The exhibition “Public Works – Architecture by Civil Servants” created by Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture for last year’s Biennale of Architecture in Venice has now been invited by Berlin gallerist Johann Koenig to his still-to-be-renovated St. Agnes Church in Berlin. Presenting photographs, drawings and background information for public buildings by unknown architects, the exhibition sheds light on innovative city planning in the ’60s and ’70s and aims to cherish a niche in European architecture that has been overlooked previously.

Europe in the 1960s and 1970s was a good place for publicly funded — and designed — architecture. Administrations had the financial resources to back large projects and employ young and eager teams of architects and city planners to develop them; when after World War II national economies were recovering, there was plenty of need for new buildings. A rich array of often large-scale projects was realized, from schools and municipal centers to entire housing blocks and even churches. In most of cases, the architects remained unknown to the wider public. Unlike their colleagues on the free market, who gained fame as prolific visionaries, they worked in the anonymity of public service as employees to ministries, administrations or town halls.

With its huge open space concealed behind massive concrete walls, St. Agnes Church serves as a perfect location for this exhibition, not least because the building itself was the work of a public servant. The church, was built from 1964-67 by Berlin architect Werner Düttmann, the former head of the Berlin Senate Department for Construction and Housing, who later received more renown than other contemporaries when he designed the Akademie der Künste and the Brücke-Museum, two prestigious institutions in the German capital.

While St. Agnes enjoys protection as cultural heritage and will be redesigned as Koenig’s new gallery and exhibition space shortly under the helm of Berlin architect Arno Brandlhuber, many equally interesting buildings of this period have been less lucky. Amazing structures like the Brutalist Pimlico School that British architect John Bancroft designed for the Greater London Council (GLC) in the 1960s have since been demolished or shut down despite their architectural merits.

Laura Baird and Reinier de Graaf, the two curators of the exhibition, state that public buildings are less protected than structures helmed by prestigious architects, for the lack of an impressive name attached to them. “It’s also often for financial reasons,” de Graaf says, adding, “these buildings tend to be very spacious, so it can be lucrative to tear them down and build new houses that use space more efficiently and thus make more profit.” (It would be interesting to hear what Bancroft would have to contribute to the debate about the latest U.K. government’s plans for replacement schools that circle around exactly that issue.)

One of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition is the background information it provides about the structures and organization of city planning departments in different European countries. In Britain, the GLC managed to accumulate a wealth of talent and work force, employing up to 3,000 people, who operated considerably free in small independent units. Collectively they created stunning projects like the London South Bank. Ron Herron, Warren Chalk and Dennis Crompton, who later became known for their work with the British Archigramm collective, worked for the GLC and are said to have been involved in projects like the Hayward Gallery and the Queen Elizabeth Hall before they moved on.

In the Netherlands, the Rijksgebouwendienst was so inspired by the GLC’s innovative architecture that Jo Vegter designed the Dutch Ministry of Finance with a glass reduced Brutalist façade reminiscent of British projects and added especially many – and large – office rooms for employees; apparently, this has made the building very popular among its users up to present day.

In communism-friendly postwar France, finally, the right political background could take young architects a long way. One of them, architect Claude Le Goas, was hired by the communist municipality of Montreuil to create the “Montreuil Zone Industrielle Nord,” which became the first “vertical” industrial zone in France, with an orchard, a fountain and a cafeteria on the roof where factory workers could dine together and enjoy picnics with their families during lunch breaks.

“It’s a great legacy these architects gave to their cities,” de Graaf says. “Our office draws a lot of inspiration from this period. We really hope the exhibition can help give some of these unknown architects the recognition they deserve.”

“Public Works – Architecture by Civil Servants,” St. Agnes, Berlin-Kreuzberg (Alexandrinenstr 118-121), through 14 April 2013.

The São Paulo International Art Fair brings together galleries from Brazil and various countries from throughout the world and presents a unique opportunity to get in touch with artworks, artists, curators, and other professionals from the art world. The event includes cultural events, such as the educational program and editorial cluster with art magazines, book publishers, book launches, and an exhibition dedicated to artist books.

