Kenny Schachter, the outspoken force behind London's Rove Gallery, may be the man who has everything. Not only is his home brimming with a mouthwatering collection of works by his blue-chip artists — including the Campana Brothers' plush alligator chair, Arik Levi's light sculpture, and faux-hardwood basement floorboards by Richard Woods — his garage is no joke, either. Rove Cars, the automotive arm of his operations, boasts a 1983 Alfa Romeo, several Porsche models, and a Z Car, the three-wheeled, 2005 Zaha Hadid commission that looks the way we imagine golf carts will in the distant future. The only thing Wayne Manor has over the Schachter estate is the Batmobile, it seems, but even that's about to change.

The art-dealer has tapped Hadid to create yet another vehicle for his personal use, this time on water. Rather than designing a boat of a predictable fluid shape with a shiny metallic finish, Hadid has emerged with something more foreboding: a fragmented, angular vessel sprung from a Christopher Nolan movie. The all-black, 8-meter-long Z Boat (cleverly staying on-brand with its name), is being built by French manufacturer Shoreteam in a very limited edition of 12, slated for availability in early 2013. And next on Schachter's wish list, rumor has it, is a Rem Koolhaas-designed hybrid sail- and motor-yacht that is already in the works. He appears to be assembling the world's first starchitect fleet.

When a brand as big as Dolce & Gabbana decides to try a couture collection for the first time, you can probably look forward to an utter spectacle. The most recent ready-to-wear show from Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, staged in Milan last February, featured chandeliers, sparkly-framed mirrors, and enormous capes resembling red episcopal vestments.

“It was unabashedly lavish, but it had nothing on the duo's new collection, which was dripping in gold bullion,” Style.com reported.

Those sure that yesterday’s couture collection would match the Spring 2012 RTW show’s opulence should think again. We know very little. There were only three press outlets invited, and none of them are American. But from the Instagram pictures floating around the web, the debut of Dolce & Gabbana’s take on haute couture seems to be tame when compared to their other larger-than-life shows. Perhaps they wanted a test run in Italy, on home turf, before unleashing a full collection to the world.

It was held a week after most editors and buyers left Paris following the Fall 2012 Couture shows, and not everyone made the trek out to Taormini, Sicily. The Twitter and Instagram feeds of Cameron Silver, proprietor of the Decades boutiques in London and Los Angeles, reveal that the runway was set up in the open-air lobby of the San Domenico Hotel, where guests were staying. And who were these guests? They included Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington, Scarlett Johansson, Isabella Rossellini, Naomi Campbell, Monica Bellucci and Anna Dello Russo.

Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani, also in attendance, took to her blog to praise the first attempt at couture.

“The show was held within a unique scenario and featured real haute couture pieces, not only for the cuts but also for the choice of textiles and the refinement of the silhouettes,” she wrote. “Lace and double satin tailleurs, embroideries dresses and simple sheath dresses, as well as redingotes and lambskin little coats and painted dresses.” 

But despite the high-wattage guests and positive feedback, it seems the overall tone was reserved. Showing in Italy means the brand did not have to adhere to the strict French couture laws, and the shunning of press pointed to reservations on the part of the designers.

And they could not have established more of a home field advantage. The show was held immediately before the procession of San Pancrazio, the patron saint of Taormina, a place that cares deeply about such holidays. Perhaps Dolce & Gabbana, one of Italy’s more iconic brands, needs to get out of its comfort zone and show somewhere a bit more neutral. 

Click on the slide show to see images from the Dolce & Gabbana couture show. 

As a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of 20-something Chelseaites in plastic rimmed glassed sipped Brooklyn lagers and trepidatiously bopped along to the tunes of Derrick Adams and DJ Imposter at the red-carpeted opening of "Young Curators/New Ideas" at Meulensteen Gallery, I wondered what we all came here for. Was it for the art? The free microbrew? Or the false sense of exclusivity fostered by the velvet rope, tight guest list, and around-the-block line? Or was it the ever-seductive, insatiable allure of youth and novelty — the now-classic avant-gardist notion that the next generation will upend the pieties and pretenses of their fathers, and look cool and sexy while doing it.

Now in its 4th edition, “Young Curators” is the labor of curator-about-town Amani Olu, who currently works under the moniker “Mr. and Mrs. Amani Olu.” Mr. Olu and his fictitious Misses put out an open call back in May for curatorial proposals. With 29 artists and 12 curators between the ages of 21 and 32, this is the largest, most ambitious, and most ceremonious “Young Curators” show to date. Meulensteen’s sprawling upstairs space, storefront annex, and cavernous basement are subdivided by petitions and moveable walls to showcase 12 semi-autonomous mini-exhibitions.  

The shows run the gamut from naively altruistic participatory installation to kitschy pop painting to post-minimalist sculpture to diaristic video art to monochrome painting, though new media seemed palpalbly absent. If anything, this year's "Young Curators" less of an intrepid march into the future than of a thoughtful, retrospective glance at the past. If one were to take “Young Curators” as the voice of a generation (or “a voice of a generation,” to quote zeitgeisty millennial Lena Dunham), you might get a fragmented picture of what self-aware, tiptoeing post-postmodernism looks like. Call it a crisis of historicity, a crisis of faith, a skepticism towards metanarratives, or people just doing their own thing, man, these curators bypassed the much-ballyhooed New Aesthetic in favor of a potpourri of painting, sculpture, film, and everything in between.

Here’s a selection of highlights from the show:

— Upon entry, visitors are greeted by Teresa Henriques's colossal text painting spelling out the word “Problem.” Looking through a binocular kaleidoscope that rotates by turning a crank, the word dissipates into a churning psychedelic maze of pattern and color. The overall effect reminded me of Yoko Ono’s effervescent "Ceiling Painting (YES Painting)." Courtesy of New York curators Susi Kenni and Tali Wertheimer, it’s a rare moment of open-ended affirmation — and one of the few you’ll get at “Young Curators.”

— Fellow New Yorker and Bard CCS alum Rachel Cook’s “Not-Not-Not Image-Objects” show was phenomenological in nature, attempting to tease out the sculptural qualities of photography, a medium that “no longer has simply an indexical relationship to the object,” she wrote in her curator’s statement, “It can also embody a form.” This neo-formalist theory of photography might be as old as Moholy Nagy, but sculptor Jillian Conrad’s slide projections on provisional-looking-wooden beams pit light and matter against each other, questioning our boilerplate notions about both.

— San Francisco-based curator and founder of HungryMan Gallery Robin Juan’s painting show plays on the dreary truism that “there are no new ideas, just new forms of cultural production.” While her thesis is somewhat of a bummer, Josh Reame’s “Refraction” paintings — wiry abstract acrylic passages that looked shattered and pieced together willy-nilly — are anything but tentative.

