Since the '70s, we've replaced the flappiness of bellbottoms with vacuum-sealed tight skinny jeans; the boxy silhouette of the original Polaroid Land Camera with the minimalism of the new Z2300; and the clunk of Bill Gates's original desktop PC with the sleek portability of Steve Jobs's iPhone. But despite our attempts to escape our bulky past, a relic of the era before we started streamlining our world, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, is making its debut at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Manhattan's Pier 86 tomorrow. 

Enterprise became the first spacecraft to take flight in 1977, the second half of perhaps the least elegant decade in history. For all its glory, it was contradictorily nubby, from the end of its squat nose and all the way down its boxy body. In spacecraft, function supersedes design for obvious reasons, but the Enterprise exemplifies the aesthetic of the era because it's emblematic of the way everything else was built, too. "Pure, unlovely function was the hallmark of that decade's most successful designs," according to the Daily Beast's Blake Glopnik, who brings to light the shuttle's resemblance to the decade's most popular household items: the Walkman, the Dustbuter, and the Apple II computer. 

For all their functionality, they're still paradigms for the look of their moment: a mish-mash of geometric lines dominated by boxiness, what Dieter Rams would describe as "an impenetrable confusion of forms, colors, and noises." To put the '70s into historical context, however, the design dominated by function (which form sometimes never followed) was a backlash to the simultaneous sleekness and decadence of the modernist, swingin' '60s. The response of the following decade, one characterized by recession, rising unemployment, and heightened environmental awareness, was to put appearances in the back seat and leave them to be attended to come better days.

Does that mean our current decade, with all its similar social conditions, will follow suit? According to Kate Moss, the past is already starting to creep back in, one flared pantleg at a time. 

Wednesday, 7/18

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Ghost in the Machine, at The New Museum,11 AM – 9 PM
235 Bowery, Bowery
“From Francois Morellet’s randomized red and blue pixel patterned wallpaper decorating the lobby to Stan VanDerBeek’s epic “Movie-Drome” multimedia theater on the fourth floor, the exhibition is a dynamic testimony the impact of machinery on visual art. The show’s curators, Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari, have created a cabinet of curiosities that includes Utopia-seeking outsider artists from the 19th century, a Japanese collective of audio-visual poets, healing metal mobiles, and kinetic light sculptures.” - Kyle Chayka
 
Ulrike Theusne: Limbo Express, at Y Gallery,  6 – 9 PM
165 Orchard Street, Lower East Side

Stan Vanderbeek at American Contemporary, 6 – 8 PM
4 E. 2nd Street, East Village

Tony Ingrisano "Crosseyed and Painless" at Lesley Heller (Workspace), 6 – 8 PM
54 Orchard Street, Lower East Side

India: Time, Space and Astronomy - A Quest to Depict Akasa at Lambert Fine Arts, 7 – 10 PM
57 Stanton Street, Lower East Side

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Allison Kaufman: Temporary Arrangements, at HERE Arts Center, 5 – 7 PM

145 Sixth Avenue, Soho
“Kaufman’s videos and photographs document the temporary relationships she develops with strangers, and the vulnerability and loneliness she discovers there, from ‘Dancing with Divorced Men’ to ‘Friday Nights at Guitar Center,’ where she records the impromptu store performances by the customers.” - Allison Meier

Testimony: A Living Exhibition of Queer Youth at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 6 – 9 PM
26 Wooster Street, Soho

House : Home at NYU (Kimmel Galleries), 6 – 8 PM
60 Washington Square South, Greenwich Village

Joe La Mattina at Michael Mut Gallery, 6 – 8 PM
97 Avenue C, Alphabet City

Screening: Maso Et Miso Vont En Bateau: 1970s Feminist Video by French Militant Collectives at The Kitchen, 7 – 10 PM  
512 W. 19th Street, Chelsea

Brenda Giegerich & Kaethe Kauffman at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, 6 - 8 PM  
526 W. 26th Street, Chelsea

Everything Is Not All There Is at Lower East Side Printshop, 6 – 8 PM
306 W. 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen

A Tad Bit Strange and Somewhat Surreal: Photographs from the 60s and 70s at L. Parker Stephenson
764 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side

Mark Flood: The Hateful Years at Luxembourg & Dayan, 10 AM - 5 PM
64 E. 77th Street, Upper East Side

NAS, at MLB Fan Cave, 6:30 – 8 PM
4th and Broadway, Greenwich Village

Orrin Evans, at Jazz Standard, 7:30 PM (also on Thursday 7/19 at 9:30 PM)
116 East 27th Street, Gramercy  

THURSDAY, 7/19

Eugene Mirman and Ok Go, at Williamsburg Park, 6:30 PM
50 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg  

Artists At Home & Abroad, at Broadway Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
473 Broadway, Soho

Slowed & Throwed, at Chinatown Arcade,  6 - 9 PM
48 Bowery, Chinatown

Saying goodbye to the self: Annemarie Busschers’ Portraits, at Witzenhausen Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
547 West 27 Street, Chelsea

Oscar Tuazon: People, at Brooklyn Bridge Park, all day through Jan.
Main Street at Fulton Ferry Landing, Dumbo

Performance: Douglas Melini, at Feature Inc.,  8 PM
31 Allen Street, Lower East Side

Regina Rex: Part Two, at Eli Ping, 6 PM - 8 PM
31B Eldridge Street, Lower East Side

Reading: Mary Ellen Carroll, at Golden, 7 PM
120 Elizabeth Street, ground floor, Chinatown

