Last Tuesday marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Victor Mature, that sluggish hunk of pre-Stallone manhood. On November 9, it will be the turn of Hedy Lamarr, the Viennese love goddess often invoked as “the most beautiful woman in movies,” and later as the mathematically gifted co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping – vital for military applications.

Mature did his best acting work as the melancholy Doc Holliday, enamored with Henry Fonda’s Wyatt Earp, in John Ford’s “My Darling Clementine” (1946). Lamarr’s finest performance was as the independent woman who refuses to become a housewife in King Vidor’s “H.M. Pulham Esq” (1941).

Together, they climbed to the pinnacle of Hollywood biblical erotica in Cecil B. De Mille’s “Samson and Delilah,” 1949’s biggest hit and the most lurid trash classic of the post-war years – its sexual reveries matched only by Vidor’s “Duel in the Son” (1946). The film was shot in Technicolor by veteran cinematographer George Barnes, who emphasized the emotional garishness with a palette of vibrant reds, blues, and patently fake silvers.

On March 13, presumably inspired by the stars’ joint centenaries, Paramount Home Entertainment will release “Samson and Delilah” on DVD for the first time in its history (apart from an unofficial 2007 disc); Blu-ray users must wait. The original nitrate three-strip Technicolor negatives were digitally scanned, registered, cleaned, and color-corrected, and DeMille’s original nitrate print was used to complete the music overture. The mono track was also enhanced.

According to the press release, “the restoration team noticed a shimmer effect in some of the scenes. Since they were simultaneously restoring ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ they looked at production photos of Norma Desmond’s (Gloria Swanson’s) visit to the ‘Samson and Delilah’ set and saw the enormously powerful lights that were required for the Technicolor production. This explained the shimmer effect, which was left intact.”

De Mille’s movie shimmers with sex, too. Samson’s lion fight and climactic destruction of the temple are fun (if inauthentic), but the movie is at its ridiculous best during the sustained interior scene in which Lamarr’s Delilah fools with a veil and slinks, come-hitherishly, around Mature’s apparently wooden muscleman until, on the verge of leaving the tent, he finally succumbs and kisses her.

No less titillating is their sylvan post-coital idyll, equally drawn out, in which the flushed seductress strokes Samson’s chest and presses up against him like a cat. De Mille decorously draws a blind over the lovers just before Delilah cuts Samson’s hair – as if aware that the moment is a symbolic emasculation. His blinding is the Oedipal culmination of his dalliance with a femme fatale who, unlike her contemporaneous film noir sisters, does her scheming in the open.

Mature was third-billed as Demetrius the Greek slave in Fox’s “The Robe” (1953), but was the star of Delmer Daves’s “Demetrius and the Gladiators” (1954), both epics shot in ’Scope. As Messalina in the latter, Susan Hayward is as lusty as Lamarr, though Delilah’s sultry vamping of Samson and the harmony of their brunette embraces makes it the guiltier pleasure. The Hollywood Code was still in effect when De Mille made “Samson and Delilah,” but he accomplished much through suggestion.

As gaudy as the Lady of Shalott in William Holman Hunt’s 1905 pre-Raphaelite painting, Lamarr’s Delilah is also as poisonous as the indolent wanton painted by the French Symbolist artist Gustave Moreau in the 1882 “Samson and Delilah,” or Moreau’s 1875 “Salome Dancing Before Herod,” though Hedy makes a more robust voluptuary than those wispy phantoms. In their triumphalist degeneracy, the man-eaters of fin-de-siècle art were all exemplars of anti-Semitic misogynistic terror and dread, as the author Bram Dijkstra has explained. Campness rescues De Mille’s “Samson and Delilah” from the same taint and renders the biblical tale as pulp fiction.

Born nine months before Lamarr, Mature died five months before her in August 1999. He must surely still be brooding about her as she caresses him in some alternative fever dream in which the temple is about to collapse.

PARIS —Nathalie Obadia’s eponymous gallery on the Rue du Cloître Saint Merri has traveled around Paris a bit since it was first established 20 years ago; from its initial spot on the Rue de Normandie, also in the Marais district, it spent some time in Yvon Lambert’s former space on the Rue du Grenier Saint Lazare before moving to its current location. And more recently, Obadia has also been expanding, with a second location added in Brussels in 2008 and a third planned to open this month on the Rue du Bourg Tibourg. The gallerist recently sat down with ARTINFO France to discuss her different strategies at each location, how the Paris gallery scene has changed over two decades, and what’s on her art agenda in 2013.