— Art blogger and independent curator Legacy Russell’s “ERRATUM” asked artists to display work in juxtaposition to an existing text. Amy Beecher’s “Please Read this for me,” based on a self-help book written for women in 1988, took the form of a long spool of paint-splattered paper cascading from the ceiling to the floor. Julia Weist’s “After Mike Kelley” paid rather literal homage to Kelly’s famous blanket and stuffed animal floor sculptures, while W.A.G.E cofounder A.K. Burns’s “a very special delirium” — a plaster cast of a banana propped up to spotlight its own shadow — plays on the same semiotic playground as Rene Magritte’s “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” and Jasper Johns’s “Fools Broom.” Russel’s show was a thoughtful — if slightly haphazard —contemplation of art history, gender, and power.

— Blogger, business student, and self-described “modern day flaneur” Larry Ossei-Mensah’s show of Hugo McCloud’s oxidized copper combine paintings, titled “Beautiful Refuse: Materiality,” makes aestheticized reference to shanty dwellings in Africa and Brazil. A touchy proposition, though it goes to show that “Young Curators” isn't all morbid critiques of painting and ontological games. The show also includes some collectable, attention-grabbing objects.

— FLAG Art director Stephanie Roach’s “Losing My Religion” explores the intersection of pop idolatry and iconography with Jenny Spota’s gooey, intimately scaled religious tableaux and Jeffrey Vallance’s kitschy reliquaries. Neither secular nor pious, Roach opts to hang out agnostically in the empty space left by religious allegory.

— London-based curator Tiernan Morgan offered a post-Warholian look at the decline of America’s soft power. Alongside screwball documentarian Adam Curtis’s montage film “It Felt Like a Kiss,” Morgan shows Darren Coffield’s kitschy acrylic portraits of midcentury celebrities with upside-down faces. Coffield’s Marilyn Monroes and fright-wigged Warhols are carefully hand-rendered, rebuking the factory-forged slickness of Warhol’s silkscreens. A highlight is Jerry Kearn’s awesome and terrible “Mortgage,” a 6-by-7 foot painting of a heat-packing, redneck Jesus. It’s unclear if the second amendment-worshipping messiah is out to defend his suburban track mansion by fire, or to stage a home invasion robbery.

— Calder Zwicky — a teen educator at MoMa and performance art curator — was the only curator to tackle sex head on, with Adam Parker Smith’s (literally) steamy portrait of Keanu Reeves and the artists's crowd-pleasing foam butts and vagina sculptures (which made the rounds at this year's Bushwick Open Studios). Shown alongside Peter Hobbs's viscerally creepy shaving cream video portrait, "Space Foam," the work explores, in Zwicky’s words, “the transformation of sex from the procreative to the performative.”

— Finally, ArtBridge director Jordana Zeldin’s conceptually tight, two-person show, “All the Boys and Girls,” was a Proustian meditation on memory and nostalgia. Ben Alper’s scans of photo album pages emptied of their contents accompany Judith Shimer’s video, “Grow Up,” in which she tries to replicate the babbling baby talk and inchoate gestures her five-year-old self. The authentic home video and the reenactment play out concomitantly, separated by a split-screen. Together, both bodies of work eloquently communicate the inexorable sense of displacement and loss that accompanies on onset of adulthood — a feeling that all young folks, curators or no, can understand.

One of the biggest upsets at the last month’s Tony Awards was Best Revival going to “The Gershwins’ ‘Porgy and Bess’” over the heavily favored “Follies.” The restructured “Porgy” was met with some outrage when it arrived on Broadway. Riding out that storm was lead producer Jeffrey Richards, who is on the short list of Broadway’s brightest and most colorful producers. Who else would show up in full dress blues at the august offices of the Shubert Organization trying to secure a theater for his revival of the “Caine Mutiny Court-Martial”? (It worked.) Born and raised in New York City, Richards has an encyclopedic knowledge of theater and a restless imagination, which he put to use first as a press agent and, since 2000, as a Broadway producer. His choices have been bold. Some have paid off (Tony Awards for “Spring Awakening,” “August: Osage County,” and revivals of “Hair” and “Glengarry Glen Ross”). Others have not (“Enron,” “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” and most recently “Bonnie and Clyde”). 

As usual, Richards has a full roster in the upcoming season: An October revival of the Steppenwolf production of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with Tracy Letts and Amy Morton; yet another revival, in November, of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” starring Al Pacino; and the world premiere, in December, of Mamet’s “The Anarchist,” starring Debra Winger and Patti LuPone. We spoke with  the prolific producer about his penchant for revivals of revivals and his gut instinct when it comes to greenlighting a project for Broadway.

In 2000, you revived “Gore Vidal’s ‘The Best Man,’” then revisited it in a new production last season. You’re now reviving  both “Woolf” and “Glengarry Glen Ross” just seven years after major Broadway productions  of each play. That’s highly unusual. Is this some sort of trend? 
I was inspired by “La Cage Aux Folles,” which came back to Broadway just five years later, and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which was done in 2004, 2008 and which will now be done again. So I sort of looked at them and said, “Wow, some shows are doing it in an even shorter span of time than what I’m doing.”

Is it a question of stars wanting to do it — Pacino in “Glengarry Glen Ross” and Scarlett Johansson in “Cat”?
I can’t speak to the latter, but with “Glengarry Glen Ross” it was just fortuitous timing. It’s the 30th anniversary of its world premiere in London.

Did Pacino initiate this revival?
Al and I had been talking for years about doing “Glengarry.” He’d never done it onstage. David Mamet and Pacino have collaborated before — Pacino was in “American Buffalo”  [in 1983] and in the 1992  film  of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” and he just finished filming the HBO  movie about Phil Spector, which David wrote and directed. So I think the idea of this revival came about as a result of their relationship. 

Pacino was nominated  for an Oscar for his hotshot realtor Ricky Roma. This time he’s playing the Willy Loman-esque Shelley Levene, and Bobby Cannavale is playing Ricky. Did Pacino have much to do with Cannavale’s casting?
Al is thrilled that Cannavale wanted to do this. He thought he was fabulous in “The Motherfucker with the Hat,” and it has always been Cannavale’s dream to work with Al.

What makes Daniel Sullivan the right director, apart from his having directed Pacino before in “The Merchant of Venice”?
I think Daniel has a clear understanding of language and character development and of structure, all of which is essential to David Mamet. He’s also good at building suspense. I had worked with Daniel on the revival of Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming,” which also contains those elements. It was Pinter who originally brought this play to the attention of the Cottlesloe Theatre [at the National Theatre of Great Britain]. David wrote to Pinter asking him what he should do with the play and Pinter wrote back and said, “Nothing. I’m sending it to the Cottlesloe.” It all seems like the right kind of synergy given these factors.

You’re presenting the world premiere of Mamet’s “The Anarchist” directly on Broadway without the benefit of a regional production or out-of-town tryout, which is almost unheard of these days.  Isn’t that risky?
I’ve been fortunate enough to present  the world premiere of three of David Mamet’s plays on Broadway. “November,” “Race” and “The Anarchist” …

Did “November” and “Race” recoup their investment?
“Race” did and “November” is expected to recoup by the end of next year. I just think that David Mamet is one of our most significant and greatest living playwrights, and his work deserves to reach the widest audience possible, which is what Broadway provides. There’s intense interest in the media in “The Anarchist.” 