Jerry Blackman, at toomer labzda, 6 - 8 PM
100 Forsyth Street, Lower East Side

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Closing Reception: Blue Curry, Joe Brittain, Kate Steciw, Leah Dixon, Mia Taylor: Year One, at toomer labzda, 6 – 8 PM
“A sappling of the Lower East Side gallery scene shows a worthy selection of inventive works by sculptors, painters, and photographers reduced to the medium of paper, the traditional material of a first year anniversary gift.” - Reid Singer100 Forsyth Street, Lower East Side

Matt Enger: Exploding Sky, at Christopher Henry Gallery, 6 - 9 PM
127 Elizabeth Street, Soho

Laura Vitale: White Sands, at Recess Activities, Inc., 6 - 8 PM
41 Grand Street, Soho

Auction: "Indian Masters" to benefit the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC), at Aicon Gallery, 5 PM
35 Great Jones Street, rsvp at harry@aicongallery.com

Nathaniel Russell "Instant Dust," at Ed. Varie, 6 - 9 PM
208 East 7 Street, East Village

Closing reception: Doron Sadja, ESP LAB, Leila Bordreuil, Tristan Shepherd: Kinematic, at CoWorker Projects (Entwine), 7 PM - 12 AM
765 Washington Street, West Village

Second Summer Showcase Exhibition, at National Association of Women Artists (N.A.W.A.),  5 - 7 PM
80 Fifth Avenue, suite 1405, Union Square

Screening: Deville Cohen, Dynasty Handbag, K8 Hardy, Sheila Pepe "Salad Days of Art Video Disco,"  at Andrew Edlin Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
134 Tenth Avenue, Chelsea

Artist Talk: Pilot Press... "Artists Book Open Call & Publishing Night" curated by Court Square, at Meulensteen, 6 - 9 PM
511 West 22 Street, Chelsea

"Souls" curated by Richard Brooks, at SVA (Eastside Gallery), 5 - 7 PM
209 East 23 Street, Gramercy

Choi EunJung, Kim Wan, Lee GanU, Lee JoonKi, Park DaeCHo, Yun JinSeob: "The Essentials," at Able Fine Art NY Gallery, 11 - 6 PM
511 West 25 Street, suite 507, Chelsea

The Forces Behind, at Doosan Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
533 West 25 Street, Chelsea

City Streets II, at George Billis Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
521 West 26 Street, suite B1, Chelsea

2012 MFA National Competition, at First Street Gallery, 5 - 8 PM
526 W 26 street, #209, Chelsea

Andrew Kuo, Anna Conway, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Jeanette Mundt, Mamie Tinkler, Nancy de Holl, Nolan Simon, Roger White, Timothy Hull, Van Hanos "In Plain Sight," at Mitchell - Innes & Nas, 6 - 8 PM
534 West 26 Street, Chelsea

"Backlash: On Women's Basic Rights and Freedoms," at SOHO20 Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
547 West 27 Street, suite 301, Chelsea

"Natural/Constructed Spaces II," at The Painting Center, 6 - 8 PM
547 West 27 Street, suite 500, Chelsea

Alyse Ronayne, Ann Kelly, Joanne Greenbaum, Nathlie Provosty, Sarah Mattes, Stacy Fisher, Tracy Thomason "Up Do," at Jeff Bailey Gallery, 6 - 8 PM
625 West 27 Street, Chelsea

Optical: Portrait Stories, at Porter Contemporary, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
548 West 28 Street, Chelsea

Anthony Tino, Audrey Ryan, Joe Kewin, Kevin Dejewski, Omar Soliman, Paul John: "Endless," at Chashama (window space), 6 - 9 PM
37 street: 266 West 37 Street, Midtown

Bulletin Boards, at Venus Over Manhattan, 6 - 9 PM
980 Madison Avenue, 3rd floor, Upper East Side

SLIDELUCK Northside at Brooklyn Brewery, 6:30 PM
79 North 11 Street, Williamsburg, $15

Here We Go Magic, at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8 PM
66 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, $15

FRIDAY 7/20

Blasting Voice: Lizzi Bougatsos, Vishwam Velandy, and Ilyas Ahmed, at Suzanne Geiss, 6 PM
76 Grand St, Soho

Offline Party with Q-Tip, at Irving Plaza, 10:30 PM
17 Irving Place, Union Square  

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Sweet Fuckups and Happy Accidents, at Shoestring Press, 6 - 11 PM
39 Hampton Place, Brooklyn
“This chaotic group show is devoted to chance mechanisms and the beauty of mistakes. With more than twenty young artists spanning various media, ‘Sweet Fuckups” looks to be a hot mess, in a good way.” - Chloe Wyma

Boys With Toys at Causey Contemporary  6 - 9 PM
92 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn

Ann Greene Kelly, Brie Ruais, Leah Wolff, Ruby McCollister: äbjəkt, at 111 Front Space 6 - 9 PM
111 Front Street, Suite 200, DUMBO, Brooklyn

Reading: A. Laurie Palmer, John Ploof, Wendy Jacob, at Golden, 7 PM
120 Elizabeth, ground floor, Chinatown/LES   

Gocha Tsinadze at Harvestworks, 6 PM
596 Broadway, Suite 602, Soho

Hot Chip, at Terminal 5, 7 PM
610 West 56th Street, Hell’s Kitchen

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

Performance: "Counter Balance" at Millennium Film Workshop, 8PM
66 E 4 street, East Village $5 suggested donation