Why open a second gallery location in the Marais?

It’s a gift to myself for the gallery’s 20th anniversary, and most of all it’s a way to offer artists a second possibility of showing their work in a different space. I wanted to stay in the neighborhood, and I didn’t want to go with something gigantic outside Paris, because that’s a different gamble. If good galleries start competing with institutional spaces, it’s kind of too bad, because artists usually prefer showing their work in institutions. The role of gallerists is to bring artists into museums and institutions, to find projects for them, as I did with Joana Vasconcelos in Versailles, or Lorna Simpson at the Jeu de Paume. Our role is to offer great exhibition platforms and to participate in biennials — that’s how we can help institutions and artists to do larger-scale projects. A gallery show lets artists show new, never-before-seen work, as I am doing with Fiona Rae, and it encourages critics and institutions to offer more significant environments or other contexts for shows. That’s why I prefer to stay in the center of Paris. The new gallery is located between the Pompidou Center and the Marais, where 80 percent of the galleries are. And I think it’s important to be on the circuit.

What will the role of the new space be?

There won’t be a particular kind of programming. We’re launching the new space with Fiona Rae — we’re celebrating 20 years together. We’ve worked together ever since I opened my first gallery on the Rue de Normandie. Fiona Rae will inaugurate the new space, and for her it’s a new challenge. We’ll leave the space on Rue du Cloître Saint Merri empty twice a year. And this way we can show works we have in storage.

What’s your view of the current situation of art galleries in France?

We spark a lot of curiosity, and we’re at the heart of something. We’re really taken seriously. We generate money and jobs. If you combine the profits of the 15 galleries that count in France, we weigh more than the auctions.

What are some of the highlights of your 20 years?

First of all, there’s been a radical change in France’s place on the international playing field over 25 years. This is a milieu that I’ve known for a long time — my parents were collectors and I’ve always wanted to do this job. When I started working at Galerie Daniel Templon in 1988, I saw a strong market but France’s position wasn’t at all clear, because it was caught between Cologne, England, which was waking up, and new markets such as Spain and Zürich. Paris had a hard time, because it was the last city where you wanted to show your work when you were a foreign artist. And then, bit by bit, over 20 years I’ve seen Paris’s position open up. International galleries have come here. I went to the opening of Karsten Greve, Thaddaeus Ropac, and Marion Goodman. If foreign galleries were opening up shop in Paris, it was already a good sign. Even before the circles of collectors in France got bigger, there was a network of important museums in France that were buyers — they buy less nowadays. From that time on, galleries were well-established, and the new ones of my generation got into real patterns of competition, with real economic stakes. This context pushed us to open new and beautiful spaces, to put together more efficient teams, to participate in more fairs, and to offer ambitious projects to our artists. We’ve also sparked more attention from French collectors, who are buying more and more, but also from foreign collectors and institutions who come to see what’s happening in France.

How do you see the role of your Brussels gallery?

The Brussels gallery has allowed me to launch artists such as Michael DeLucia, a young American artist whom I discovered and whose works were selling for inexpensive prices. He didn’t have a gallery in the U.S. and I called him. In Brussels, his work was bought by very good collectors. In France, it would have been harder to make a gallery turn a profit with artists whose works are inexpensive. Thanks to Brussels, I was also able to launch Brenna Youngblood, a young Los Angeles artist. Since then she’s done a show in Paris, since the price of her works has gone up. The Brussels gallery lets me do projects that I couldn’t do in Paris — it has more experimental programming. I’m thinking in particular of Andres Serrano. I remember Yvon Lambert himself asking me to do an Andres Serrano show in my Brussels gallery. I love this artist, and Serrano had not had a show in Brussels for a long time. The exhibition was a big success. In France we find ourselves with a specific strategy: do seven fairs per year, have good sales for our shows … it’s stifling, and Brussels lets me breathe.

Do you show a lot of foreign artists?