The São Paulo International Art Fair brings together galleries from Brazil and various countries from throughout the world and presents a unique opportunity to get in touch with artworks, artists, curators, and other professionals from the art world. The event includes cultural events, such as the educational program and editorial cluster with art magazines, book publishers, book launches, and an exhibition dedicated to artist books.

The São Paulo International Art Fair brings together galleries from Brazil and various countries from throughout the world and presents a unique opportunity to get in touch with artworks, artists, curators, and other professionals from the art world. The event includes cultural events, such as the educational program and editorial cluster with art magazines, book publishers, book launches, and an exhibition dedicated to artist books.

The São Paulo International Art Fair brings together galleries from Brazil and various countries from throughout the world and presents a unique opportunity to get in touch with artworks, artists, curators, and other professionals from the art world. The event includes cultural events, such as the educational program and editorial cluster with art magazines, book publishers, book launches, and an exhibition dedicated to artist books.

In yet another sign that NBC has no idea what it’s doing, The New York Times reports that the network plans to completely change up “The Tonight Show,” one of its few shows that actually wins its time slot. Though they won’t confirm anything, unnamed sources tell Times writer Bill Carter– author of the books “The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night” and “The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy” – that: 1.) the network will not renew current host Jay Leno’s contract when it is up in the fall of 2014; 2.) he will be replaced by Jimmy Fallon, who currently hosts “Late Night,” the show that immediately proceeds Leno’s; and 3.) after more than four decades based out of Hollywood, there are thoughts that the show will move to New York, where Fallon is currently based. NBC has yet to complete a new contract with Fallon, but it seems unlikely that he wouldn’t be on board with what would be a huge promotion for him. As an unnamed senior executive told Carter, “There is no way on earth that this is not going to happen.”

The shift will come as a surprise to few people who actually pay attention to network television, and according to the Hollywood Reporter it’s been in the works for awhile, with plans to make an official announcement in May. Leno has recently taken more shots than usual at NBC brass during his show, and it is clear to many analysts that the network was concerned about ABC’s recent move of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from midnight to 11:35, putting it in direct competition with “The Tonight Show” and “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Since the shift, Kimmel’s show has consistently ranked third, but NBC had fears of losing a younger demographic to the 45-year-old host. Fallon, who over three years as the host of “Late Night” has proven himself a hit with that very demographic, is the natural successor TO LENO. As Lorne Michaels, whose show, “Saturday Night Live,” gave Fallon his start, told GQ for a recent profile of the host: “I’m not allowed to say it — yet. But I think there’s an inevitability to it. He’s the closest to Carson that I’ve seen of this generation.” It seems the network agrees, and the only question now is: When Fallon will take over? It could be the fall of 2014, once Leno’s contract is up, or, as some at the network are reportedly pushing for, early next year, when the Winter Olympics might be able to provide an immediate ratings boost for the rebooted “Tonight Show.”

This is, of course, not the first time NBC has moved to push out Leno. In 2010, former “Late Night” host Conan O’Brien took over “The Tonight Show,” while Leno, who was not ready to retire, got a primetime talk show – both shows struggled (although Vulture points out that O’Brien’s ratings were higher than what Leno is getting now). Seven months after that transition, O’Brien was out, Leno was back in the host’s chair, and the network received months of horrible publicity.

Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen here? As Grantland’s Andy Greenwald writes, Fallon is currently one of the network’s few highlights and, “Uprooting the entire show to antiseptic Los Angeles, or digging out the cobwebbed binder about what sort of humor ‘plays’ at 11:30 that sank Conan’s hopes and dreams like a stone, would be a colossal mistake.”

Fallon works because he is able to do something different than what Leno does, a luxury that will not be afforded to him an hour earlier. Vulture’s Joseph Adalian makes clear that it’s comfort that keeps viewers tuning into “The Tonight Show.” They know exactly what they are going to get, and with a new host, they won’t. “Instead of automatically bringing in a ton of new, younger viewers with Fallon, what NBC might actually end up doing is inviting the very, very loyal core of Leno viewers to try something new – like maybe that shiny young Kimmel fellow. Or that cranky Dave guy they’ve never been fond of.”