G. R. Iranna, Riyas Komu "Alone | Together" at Aicon Gallery, 6 - 9 PM
35 Great Jones street, West Village

Tour: Isabelle Dervaux "Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper" at Morgan Library, 7 PM
225 Madison Avenue, Midtown

Reading: Alex Dimitrov, Dorothea Lasky, Timothy Donnelly Brooklyn Poets Reading Series, at Studio 10, 7 - 9 PM
56 Bogart Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn

Performance: Zeljko McMullen at Roulette, 8 PM
509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn

Summer Group Show, at Muriel Guepin Gallery, 8 AM - 7 PM
47 Bergen street, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Lecture: Amaranth Borsuk, Erica Baum "The In-Between," at Triple Canopy, 7 PM
155 Freeman Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn $5 suggested donation
“A poet and a photographer sit down and try to answer the question “What is a book,” a tough question in these fraught, mediated times.” - Chloe Wyma

Practices Remain, at Regina Rex, 7 - 10 PM
17-17 Troutman Street, suite 329, Ridgewood, Queens

Saturday, July 21

Sleigh Bells, at Hudson River Park, 6 PM
Hudson River Park at Pier 63, West Village

Deborah Everett, at FiveMyles, 6 PM - 8 PM
558 St Johns Pl, Prospect Heights

PS1 Warmup, at MoMA PS1, 2 PM - 9 PM  
4601 21st Street, Long Island City

Folding Paper: Visual Art Meets Mathematics Artist Talk, at Dorsky Gallery, 3 PM - 4:30 PM  
11-03 45th Ave, Long Island City

Bronx Pride Festival, at Crotona Park, 12 PM - 6 PM
Crotona, The Bronx

The Second Annual NYC Poetry Festival, at Governors Island, 11 AM - 5:30 PM         
Governor's Island

Hope Rovelto, at Jane Hartsook Gallery, 4 PM – 6 PM
16 Jones St, 2nd Fl, Greenwich Village

SURPRISE!!! Party + Zine Release curated by Aaron Wojack and Calder Zwicky, at Brooklyn Artists Alliance, 7 PM - 10 PM
37 Greenpoint Ave 4th Floor, Greenpoint

SUPERFRONT PUBLIC SUMMER: Library of Immediacy, at Governors Island Parade Grounds. 2 PM - 5 PM
Governors Island

Up Against It, curated by Billy Miller, at Munch Gallery
Soho: 245 Broome street, 6-8pm

Ben Walters, Gavin Butt: This Is Not A Dream, at The Kitchen, 7 PM
512 W 19 St, Chelsea

Performance: Michael Alan: Working with Pain / Turning a Negative to a Positive, at Gasser Grunert, 8 – 11:30 PM
524 W 19th St, Chelsea

Screening: E.S.P. TV #20, at E.S.P. TV (La Sala), 7:30 – 11 PM
58 North 3rd St, Williamsburg

Performance: Aaron Anderson, Angelo Zwicky, Gabe Dikel, Keith Mendak: "SURPRISE!!! A Retrospective, at Booklyn Artists Alliance, 7 – 10 PM
37 Greenpoint Ave, Floor 4

Siamese Connection: 3012, at The Invisible Dog, 6 – 10 PM
51 Bergen street, Carroll Gardens

Salon Show, at Space Womb, 6 – 8 PM
22-48 Jackson Ave, Queens

Performance: Chris Girard, Marina Temkina, Rachel Levitsky, Weyes Blood: SC Evenings, at SculptureCenter, 5 – 7 PM
44-19 Purves St, Long Island City

Sunday, July 22

Iceage, at (le) poisson rouge, 8 PM
158 Bleecker St, Greenwich Village

To Catch a Thief, at BAM Rose Cinema, 4:30 PM
30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn

Gabriel Guzman, Chris Doyle, Julie Evans: Tending Toward the Untamed: Artists Respond to the Wild Garden, at Wave Hill, 2 PM
675 W 252 St, Riverdale

Strength and Grace: The Olympic Spirit, at Elisa Contemporary Art Gallery, 4 – 6 PM
5622 Mosholu Avenue, Riverdale

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Convoluted Construct’s "The Convoluted Tales" at 83rd Anomaly, 11 AM – 9 PM   
Various locations in Manhattan
“Inside Convoluted Construct’s roving 83rd Anomaly MACK truck is a mobile gallery space, which is showing a blend of art and fashion. This mobile exhibit features t-shirts emblazoned with washed-out organic shapes on two dimensional pieces. Follow @convostruct for the truck’s location.” - Allison Meier

Benefit: RU FUNraiser, at Residency Unlimited, 4 – 8 PM
360 Court Street, Carroll Gardens

Artist Talk: From Mice to Monsters, at 440 Gallery, 4:30 – 7 PM
440 Sixth Avenue

Monday, July 23

** ARTINFO RECOMMENDS ** Meredith Monk Meets John Cage: Where the Heart Beats, at Rubin Museum of Art, 7 PM
150 West 17th Street
“Does Cage still matter? A renowned expert on Zen Buddhism talks to Meredith Monk about the influence of the eastern philosophy and the phenomena of silence, indeterminacy, and chance in the development of contemporary art.” - Reid Singer

Beach House, at Central Park Summerstage, 7 PM
Rumsey Playfield, 5th Ave, at 69th St.

Sepalcure, at Deep Space, 10 PM
18 Little West 12th St, between 9th and 10th Ave.