Debra Winger is making her Broadway debut as a warden who must decide parole for a political radical. What makes you think she has the theatrical chops to pull it off?
I know that she has worked at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge in a couple of productions, and I heard very favorable things about her. She’s already had extended conversations with David Mamet, exploring all the facets of this character, and I think she’s very positive and comfortable in the relationship. I don’t think she’d undertake it unless she felt that way. I’m used to presenting people in their Broadway debuts. Kristen Davis and Cybill Shepherd are about to make their debuts [as replacements] in “Gore Vidal’s ‘The Best Man.’”

Do you think there’ll be chemistry between Winger and LuPone?
I can’t wait to watch the sparks fly. Patti’s an extraordinary actress and she knows her way around David Mamet, as she’s been in several of his plays. I think she and Debra are going to be an exciting and combustible combination on that stage.

Mamet is also directing the play. Isn’t it dangerous for a writer to direct his own work? No objectivity?
He did a brilliant job of directing “Race” on Broadway. And I’ve even asked him to direct another play I was interested in that he didn’t write. He’s a first-rate director. Richard Thomas, Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier, and James Spader said that being in the rehearsal room with David was a completely joyous and constructive experience. Besides, on “The Anarchist,” as on “Race,” he’s very sensitive to the needs of the playwright. After all, he’s had a longstanding relationship with him.

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At the Louis Vuitton store on Fifth Avenue earlier today, the first sign that something out of the ordinary was going on was the black dots bubbling up the building’s façade. The next was the gaggle of store staff, members of the press, and well-dressed attendees gathered behind a black fence, noses pressed up to the store windows gazing in at… Could that actually be Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese mistress of polka dots and subject of a current Whitney museum retrospective herself? The artist seemed to be sitting stock still in the midst of a swirl of curving red sculptures decked out in white spots, and the Louis Vuitton Kusama collaboration sunglasses perched on her nose framed by a signature red anime-style bob.

In fact, the seated figure wasn’t actually Kusama, but a remarkably realistic wax figure made to look like the notoriously shy (these days, at least) artist. The younger models, seen posing in the windows with matching wigs, were alive, however. After ogling the fiberglass flowers and spotty tendrils installed in the windows (which were designed by Kusama to celebrate the launch of her capsule collection for the luxury brand), it was time for the assorted guests to be funneled inside the store, where they were met with the artist lookalikes arranged step-by-step on the grand staircase, a tasteful selection of Kusama-designed Louis Vuitton goods on display, and slim glasses of champagne, or Perrier for the less adventurous  (it was only noon). Though the artist's voice had emerged from loudspeakers to announce the opening and she was said to be in the store, Kusama was nowhere to be seen — but her mark was. 

Spots covered all of the brand’s traditional luxury commodities, ranging from white-on-red purses, wallets, clutches, and watches to black-on-yellow sunglasses, scarves, and bags. None of the merchandise was available for purchase quite yet, ARTINFO was politely informed; buying would have to wait until the store opened to the public at 4pm. Those interested in partaking of the overlap of art and fashion will have two New York locations to choose from: Louis Vuitton’s SoHo location is similarly bespeckled, with five other stores launching worldwide. Even though the Whitney retrospective doesn’t open to the public for another two days, we’re already seeing spots.

Click on the video below for a tour of the Yayoi Kusama Louis Vuitton pop-up store on Fifth Avenue. 

Team “Margaret” was out in force last night. Devotees of Kenneth Lonergan’s back-from-the-dead 2011 classic lined up around the block to get into the first public screening of his extended cut of the film at New York City's Sunshine Theater. The writer-director introduced the film and returned at the end for a Q&A with members of his cast, including Jeannie Berlin, Matthew Broderick, J. Smith Cameron, and Mark Ruffalo. Anna Paquin, its formidable star, is in Los Angeles and has told Lonergan she will attend the screening there.

Hosted by Indiewire and 20^th Century-Fox to launch the DVD release of the movie today, the event felt like a triumph – a moment of redemption for Lonergan, who labored for seven years to bring the 188-minute cut to fruition. The 150-minute cut, released but not promoted by Fox Searchlight last September, is now available with the long version on BluRay.

What the extra 38 minutes does for “Margaret” is, primarily, turn the story of Lisa Cohen (Paquin), an aggressive, seductive 17-year-old schoolgirl whose sexual coming of age coincides with the aftermath of her unwitting involvement in a tragic bus accident, into an epic about the everyday lives of New Yorkers dwelling in the shadow of 9/11. Especially in its first half, the movie eavesdrops on the conversations of passers-by, cops, and women sitting in a coffee shop where the chatter initially drowns out a troubled conversation between Lisa and the hesitant schoolfriend (John Gallagher Jr.) who loves her unrequitedly.

Unlike the whispered internal monologues that bring spiritually inflected streams 0f consciousness to Terrence Malick’s films, the polyphony of voices in “Margaret” illustrates how people are preoccupied with their thoughts and feelings, underscoring Lisa’s melodramatic solipsism. As in the original cut, she is alerted to her tendency to relate everything to herself in the explosive scene in which Emily (Berlin), the friend of the woman (Allison Janney) struck by the bus, reads the crying teen the riot act. 

Lonergan and his editors have included many more punctuating shots of Manhattanites teeming on the sidewalks and traffic coursing along the sidewalks, mostly on the Upper West Side, where Lisa lives with her divorced actress mother (Cameron) and younger brother. There are numerous shots of the city’s buildings by day and by night, and occasionally the camera leans back to peer at the sky. Two shots show planes flying above the city, one of them unsettlingly low. Buses, cabs, planes – in Lisa’s new world, every one of them could be a killer.

“I hope I didn’t make it too heavy-handed,” Lonergan said of the plane shots when the interlocutor, the playwright Tony Kushner, asked him about the influence of 9/11 on the film. Reviewing Paquin’s performance in January, I mentioned that Lonergan had made a “virtual allegory” of 9/11 – the movie agonizingly probes the question of who should be held responsible for the Janney character’s death and how Lisa processes guilt and grief, particularly in the context of her relationship with her mother, who is equally self-absorbed, thinking about her career and tentative relationship with an altruistic Columbian (Jean Reno). How does Lisa go on? How did New York? At full length “Margaret” now seems like a full-blown allegory and the most resonant film made about the fallout of al-Qaeda’s attacks on America.