Having a gallery in France doesn’t mean showing French artists. We show the artists we believe in, who are going to develop. Again, a gallery in France always has an international calling, and there are possibilities of dialogue between artists from your own country and foreign artists. I’ve always loved cultural exchanges, and today a gallery must reflect the world and its generation. For example, Rina Banerjee has a unique profile. She was born in India, she settled in the United States with her parents, she went to Yale and other big-name schools. And her work delves into her origins — she is at this intersection between the Indian world and the American world. I met her in New York but she started out in France. This is where I brought her into big European collections. She also had a big solo show at the Musée Guimet.

What kinds of artistic practices appeal to you?

I am particularly attached to sculpture. I need works that have some body. I need this tactile aspect, even in photography. Patrick Faigenbaum approaches landscapes like a painter, with great sophistication. Luc Delahaye, whose background is in photojournalism, produces staged scenes, and Youssef Nabil takes black-and-white photos which he paints by hand. However, I’m also representing the Martin Barré succession, and he is a true painter in the Minimalist tradition. And I also handle Sarkis, who is more conceptual, but who is a true sculptural artist. Michael DeLucia, Sarkis, Barry X Ball, Jessica Stockholder, Chloe Piene, and Joana Vasconcelos are protean artists, who create veritable universes and have great abilities to work with different materials. Joana is a conceptual artist — she has an entirely sculptural practice but at the beginning she starts with a concept and a discourse in the way she plans the works.

What are you planning on this year?

Lorna Simpson will have a big retrospective this year at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and then at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. She is really a pioneering artist and very important. I put on her first exhibition seven years ago here, and we sold some fabulous works. As for Joana Vasconcelos, she will represent Portugal at the Venice Biennial with a very unusual project. In fact, since Portugal doesn’t have a pavilion, she didn’t want to rent a palace. I’m already imagining a really great artwork! There will be a show of work by Martin Barré from the 1970s. And next fall, we’re planning to show Mickalene Thomas in the new space. I’m also going to show a young French artist — it will be her first show in France. Laure Prouvost lives in England and she’s an extraordinary artist whose work includes music, video, sound, and objects.

To see a selection of artworks from the gallery’s 20-year history, click on the slideshow.

Once again, ARTINFO has sent its intrepid staff into the streets of New York, charged with reviewing the art they saw in a single (sometimes run-on) sentence. (To see our One-Line Reviews as an illustrated slideshow, click here.)

Matthew Benedict, “Americana” at Alexander and Bonin, 132 Tenth Avenue, through March 9

Stepping into this exhibition recalls the experience of running across a vintage small-town pharmacy on a  New England backroad, one packed with antique typewriters, mysterious trinkets, and dusty logbooks long-steeped in rural mysteries and folklore; Matthew Benedict's sculptures of objects such as a Lovecraft-inspired collection of vintage bottles strung with pendulums and a wall relief replica of a cluttered late-19th century shopkeeper’s desk evoke a sense of objects once invested with histories that were both captivating and somewhat unsettling, but are now lost in a digital age. — Lori Fredrickson

“How to Tell the Future From the Past” at Haunch of Venison, 550 West 21st Street, through March 2

There is really not much tying the artists in this group show together except for their abilities to make me feel profoundly uncomfortable — which is perhaps the point — but nearly a week after I saw the show I am still haunted by the nightmarish haze of London-based artist Justin Mortimer’s paintings (I’d describe “Tract” as horror movie-meets-Gerhard Richter) and intrigued by Eve Sussman and Angela Christlieb’s landscape-distorting cyclical video work taken from the window of a moving train, “How to Tell the Future From the Past.” — Shane Ferro

Maria Loboda, "General Electric" at Andrew Kreps Gallery, 525 West 22nd Street, through February 16

Of the eclectic objects in Maria Loboda's first solo show chez Kreps — including vintage military beds, hive-like clusters of desert rose selenite on the ceiling, and collages of English garden topiaries under skies of veined marble — the most compelling is a steel sculpture running along the edges of the gallery walls, a strange subversion of the white cube aesthetic that eloquently gets at her theme of trying to control unwieldy forces. — Benjamin Sutton

Nicolas Touron, “Play Ground” at Stux Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, through February 23

Nicholas Touron's neon, cartoonish environments are populated by figures harking back to the grossly stretched and engorged characters from the 1990s TV show “Rocco's Modern Life,” and littered with vague political jabs — like the moniker “IMF” scrawled across bulbous and toy-like warplanes — which, taken together, make the chaotic paintings read like playfully cynical and non-linear comic strips. — Alanna Martinez