Tuesday 7/24

PowerPoint and the Perfume of Reading with Tan Lin, at Artists Space, 7 PM
55 Walker St, Tribeca

Uptown Showdown featuring Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler, at Symphony Space, 8 PM
2537 Broadway, Upper West Side

Surprise Surprise, at FB Gallery, 6 – 9 PM
368 Broadway #209, SoHo

MAD-LIB [rary], at Independent Curators international (ICI) (The Curatorial Hub) 7 – 9 PM
401 Broadway, Suite 1620, Chinatown/LES

Hans Wolf: Curated by Dino Eli, at Orchard Windows Gallery, 6 – 9 PM
37 Orchard Street, Chinatown/LES

Corinne Rendinaro, Ross Schaner, William DeNatale: Surprise Surprise, FB Gallery, 6 – 9 PM
368 Broadway, #209, SoHo

Conrad Schnitzler: Tangerine Dream, Kluster, at The Clocktower, 6 – 8 PM
108 Leonard Street, 13th Floor, SoHo

Chikako Rosey: Prayer, Hope and Energy, at Ouchi Gallery, 7 – 10  PM
70 Tillary Street, Suite 507, Brooklyn

Will this year’s Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, the premier venue for Western art, surpass last year’s sales total of $16,915,681? Hoping to broaden the market, the founders of the auction — Bob Drummond, Stuart Johnson, and Peter Stremmel — have added something new to go with the sweeping Big Sky Country landscapes and Remington bronzes. On offer for the first time, at the Silver Legacy Resort in Reno on July 21, is a Native American artifact, the war shirt that belonged to Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, known for his legendary rebellion and tragic surrender in 1877. The shirt, above, is expected to fetch at least $800,000 and was the one the chief wore in the portrait painted by Cyrenius Hall in 1878, which appeared on a 1968 U.S. postage stamp.

The auction extended its reach in 2007 to international artists like the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, whose watercolor "Untitled (Mujeres)," 1939, estimated at $30,000 to 40,000, will be featured in the sale. And the client base has likewise broadened. “Our clients have gone from a small group of predominantly Western collectors to a truly international base,” says Mike Overby, one of the sale organizers. “Last year we sold paintings to buyers from England, Switzerland, Russia, and Germany.”

This year Overby predicts that “true blue-chips will be the safest bet.” Staple Western names like Charles M. Russell, Albert Bierstadt, and Alfred Jacob Miller are all on the roster; other sought-after artists include contemporary practitioners like Howard Terpning, whose "Treasure in the Desert," 2012, was painted specially for the auction (est. $600,000–900,000). Also noteworthy is the sale of Ted and Sue Dalzell’s holdings, featuring 25 works by Edward Borein, including the watercolor-on-paper work "End of the Chase," circa 1920 (est. $20,000–30,000). But the old standbys remain. Sculpture highlights include a life-sized cast of Frederic Remington’s iconic "Bronco Buster," circa 1900, estimated at $200,000 to $300,000.

This article appears in the summer issue of Art+Auction.

Inspired by the debate around Anne-Marie Slaughter's recent Atlantic article "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," ARTINFO reached out to women in the art world for their thoughts of balancing career and family, from successful gallerists to international artists. Specifically, we asked three questions:

1. Slaughter claims that society's competitive work conditions make it difficult, and arguably impossible, to "have it all," with regards to a healthy life balance of family and work. Does this kind of sentiment resonate with your experience?

2. Do you think there are specific issues facing women in the art world? Is it a field in which it is easier or more difficult for women to have families and high-profile careers?

3. If there were anything you would change about the field so that women could more easily balance the choice of having both a family and a career, what would it be?

In a previous article, we synthesized some of the themes that we found. However, given the interest inspired by the subject, the thoughfulness of the answers we gathered, and the wide variety in the responses, we also decided we wanted to publish some of the answers in full. Some are brief, while others are essay-length; some of the women we reached out to decided to respond to our questions directly, others to simply reflect on the question in their own personal way. Below, we link to the responses we received from a variety of figures, as a contribution to continuing what is obviously an important discussion:

—Cecilia Alemani (curator, The High Line)

—Antonia Carver (director, Art Dubai)

—Jane Cohan (director of press relations, James Cohan Gallery)

—Jennifer Dalton (artist)

—Lisa Dennison (chairman, Sotheby's North and South America)

—Natalie Frank (artist)

—RoseLee Goldberg (curator, founder of Performa)

—Candice Madey (owner, On Stellar Rays gallery)

—Marilyn Minter (artist)

—Lisa Phillips (director, New Museum)

—Bettina Prentice (owner, Prentice PR)

—Doreen Ramen (co-director, Art Production Fund)

—Mary Sabbatino (vice president, Gallery Lelong)

—Yvonne Force Villareal (co-director, Art Production Fund)

– George W. Bush, Oil Painter: In a rare public appearance, the 43rd President of the United States revealed what he's been up to now that he's no longer in the Oval Office. The answer? Oil painting. Bush told the audience — comprised of civic and business leaders in Memphis — that he's "kinda stuck" to painting dogs these days. "I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks," he joked. (Now, if you will, take a minute and imagine the former leader of the free world trying to get his dog to stay put while he paints his portrait. You're welcome.) [Daily Beast via AFC]

– The Secret Life of an American Art Forger: Art forger extraordinaire Ken Perenyi just can't stop talking about his exploits now that the statute of limitations for his forgeries has passed. In advance of the release of his memoir, "Caveat Emptor: the Secret Life of an American Art Forger,” he gave an in-depth interview about the "thrill of fooling the experts" and his new gig as a painter of high-end reproductions. He estimates that hundreds of his fakes remain in circulation, and occasionally glimpses one in an auction catalogue or magazine. "It's like bumping into an old friend," he said. [NYT] 

– Preemptive Crackdown on Graffiti Ahead of Olympics: The British Transport Police are serious about preventing graffiti during the London Olympics: they have already arrested four men who they suspect were planning to tag during the event, though no one has been charged. Another man, Darren Cullen, who runs a branding firm that has designed spray paint campaigns for Microsoft, Adidas, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, has been banned from possessing art materials, using public transportation, or coming within one mile of an Olympic venue. [Guardian]

– Kiev Biennale Venue to Become Museum: The main venue for the inaugural Kiev Biennale, the just-renovated Mystetskyi Arsenal in the center of the city, will function as an art museum after the exhibition closes on July 31. "The museum will represent the art of the people who have inhabited the territory of Ukraine throughout the past several thousand years," said the Arsenale's director general Nataliia Zabolotna, "as well as contemporary Ukrainian art, and also masterpieces of international art." [TAN]

– Artist Removes Halo From Joe Paterno Mural: Painter Michael Pilato erased a halo above the head of late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno after the FBI revealed he had been involved in the cover-up of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's long-term child abuse. When news of the scandal first broke, Pilato replaced Sandusky's likeness with a blue child-abuse-aweness ribbon. "As a public artist, you've got to listen to the public and I started to hear the public, and I wish I hadn't put [the halo] up there, to tell you the truth," he said. [LAT] 

– Major Donation for Princeton Museum: The Princeton Art Museum has endowed its directorship thanks to a $5-million donation from alumni Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger, capping a five-year fundraising campaign that raised $1.88 billion for the university. Professor and current museum director James Steward will be the first to hold the new named position. [Princeton Patch]

– Milwaukee Art Hub Goes Up in Flames: The building at 631 East Center Street in Milwaukee, which was home to many artists' live-work studios and some of the city's leading experimental galleries — including Center, Plum House, and Nomadic — was decimated in a five-alarm fire on Tuesday morning. "I am stricken,” said performance artist Pegi Christiansen, whose group In:Site had a space in the building. "That building has such an amazing history in it. So many shows fly into my head, the things I saw there." [Milwaukee Jounal Sentinel]

– China's Art Funds Expand Rapidly: The quickly expanding Chinese art market, already the world's largest, has spawned a corresponding increase in art funds and art-investment ventures — industries now valued at more than $900 million. But experts worry about their very informal and untested business practices. "Art investment in China is new, and it’s very much ‘make the rules up as you go along,'” Bobby Mohseni, director of art advisory MFA Asia, says. "It lacks a lot in terms of clarity and compliance, and it’s hard to gauge whether the level of professionalism is there." [TAN]

– Detroit Institute of Art Proposes Museum Tax: The Michigan museum hopes to persuade voters to authorize a $20 tax on homes worth $200,000 to support its operating costs. In exchange, it promises free admission and expanded programming. If approved, the proposal would result in an extra $23 million a year for the Detroit Institute of Art. [AP]

– Sotheby's to Offer 100 Lots From Marcel Brient Collection: On September 25, Sotheby's Paris will sell part of the collection of free-thinking Frenchman Marcel Brient, one of the country's most prolific contemporary art collectors. Over the last 40 years, Brient has amassed significant holdings of French art, including works by Simon Hantaï, Martial Rayesse, and Martin Barré, as well as of significant artists who worked in France, such as Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis. [ArtDaily]

MORE ON ARTINFO:

China's Guardian to Go Head to Head With Sotheby's and Christie's With New Hong Kong Branch

Posing as Collectors, FBI Agents Nab Duo Hawking Purloined Venezuelan Matisse in Miami Beach

Highlights From the New Museum's “Ghosts in the Machine,” From Op-Art Experiments to a Torture Device

In Germany, Neo-Nazis Go on a Rampage at the Opening of a Painting Show at Kunsthaus Erfurt

Private Sales Surge at Christie's — Will the Auction House Crowd Out Dealers?

Stuck in a Deitch: L.A. MOCA's Meltdown as an Economic Metaphor

For more breaking art news throughout the day,
check ARTINFO's In the Air blog.

You can call Awol Erizku’s art history-inflected photographs whatever you want — just don’t call them “urban.” “I hate when people label my work urban,” he says. “Just because it’s African American subjects or people of color it’s not urban.”

His recent Renaissance-inspired portraits at Hasted Kraeutler replace the stiff aristocrats of centuries past with young New Yorkers wearing Louis Vuitton, Versace, and sometimes nothing at all. The pieces are poised and precisely lit while the subjects stand alone against a black background, boldly staring directly into the camera. Works like “Girl with a Bamboo Earring,” “Boy Holding Grapes,” and “Lady with a Pitbull” take direct inspiration from Vermeer, Caravaggio, and Da Vinci.

In the past two years, the 24-year-old photographer has graduated from Cooper Union, been accepted to Yale’s MFA program, and been picked up by a Chelsea gallery. His portraits of New York’s young black creative elite have made an impression on big players in the industry (Glenn Fuhrman of the FLAG Art Foundation was an early champion of his work), and this month he has two solo shows in New York — one at Hasted Kraeutler closing July 20 and the other at Rivington Design House Gallery opening July 19.