We still don’t know exactly what NBC has planned, but it doesn’t sound like the network’s rough times are anywhere near over.

The European Fine Art Fair is in full swing in Maastricht. Every time ARTINFO covers a major art fair, we try to show you as many of the highlights as we can. Here are 60 works in 60 seconds from TEFAF. 

– Google Art Project Reproduces Street Art: The search giant's online image repository has added almost 2,000 works of art and 30 new partners to its ranks. The most novel addition? More than 100 works of Brazilian street art. A group of journalists, artists, and graffiti experts selected the works, all of which are located on doors, walls, and building exteriors in São Paulo. The Art Project has also moved beyond paintings, publishing Hungary's Nemzeti Dal or "National Song." The poem, said to have inspired the Hungarian  Revolution in 1848, has long been sealed from the public to prevent damage. [Google Blog]

– Tilda Swinton Celebrates Bowie: At the opening party for the exhibition "David Bowie Is" at London's V&A, actress Tilda Swinton gave a speech in the absence of Bowie himself. "They wanted a Bowie fan to speak tonight," she said. "They could have thrown a napkin and hit a hundred." Swinton, who recently appeared in the video for the singer's latest single "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)," concluded by calling Bowie "every alien's favorite cousin. Certainly mine." [Guardian]

– South American Governments Protest Sotheby's: The Mexican government has asked Sotheby's to halt the planned sale of 51 pre-Colombian Mexican artifacts, arguing they are protected national historic pieces. In a diplomatic note to the French government, Mexico sought assistance in having the works withdrawn from the sale, which is drawn from the collection of Swiss national Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller and slated to take place today and tomorrow in Paris. The governments of Peru and Guatemala have already attempted to claim more than 50 additional works included in the sale. [RFI, AP]

– Munich's Fourth Plinth Becomes Apartment: The artist Alexander Laner's proposal for Munich's Fourth Plinth, a replica of the same-named public art space in Trafalgar Square that was created for the German city by Elmgreen & Dragset, has been selected. He will transform the hollow cinder-block structure into a tiny apartment — with no electricity or running water, but with a rooftop terrace and garden — that he will advertise for rent in local listings for three months beginning June 6. "It did not make sense to me put something on top of the plinth — that would be the 19th-century way of doing it. It was important for me to treat the plinth differently, to penetrate it, be a little bit rude," Laner said. "I decided to treat the space like a real estate developer." [Independent]

– Wisconsin Museum Uninvites Artists: The Museum of Wisconsin Art, which is slated to open a new building along the Milwaukee River next month, recently disinvited 16 of the 40 artists it asked to participate in the space's inaugural exhibition. "We thought we could get more work in the galleries," said Graeme Reid, the museum's assistant director. But not everyone is sympathetic. The decision "lacks creativity and leadership," wrote excluded artist Evelyn Patricia Terry in an email to the museum's director. "The time spent in the selection process and retrieving my work from another gallery is lost." [Journal Sentinel]

– Paris's Noirmont Gallery Shutters Suddenly: Gallerist Jérôme de Noirmont and his wife and business partner Emmanuelle announced in a letter the immediate closure of their space on Paris's Avenue Matignon after 19 years, citing the pressure to expand their business while dealing with "the poor political, economic, and social climate in France today." "We had to keep this a secret until the last minute," Emmanuelle de Noirmont said. "All those who have followed us since our beginnings needed to learn it at the same time." [Le Figaro]

– Bacon Leftovers Find Buyers: Four works by the late British painter and newspaper caricaturist Lewis Todd that featured fragments of scrapped pieces from Francis Bacon's legendary "Pope" series fetched a total of nearly $70,000 in an auction at Ewbank's. Two of the Bacon scrap paintings did not find buyers — including the one that the Francis Bacon Authentication Committee did not sign off on — and the group fell far short of its high estimate of $220,000. [Bloomberg]

