoking and conceptual as all the exhibitions appear, watching various hotel guests perusing the objects while their children played in the wooden detritus of Carroll's stool-making made the designs feel so welcoming, so inclusive. It’s the kind of event that stimulates an interest in the general populace for contemporary design, while simultaneously raising the bar for groundbreaking invention. The current concentration of innovative objects within a few-block radius just north of Houston Street fosters a spirit of optimism that we hope, in coming years, will spread throughout the city's Design Week offerings, rather than remain contained in one tiny little district.

To see furnishings from the NoHo Design District's hub at the Standard Hotel East Village, click the slide show.

In what could be a landmark judgment for art law, a California judge struck down California's Resale Royalties Act Thursday on Constitutional grounds, according to Thompson Reuters. ARTINFO reported in March that the judge had issued a tentative dismissal of the case, but the auction houses were waiting for a formal ruling.

The law was enacted to guarantee artists a cut of the proceeds of a secondary market sale, but in her decision, judge Jacqueline Nguyen sitting in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, declared the law a violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the power to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government. The judge sided with the legal teams hired by auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's, and against a class of artists including Chuck Close and Laddie John Dill.

In her decision, the judge wrote:

"Under its clear terms, the (Resale Royalties Act) regulates transactions occurring anywhere in the United States, so long as the seller resides in California. Even the artist — the intended beneficiary of the CRRA — does not have to be a citizen of, or reside in, California. For these reasons, the court finds that the (law) has the 'practical effect' of controlling commerce 'occurring wholly outside the boundaries' of California even though it may have some 'effects within the state.' Therefore, the (law) violates the Commerce Clause."

The lawyer for the artists, Eric George of the firm Browne George, said in an email to Thompson Reuters that the decision "marks a departure from established constitutional law." He added that he hopes the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will take up the question and overturn the ruling. However, that could be a long shot. Though Nguyen was sitting by designation in District Court in L.A., she was confirmed as a 9th Circuit appellate judge in 2009 (note: not the very conservative, Sothern 11th circuit, as reported by Reuters), so her ruling could be an indication of things to come in the California appeals system.

That said, this Commerce Clause decision only says that California cannot regulate resale royalties on sales funneled through New York auction houses. That leaves the door wide open for Congress to pass a federal droit de suite bill, as has been recently discussed.

Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Fashion, and Performing Arts, May 14-18, 2012:

ART

— Madeleine O'Dea noted strong sales and an upbeat atmosphere on ART HK's opening day, and then picked the most memorable booths of the fast-rising fair. We also selected highlights from the slew of other exhibitions and events going on in Hong Kong during ART HK.

— Alanna Martinez unveiled part one of a library-in-progress, recommending 20 books that every artist should own, from Lucy Lippard to Giorgio Vasari.

— Kyle Chayka climbed to the very top of Argentine artist Tomas Saraceno's new modular mirror installation on the Metropolitant Museum's rooftop.

— The Art Institute of Chicago prepared to open one of the largest Roy Lichtenstein retrospectives ever, focused on the Pop artist's oft-overlooked formalism.

— Shane Ferro looked into the curiously steady and rewarding market for Latin American art, which in recent years hasn't suffered from the same volatility as other markets.

DESIGN & FASHION

— New York Design Week is upon us, and Janelle Zara picked six must-see events, exhibitions, pop-up shops, and fairs for furniture and design fans, from the main event — the International Contemporary Furniture Fair — to Victorian taxidermy and a pirate radio station.

—Kelly Chan evaluated competing theories for the development of new mega-cities over the next four decades, pitting economist Paul Romer's "Charter Cities" against the IBA model proposed by architect Meta Brunzema.

— Ann Binlot talked to artist Mickalene Thomas about her personal style, from her favorite Maison Martin Margiela sneakers to why she likes Rick Owens knitwear.

— Julia Halperin spoke to MOCA Cleveland director Jill Snyder about the institution's sleek new $27-million, Farshid Moussavi-designed building, which will open later this year.

— Just one day after the first season of NBC's "Fashion Star" ended with our favorite contestant's victory, Ann Binlot spoke to designer John Varvatos — a mentor on the show — about what the second season has in store.

PERFORMING ARTS

— Rock legend John Mellencamp discussed his new retrospective exhibition of paintings at the Tennessee State Museum, which he claimed was Bob Dylan's idea.

— Brooke Shields, Courtney Love, and other celebs showed up to mark the release of Jay McInerney's new short story at the McKittrick Hotel, the West Chelsea venue where the immersive interactive theater piece "Sleep No More" is performed.

— The opening of the Cannes Film Festival was marked by protests and petitions — and an open letter in Le Monde signed by Fanny Cottençon, Virginie Despentes, and Coline Serreau — over the absence of even one single female director among the 22 films in competition.

— Graham Fuller looked into the tragic love affair behind the upcoming Martin Scorsese movie about Rolls-Royce "Silver Ghost," which is set to star Richard Attenborough.