Erizku was born in Ethiopia, but grew up in the Bronx. He started taking photographs seriously in college after an internship with David LaChappelle. In both his gallery work and on his very active Tumblr, Erikzu is working to insert a young black voice onto the white walls of the art world. “There are not that many colored people in the galleries that I went to or the museums that I went to,” he said. “I was just like, ‘when I become an artist I have to put my two cents in this world.’”

Erizku updates his Tumblr, called “Thank You! Come Again,” nearly every day. The Tumblr photos are more relaxed than his gallery work, foregoing perfect lighting and precise posture for silly, playful poses against a plain white wall. Everyone who visits his studio is photographed (including this reporter). The Tumblr photographs document Erizku’s extensive network of fashionable friends, people he calls “movers and shakers in the city.” Street Etiquette style bloggers Joshua Kissi and Travis Gumbs, members of hip hop collective A$AP Mob, A$AP Rocky and A$AP Bari, and recently Mos Def have all made appearances.

While Erizku primarily photographs people of color, he expressed frustration with the way his work is sometimes described by critics, and is irked by frequent comparisons to painter Kehinde Wiley. While he respects Wiley’s work, he feels that they have little in common besides African American subjects. “Whenever I make something I want it to be compared to Andy [Warhol] or to Richard Avedon,” he said.

While Kehinde Wiley also portrays young black men in classicizing portraits, the aesthetic fundamentals of their practices are drastically different. Erizku's work feels more honest, more genuine. He mostly takes photographs of friends and his erudite yet easy-going look onto a specific scene of downtown creatives is what makes the work original. Where Kehinde's paintings have taken on a manufactured character, Erizku's photographs feel warmly personal.

His big ambitions, however, will be temporarily put on hold when he heads to Yale this fall. “Making this move is a bit drastic because this will be the first time I’m leaving the city to settle somewhere else,” he said. At Yale he wants to develop his sculpture; he says he's interested in working with readymades. It will be interesting to see how someone so embroiled in the New York scene will fair in the much quieter New Haven. Erizku, however, is excited for the time away and says he is “up for the challenge.” We think so too. 

"Awol Erizku" is on view at Hasted Kraeutler, 527 West 24th Street, New York, June 14-July 22, 2012; "Thank You Come Again!" is on view at Rivington Design House, 129 Rivington Street, New York, July 19-Sept. 6, 2012

To see Awol Erizku's photos, click on the slide show.

A soundstage once used by Federico Fellini at the Cinecittà studios in Rome was damaged by fire Wednesday night. The possibility of arson has been raised, as workers continue to occupy the studios to protest planned restructuring and outsourcing.

Firefighters got the blaze at Studio 5 under control after four hours. Stages and wiring were destroyed but the building remains intact, Variety reports. Police are said to be investigating a possible link between the fire and the protesting workers occupying the site, while Cinecittà issued a statement calling the damage "minor" and avoiding speculation on the fire's causes, "which will be ascertained by experts and authorities." "We were sleeping and the area where we are is far from studio 5," an unnamed worker occupying the site told the Corriere Della Sera. "Then we read the news in the morning and we knew what had happened. We are very sorry ... and deeply saddened by what has happened."

Workers at the fabled studio have been striking since early July over a proposed plan that they say will cut jobs and destroy an important part of Italy's cinema heritage. According to AFP, Cinecittà Studio Spa, the studio's parent company, has a massive reorganization plan that includes outsourcing several activities, including screenwriting, postproduction, and the automobile fleet, while Le Figaro reports that the management wants to create a "film hub" with hotels, movie theaters, and audio and video postproduction facilities.

Cinecittà workers see the proposed renovations to the studio as real estate speculation and are demanding that traditional filmmaking careers be preserved. "Dozens of workers, of craftspeople, must leave this site to possibly work somewhere else," Alberto Manzini, an officer of the main Italian union CGIL, told AFP. "Some jobs will be given to outside companies and we don't understand how these plans can be synonymous with the studios' development." Emanuel Gout, the company's head of strategic planning, told Le Figaro that there will be no layoffs, but the workers have continued to occupy the site and several French filmmakers have signed a petition opposing the reorganization, including Michel Hazanavicius, director of "The Artist," Claude Lelouch, and Bertrand Tavernier.

Cinecittà has a rich and complex history. Mussolini established this "city of cinema" in 1937, hoping to compete with Hollywood. After producing fascist propaganda, the studios went on to become a temple of Italian neorealism, with Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Federico Fellini making movies there. The legendary "Hollywood on the Tiber" was used by such American mega-productions as "Ben Hur" and "Cleopatra" and was the site of innumerable spy movies and spaghetti westerns. While Cinecittà's heyday is past, it has continued to attract directors such as Martin Scorsese, who filmed "Gangs of New York" there, and Woody Allen, who used it for the postproduction of "To Rome With Love." According to Le Figaro, Cinecittà is spread over almost 150 acres and includes 73 buildings, with almost 50 miles of streets and a swimming pool for maritime scenes.

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Hulu and BBC Worldwide Americas (how’s that for a cumbersome name?) will team up to produce a fourth season of Armando Ianucci’s beloved-by-those-who’ve-actually-seen-it British comedy “The Thick of It.” The “Veep” creator’s series -- which has been airing in the U.K. since 2005, though a new episode hasn’t been produced since 2009 -- takes a hysterically profane look at inner workings of the modern British political machine. The new episodes will appear on the website this fall, available to stream the same day they air in the U.K., and will run on BBC America early next year.

In addition to helping fund the fourth season of the show, Hulu will start streaming the previous three season, plus specials, starting on July 29th. (Sadly, psuedo spin-off movie “In the Loop” doesn’t appear to be part of the agreement.) Possibly the most exciting thing about this is that episodes will reportedly be available uncensored, which anyone who has ever seen an Iannucci project knows is pretty crucial. (If you don’t at least smile at the phrase “Come the fuck in and fuck the fuck off,” then this might not be the show for you.) Episodes of “The Thick of It” have aired on BBC America before, but never in their full, unedited glory. To see what we mean, just watch a video of actor Peter Capaldi's Malcolm Tucker do what he does best: Say “fuck.”

Watch the video below:

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Architecture has taken the cinema to new heights in recent months, with the transformation of both the Hirshhorn Museum and Sydney Opera House into behemoth multi-media screens by architect Doug Aitken and German artist URBANSCREEN, respectively. Following suit this summer is Ron Arad, whose forthcoming "720°" installation at Jerusalem's Israel Museum trumps both in scope.

The Israeli designer and architect will offer 720 degrees of film and video art by the likes of Mat Collishaw, Ori Gersht, Christian Marclay, and David Shrigley — whereas Aitken's installation, which wrapped the circumference of the circular museum, was limited to a mere 360 degrees. The installation concept suspends 5,600 silicon rods 26 feet above the museum's Isamu Noguchi-designed Billy Rose Art Garden, forming a circle. Visitors have the option of viewing projects from the outside, or experiencing the immersive, unannounced live performances within. At its scale, "720°" is not merely a cultural spectacle; it becomes a built part of the museum's 20-acre campus and a glowing addition to the Jerusalem skyline.

Ron Arad’s "720°" installation will be on view at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem from August 16 through September 5.

In 1986, Isabella Rossellini sat for a photo shoot with her boyfriend, David Lynch, who had just directed her in his third film, “Blue Velvet.” The picture was shot by Annie Leibovitz and it’s become something of a classic. You could say its most distinctive feature is the fact that Lynch is engulfed entirely by his black turtleneck sweater, but that’s not exactly true. It’s much harder to forget Rossellini, whose dress is slipping off her right shoulder, her eyes peering out toward you.

Two decades later, Leibovitz and Rossellini, the daughter of screen beauty Ingrid Bergman, have teamed up again. Bulgari has its Isabella Rossellini bag, and for the fall and spring ads the company brought back Leibovitz to recreate that old iconic pose. In a picture obtained by WWD, the actress’s black dress strap is again slipping down her shoulder.

WWD says the picture was “inspired by the work of British painter Meredith Frampton, known for his neorealist and slightly surrealist portraits and still lifes.” There is a painted quality to the picture, an effect that makes Rossellini seem younger than her 60 years.

Age has been a sensitive subject for Rossellini. In 1995, her contract as the face of Lancome, a job she held for 14 years, was not renewed — allegedly because the company believed her to be too old. She discusses this and more in “About Face: Supermodels Then And Now,” an HBO documentary directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders that’s set to premiere on the premium cable network July 30.

“What has completely disappeared from society is the wisdom of the old people,” she says in the film. “As you grow old, you don’t count anymore, and that is, I think, the greatest fear about growing old.”

The documentary also checks in with 1980s fashion icons such as Jerry Hall, Cheryl Tiegs, Paulina Porizkova, and more, asking them about sexual harassment on the job, drug use, and the various way models attempt to stay in the game as they get older.

It’s relatively comforting, then, to see Rossellini appearing in the Bulgari ads — which will run in the September issue of Vanity Fair — and looking just as glamorous as she did for Annie Leibovitz decades ago. And as for the Lancome job, she can’t be too miffed about her replacement. Since 2004, the face of the cosmetics brand has been her daughter, Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann.

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We’ve all seen what happens when artists collaborate with fashion designers to create handbags, dresses, T-shirts, and more. But what does it look like when a designer works with an artist to make art? The British Fashion Council/Bazaar Fashion Arts Foundation sought to answer that question with “Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion,” a project that paired 18 visual artists with designers to conceive works for a Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition as part of the London 2012 Festival.

The pieces formed by the nine pairs ran the gamut from sculpture to video to an audio track. Mary Katrantzou and multimedia artist Mark Titchner fused their affinity for vibrant imagery in a seven-minute animated video, “Tint the Pallid Landscape (Off to the Wars in Lace),” that layers text Titchner thought described Paralympic and Olympic qualities — strength, courage, speed, power, stamina, agility, resilience, passion, precision, and ambition — with Katrantzou’s striking prints. Shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood and doiley enthusiast Simon Periton made a mobile, “Dissecting Waltz,” that rotates Kirkwood’s dismembered dangling heels and neon and silver hanging scalpels from three steel rings. Menswear maven Paul Smith and animal painter Charming Baker placed an aluminum bike sculpture balancing on its front wheel aimed at the ground on a block – look a little closer and a tiny black mouse is holding up the bicycle in the cleverly titled “Triumph in the Face of Absurdity.”

The other duos — Hussein Chalayan and Gavin Turk, Giles Deacon and Jeremy Deller, Jonathan Saunders and Jess Flood-Paddock, Matthew Williamson and Mat Collishaw, Peter Pilotto and Francis Upritchard, and Stephen Jones and Cerith Wyn Evans — came up with equally interesting ideas for the show, which was conceptualized as part of the many London celebrations happening for the upcoming Olympic games, which will surely bring more fashion and art fodder to the table.

Click on the slide show to see artwork from “Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion,” on view at the V&A through July 29.

