The pre-fall collections are like a laboratory where designers can test out new ideas before the major fall fashion shows. (And of course they keep store racks full between seasons.) If fall's pre-collections are anything to go by, there's a lot to look forward to from Fashion Week in February. From Chanel’s elaborate take on traditional Scottish dress to the latest offerings from designer du jour Christopher Kane, our fashion team singled out their favorite looks from the season. 

To view our top 20 picks, click on the slideshow.

The 29th Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, will be screening 119 features during its 11-day run through January 26. Although the chances of the indie showcase turning up another Brand New Thing like Behn Zeitlin's "Beasts of the Southern Wild” might be remote, the 50,000-odd attendees will be hoping to light upon gems of a different cut. They will do well to track the following movies, which, on paper at least, sound promising:

“The East”: Brit Marling, who co-wrote this drama with director and “Sound of My Voice” collaborator Zal Batmanglij, stars as an elite intelligence operative who safeguards the interest of blue-chip corporations. When she infiltrates an anarchist collective (partly influenced by Occupy Wall Street) and falls for the leader, she starts to question her motives.

“Valentine Road”: In February 2008, Brandon McInerney, 14, shot his openly gay eighth-grade classmate Larry King, 15, in the computer lab of their Oxnard school. Sentenced in December 2011, McInerney is now four years into his 21-year-prison sentence. Marta Cunningham’s documentary, especially resonant in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, probes the circumstances that led to the crime and the legal mess that ensued.

“Kill Your Darlings”: Here’s a possible antidote to “On the Road”’s determined giddiness. Director John Krokidas contextualizes the emergence of the Beat movement in the wake of the 1944 killing of David Kammerer, a friend of William Burroughs (Ben Foster), by Lucien Carr, who introduced Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) to Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and Kerouac to his first wife, Edie Parker (Elizabeth Olsen). Kammerer was smitten with Carr and had allegedly stalked him for years. Another Beat movie at Sundance is Michael Polish’s “Big Sur.” Based on the autobiographical novel by Kerouac (Jean-Marc Barr), it deals with the aftermath of his “On the Road” success and his battle with alcoholism.

“Before Midnight”: Eighteen years after “Before Sunrise” and nine after “Before Sunset,” Richard Linklater reunites Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) in Greece for what is probably the conclusion of their interrupted romantic odyssey.

“Mud”: Jeff Nichols’s follow-up to “Take Shelter” is a “Huckleberry Finn”-influenced drama about two teenage Mississippi boys who help a fugitive (Matthew McConaughey) escape bounty hunters and reconnect with the long-suffering woman he loves (Reese Witherspoon).

“Don Jon’s Addiction”: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, making his debut as a writer-director, plays a New Jersey Don Juan whose Internet porn addiction compromises his relationships with women. A cautionary fable for these times, presumably. Julianne Moore, Scarlett Johansson, and Brie Larson co-star.

“Stoker:” Mysterious Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) comes to stay with India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) and her unstable mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). Park Chan-wook, the director of “Oldboy,” makes his English-language debut with a psychological horror movie inspired by Hitchcock’s 1943 “Shadow of a Doubt” and supposedly infused with the Gothic spirit of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.”

“The Look of Love”: Formerly titled “The King of Soho,” Michael Winterbottom’s biopic of Paul Raymond stars Steve Coogan as the multi-millionaire real estate developer who became famous as a strip-club proprietor and publisher of a string of English soft-porn magazines in the 1970s. The fallout of Raymond’s empire was the death by heroin overdose of the daughter he was grooming to succeed him. The relentlessly eclectic Winterbottom, who directed Coogan in “24 Hour Party People” and “A Cock and Bull Story,” is said to have shot each decade that's depicted in the movie in the cinematic period style.

“After Tiller”: Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s must-see documentary observes the lives of the four remaining American doctors who still provide third-trimester abortions following the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas in 2009. The filmmakers have said that, though targeted by the pro-life movement and beset by restrictive state laws, the doctors (two men and two women) “actually see the moral complexities involved in doing this work better than anyone.”

“Running From Crazy”: Like their father Clarence, Ernest Hemingway and his siblings Ursula and Leicester committed suicide – so, too, did Ernest’s granddaughter Margaux. In the latest documentary by the ever-reliable Barbara Kopple, Margaux’s younger sister Mariel, the model and actress, proactively explores the cycle of mental illness that has afflicted the Hemingways.