– Naples Library Boss Confesses to Book Theft: The former director of the Girolamini library in Naples, Marino Massimo de Caro — who has been accused of stealing and selling off more than 1,000 volumes from its collection with the help of some 14 accomplices — has confessed, and then some. De Caro said his voracious book thievery extended to Florence's Biblioteca dell’Osservatorio Ximeniano and Biblioteca Scolopica San Giovannino, as well as national libraries in Naples, Florence, and Rome. [TAN]

– Vogels Get Second Documentary: A new documentary on Herb and Dorothy Vogel, the couple that managed to accrue a world-class collection of minimalist art on a government employee's budget, premiered last week at the Whitney Museum. "Herb and Dorothy 50x50," directed by Megumi Sasaki, picks up where the first Vogel documentary, "Herb and Dorothy," left off: The couple had just donated their entire collection to museums in each of the 50 states and begin to travel the country to see the works in their new homes. [New Yorker]

– Artist Denies Sexually Abusing Child Models: The British painter and photographer Graham Ovenden, known for his intimate and unguarded images of children, often partially or entirely nude, appeared in court to deny allegations brought by four of his former child models — now all adults — that he sexually abused them. The 70-year-old artist, whose work has been exhibited all over the world and at Tate Britain, called the court's attitude toward child nudity "neurotic" and "abhorrent," and claimed he was the target of a "witch hunt" because of his work. "One of the great qualities of art is to go back to the point of innocence," added Ovenden, whose trial continues. [Guardian]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Trailer for Megumi Sasaki's "Herb & Dorothy: 50x50"

ALSO ON ARTINFO:

David Bowie Exhibition Curator on the Icon's Hidden Archives and 26-Inch Waist

Koolhaas OMA Show on Architecture by Civil Servants Reopens in Berlin Church

Are Forgers the "Foremost Artists of Our Age"? Author Jonathon Keats Argues Yes

A Q&A With Ian Whittlesea on Esoteric Practices and His Marlborough London Show

"Kind of Disgusting, But Kind of Sexy": Aida Ruilova on Reworking '70s Erotica

EYE ON ART [VIDEO]: Mixing It Up In Chelsea

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

— Sara Roffino spoke to curators, critics, and the artist Charles Krafft about the ways in which the recent revelation that he is a White Nationalist and Holocaust skeptic will impact the reception and interpretation of his work.

— Curator Massimiliano Gioni discussed “The Encyclopaedic Palace,” his ambitious, 154-artist exhibition at this year's Venice Biennale.

— Kristen Boatright toured the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) at a breakneck pace, zooming in on 60 artworks in this 60-second video.

— Shane Ferro analyzed art economist Clare McAndrew's annual report on the art world's financial health, which was released at TEFAF.

— Artist Aida Ruilova discussed her appropriation of vintage posters for pornographic films in her solo show opening this week at Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles.

— Marco Livingstone surveyed the Jewish Museum Berlin's new retrospective devoted to R.B. Kitaj, which aims to canonize the late painter.

— Eric Bryant visited the sophomore outing of Design Days Dubai, noting a pervasive mood of optimism at the self-described largest contemporary design fair in the world.

— Jonathon Keats's new book “Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Day” made the case that forgers are this era's greatest artists.

— Geoffrey Marsh, who co-curated the Victoria & Albert Museum's new David Bowie exhibition, discussed raiding the aesthetically unpredictable performer's archives.

Ragnar Kjartansson’s “The Visitors,” just about to end an extended run at Luhring Augustine, is a great work. It is so great, as a matter of fact, that I almost immediately want to develop a critique of it, because it makes such a convincing case for its brand of big-hearted, self-depreciating Romanticism that it may well become some kind of mainstream really soon.