Lisa’s fury keeps “Margaret” grounded just about, but it has grown in opulence. As a spectacle, it is enhanced by the amping up of opera music on the soundtrack. Swathes of Strauss and Wagner have been added, echoing the operatic mise-en-scène of the cityscapes and the (soap) opera of Lisa’s mission to get the bus driver (Ruffalo) fired and her dalliances, for which, in a newly included sequence, she pays with a abortion. The climax, during Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffman” at the Metropolitan Opera, is as bathetic as it is powerful – and this time I noticed the ironic symmetry of Renee Fleming reclining on a couch in a blood-red gown as she sings the Barcarolle and Janney’s prostrated blood-drenched pedestrian dying in Lisa’s arms.

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NEW YORK — “It’s cool though, isn’t it?” actor Diane Kruger remarked to her boyfriend, actor Joshua Jackson, as they observed “Accumulation of Faces No. 2,” a 1962 collage of faces by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The couple wandered through the fourth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art, where the artist’s retrospective will be on view through September 30. “Everything else is really joyful,” Jackson noted to Kruger as they walked through the gallery showcasing Kusama’s darker paintings from the 1950s.

The couple, both clad in Louis Vuitton, was there for a special preview hosted by the French fashion house and W magazine to celebrate Kusama’s exhibition, which opens to the public on July 12. Back on the ground floor, a crowd of celebrities, magazine editors, and socialites that included filmmaker Sofia Coppola, Princess Maria Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis, and artist Olympia Scarry — who were all decked out in Vuitton — mingled while sipping on champagne and mint juleps. Foie gras macarons and fromage blanc pockets topped with edible flowers were also passed about. Pieces from Kusama’s collaboration with Vuitton were seen throughout the group of guests: the DJs wore the bangles on their wrists, one partygoer proudly sported the yellow and black polka-dotted sunglasses from the collection on her head, while another clutched the red and white spotted pochette.

At the bar, legendary New York Times street style and society photographer Bill Cunningham made an exception to the no freebies policy he described in his 2010 documentary: a glass of Coke. Martha Stewart walked in and posed for a photograph with Whitney director Adam Weinberg before making a beeline for the elevator to head upstairs to see the exhibition.

Artist and Le Baron nightlife impresario André Saraiva told us that he found the retrospective interesting, but that it lacked some Kusama pieces he had been hoping to get a glimpse of.

“I’m missing the big installations and the big dots and the really playful psychedelic things she can do,” Saraiva said. “But this is an amazing show. And I miss the porn magazine she used to do. She used to do a porn magazine called Kusama, I think, and she did the show. You have the poster of the show, but the magazine, I want to see the magazine. I will find them on the net.”

At around 8 p.m., guests invited to the intimate dinner that followed headed downstairs. We caught artist Tom Sachs and his fiancé, Gagosienne Sarah Hoover, scurrying in a fashionable 30 minutes late.

But Kusama, who we were told was supposed to be in attendance, was nowhere to be seen.

Click on the slide show to see guests at the Louis Vuitton and W magazine preview to celebrate “Yayoi Kusama” at the Whitney.

After ushering the ABBA musical “Mamma Mia!” to phenomenal success, the redoubtable British producer Judy Craymer is back with another roll of the dice: “Viva Forever!” a new musical featuring the songs of the Spice Girls, the quintet who raised the flag on “Girl Power” in the late ‘90s, selling 75 million albums in over 30 countries. “Mamma Mia” is a tough act to follow. After all, it’s still minting money — $2 billion at last count — in its 13^th year on London’s West End and 11^th  on Broadway, not to mention productions around the world, and the high-grossing movie starring Meryl Streep.

As one of Britain’s richest women, Craymer certainly doesn’t need the tsuris that putting on any major musical invites. But the 54-year-old producer says she has been “re-energized” by assembling a team which she feels will help her strike gold (again) when “Viva Forever!” opens at London’s  Piccadilly Theatre on December 11^th.   Writing the libretto is Jennifer Saunders, whose comedy stints include not only the TV classic “Absolutely Fabulous” but skits involving the Spice Girls-parodying “Sugar Lumps.” Directing is Paul Garrington, who apprenticed at the Royal Shakespeare Company and has helmed numerous productions of “Mamma Mia!” 

Impressed with Craymer’s bona fides, the Spice Girls approached her about a musical, spurring the producer to concoct with Saunders a story which would fit into the pre-existing framework of the group’s biggest hits. What emerged after nearly three years and a couple of workshops is the story of young Viva, who, with three friends, enters a TV talent show. When she is catapulted to fame, leaving the others behind, the bonds of friendship are tested, as are Viva’s relationship with her loving but chaotic mother. Craymer recently spoke to us about “girl power,” humiliation, envy, and being lured into what she laughingly calls “the Spice Girls coven.”

What the hell is “girl power,” anyway?
I think it’s a kind of go-for-it confidence that you can be yourself and can achieve for yourself whatever it is that you want to achieve. That’s what attracted me to the project and why they warmed to me. It was a meeting of minds. I was fascinated by the Spice Girls’ music and how they defined an era. Moms and daughters would come to see their shows and feel empowered by their message of ambition. They were incredibly ambitious and they achieved those ambitions and I think that legacy of confidence still resonates today. And yet they never took themselves too seriously. There was lot of sass that was non-threatening.  

You mean the nicknames they gave themselves — Posh, Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger?
Yes. At their peak, in 1997, the fun about them is that you could be a different one every day of the week. Today, I feel like Sporty, tomorrow, I might feel Scary, and then later, Posh.

How has that “girl power” message affected you personally?
From school days onward, I admired women who achieved their best in whatever field, whether they were writers, sports figures, or even politicians. I’d probably be drummed out of the business if I told you who —

Would you be thinking of Maggie Thatcher?
I do admire her, actually. She is an extraordinary woman. Long before “girl power” existed, we had this prime minister in a profession totally dominated by men. I was a show jumper when I was younger, horse mad, and some of the top riders were women and I was very admiring of them, realizing just how tough it is to be competing at that kind of level.  Even now, I think  there’s only one woman on Britain’s Olympic [Equestrian] team. I don’t want to sound like a feminist — quelle horreur! — and I don’t think it’s a drum to be banged, but the Spice Girls in their own way came into a world of boy bands and were told, repeatedly, that a girl band, especially with five [members], will never work. And they broke all the rules!

I understand that Jennifer Saunders was two months into chemotherapy for breast cancer when you began to collaborate in October of 2009.
Yes. I’d make her meet once or twice a week and I’d come over with my iPod and “torture” her with these songs. She was really enjoying it and I knew that she’d respond to putting them into a modern-day story of women. Jennifer is great at writing about female friendship and she also has a tongue-in-cheek sense of irony.  She’s an actress who knows the television world well and the cast responded to that.  Besides, she has a slightly competitive streak and the idea of humiliation would be too much for her to bear. But she gets it. She’s very musical.

“Viva Forever!” sounds like it deals a lot with jealousy and envy.
I think that’s an interesting element. The dynamics of friendship are such, whether it’s men or women, that you go on a journey together and everybody wants everything to be okay and it’s a bit like that moment in the show … Well,  not to give it away …

You mean when Viva gets picked by the talent show, but as a solo act?
Yes. She says, “I’m doing it for us.” And then someone responds, “Yeah, well, we didn’t think they were going to pick you!” The feeling of “not being needed” is part of that, that fear of becoming “invisible.” Friendship does win out but you become very vulnerable. I have to keep saying that this musical is not about the Spice Girls but when they were together and then Geri [Halliwell] left the group? That was a huge thing.  And I remember her talking about it and she said she didn’t feel “needed” anymore. And we’ve all lived through those moments whether we’re six years old or whenever. I mean, there can’t be anything worse than jealousies when you’re about to be pensioned off!

Does that play into the mother and daughter relationship as well? Viva is adopted  and the TV producer proposes an on-air reunion with the birth mother.
The heart of the story is the anxiety of adoption and fear of what could happen if your daughter is spun into the spotlight. The mother-daughter thing is resonant because the Spice Girls are now women who are all approaching 40. They’re great working women and mothers — there are eight children among them.  They are still working very hard, still achieving things. They just didn’t disappear after 1999. 

What’s up with you and exclamation points? “Mamma Mia!” “Viva Forever!”
Oh, it’s just a sense of excitement.  Of enthusiasm. [Laughs.] Of calamity!

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Nina Arianda, who last month won a Tony for her portrayal of Vanda in “Venus in Furs” (video below), has been cast as Janis Joplin in the long-gestating independent biopic.

Playing the electrifyingly raw rock and blues singer will mark the first time the American-Ukrainian actress, who turns 28 this September, has had a lead role in a movie. She previously appeared in “Win Win” and “Tower Heights,” and was the wife of Michael Sheen’s pseudo-intellectual in “Midnight in Paris.”

According to Mike Fleming, who reported the news on Deadline yesterday, “Joplin” will be set during the last six months of the singer’s turbulent life, with flashbacks to her early career. It will be directed by Sean Durkin, who is hot from the critical success of “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”

Over the years, a number of actresses and singers had eyed the role of Joplin, among them Lili Taylor, Amy Adams, Renee Zellweger, Melissa Etheridge, Pink, Courtney Love, Zooey Deschanel, and the late Brittany Murphy. The latter auditioned successfully for the version of the story known as “Piece of My Heart,” which was never made.

“Joplin” will be produced by Peter Newman (“Dogfight,” “Smoke,” “The Squid and the Whale”) who has worked on the project for 12 years and has acquired the rights of 21 of Joplin’s songs, which Arianda will sing herself. Of Arianda’s performance in “Venus in Furs,” Newman told Fleming: “I’ve never in my life seen an actress walk on a stage and convey the duality of vulnerability with overheated sexuality, which is what Janis was all about.”

Writes Fleming: “Newman’s trump card all these years was a contractual lock on the Joplin songs as well as the life rights and arrangements of her backing band Big Brother and the Holding Company. He has the rights to ‘Love, Janis,’ a collection of letters from the singer that was published by her sister Laura Joplin, and the David Dalton book ‘Piece of My Heart.’”

The Texan singer, who performed at Monterey in 1967 and Woodstock in 1970, died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27, 15 days before Jimi Hendrix died at the same age.

Nina Arianda stars with Hugh Dancy in David Ives's "Venus in Furs":

Bottom: Janis Joplin performs "Piece of My Heart":

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Our hard-working staff has rounded up a digest of 100 events in the city that you should know about this week. Look for the ** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** tag for the ones that particularly caught our staff's eye.

Wednesday, 7/11  

As High As Yo Chest, As Wide As The Ocean at Superchief Gallery, 6 – 9 PM
136 Jackson street, Williamsburg

Painting Is History at Winkleman Gallery, 6 – 8 PM
621 West 27th street, Chelsea

"Year One" curated by Peter Hionas at Hionas Gallery, 6 – PM
89 Franklin street, Tribeca

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Jayson Musson "Halcyon Days" at Salon 94 (Bowery), 6 – 9 PM
243 Bowery, Lower East Side  

"Painter Jayson Musson is finally emerging from the explosion created by his alter-ego/Internet sensation, Hennessy Youngman. “Halcyon Days” is the first solo show where his paintings take precedence over his humor and critiques of the art world. The works, inspired by Coogi sweaters (of Cliff Huxtable fame), are a visual dialogue between ’90s hip hop fashion and fine abstract painting." — Sara Roffino

Brian Montuori, Erik Jeor, Jennifer Catron, Jennifer Riley, Jeremy Willis, Karen Heagle, Michael Kagan, Paul Outlaw, Thomas Beale "Shake The Dust Off" at Allegra LaViola Gallery, 6 – 9 PM
179 East Broadway, Chinatown

Chen Ping "Unseen Forest" at Tally Beck Contemporary, 6 – 9 PM
42 Rivington, Lower East Side

Anki King, Elisabeth Færøy Lund, Sol Kjøk "And The World Cracked Open" curated by Bjørn Inge Follevaag at NOoSPHERE, 6 – 8 PM
251 East Houston street, Soho

Performance: "Blasting Voice" curated by Ashland Mines, Isabel Venero, Kevin McGarry at The Suzanne Geiss Company,  6 – 8 PM
76 Grand street, Soho

Andrea von Bujdoss aka Queen Andrea "Typograff" at Fuse Gallery, 7 – 10 PM
93 Second avenue, East Village  

"The Good American" at Underline Gallery, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
238 W 14 street, West Village

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS **  “People Who Work Here" curated by Rawson Projects at David Zwirner, 6 – 8 PM
519 W 19 street, Chelsea

"Blurring boundaries and breaking barriers, “People Who Work Here” is a group show exclusive to artists who work for David Zwirner. Brooklyn-based curators (and David Zwirner employees) Rawson Projects curate the multimedia show of painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation exploring and challenging established preconceptions of the New York art world." — Sara Roffino

Julika Rudelius "Rituals of Capitalism" at Leo Koenig, 6 – 8 PM
545 W 23 street, Chelsea

"Dexterity: Works On Paper" curated by Jason Maas, Michael Lyons Wier at Lyons Wier Gallery, 6 – 8 PM
545 W 23 street, Chelsea

"T.A.G.: A New Chapter" at T.A.G. (Teen Art Gallery), 6 – 8 PM
526 W 26th Street, #211, Chelsea

"Book As Witness: The Artist's Response" at Center for Book Arts,  7 – 9 PM
28 W 27 street, floor 3, Chelsea

"Tell Me How You REALLY Feel: Diaristic Tendencies" at Center for Book Arts,  7 – 9 PM
28 W 27 street, floor 3, Chelsea

"Sweet Distemper" organized by Isaac Lyles at Derek Eller Gallery, 6 – 8 PM
615 W 27 street, Chelsea

Agnes Martin, David Hockney, Joe Fyfe, Lee Krasner, Michael Goldberg, Sol LeWitt, Stephen Mueller, Thomas Hart Benton, Willy Richardson "Paper Band" curated by Stephanie Buhmann at Jason McCoy Inc., 6 – 8 PM
41 E 57 street, floor 11, Midtown

Scott Covert "The Dead Supreme" Paintings 1996-2012 at Edelman Arts, 6 – 8 PM
136 E 74 street, Upper East Side

Artist Talk: Jehdy Vargas at Heath Gallery, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
24 W 120th Street, Harlem

Clarissa Sligh, Emma Amos, Faith Ringgold, La Toya Frazier, Rejin Leys "Visions/ Re-Visions: Caribbean & African American Women Artists Cultural Issues" curated by Linda Cunningham at BronxArtSpace, 5:30 – 9 PM
305 E 140th Street, suite 1A, Bronx

THURSDAY 7/12

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Yayoi Kusama at the Whitney Museum, 11 AM - 6 PM
945 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side

"This retrospective of the Japanese artist takes care to highlight the more subtle side of her practice, with early paintings, collages, and performance documentation. But that's not to say that it neglects the artist's bombastic spot paintings and sexually charged nude happenings. The show demonstrates the sweep of a diverse career which has most recently produced a series of brightly-colored paintings reminiscent of a looser Keith Haring, on view in the final gallery." — Kyle Chayka

Jake Berthot Artist Model, Angels Putti, Poetry Visual Prose at Betty Cuningham Gallery, 6 – 8 PM
541 West 25th Street, Chelsea

Boris Oicherman: Between the Cloud and the Clock at AC Institute, 6 – 8 PM
547 W 27 street, No. 210, Chelsea

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Emily Kinni: Sites of Execution at 1:1 Gallery, 7 PM
121 Essex street, Lower East Side

“An expert on the empty spaces of American interiors fixes moves her gaze on sites of execution used by the eleven states that no longer administer the death penalty — to an undeniably haunting effect.” — Reid Singer

Rieko Koga: Future Diary/ Here We are at AC Institute, 6 - 8 PM
547 W 27 street, No. 210, Chelsea

Catherine Béchard & Sabin Hudon: Free-Fall of Possibilities at AC Institute, 6 - 8 PM
547 W 27 street, No. 210, Chelsea  

Stop & Staring II: Portraits at Gallery Ho, 6 - 8 PM
547 W 27th street, No. 208, Chelsea

Mashed Plagiarism by Mentor Nico at Bridge Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
98 Orchard street, Lower East Side

Summer Group Show – Lizzi Bougatsos, Michael DeLucia, Lizzie Fitch, David Gilbert, Robert Overby, and Andra Ursuta at Andrea Rosen Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
525 W 24 dtreet, Chelsea

Tate Foley: 100% Stratification Guaranteed or Your Money Back at Recession Art at Culturefix, 6 - 10 PM
9 Clinton street, Lower East Side

"A City Sorrow Built" curated by Todd Masters at Masters & Pelavin, 6 - 8 PM
13 Jay street, Tribeca

Rod Craig "An Englishman in New York" at One Art Space,  6 - 9 PM
23 Warren street, Tribeca

Megan May Daalder "Mirrorbox" at Jack Hanley Gallery, 6 - 9 PM
136 Watts street, West Village  

Cassandra C. Jones, Daniel Mort, Halsey Burgund, Ryan Russo, Scott Zieher "Inglorious Materials" curated by Gina Fraone at Charles Bank Gallery, 6 - 9 PM
196 Bowery, Lower East Side

Tate Foley "100% Stratification Guaranteed or Your Money Back" at RAC (Recession Art at Culturefix), 6 - 10 PM
9 Clinton street, Lower East Side

Ari Tabei, Carrie Elston Tunick, David Kagan, Jan Baracz, Kyoung Eun Kang, Liene Bosquê, Molly Dilworth, Naoko Ito "Bivalence: Workspace 12" curated by Jennifer Wilkinson at Artists Alliance Inc. (CUCHIFRITOS gallery/project space),  4 - 6:30 PM
120 Essex Street, Chinatown

Screening: Pier Marton "(are we and/or do we) LIKE MEN" curated by David Everitt Howe at Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Arts Center, 9 PM
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side

Michelle Jaffe "Wappen Field" at BOSI Contemporary,  6 - 9 PM
48 Orchard, Lower East Side

Alighiero Boetti, Jennifer Bartlett, Jonathan VanDyke, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Oliver Lutz, Paul Branca "Gli amori difficili" at Scaramouche, 6 - 8 PM
52 Orchard Street, Lower East Side

Mentor Nico "Masked Plagiarism" at Bridge Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
98 Orchard Street, Lower East Side

FreelandBuck "Slipstream" at Bridge Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
98 Orchard street, Lower East Side

"TDC Competition Opening" The Type Directors Club (The Cooper Union), The Rose Auditorium, 6 - 9 PM
41 Cooper Square, East Village, $20

Performance: Cat Lamb, Heike Baranowsky, Stephan Moore, Suzanne Thorpe "Kinematic" at CoWorker Projects (Entwine), 7-10 PM
765 Washington Street, West Village

Performance: "River of Grass: Reading Performance" at 571 Projects, 4:30 - 8 PM
551 W 21 street, suite 204A, Chelsea, $10 suggested donation,

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Ben Vaultier, George Maciunas, Jaime Davidovich, Judith Henry, Yoko Ono "Wooster Enterprises, 1977-78" at Churner and Churner, 6- 8 PM
205 Tenth avenue, Chelsea

“Wooster Enterprises, the Fluxus-affiliated entrepreneurial pioneers of branding and art-as-business, were among the first to create and distribute design-centric products to the masses. This is the first ever complete show of their works.” — Sara Roffino

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Chantal Akerman, Christopher Williams, Clegg & Guttmarnn, Franz Erhard Walther, Jan Groover, Mark Leckey, Sabine Reitmaier, Suzy Lake, William Wegman "Commercial Psycho" curated by Will Benedict at Andrew Kreps, 6 - 8 PM CW
525 W 22 street, Chelsea

“This intriguing group show looks at how salient issues like duration, seriality, gender, and the division of labor rear their heads in commercial and experimental art alike.” — Chloe Wyma

"Idea is the Object" curated by Pavan Segal and Tracy Parker at D'Amelio Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
525 W 22 street,Chelsea

"Contemporary Watercolor" curated by Veronica Roberts at Morgan Lehman Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
535 W 22 street, floor 6, Chelsea

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Clifford Owens, Deana Lawson, Derrick Adams, Hank Willis Thomas., Jayson Keeling, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Mahlot Sansosa, Malick Sidibé, Mickalene Thomas, Xaviera Simmons, Zanele Muholi "tête-à-tête" curated by Mickalene Thomas at Yancey Richardson Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
535 W 22 street, floor 3, Chelsea

"Artist and rhinestone connoisseur Mickalene Thomas curates a sexy summer show at Yancey Richardson called 'tête-à-tête' with a roster of artists whose work seems to have close ties to her own including Clifford Owens, Deana Lawson, Malick Sidibé, and LaToya Ruby Frazier." —Ashton Cooper