“Touchy Feely”: The estimable Lynn Shelton follows “Humpday” and “Your Sister’s Sister” with a drama about a massage therapist who develops an aversion to physical contact, even as her dentist brother finds he has a healing touch. The film gives an overdue starring part to Rosemarie DeWitt, who has shone in “Mad Men,” “Margaret” (fleetingly), and “Nobody Walks,” and was excellent as Emily Blunt’s bisexual sib in “Your Sister’s Sister.”

“Fruitvale”: Ryan Coogler’s fact-based drama recreates the last day in the life of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, a paroled drug dealer who was trying to go straught. On January 1, 2009, he was shot by a Bay Area policeman who subsequently served two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Michael B. Jordan plays Grant; Octavia Spencer and Chad Michael Murray co-star.

Behold, the spring 2013 campaigns are here and they're full of svelte models, picturesque scenery — and fashion! Louis Vuitton tapped Daniel Buren, the artist who created the set for label's spring 2013 runway show, to direct its campaign; Kenzo stuck with the double-X formula that Jean-Paul Goude used for fall 2012; and Dolce & Gabbana captured a Sicilian seaside moment. Top fashion photographers from Mario Testino to David Sims went behind the lens, while several designers — Domenico Dolce, Tom Ford, Hedi Slimane — opted to shoot their own ads. Watch our slideshow of the highlights and check back as we add more.

Click on the slideshow to see highlights of fashion campaigns for spring 2013.

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Matthew Drutt, Executive Director of the Blouin Cultural Advisory Group, takes us on a tour of several exhibitions, including Giorgio Griffa at Casey Kaplan gallery, David Shrigley at Anton Kern Gallery, and Luc Tuymans at David Zwirner gallery. Watch:

Art-lovers among the filmmakers and fans gathered in the snowy Utah mountains for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival have a plethora of art-related viewing options this week. From Ireland to Sierra Leone and with subjects ranging from Hemingway to Pussy Riot, the art film offerings are vast. Herein ARTINFO presents the 10 selections we are most excited about at Sundance this year.

Cutie and the Boxer
In the late 1960s, two young Japanese artists, Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, met in New York City, fell in love and got married, but did not quite live happily ever after. “Cutie and the Boxer,” the story of their struggle to survive as artists and as a couple through alcoholism, financial anxieties, and creative ambitions, is the sort of honest, artist-life depiction we don't see enough of. 

Skinningrove
Michael Almereyda’s short film, composed of Chris Killip’s black-and-white photographs, offers a glimpse into the remote world of an English fishing village on the North Sea. The images masterfully reveal the melancholy essence of the town without making it look depressing. 

History of the Eagles, Part One
This highly anticipated documentary is the first segment of a two-part film tracing the history of one of America’s most popular rock bands. With loads of never-before seen archival footage, home movies, and recently-filmed interviews with band members and their entourage, this promises to be one of the week’s most talked-about, and celebrated films. 

Kill Your Darlings
Daniel Radcliffe plays a young Jack Kerouac, struggling through his implication in the 1944 murder of David Kammerer, as well as all of the other issues faced by a young writer on the verge of defining a generation. We have high hopes for this debut by Yale alum John Krokidas, and his depiction of the artists before they became the beats. 

Pussy Riot — A Punk Prayer
We’ve been following along with the rest of the world as the members of Pussy Riot have become victims of Russia’s draconian legal system. We’re not sure this film can offer much in the way of hope or clarity, but we always want to know a little more about our favorite Russian-feminist-activist collective. 

Running from Crazy
Following Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter, Mariel, “Running from Crazy” is a portrait of the Hemingway family, at once portraying their creative brio along with the darker sides of depression and suicide that run in the family. If any director has the ability to capture so much complexity, it is Barbara Kopple, who won every category for documentary films at Sundance with her 1991 film, “American Dream.”

Salma
“Salma” is the incredible true story of the most famous Tamil poet — a young woman who, despite being forced into marriage at 13 and forbidden from studying, smuggled her poems out of her own house to get them to a publisher. This seems like a film that could very well re-define the concepts of creative ambition and commitment to one’s work. 