Jaimie Warren, “The Whoas of Female Tragedy II” at The Hole, 312 Bowery, through February 6

The Pepto-Bismol colored floor and faint smell of cigarette smoke at the Hole lends itself to the gritty commentary on female stereotypes that Kansas City-based artist Jamie Warren undertakes in her Cindy Sherman-esque photos, where the artist places herself as the star in re-creations of famous paintings and in parody images of celebrities — namely celebrities as food, i.e. Warren as “Lasagna Del Ray” — to comment on how women are depicted in art history, the internet age, and contemporary culture. — Terri Ciccone

If the title of the Outsider Art Fair seems outdated, rest assured that the actual event has stayed surprisingly fresh. The fair’s new owner, Chelsea dealer Andrew Edlin, debuted its 20th edition last night at the former Dia building at 548 West 22nd Street, also home to the Independent and NADA art fairs, and a vast improvement on its dreary old 34th Street digs.

“This is a place to show art,” said Edlin of the new space, where he has invited 40 exhibitors to display work by artists who in some way operate on the periphery of the New York-centric, M.F.A.-driven art machine. Some are self-taught, work in folk-art traditions, or live in far-flung corners of the globe. Others simply match outsider-y descriptors like “eccentric visionary” or “reclusive savant.”

For his booth, Edlin had brought a series of pocket-sized woodcarvings by John Byam, an artist whose resume lists stints as a gravedigger, “water boy,” and Korean War soldier. Edlin also had a gleefully creepy watercolor by the posterboy of American outsider art, Henry Darger, which had already been placed on hold 30 minutes into the preview.

That’s not surprising given the genre’s move toward the center in recent years. At last year’s Whitney Biennial, Robert Gober curated a popular mini-exhibition of paintings by poverty-stricken loner Forrest Bess, which spurred a sale of the artist’s work at Christie’s. And artists like Bill Traylor and Martin Ramirez, both represented at the fair, have become internationally recognized names, with the prices to match.

At this year’s fair, it’s clear that Edlin has embraced this attention, inviting “insider” dealers like Vito Schnabel, Feature Inc., and Laurel Gitlen to highlight artists that they wouldn’t normally show. Schnabel brought works constructed from discarded airplane parts by the deaf and autistic artist Vahakn Arslanian, while Chelsea dealer Gary Snyder showed Janet Sobel’s crayon and drip paintings.

“I only show Janet Sobel at this fair,” said Snyder, a longtime participant who rarely exhibits her work at his gallery. “There’s more of an openness for it here.”

Still, Sobel’s work, acclaimed by the likes of Clement Greenberg and Jackson Pollock, is an easy sell compared to even more obscure, cabinet-of-curiosities-style presentations, like that of Dallas Art Fair founder Chris Byrne. Together with architecture historian Julia Reyes Taubman, Byrne displayed ceramic busts of murder victims sculpted by forensic facial reconstructionist Frank Bender, who worked for the FBI and “America’s Most Wanted” before his death in 2011.

Why bring them to an art fair? “This seemed like the right context for it — it’s dark,” said Byrne. “And he’s self-taught so that’s how we got in.” The heads aren’t for sale, but apparently “everyone wants to buy them,” according to Taubman. “Although I don’t know why you’d want them.”

For whatever reason, a few aesthetic threads bind many of the artists in this fair: crudely sketched animals, distorted faces, and obsessively detailed, hallucinatory patterns. Much of the most popular work, like that of Darger, constitutes visual storytelling, pictures that seem to invite a privileged glimpse into these intensely internalized minds.

Hudson, the one-named director of Feature Inc., offered a peek into the truly remote with a series of Twombly-esque drawings done by the secluded Korwa tribe of India. “This seemed like an appropriate time to show them,” he said of the pictures, on sale for about $4,000 apiece.

When asked why she decided to participate in the fair for the first time this year, Santa Fe dealer Laura Steward succinctly explained, “One of my artists is a witch,” referring to sculptor Erika Wanenmacher, a.k.a. Ditch Witch. “I like this fair because it’s more interested in people, in the artist’s minds.”