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– Gogo Goes to Brazil: Never one to leave a bubbling art market untapped, Larry Gagosian will stage a major sculpture exhibition in a warehouse in Rio de Janeiro as part of the ArtRio fair. The exhibition follows his 2011 Paris show "Brazil: Reinvention of the Modern." The gallery will also have a separate booth at ArtRio, which runs September 12 to 16. Both venues will showcase a broad group of gallery artists, from Yayoi Kusama to Robert Rauschenberg. Could the mega-dealer be gunning to add a 13th gallery to his empire? [NYT, Press Release]

– Ai Weiwei's Appeal Thrown Out: Chinese courts have rejected artist and activist Ai Weiwei's appeal of a $2-million tax fine that the company producing his work, Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., was hit with following his 81-day detainment last year. "Today's verdict shows that this country, more than 60 years after its founding still has no basic legal process," Ai said, "still has no respect for the truth, still will never give taxpayers and citizens an ability to justify themselves." Meanwhile, China says he remains under investigation on suspicion of illegal exchange of foreign currency and pornography. [Guardian]

– Kate Middleton, Gold Medalist Museum-Goer: The Duchess of Cambridge was spotted yesterday visiting the National Portrait Gallery's new exhibition of Olympic Games portraiture, "Road to 2012: Aiming High." (She also made sure to peek in on the museum's other major summer show, "The Queen, Art and Image," on the occasion of Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee.) Middleton, an art history student who famously selected the NPG as a beneficiary of her patronage, sported a five-ringed necklace to the museum in apparent homage to the Olympic Games logo. [USA Today]

– British Museum Returns Cache of Artifacts to Afghanistan: Last week, 850 ancient artifacts were dispatched secretly on military planes to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. The smuggled treasures were seized by British customs officials and police over the last two years and stored at the British Museum for safekeeping. During the Afghan Civil War, 80 percent of the National Museum's collection was plundered or destroyed. [Telegraph] 

– Coin Collector's Lawsuit Isn't Pocket Change: Chicago-based coin collector Harlan Berk is suing dealer Steve Rubinger and his company Antiqua for allegedly selling him a phony ancient Greek decadrachm for $410,000. Berk is asking for more than $1 million in punitive damanges. The decadrachm was a Greek silver coin in circulation from 600 B.C. to 200 A.D. [Courthouse News] 

– Wax On, Wax On: In early 2013, Washington, D.C.'s Phillips Collection will put a beeswax room installation by Wolfgang Laib on permanent display in a converted storage room, despite the small private museum's ever-present space constraints. "It is painful, the paucity of real estate for our collection,” says director Dorothy Kosinski. "The last thing I want to do is pin down our small space with something permanent and site-specific." For Laib, however, she will. [WaPo]

– Tinterow Brings Velázquez and Goya to Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston director Gary Tinterow is taking advantage of the contacts he made as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 28 years. He recently persuaded the Prado in Madrid to send "Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces From the Prado," a major exhibition of 100 paintings from its permanent collection, to his museum. Houston will be the only American stop on the show's two-venue tour. [NYT]

– Smithsonian Plays Six Degrees: A new exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery titled "Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon" traces the history of American art as a web of connections with the titular New York artist and illustrator at its center. Within six degrees of Bacon, who lived 1895-1987, the exhibition finds Ashcan painter John Sloan, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, and assemblage artist Janice Lowry, all connected via a web of letters and archival materials. [WaPo]

– Doug Aitken Wins Nam June Paik Prize: The master of high-gloss video projection has been awarded the 2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize "for the considerable contribution his experimental use of diverse media and forms of installation have made to the field of art." Previous awardees include Bruno Latour, Ceal Floyer, and Robert Adrian X. [e-flux]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Ai Weiwei speaks about his loss against the Chinese government in his much-publicized tax fight, from the Guardian

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WHAT YOU MISSED LAST NIGHT: The art world intelligentsia turned out in spades for art critic Walter Robinson's curatorial jaunt at Haunch of Venison, while Mitchell-Innes & Nash kept it real with their figurative painting show, "In Plain Sight." Meanwhile, below Houston, the cool kids pounded Buds in the midst of gritty, abstract paintings at the tiny Chinatown pop-up, 48 Bowery. ARTINFO photographer Eva Wildes offers a glimpse of what went down.

To see pictures from Thursday night openings in Chelsea and Chinatown, click on the slide show.

It’s been two years since the release of  “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” Banksy’s documentary about the artist Mr. Brainwash’s quest to make a documentary about Banksy. Since then, there have been theories and speculation over whether Mr. Brainwash is truly the quirky graffito Thierry Guetta, or a front for Banksy and Shepard Fairey. But at this point, it’s pretty much been established that he is indeed the French fanboy.

Despite being widely ridiculed, Mr. Brainwash is still making art — with incomprehensible success. Last year, he designed the cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album “I’m With You.” He’s planning his first solo show in the U.K. for early August, at the Old Sorting Office in London. And now there’s a mural, near the spot where his upcoming show will be held, of the oft-painted supermodel Kate Moss.

British Vogue reported on the giant painting, which looks quite similar to the artwork Mr. Brainwash designed for Madonna’s 2009 album, “Celebration.” The article goes on to point out that, if the artwork were up for sale, it could be a big draw — buyers tend to go gaga for representations of Moss, including Marc Quinn’s gold sculpture that sold for more than half a million dollars, and the late Lucien Freud’s classic painting.

While he’s chosen a worthy subject to depict on the wall, Guetta will have to do better if he’s going to upstage his mentor and hometown favorite, Banksy.

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