I’m not going to do that, because that would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Still, it’s worth looking under the hood to see how this particular aesthetic machine works. Kjartansson has risen far from being an obscure figure with an unpronounable name to go-to art star for dreamy, crowd-pleasing fare. His star-making turn came when he did the Icelandic Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale, where he occupied a 14th-century palace, painting endless portraits of his friend wearing a Speedo, a kind of goofball burlesque of the cult of artist and muse. This year, he's moved onto the main stage at the Biennale: His work will be one of the attractions of Massimiliano Gioni’s “Encyclopaedic Museum” show.

“The Visitors,” however, really is something special, a rapturously absorbing nine-channel video installation, a masterful exercise in atmosphere, video portraiture, and all-around creative bravado. For the work, Kjartansson wrangled a load of notable Icelandic musicians up to Rokeby Farm in upstate New York (“a magical place,” one of its tenants once said, “a Third World country in the First World, where everything is done in the funniest, most old-fashioned way”), setting up in a two-century-old mansion. Shown on screens encircling the gallery, the hour-long film in effect documents an extended jam session, each of the cameras trained on musicians set up in separate rooms of the mansion, coordinating with each other through headphones, together but separate.

These are skilled performers, and a lot of the pleasure of the video comes from just watching them absorbed completely in what they do, as well as from the lush music itself, which is languorous for long ambient passages of interlocking piano, guitar, and cello, before erupting into anthemic choruses. In materials accompanying the show, it is called a “feminine nihilistic gospel song,” and it lives up to that far-out description. Its fragmentary lyrics are based on a poem by Kjartansson’s ex-wife; one line (“once again / I fall into / my feminine ways”) is repeated over and over again, quivering with emotion. 

The spectacle begins, in Brechtian fashion, by foregrounding the theatrical nature of what is to come. One by one, the screens in the galleries come alive, as the cameras trained on the various spaces of the house are switched on. You watch the various musicians plug in and warm up, in their isolation. You observe the atmosphere of bohemian languor being built before your eyes. On a central screen, a man sets up on the edge of a bed with a guitar, while a woman, naked, settles onto the mattress behind him. She will recline motionless for the entire performance, before getting up and dressing as if in a trance. Kjartansson himself, playing bandleader, is pictured in a bathtub, completely nude and strumming an acoustic guitar, cringing with emotion as the performance builds, adopting his customary posture of cartoonishly distended artistic exhuberance.

Throughout, the film is rapturously aborbing even as it invites you to wander from screen to screen, scrutinizing the performers' tics as they move into and out of musical fusion. The most masterful moment arrives at the end, as the music crests, and then one by one the various players abandon their posts, crossing into the other spaces, gathering their fellow players together. For the first time, you get a sense of how the world glimpsed through the various screens is interconnected. The whole gang at last pours out of the side of the mansion — a screen, centrally placed in the galleries, has been holding on the image of the exterior, and now the camera for the first time pans, moving to follow the crew as they march away into the misty green depths of the landscape, still chanting the same refrain.

Meanwhile, the remaining screens of “The Visitors” hold on the abandoned chambers. At last, a man passes back through the spaces of the house, whistling the tune. One by one he extinguishes the cameras. The gallery goes dark.

Romantic art — with its dramatic landscapes, romatic ruins, and tortured, lyrical psychology, so beloved by the 19th-century dandy — is a constant spirit hovering over Kjartansson's work. His signature move is to adopt what would probably be an embarrassingly naïve artistic posture and cut it with strategic absurdity, through repetition, exaggeration, or humor (“The Visitors,” mind you, takes its name from an ABBA album). The point I'd make is that this wry, self-conscious form of Romanticism pretty much just is contemporary Romanticism, full stop. In much the same way that wearing an ironically racy Halloween costume — “Sexy Hamburger,” anyone? — is a way of trying to pull off wearing a racy Halloween costume by seeming hip about it, self-mocking Romanticism is the way that you can get away with expressing embarassingly effusive sentiments in a hyper-driven, jaded present.