That was the logic behind Kinz + Tillou Fine Art’s decision to bring not only the beautiful dyed-leather compositions of Winfred Rembert, a former cotton-picker and belt maker from Georgia, but to bring Rembert himself. Happy to share his history, the artist explained the origins of his work from the booth: “I used to tell stories around the table at night and one day my wife said, ‘put the stories on the leather so they can be preserved.’” The resulting pictures now sell for tens of thousands. “It’s beyond anything I could ever imagine,” he said.

Personal narratives like this are at the heart of the fair — and are often prominently delineated in the wall texts. As a marketing platform, the tortured-artist mythologizing sometimes inches into sideshow territory (particularly in instances of artists with physical disabilities). But no one really seems to mind. The fair brings to Chelsea a lot of art that might not otherwise be seen, and it creates a market for a lot of artists who might not otherwise get paid for what, it turns out, is often very deserving work.

Our most-talked-about stories in Visual Art, Design & Architecture, Fashion & Style, and Performing Arts, January 21- 25, 2013:

NEW YORK — In a city ruled by real estate, the overlooked, undervalued, and condemned corners of the built environment lying just beyond the municipal government's vision often provide the most fertile grounds for surreptitious, short-lived, and sumptuous installations by street artists. Though the richest hot spots for such art are in a constant state of flux, being prey to the whims of developers, city planners, property-owners, weather, and even devoted fans looking to peel away a freshly wheat-pasted work, certain spaces merit repeat visits. To make this shifting territory more easily navigable, ARTINFO parsed the boroughs — well, three of them anyway — to bring you the 20 best street art spots in New York City.

To see images of ARTINFO's top 20 spots for street art in New York City, click the slideshow.

5Pointz in Long Island City, Jackson Avenue at Davis Street

New York's high temple to graffiti and street art, which looms across the street from MoMA PS1, stands to be demolished on its 20th anniversary to make way for luxury housing (what else?). Since taking over as the site's curator and director in 2002, street artist Meres One has overseen the richest mural program in the city, with a near constant turnover that attracts artists from all over the boroughs, the country, and the world.

190 Bowery on the Lower East Side, Bowery and Spring Street

190 Bowery might be a building that exists in your nightmares. It’s boarded up, it seems to always exist in a shadow, and its dark gray facade has been sitting around mostly unoccupied since the 1960s, which has made it a dream location for street artists. While the outside is covered in layers of posters and paint, and even poetry, it’s actually said to be a “bohemian dream house” with three occupants enjoying a surprisingly to-die-for apartment experience that comes with a built in canvas.

Bushwick Five Points in Bushwick, St. Nicholas Avenue and Troutman Street

Though the imminent disappearance of 5Pointz will be a huge loss for the city's street art scene, a new Five Points has emerged in Bushwick, where founder Joseph Ficalora has invited artists including Jim Avignon, ND'A, Nick Walker, Overunder, Joe Iurato, and many more to create massive new murals in the ever-expanding street art district.

Graffiti Hall of Fame in Harlem, 106th Street and Park Avenue

In Spanish Harlem lives “The Graffiti Hall of Fame,” a project established by community-minded street artist and activist Ray Rodriguez, known better by his alias, “Sting Ray.” This wall has seen the scribblings of some of the greatest hip-hop “writers” of all time, and was created to celebrate the art and culture of graffiti that the borough once deemed vandalism. Each year in June, artists from all over the world come to the official wall of fame event in hopes of getting a piece of it to show their stuff.

Welling Court Murals in Astoria, Welling Court and Vernon Boulevard

Now in its third season, the Ad Hoc Art-curated mural project takes over a tiny corner of Queens every summer with a wealth of new murals by local and international artists. The current batch includes works by Jaz, Never Satisfied, Chris Stain, M-City, and Sweet Toof.

East Second Street in the East Village, Between Second Avenue and Bowery

What could be more tempting for a street artist than two perfectly smooth black garage doors, waiting on a street like forgotten canvases ready to be transformed? That’s what can be found on the front doors of Ideal Glass in the East Village, as well as a garden that seems perfect for a feral bird by Belgian street artist ROA to perch in alongside another of his works, a rat scurrying by on a nearby stoop.