Twenty Feet from Stardom
Through interviews with legendary musicians and lesser-known back-up vocalists, “Twenty Feet from Stardom” offers a look at the singers who support the stars, but rarely see their own names in lights, in a cinematic a reminder of all the unknown people whose work contributes to the fame and success of celebrated artists and musicians. 

30% (Women and Politics in Sierra Leone)
While not about art, the use of oil-painted animation combined with documentary footage to tell the stories of three women working to change gender inequities in post-conflict Sierra Leone is possibly the most creatively produced film in the festival this year. 

Irish Folk Furniture
This short, animated documentary follows the restoration of 16 different pieces of traditional Irish folk furniture, often passed from generation to generation in poor families. The humble premise of “Irish Folk Furniture” belies a fascinating look at an oft-forgotten genre of design. 

Based on the principle that all publicity is good publicity, the makers of “Grace of Monaco” might feel that Grace Kelly’s children have denounced the movie too early in its journey to the screen to be of much use in selling tickets. Still in production, it won’t be released until 2014.

Directed by Olivier Dahan (“La Vie en Rose”), the film isn’t a biopic, but a character snapshot of Grace in 1962 when her husband, Prince Rainier III (Tim Roth), was involved in a dispute with Charles de Gaulle. The French President was opposed to Monaco’s status as a tax haven that deprived France of revenue from international businesses and wealthy citizens that had relocated to its tiny neighbor.

It’s the backstory – Kelly’s momentous journey from Oscar-winning actress to European princess – that will be “Grace of Monaco’”s chief lure, however. The film is part of a mini-trend of projects inspired by the turbulent lives of glamorous Hollywood actresses of the 1950s and ’60s and sanctioned by the passage of time.

The other subjects (or, if you like, victims) have so far been Marilyn Monroe (played by Michelle Williams in “My Week With Marilyn”), Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller in “The Girl”), and lone brunette Elizabeth Taylor (Lindsay Lohan in “Liz and Dick”). Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel respectively played Janet Leigh and Vera Miles in “Hitchcock.”

There’s also “Jayne Mansfield’s Car,” a Billy Bob Thornton-directed drama that doesn’t have an actress playing Mansfield but did provide a part for… Tippi Hedren.

It would hardly be surprising if films were tabled about Doris Day or Kim Novak, who had their share of off-screen woes. Day had a troubled first marriage and protracted legal problems in the ’70s and ’80s following the discovery that her late third husband and her lawyer had squandered her wealth. Novak’s mid-’50s affair with Sammy Davis, Jr. prompted her Columbia boss Harry Cohn, fearful of adverse publicity should she marry the black Jewish entertainer, to have a mobster kidnap Davis for a few hours (or so the story goes).

Both stars are theoretically ripe for biopic consideration in this prurient climate. But because both are alive, there may, mercifully, be legal reasons preventing screenwriters getting to work – sensitivity toward the actress’ feelings is unlikely to be a factor.

The “male gaze” has inevitably been an element in most of these movies (coy though “My Week With Marilyn” is). In castigating Alfred Hitchcock for his abuse of his leading ladies, “Hitchcock” and “The Girl” scarcely avoided making spectacles of actresses playing suffering actresses, or, in the case of the former, any attractive woman Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) can peer at through a window or peephole.

Depicting the director’s sexual harassment of the fragile Hedren, “The Girl” is the more conscientious of the two. In showing how the spurned Hitchcock (Toby Jones) rationalized torturing her during the filming of “The Birds,” it says this is what a frustrated authoritarian male is capable of. Irrespective of its sullying of a giant of cinema, it was a story worth telling, even if it depends for its effects on the visual (if not literal) despoliation of Sienna Miller. These lives-of-the-actresses movies, though, are collectively proving an ordeal.