Tom Slaughter "Summer Pop Up Shop" at Jim Kempner Fine Art, 6 - 8 PM
501 W 23 street, Chelsea

Ezra Johnson, Francesco Longenecker, Irys Schenker, Julia Bland, Melissa Brown, Naomi Safran-Hon, Yevgeniya Baras "Centaurs & Satyrs" at Asya Geisberg Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
537B W 23 street, Chelsea

"Permanent Collection" curated by Edward Del Rosario, Jordin Isip at Nancy Margolis Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
523 W 25 street, Chelsea

"Summer Show" at Agora Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
530 W 25 street, Chelsea

Shelley Joy "Abstract Modernism: Pirouettes into Time" at Blue Mountain Gallery, 5 - 8 PM
530 W 25 street, floor 4, Chelsea

Mark Lewis "Tulsa Streets: Collages and Paintings" at Bowery Gallery,  5 - 8 PM
530 W 25 street, floor 4, Chelsea

"eye to i" presented by the New York Society of Women Artists at Prince Street Gallery, 4 - 7 PM
530 W 25 street, floor 4, Chelsea

Rock, Paper, Scissors" at Leila Heller Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
568 West 25th Street, Chelsea

"Post Op" at Mixed Greens, 5 - 7 PM
531 W 26 street, Chelsea

"Stop & Staring II: Portraits" at Gallery Ho, 6 - 8 PM
547 W 27th St, #208, Chelsea

"One Year Later: Part I" at EFA (The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts) 6 - 8 PM
323 W 39 street, 5th floor, Midtown

Michael Bevilacqua "An Ideal For Living" at Gering & Lopez Gallery 5 - 7 PM
730 Fifth avenue, Upper East Side

James Lee Byars "The Monument To Cleopatra" at Michael Werner Gallery, 10 AM - 6 PM
4 E 77 street, Upper East Side

Andre Woolery, Beau McCall, Danny Simmons, David Hollier, Greg Frederick, House of Spoof, JaSon E. Auguste, Laura Gadson, Sean Paul Gallegos, Shirley Nette Williams "eMerge" at Strivers Gardens Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
300 W 135th St, Harlem

Daniel Baltzer, Erik von Ploennies, Jeffrey Allen Price, Jeremiah Johnson, Jesse Scaturro, Jon Allen, Jordan Hollender, Jose Arenas, Lori Nelson, Margaret Withers, Max Greis, Nola Romano, Vincent Arcilesi, and Wynne Noble "Recess" at Francesca Arcilesi Fine Art (FAFA) 6 - 9 PM
111 Front St, suite 222, Dumbo

Lecture: "Rodin's Partiality: Fragmentary Bodies and the Gendering of Sculpture" at Brooklyn Museum, 7 PM
200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights

Dylan Lynch "First Impressions" at The Still House Group 7 - 9 PM
481 Van Brunt street, suite 9D, Red Hook

Ben Morgan-Cleveland "Salvation Armani" at Real Fine Arts (Fort Tilden), 4-9 PM
Fort Tilden Beach

Friday, 7/13

"WhiteWalls: Writings by Artists 1978 - 2008" at Golden, 7 PM
120 Elizabeth, ground floor, Chinatown

Screening: Jack Smith, Robert Siodmak "Cobra Woman" curated by Bradford Nordeen at Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Arts Center, 8:30 PM
466 Grand street, Lower East Side

Performance: Anki King, Elisabeth Færøy Lund, Sol Kjøk "And The World Cracked Open" curated by Bjørn Inge Follevaag at NOoSPHERE, 7 PM
251 East Houston Street, Soho

Lee Torchia at Druids Bar and Restaurant, 5 - 7 PM
736 Tenth Ave, Hells Kitchen

Aimee Wilder, Alta Buden, Andres La Torre, Anna Ortiz, Anthony Puopolo, Charles Papillo, Dharman Abdullah, Hannah Haworth , Nathaniel Galka, Stephan Folwkes, Tom Bob "Dog Days" at Gitana Rosa Gallery, 6 - 9 PM
19 Hope street, #7, Williamsburg

Performance: "GET UP" curated by Lesley Doukhowetzky at Yes Gallery, 7- 11 PM
147 India street, Greenpoint

"Summer Snacks" at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery,  7- 9 PM
205 Norman avenue, Greenpoint

Derek Lerner, Phillip Buntin, Robert Walden "Mapping the Equivocal" at Robert Henry Contemporary, 6 - 9 PM
56 Bogart Street, Bushwick

SATURDAY 7/14

"Form & Light" at Dacia Gallery, 5 - 9 PM
53 Stanton street, Lower East Side

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** "Dr. Seuss - Rare Editions" at AFA (Animazing Fine Art), 10 PM - 8 PM
54 Greene street, Soho

“AFA sheds light on the so-called 'secret art' of Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel, the beloved children’s book author and illustrator who wrote under the pseudonym, "Dr. Seuss." Included in this show are a selection of the good doctor's paintings and sculptures he "created at night for his own personal enjoyment.” For those who wonder what this Dr. Seuss apocrypa looks like, the artist once said, ‘In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies.' Do with that what you will." — Chloe Wyma

Shelley Joy "Abstract Modernism: Pirouettes into Time" at Blue Mountain Gallery,  3 - 6 PM
530 W 25 street, floor 4, Chelsea

Antonia Perez, Hilda Shen, Judith Braun "Pressing Matter" at Parallel Art Space, 6 - 9 PM
1717 Troutman Street, #220, Bushwick

Lecture: Tamara Johnson at NARS Foundation,  4 PM
88 35th Street, floor 3, Sunset Par

Lehna Huie "Out of Many, One People" at flux factory, 7 - 11 PM
39-31 29th street, Long Island City

Open Studio: at Eduardo Anievas-Cortines Studio, 1 - 9 PM
47-33 5th street, Long Island City

Reading: Corina Copp, Eugene Ostashevsky, Matvei Yankelevich, Steven Zultanski at Regina Rex, 6 - 8 PM
17-17 Troutman street, suite 329, Ridgewood/Bushwick
 

SUNDAY 7/15

"Summer Selections" at Woodward Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
133 Eldridge street, floor 5, Soho

Performance: "Text" at Studio 10, 7:30-10 PM
56 Bogart Street, Bushwick

"Yo Brooklynites II" at Hadas Gallery 4PM
541 Myrtle avenue, Clinton Hill

Screening: Amy Granat, Leslie Thornton, Marie Losier "Mirrors: Experiments in Portraiture" at Brooklyn Museum, 2 - 4 PM
200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Park

Artist Talk: "From Mice to Monsters" at 440 Gallery, 4:30 - 7 PM
440 Sixth avenue, Park Slope

MONDAY 7/16

Earth Alert – INX Artists and the Environment. Curated by Andrea Arroyo at El Taller Latino Americano, 6 - 8 PM
2710 Broadway, Third Floor, Upper West Side