— "The Social Network" director Aaron Sorkin made clear that his next tech biopic, "Steve Jobs," will be as frank about the late Apple CEO's life as his Oscar-winner was about Mark Zuckerberg.

VIDEO

— Tom Sachs gave ARTINFO a tour of his massive Mars mission control performance-installation at the Park Avenue Armory.

PARIS — One of Paris's newest galleries is giving a young Brazilian artist his French debut: the recently opened 11bis has chosen Bruno Dunley for the third show at its space in the Marais, which will also mark the Brazilian painter's first exhibition in France. Maria do Mar Guinle, director of the See Art + Advisory firm — which specializes in Brazilian art — first discovered Dunley at Art Rio when a painting of his featuring a penguin caught her eye. After Guinle befriended Dunley, his Sao Paolo gallerist Marcela Razuk, and the latter's Paris-based sister Marilla, she asked the young painter to create new works for an exhibition at 11bis, a project space started by See Art and curator Claudia Paetzold's cpCONTEMPORARY. ARTINFO France caught up with the talented and promising artist to talk minimalism, narrative, and life as a contemporary artist in Brazil.

Tell me about your inspiration and the poetics of your paintings.

I'm a young artist; I feel like I'm still at the beginning of my career, and I don’t have a clear idea of the totality of my poetics — maybe I never will. It's as if I'm walking with a candle in my hands, perceiving things gradually as they get closer, too close even. But I have to continue if I really want to see them.

What I paint are approximations, poetic figures, which speak to the uncertainty and the doubt that I think are part of my poetry. This is more overt and intense in relationship between paintings in the new body of work that I'm presenting at 11bis. I see my work as a series of questions and statements about the possibilities of painting, what it is, and what we expect from it. I try to give in to expectations and then break them in the work. I want to take first-time viewers to the limit of existence and acceptance. I think that’s what I’m trying to paint: A painting is finished when it breaks my expectations of the work.

Would you say that your works have narratives?

I like the term "fictions without words." At first you cannot discern a clear narrative or linear trajectory; the paintings seem to have the strength and fragility of something silent, speechless, or dumb. Often we recognize the figure, but there is a strangeness because we cannot reach it or identify its purpose. There is an emptiness that insists on removing these images from the world of things, but the painting remains, it persists; it is a kind of ghost trapped in the paint.

Increasingly I see the poetics come through in the relationship between several paintings or a group of works. Forced interaction between them causes the differences to fade, and the works develop a kind of continuity. Gathered in one space, the paintings show incompleteness and ambiguity; they ask questions. My attempts to frustrate any sense of consistency in imagery or style can be very pronounced; I don't want there to be a single theme or pictorial procedure repeated.

Do you consider your paintings minimalist?

I do not think my painting is minimalist, but I think it appropriates certain aspects of that vocabulary. Often, when I start to paint, I construct a monochromatic surface, a kind of color plate, almost an object. This approach to paintings as objects comes from my experience with these works, and a spatial awareness that it is not the image's perspective that guides our eyes toward a virtual interior, but the surface and its relation to the body and space. The visual clarity in some of my studies may also be related to minimalism, but I'm not thinking about it while I'm working. My concern is creating the painting and searching for the tools to carry it through.

How is it being a painter in Brazil today?

Over the last few decades Brazil has developed a strong contemporary art scene based on traditions that date back to the 1950s, and which today have gained increased visibility in other countries. As a Brazilian artist, I feel like I'm living in a privileged moment. Besides being able to draw from European and American traditions, I also have direct access to Brazilian art history, which, although relatively short, seems timeless.

In Sao Paulo, where I live, the environment is very good for painting. We still don’t have enough historical distance to understand what is happening, but there are many artists working with painting here, which is a relatively recent phenomenon. It's an optimistic moment.

I think the relationships between young painters and artists who began their careers in the 1980s have also helped nurture this environment. For my part, artists like Rodrigo Andrade, Paulo Pasta, and Sergio Sister were fundamental to the development of my work. I maintain a close relationship with these artists as well as others from my generation, like Marina Rheingantz, Rodrigo Bivar, Lucas Arruda, Ana Prata, and Mariana Serri.

Bruno Dunley's exhibition at 11bis continues through June 30.

A version of this article appears on ARTINFO France.

A trailblazer for 100% old vine Sangiovese, Bibi Graetz has put the town of Fiesole firmly on the international...