— Art History Goes to Space: The Mona Lisa has now traveled further than any other artwork in history, without ever leaving the Louvre. Leonardo da Vinci's epic portrait was transmitted, via lasers, to the Moon — or more specifically, to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which orbits the moon some 30 miles out in space. In order to test the laser as a communication device with far-away satellites, NASA sent the well-known artwork, pixel by pixel, to the spacecraft, where it was then reconstructed into the familiar, maybe-smiling lady. [The Atlantic]

— Artists Descend on D.C. for Inauguration Artmaking Extravaganza: Andrew Purchin, one of the few artists to brave the cold and paint Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009, is bringing some friends this time around to participate in "A Thousand Artists: Inauguration 2013," a massive participatory artmaking installation on the National Mall that he has organized for Monday. He plans to supply white jumpsuits and orange beanies for up to 250 participants, though he hopes more will attend. "I was inspired by President Obama and I loved his 'Audacity of Hope' message," Purchin said. "I thought, 'What's audacious for me? I paint in public. I paint events. I'm going to paint the inauguration.'" [San Francisco Chronicle]

— U.S. Judge Slams Russia's Art Loan Ban: The Russian government's ban on art loans to U.S. museums, which began two years ago as a result of a dispute between Russia and Chabad, a Chassidic Jewish organization — led U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth to rule this week that Russia was in contempt of court for ignoring a 2010 order to return a set of historic books and manuscripts known as the Schneerson Collection to the New York-based group. The Russian government is incurring a $50,000-per-day fine, to be paid to Chabad, for not returning the artifacts. A spokesperson from the Russian embassy in the U.S. responded that "there is no change in the position" and that the collection is "part of Russia's national heritage and cannot be [returned]." [LAT]

— Menil Collection Uproots Matrimonial Art Tree: A small oak tree on the grounds of Houston's Menil Collection that was the only remaining trace of a 2009 performance by The Art Guys— local artists Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing— titled "The Art Guys Marry a Plant," in which the duo married an oak sappling, was recently removed from the museum's premises and collection, marking the latest chapter in an art saga surround the tree, which had become an important symbol for Houston's LGBT community. "The Menil has engaged in numerous discussions with parties who have felt injured or offended because the work was being displayed, and parties who have felt injured or offended because the work has been vandalized and might not be displayed," the museum explained in a statement. "The Menil has preferred to conduct these conversations in private." [TM Daily Post]

— An Inaugural Celebration of Free Speech and Great Marketing: Washington D.C.'s Newseum and the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum will celebrate Inauguration weekend by projecting images from three well-known works by Chinese pro-democracy activist and artist Ai Weiwei on the 74-foot-tall marble First Amendment tablet attached to the Newseum's facade. The free speech celebration during one of D.C.'s busiest weekends will also serve as marketing for the Hirshhorn's survey of Ai's work, which will open on February 24. [Art Daily]

— Art For Free, Everyday, in Dallas: On Monday morning, the Dallas Art Museum will become the first institution in the country to offer both free admission and free membership. For the DMA, which sees much less tourist revenue than museums in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, it is a move that makes economic sense. Admissions make up only 4 percent of the museum's annual budget — a gap they think will be fairly easy to close through philanthropy. "If memberships mean belonging, and we think everybody belongs here, then everybody should be a member," said director Maxwell Anderson. [Dallas News]

— Manet's Secret Son Revealed?: The parentage of Léon-Edouard Koëlla Leenhoff, the son of Edouard Manet's Dutch wife Suzanne, has long puzzled art historians, and though he appears in 17 of the French artist's paintings — including five pieces that will be included in a forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy in London — nobody has determined definitively whether he was the also the son of Manet, or possibly of the artist's father Auguste Manet, or the son of neither, an issue the RA exhibition catalogue doesn't address. "Perhaps, as [Manet biographer Beth Archer] Brombert suggests, Manet waited for his father to die before marrying Suzanne not because she was also his father’s lover but because he had finally inherited the financial means to do so," Serena Davies hypothesizes. "And Manet, in making that marriage, was honouring a long-term commitment to give security to the mother of his child, born out of wedlock at a time when Manet was naive, but still decent enough to face the consequences of his actions." [Telegraph]

— Glass Arts Donation a Boon for Boston MFA: New England collector Daphne Farago will donate 161 contemporary glass and craft works to the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s textile and fashion arts department, a once-neglected area of the institution's collection. This is the third major gift to the museum by Farago, who reportedly placed no restrictions on the museum in donating the works, and it will go on display in the museums Farago Gallery in August. [Boston Globe]

— Denver Art Museum Banks on the French to Keep Crowds Coming: The Denver Art Museum has announced a "French Fall" trio of shows featuring superstar artists like Monet, Cezanne, and Degas on the heels of its sold-out Van Gogh show, which closes January 20. The group of shows will trace French art history from the 17th to the 20th centuries and, like the Van Gogh exhibition, will require museumgoers to purchase a separate ticket. [Denver Post]