A work like the “The Visitors” has all the strengths of the classical Romantic sensibility, and some of its potential weak points too. It offers a glimpse into a more ecstatic world; you really want to be these people, be invited to this party. It dwells in a kind of self-enclosed universe, spellbound by images of otherwordly artists and majestic decay. Like classic Romanticism, which arose as a kind of personalistic reaction to European industrialization, such a neo-Romantic temperament draws its power as an implicit reproach of the kind of dispirited, non-ecstatic lives we normally live. Unalloyed, of course, this kind of thing might also become a kind of cloying, self-involved theater — indeed, you might even say that Kjartansson subtly thematizes the sense of wallowing in fantasy, since being stuck in art is a theme, both in this film with its endless, trance-like choruses, and in his work more generally. It's this minor-key background note that lets “The Visitors” resonate as both out of time and of its time at once.

Ragnar Kjartansson, “The Visitors,” is on view at Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street, New York, through March 23.

Last week, just days before they were to embark on a highly anticipated East Coast tour, the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra announced they would be going on strike. From the steps of Davies Symphony Hall, the musicians held signs that read “World Class Orchestra Low Class Management” and “Let the Music Plan On!”

The musicians had been performing without a contract since February 15, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, and decided to go on strike only after discussions with management fell apart and they rejected a proposed “cooling off” period by management that would have seen them continue to perform. “Management is seeking a contract that will not even allow us to keep up with the cost of living, while cutting our retirement,” said Dave Gaudry, violist and chair of the Musicians’ Negotiating Committee, in a statement. “At the same time, Management has rewarded itself significant bonuses, expanded programming and announced it will pursue a more than $500 million renovation of Davies Hall. We had sincerely hoped that there would not be a disruption, but the future of our symphony is at stake.”

According to the musicians, negotiations halted over a proposed pay freeze and cuts to benefits by management that doesn’t align with the orchestra’s endowment, which is larger than other major orchestras such as Los Angeles and Chicago. In addition, the executive director’s salary reportedly “increased by over 34% in the last two years,” according to a statement on the musicians’ website. The musicians are also asking the management to open their financial records, a request that has not been granted. In press releases, the management has claimed that higher compensation is the main goal of the musicians.

The musicians “have rejected proposals from the Orchestra administration for a new three-year contract that would have kept the musicians among the three highest paid orchestras in the country,” symphony management said in a statement. “The administration notified the musicians that a revised proposal would be presented... but the musicians decided to strike rather than continue negotiations overseen by a federal mediator.”

“It has been framed by the Symphony administration that this is the argument: whether or not the musicians are paid enough,” said David Schoenbrun, president of the Musicians Union Local Six, in a phone conversation with ARTINFO. “It’s been an effective PR tool for them but it reduces the issues at hand.”

The orchestra’s public relation’s and communications offices did not respond to ARTINFO’s requests for comment from members of the management staff.

From outside the orchestra, the response to the strike has been puzzling. The New York Times dedicated more space to criticizing the musicians for “darkening the halls” of the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall than pertinent details about the musicians rights, while the New Yorker’s Russell Plattwrote a blog post expressing how disappointed he was that he won’t be able to hear the musicians play, and mentioned the strike in exactly one sentence.

It’s not just the media who are ignoring the problems the musicians face. Many of the comments to the updates the musicians have been posting to their website have been critical of the strike. In a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week, one reader wrote, “Boo the striking musicians.”

The musicians know it’s not easy explaining to most people why artists who get paid over $100,000 a year should be complaining.

“It’s reductionist to say they’re making enough and should be happy,” Schoenbrun said. “They need to be compensated at the highest comfortable levels of their peer orchestras, and that’s simply not going on, and it’s not not going on, which is the real rub, because the Symphony is in financial trouble, which is what they would like everyone to believe.”

For now, both sides are at a standstill, with no plans at the moment to get back to the negotiating table. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra have publicly offered support for their peers via statements to the press. While the cancellation of the tour is a shock to fans looking forward to the San Francisco Symphony’s rare appearance on the East Coast, Schoenbrun sees the action as not just important, but essential. “Sometimes these things need to happen in order to send a strong enough message.”