Vandervoort Place in Bushwick, Between Flushing Avenue and Thames Street

This alley behind the former street art gallery Factory Fresh continues to attract an impressive slate of artists, including a pair of ROA critters, a series of Faile stencils, and an incredibly long and intricate mural by Jim Avignon.

Freedom Tunnel on the West side of Manhattan, Beneath Riverside Park

There are many rumors about what’s under our feet in New York City. Alligators? The Illuminati? An underground old-timey movie-watching cult (thanks, "Law & Order SVU")? The list goes on. But there is an underground tunnel that plays home to an unlikely gallery of street art. This tunnel below Riverside Park, which is an active Amtrak train throughway, is the perfect isolated spot for artists to take on more complex pieces in peace, as random spots of light from street-level grates above provide a uniquely lit art viewing space.

Candy Factory in Soho, Grand Street and Wooster Street

Unfortunately, this old art-covered building is on the verge of being demolished to make way for condos. What was once a functioning Tootsie Roll factory — and directly across the street from street art-loving gallerist-turned-L.A. MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch's former gallery — is now known as simply “The Candy Factory,” an open space and favorite of street artists including Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and JR. It will soon join the list of vanishing landmarks that once made up the art scene in Soho.

Houston and Bowery Mural on the Lower East Side, Houston Street at Bowery

Quite possibly the city's best-known street art space, made famous in the 1980s by Keith Haring and curated until recently by the late property developer Tony Goldman, the Houston mural space has been home to works by some of the world's biggest street artists over the last five years, from Shepard Fairey and Brazilian duo Os Gemeos to Faile, Lady Aiko, and currently How & Nosm.

Freeman Alley on the Lower East Side, at Rivington Street

Among Lower East Side galleries, brunch spots, and boutiques, sits a tucked away path called Freeman Alley. This spot is a favorite of local wheat pasters — including Hanksy— and tag scrawlers alike. Currently on view is some poetry from Dr. Za, and a political piece depicting a Japanese girl blowing a bubble from what looks like radioactive bubblegum by Gilf!

Gardner Avenue in Bushwick, Between Flushing and Johnson Avenues

In a far corner where Brooklyn turns into Queens near the inland-most tip of Newtown Creek, members of the Robots Will Kill street art crew have taken over a few blocks with collaborative murals featuring their eclectic styles, plus contributions from local cohorts including Elbow-Toe, Overunder, and Revs.

The Banks of the Gowanus Canal in Gowanus, Between 3rd and Union Streets

Though increasingly scrubbed clean as the area's gentrification and environmental cleanup gather momentum, the banks of the polluted Gowanus Canal — particularly between the 3rd Street and Union Street bridges, and around back of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company's abandoned Central Power Station — sees a steady turnover of work by both local and international street artists, including Overunder, Swoon, Shepard Fairey, and more.

Waterbury Street in Bushwick, Between Meserole and Scholes Streets

In this corner of Bushwick better known for its music studios and DIY venues, a healthy and huge street art program has taken root at the corner of Waterbury and Meserole streets, with large-scale works by the likes of Shepard Fairey, Never Satisfied, Jaz, and more adorning the low-rise warehouses.

Cortlandt Alley in Tribeca, Between Canal and Franklin Streets

This rather long and industrial ally off the beaten path is irresistible to street artists. Its gritty, industrial, seemingly forgotten space juxtaposed against the city’s most expensive apartments perhaps provides a surface too delicious for an artist not to mark up.

Pearl Street Triangle in DUMBO, Pearl and Water Streets

There isn't much turnover in the street art populating this pedestrian triangle in picturesque DUMBO — though it did play host to one of the first manifestations by the shadowy street art collective TrustoCorp— but it is home to what may be one of New York's most photographed murals, a massive, elephant-filled collaboration between Craig Anthony Miller, Demon 202, and other members of 303 Collective. Observant visitors may also come across a sneakily installed steel piece by Revs and a very large mural painted on the triangular plot of pavement by David Ellis.