— Olympic Park Artist-in-Residence Slams London Games: Artist Neville Gabie held a residency at London's Olympic Park between September 2010 and January of this year. Now, he has declared that his up-close exposure to the London Olympics led to his disillusionment with the commercialism of the whole thing — so his next piece, titled "The Greatest Possible Distance," involves him taking suggestions via his blog about where he might spend the night of the opening ceremony that would get him farthest from the Olympics, physically and spiritually. "When you're involved close up with something like that you start to worry about the ethos of the Olympics and whether the original spirit of the Games is really reflected in what we have now," he said. "This project is an idea to explore how far away we might have moved from the original spirit of the Games." [Guardian]

— Women Artists Handicapped at Auction: Despite featuring an usually strong male-female ratio of five-to-one, sales figures from this month's post-war and contemporary auction at Christie's in New York confirmed conventional art market gender stereotypes: women artists accounted for less than five percent of the record-setting $388-million total. Still, women's standing in the market is slowly improving, particularly with the ascent of female collectors like Sheikha Mayassa Al Thani, the daughter of the emir of Qatar. "Attitudes are changing generationally," said chairman of post-war and contemporary art development at Christie's Amy Cappellazzo. "There will be some remedial catch up before women artists have parity on prices." [Economist, Art Market Monitor]

— Development Threatens Giotto Frescoes: The construction of a 30-story, €160 million ($204 million) mixed-use condo and office tower in the city of Padua in northern Italy could do irreperable damage to the Scrovegni Chapel just across the Bacchiglione river, which houses towering frescoes by Renaissance master Giotto di Bondone. A public petition signed by thousands of Italians expresses concern that digging the foundations of the Boris Podrecca-designed sckyscraper could result in water damage to the chapel. "Everyone with any knowledge of frescoes is aware that excessive damp can cause them to crumble," said former University of Rome professor of medieval history Chiara Frugoni, "or to peel off the wall to which they are attached." [Telegraph]

— Illegal Taxidermy Artist Gets 20 Months: The Miami-based sculptor Enrique Gomez de Molina, who was arrested by federal authorities for trafficking parts of endangered animals in order to create his popular hybrid taxidermy sculptures, began serving a 20-month jail sentence earlier this month after refusing to heed warnings from the Fish and Wildlife Service. “We sent him a notice. We didn’t charge him,” said Matt Bendele, a special agent from FWS's Miami office. “We said, ‘Here is what the law is, Enrique. We want you to abandon this.’ But he continued to do it.” [Miami Herald]

— Turner’s Little-Known Portraiture: Though best known for his landscape paintings, a previously unseen work by J.M.W. Turner suggests that the original “painter of light” aspired to be a serious portraitist. The 1828 painting “Recumbent Nude Figures,” which will be on public view for the first time during an upcoming Tate Britain exhibition, was begun during Turner’s visit to Rome and never finished. “This portrait will stop people in their tracks,” said Ian Warrell, curator of 18th and 19th century art at Tate Britain, “because it is so completely different to the image of Turner's works that everyone has in their minds.” [Telegraph]

— Boston MFA Receives Major Gift: On Saturday Boston's Museum of Fine Arts announced that it had received a gift of thousands of artworks — worth, according to the museum, likely a "nine figures" sum — from longtime trustee Saundra Lane, including 6,000 photographs, more than two dozen paintings, and 100 works on paper. Included is the entire, 2,500-piece photographic estate of Charles Sheeler, as many photos by Edward Weston, and 500 by Ansel Adams. [Boston Globe]

— Prurient Painting of Prime Minister Proves Popular: A painting of the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reclining nude in the style of Titian's "Venus of Urbino" or Manet's "Olympia," has earned Kingston-based painter Margaret Sutherland some unwanted attention. The large-scale painting, which is on view at Kingston's public library, shows the PM in a very revealing pose, and joined on his chaise longue by a small dog, while a member of his cabinet offers him a cup of coffee from ubiquitous Canadian chain Tim Hortons. [CBC]

— Brice Marden's Rockstar Looks: A profile of the American painter Brice Marden on the occasion of his recent participation in the Tate Modern's American Artist Lecture Series spends much time fawning over the critically-acclaimed and fervently-collected abstractionist's sex appeal. "As he takes the podium, his trademark black woollen hat tugged down over bitter-chocolate eyes, silvery hair curling over a black jacket and cobalt-blue shirt," writes Rachel Spence, "he exudes Springsteen-like glamour." [Financial Times]

— Former Gas Station Fills Up on Art: South Africa's latest African art center, the Wits Art Museum, opened this weekend in a converted gas station, car dealership, and dental school in Johannesburg's trendy Braamfontein neighborhood. Set alongside the University of the Witwatersrand's campus, the new $5.4-million museum will showcase works from the university 10,000-piece collection, which spans 16th century pottery to works by William Kentridge and Gavin Olivier. [WSJ]

— Public Art Replaced by Dog Droppings: An outdoor installation by sculptor Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie consisting of 200 small wooden houses distributed at 19 locations throughout Scotland's Inverewe Gardens has been stolen and defaced by vandals who removed many of the diminutive houses and left bags of dog waste in their place. "This is a stunning area of the country that has a low rate of crime, and petty vandalism is not common," said Bennett-Mackenzie. "So this is something of a shock and actually a bit upsetting." [Scotsman]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

An Australian builder has accidentally destroyed a work Banksy:

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