Jasmine Golestaneh at Spin Galactic, 7 - 10 PM
48 E 23 street, Gramercy

TUESDAY 7/17

Screening: Kalup Linzy "Sweetberry Sonnet (Remixed)" presented by White Columns at  Westway, 8:30 PM
75 Clarkson Street, West Village

Ben Bunch, Chloe Piene, Claudia Weber, David Denosowicz, Jasper Sebastian Stürup, Olaf Breuning, Trevor Renwick "Itinerary" curated by Dane Patterson at The Proposition, 6 - 8 PM
2 Extra Place, Lower East Side

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Screening "Maso Et Miso Vont En Bateau: 1970s Feminist Video by French Militant Collectives" at The Kitchen, 7 - 10 PM
512 W 19 street, Chelsea

“Second-wave activist critic Kate Millet and badass feminist performance artists K8 Hardy, Georgia Sagri, and Martha Wilson discuss obscure French radical feminist video art in this two-day film screening/salon des artistes. Through 7/18” - Chloe Wyma     

Performance: Limited Time Only (LTO) "excerpt hearts" at Meulensteen, 6 - 8:30 PM
511 W 22 street, Chelsea

Artist Talk: Paul Graham, Rineke Dijkstra at The Guggenheim Museum, 6:30 PM
1071 Fifth avenue, at 89 street, Upper East Side, $10

"If you think I'm Sexy" curated by Diana Buckley and Irena Jurek at Chashama, 6 - 8 PM
461 W 126 street, Harlem

Artist Talk: Hilario Ortega, Su Yu-Hsein at ISCP, 6:30 PM
040 Metropolitan avenue, Williamsburg

Ryuichi Kobayashi "The Variety of Life" at Ouchi Gallery, 7 - 10 PM
170 Tillary street, suite 507, Downtown Brooklyn

Meulensteen, a contemporary art gallery that has been in New York since 1978 and gained new ownership and a new name in 2010, is closing its doors for good, ARTINFO has learned. Formerly known as Max Protetch, the gallery is located in a two-floor ground space on West 22nd Street in Chelsea and has long cornered the market on drawings and artifacts by architects the likes of Frank Gehry, R. Buckminster Fuller, Steven Holl, and Frank Lloyd Wright. It also has a stable of contemporary artists including Marjetica Potrč, Eric Binder, and Alice Miceli.

The gallery was unable to comment or confirm the news at press time, but one curator involved in its current show and two others close to the gallery confirmed the news to ARTINFO. It is unclear when the gallery will close its doors, but sources say it could be as soon as August 1. 

Since 2010, the gallery has struggled to maintain its reputation under the ownership of Dutch-born businessman Edwin Meulensteen, who purchased the financially flailing establishment from longtime owner Protetch without any prior experience running a gallery of his own. (Meulensteen’s parents are collectors who founded a contemporary art museum in Slovakia.)

Since Meulensteen’s arrival, the gallery has lost no fewer than 13 of its artists, including well-known names such as Byron Kim, Ann Pibal, and Betty Woodman. As the blog Art Fag City noted in a recent post titled “The Fall of Max Protetch,” only nine artists and two estates from the gallery's 2010 roster remain. “Since the switch, none of the gallery’s artists has had an institutional show in a space larger than a college art gallery,” the post notes. “It’s hard to cast a positive light on any gallery that so quickly sees an exodus of its artists after a change in ownership.”

In February, the gallery hired former longtime Marlborough Chelsea director Eric Gleason and opened a refurbished subterranean 3,000-square-foot space to exhibit the work of younger artists in its program. That same month, it hosted a solo exhibition of new gallery artist Andrea Galvani. The gallery is currently hosting the well-loved annual summer show, "Young Curators, New Ideas IV." (Read ARTINFO's review of that show here.) 

"I've been doing this show for four years [at different galleries], and working with Muelensteen was probably the best, most positive experience," said Amani Olu, who organized the Young Curators exhibition. "Eric [Gleason]'s inviting me to do this at the gallery was part of a larger vision he was trying to implement." Olu said he had planned to make the show an annual event at Meulensteen.

Though unable to comment on the specifics of the news, a gallery artist told ARTINFO, "I was totally surprised. I was working out a long-term plan with them and recent shows did really well. We just went into a new season and I felt there was good energy."

As Max Protetch, the gallery had a storied history. Founded in Washington, D.C. in 1969, it represented Andy Warhol and gave Vito Acconci his first solo exhibition. After moving to New York in 1978, Protetch began selling architects’ drawings — he was among the first commercial dealers to do so. Shortly after 9/11, he organized a show of design proposals for Lower Manhattan that was ultimately acquired by the Library of Congress. The gallery was also a pioneer in exhibiting Chinese artists, including Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, and Zhang Huan, in the United States. At the time of the switch over, Protetch told the Art Newspaper that he sold the gallery, rather than closing it, to preserve his staff and roster of artists. 

"I was very concerned that I would have set loose a really great staff and incredible group of artists at a time when they wouldn’t be in a good position to get jobs," he had said. "I wanted to give the artists as much cover as possible." Protetch did not immediately return a request for comment. 

Contrary to our established notions, one doesn't need to design an Apple accessory to make a million dollars on Kickstarter — it turns out that a gadget for the Android works just as well. Tech-savvy industrial designer Yves Béhar (the one behind the One Laptop per Child computer and this line of ultra-sophisticated sex toys) demonstrated that yesterday by crushing online crowdsourcing records; he raised $1 million dollars for Ouya, an Android-based gaming system, in only eight hours.

Three months ago tech company Boxer8 approached Béhar and his San Francisco-based firm, Fuseproject, to develop a sleek, cube-like console that connects a mobile app to the television, steered by a wireless controller of buttons and two analog sticks for downloadable, free-to-play games. As of today, more than 25,000 people have donated $3.2 million and counting in exchange for investor perks like early access, an engraved console, and a day-long meet and greet with the designers.

Despite competition from industry behemoths Sony and Microsoft, Béhar is confident in Ouya's appeal. "The gaming community [...] wants to be engaged, wants something new, wants it to be open," he said yesterday at the Mobile Beat Conference, according to TheVerge.com. "There's lots of programmers, hackers, [and] game developers that don’t want to pay the huge fees that it takes to get a developer kit [for a major console]."

Ouya provides yet another Kickstarter success story as the website continues to turn the science of start-up investment on its head. Not only does it cull precious funding, it serves as a Geiger counter for market interest, according to Cooper-Hewitt Product Designer of the Year Scott Wilson, whose TikTok+LunaTik — a wrist device that allows you to wear an iPod Nano as a watch — held the Kickstarter title of highest-funded for more than a year at $942,578. "If we don't reach a goal that's a sign we shouldn’t be wasting our time," he told ARTINFO. His third Kickstarter campaign has raised three times its goal, and still has nine days of fundraising left. 

Soon, the site won't be limited to American start-ups. According to the Telegraph, the crowdsourcing site is planning to expand to the U.K. this fall.