South 5th Street in Williamsburg, at Kent Street

In addition to the wheatpastes and tags peppering the walls of the abandoned Domino Sugar plant across the street (which is slated to be turned into condos), street art duo How and Nosm collaborated with R. Robots on this sprawling, apocalyptic, euphoric, and post-human mural that wraps around the building on the corner of South 5th Street and Kent Avenue in the shadows of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Comme des Garçons in Chelsea, West 22nd Street Between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues

While people usually pass through the funhouse-like door of Comme Des Garçons for the avant-garde couture inside, they get a treat when they stop to study the art on the building's exterior. The clothing brand exhibits pieces that are very structured and minimal, but the art adorning its New York flagship is refreshingly chaotic and bright. Our favorite feature at the moment is a piece by French street artist Invader of a Pac-Man ghost made from Rubik's Cubes.

Mulberry Street in Little Italy, Between Canal and Grand Streets

In November 2012, designated doors and walls in Little Italy were picked out by Vandalog’s RJ Rushmore, for an outdoor street art exhibition to promote the NYC Comedy Festival. The result is a lasting humours art tour including works by Hanksy, Gilf!, Ron English, and Veng— so enjoy a little street art with your spaghetti! Some graffiti with your gnocchi! Some creativity with your cannoli! You get the point.

North 1st Street in Williamsburg, at Kent Avenue

Though a number of the buildings near this intersection that have attracted street artists over the years — including the former Live With Animals gallery building, which is currently mid-demolition — have disappeared as the neighborhood has become over-run with condos, this particular corner continues to host some terrific murals and wheatpastes, including a current collaboration between Veng, Gilf!, and Chris RWK.

To see images of ARTINFO's top 20 spots for street art in New York City, click the slideshow.

German-born Swiss artist Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998) was not only a sculptor and painter, but a radical poet who sought objects from everyday life and collaged them into massive mixed-medium installations. For 20 years in later life, he frequently collaborated on works with his son, artist Björn. Inaugurating Hauser & Wirth’s massive new venue and celebrating its 20th anniversary are the results of that collaboartion, including the legendary self-portrait chocolate tower as well as a table of more than 100 objects that grew with every installation around the world. ARTINFO spoke with Björn about his work to carry on a creative legacy.

Lucy Alibar, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” will adapt Frances Hodgson Burnett's “The Secret Garden” in a fresh version to be produced by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Johnson. According to Deadline, Universal beat out four studios to acquire a pitch for the project.

It is thought that del Toro won’t direct the movie because of his many commitments, but that he “will guide Alibar creatively as producer.” Deadline's Mike Fleming makes the useful point that the writer of “Beasts” and the director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” will make a good team because “both of them had success with projects surrounding young people who build fantasy worlds as a way of dealing with loneliness, grief, loss, and abandonment.”

Burnett’s celebrated children’s novel, which began serialization in 1910 and was published in full in 1911, fits the bill exactly. It is about a sickly girl, Mary Lennox, the daughter of colonials in India, whose mother’s neglect has psychologically damaged her: "...by the time she was sick six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived,” Burnett wrote.

Following the cholera deaths of her parents, 10-year-old Mary goes to live with an uncle on the rural estate of Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire, England. There she discovers the secret walled garden and, under its magical influence and that of the pantheistic “common moor boy” Dickon, she recovers spiritually and emotionally. Her cousin, Colin, is a feeble hysteric, the polar opposite of Dickon, whose masculine energy Mary finds alluring: "The Secret Garden" is nothing if not a story of emergent desire. The change in Mary is so radical, however, that she enables Colin to overcome his psychosomatic sickness by refusing to tolerate his self-indulgent morbidity and negativity.

Burnett’s garden, self-evidently a psychic space, was influenced by Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science theories with their emphasis on spiritual healing, the power of positive thinking, and the regenerative properties of living things. (Like Eddy, Colin was afflicted with a spinal problem.)

It’s been contended, though, that Burnett (1849-1924) may have drawn on Sigmund Freud and neurologist Joseph Breuer’s 1895 book “Studies on Hysteria,” which roots hysteria in repressed sexual fantasies – and was a seminal work of psychoanalytic advocacy. Colin’s imaginary disease is theoretically attributable to the thwarted Oedipal desire for his mother, who died bearing him. The opening of the garden, which was closed at that time, symbolizes for Mary and Colin, who is also 10, the therapeutic release from hidden traumas – and, of course, the dawn of their sexuality.

Alibar and del Toro’s film will apparently be set not in Edwardian England but in the Deep South around 1900 – and who knows how (and with what phantoms and anthropomorphized creatures) they will deal with the return of the repressed?