— D'Amelio Joins Zwirner Ahead of 20th Street Megagallery Space Opening: Chelsea dealer Chris D'Amelio, who broke ties with his partner Lucien Terras in late 2011 to go solo, will close up shop in order to join the art-world megalith that is now David Zwirner gallery. D'Amelio will bring a wealth of knowledge on Minimalism to Zwirner, where a show of work by Donald Judd and Dan Flavin will inaugurate a new gallery space on West 20th Street next month. D'Amelio represents a number of mid-career American and European artists including Polly Apfulbaum, Roland Flexner, and Karin Sander. [Gallerist]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Andrew Purchin announces his "A Thousand Artists: Inauguration 2013" initiative through Google Hangout

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For four years, First Lady Michelle Obama has wowed the world with her daring fashion choices. And unlike other well-dressed White House residents before her, she doesn’t favor a single designer — like Jacqueline Kennedy and Oleg Cassini. From her controversial 2008 election-night ensemble by Narciso Rodriguez to 2009’s surprising white inaugural gown by the then-26-year-old Jason Wu, she’s championed young American designers and isn't afraid to take risks. Which only makes the wait to see her dress for Monday’s Inaugural Ball all the more exciting. And while she'll likely go custom for Monday night's celebrations, here are 10 looks we'd like to see her try, featuring some of her favorite designers, plus a little bit of wishful thinking. Here’s to four more fashionable years, Mrs. O.

To see our picks, click on the slideshow.

Writing of Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” the French journalist Marjolaine Gout has described it as “a philosophical tale where Noah’s Ark metamorphoses into ‘The Raft of the Medusa.’” Géricault’s allegorical painting is rendered more literally in “The Pirogue,” Senegalese director Moussa Touré’s alarming depiction of a tragic attempt by 31 West African boat people to voyage to Spain via the Canary Islands in the eponymous uncovered craft.

An end title discloses that of the 30,000 immigrants that made the trip between 2005 and 2010, 5,000 perished. Ten thousand had died between 1989 and 2003. Boats bearing the mummified bodies of some Senegalese have shown up 3,000 miles away in Barbados.

Opening at Film Forum in New York next Wednesday and one of 10 features viewable online at My French Film Festival through February 17, “The Pirogue” is Touré’s third feature. It acknowledges the sociopolitical influence of Senegal’s great novelist-director Ousmane Sembène by naming one of the boat people after him. Beginning with a vividly filmed wrestling match, a metaphor for the ethical and moral struggles the Senegalese face in deciding whether to adhere to their roots or attempt to Westernize, the movie is a little flat in the early part of the voyage, but becomes increasingly tense and claustrophobic.

The protagonist, Baye Laye (Souleymane Seye Ndiaye), is a skilled fisherman whose livelihood is imperiled because the Atlantic around Senegal has been overfished. He has repeatedly turned down the offer to helm the flimsy, uncovered boat, but takes the lucrative job to benefit his young family and because a naïve young friend has decided to make the trip. Totems of Western affluence like iPhones and iPods have penetrated the community and hold out the promise of a better life the Senegalese young will never have.

The travelers include the grifter (Laïty Fall) who organized the journey, a gifted soccer player, an aspiring musician, a man with one leg, and a single stowaway woman (Mame Astou Diallo), a mother of two whose husband was lost on a similar voyage. Initially, the trip goes well, though the differences between the ethnically and religiously mixed passengers – who include Toucouleurs, Wolofs, and Guinean Fulas – take their toll.

Having picked up a few desperate men who swam from a doomed boat that had lost its motor power and expended its water, the Pirogue is battered by a nocturnal storm. Of the three men lost, one goes overboard off the stern – a direct homage to the similarly heartrending sequence in Peter Weir’s “Master and Commander,” cited by Touré as a major influence.

It doesn’t give much away to say that the Pirogue eventually makes landfall, but not before dehydration and starvation have turned the gaily painted boat’s few survivors into a modern equivalent of Géricault’s writhing figures. This is presumably intentional since the Medusa had been carrying French colonial immigrants to Senegal. As that raft of madness symbolized the drifting French state in 1816, so the Pirogue represents Senegal, where 54 percent of the people live below the poverty line.