It will be the twelfth known screen treatment of Burnett’s novel or its characters, there having been three straightforward movie adaptations (1919, 1949, 1993), two movie sequels (2000, 2001), three TV series (1952, 1960, 1975), and three single-episode TV versions (1959, 1987, 1994, the last of which is animated).

Burnett’s other works include two oft-filmed novels, “Little Lord Fauntleroy” (1885-86) and “A Little Princess” (1905). Born in the north of England in 1849, she suffered the death of her father three years later. Her impoverished family emigrated to the United States in 1865, settling in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her literary success made her wealthy. Twice married and divorced, she is buried in Roslyn Cemetery, in Greenvale, Long Island.

Should del Toro decide to go the 3-D route, there exists an arcadian example. The bronze figures of Mary and Dickon that comprise the Mary Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain in Central Park’s Conservatory Garden were sculpted by Bessie Potter Vonnoh and dedicated in 1936. Mary holds a water bowl that has drawn the attention of bronze swallows. Dickon, reclining behind her on the pink granite pedestal, plays a flute – a pipe of Pan, no less.

Much attention has been paid recently to the ethics of dealing — specifically, to art dealers’ divided responsibilities to buyers and sellers. I am referring to the recent high-profile court cases in which Larry Gagosian has found himself involved, one of which alleges he “took advantage of his position of trust” to induce billionaire Ronald Perelman to agree to an unfair deal.

Gagosian is understandably mounting a spirited defense of his staff, galleries, and successful business practices. I am not going to speculate on the veracity of these claims or on the possible outcome of the cases, but I’d argue that the lawsuits offer a rare, possibly even welcome chance to shine a light on some important issues. The depositions reveal some long-term conflicts of interest in art dealing, how easily people who are unaware of them can lose out, and how the problem is made worse by the lack of transparency in the art trade. These issues should be of concern to everyone.

Auction houses represent the consignors or the sellers, and not the bidders. This much is clear. Day to day, they actively seek to drum up interest from multiple buyers, they set reserves so that sellers aren’t forced to part with work at unreasonable prices, and in the most recent and contentious development, they even contract for guaranteed bids to secure the object and ensure the seller will not get burned when a work goes unsold.

The situation gets messier for secondary-market dealers, who remain pretty much free of regulation — industry bodies like the Art Dealers Association of America seek to impose basic standards through its accreditation process, but the standards remain vague and largely lack enforcement mechanisms. So what does this mean? Well, first, whereas it is often assumed that the job of secondary-market dealers is, like the auction houses, to maximize profits for sellers, some dealers who take works on consignment may look to reward themselves and frequent buyers to the disadvantage of consignors who may not be familiar with the value of the work in question. So be it. Such dealers make their money at the margins.

Different issues arise when a dealer purchases art outright for what he or she knows to be less than fair market value. The traditional secondary art market trade was always one in which dealers owned all their stock and therefore looked where they could to take advantage of both the sellers and the buyers. They would switch out frames or invest money in conservation to revive the value, with the discounted purchase price working as a hedge against the risk of having to hold on to a work until they found the right buyer and right price. To some, this is the art of the deal. After all, buying low and selling high is how most merchants make money.

In the current legal cases, the courts will ultimately have their say. We will all just have to wait and see how they rule. In the meantime, let’s take the opportunity to elevate the talk beyond cocktail-party gossip and spiteful e-mails to a discussion of what is and isn’t ethical. The questions involved are difficult, and there will be genuine disagreement. Nonetheless, I think these cases and the art market journalists who cover them can be lauded for bringing to light the details so that the business’s conflicting interests can be examined and discussed. One thing we should all be able to agree on is the need for greater transparency.

This article was published in the March issue of Art+Auction.

NEW YORK — Six teams in the 20th Annual Canstruction Competition took home awards last week for their creative sculptures made using only unopened cans. The event, held at the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan, featured innovative contributions from 24 participating teams, whose sculptures will remain on display through February 11th. Following the exhibition, the canned goods will go to City Harvest to feed hungry New Yorkers. Watch our video of the making of the sculptures:

For the first time, Bloomingdale’s is celebrating the Chinese New Year in its U.S. department stores, ringing in the Year of the Snake in style. Kyoko Gasha reports from New York.

Watch the video below: