– Nick Cave Reveals He Is Also Nick Cave: As part of yesterday's closing ceremony for "HEARD•NY," Nick Cave's Creative Time- and MTA Arts for Transit-commissioned Soundsuit performance in Grand Central Terminal, the Chicago-based visual artist announced that he is also Nick Cave, the Australian musician best known for his work with his band the Bad Seeds, ending years of confusion. The revelation was particularly shocking following the circulation of a photo last week in which the two supposedly different people were seen alongside one another. "It was a fun joke while it lasted," Cave said in his Midwest-by-way-of-Warracknabeal, Australia accent. "But crikey, it was becoming exhausting, especially with 'Right Said Ned' — my punk rock opera about Aussie outlaw Ned Kelly in which all the bandits ride Soundsuit horses — premiering at the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall." [The Australian] 

– Art Basel Announces New Fair Section Dedicated to Art Fairs: Making a virtue of the increasingly competitive art fair landscape, this June’s Art Basel fair in Switzerland is launching a bold new initiative: It will host versions of the world’s best other art fairs in one place. "Art Basel: Really, Really Unlimited," as the new special section is called, promises to draw an eclectic mix of close to 100 global art fairs to Basel, including TEFAF (Maastricht), the Armory Show (New York), the Joburg Art Fair (Johannesburg), Swab (Barcelona), and even Art Basel Miami Beach, which, to avoid confusion, will be renamed Art Basel Miami Beach Basel for the occasion. [TAN]

– DS+R Unveils Plans Radical New Non-Linear Park: Today, High Line co-designers Diller, Scofidio + Renfro unveiled plans for a new park in Mamaroneck, New York. "We wanted to do something different to put Mamaroneck on the map," firm principal Charles Renfro told the blog ArchitectureGeek. Renfro explained how the firm came up with the radical idea to make the park non-linear and strip it of any urban elements. "What if parks weren't linear?" he asked. "What if they just had trees, grass, winding pathways, maybe a few benches — and they didn't remind us of the city at all? We asked ourselves these questions and just ran with it." The park is slated for completion in 2016. [ArchitectureGeek]

– Brooklyn Museum Turns to Google for New Show: Following the successes of its previous forays into crowd-sourced, web-based curation with exhibitions like "Click!" and "Go," the Brooklyn Museum has announced that in September it will open "Google!," an exhibition curated by typing the word "art" into Google Image Search. "We are delighted to be working with such a capable curator on this show," Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman said. "In recent years Google Image Search has proven to be an invaluable resource for artists the world over, especially here in Brooklyn, and we're looking forward to seeing what exciting work it picks for the exhibition." Slated to open on September 20, "Google!" will feature reproductions of the first 400 search results. [Press Release]

– "Unreasonable Eli" Changes Everyone Else's Name: In a move that has implications for museums across the country, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad officially changed his name yesterday to Eli Brode. The switch is an effort to ensure his name’s correct pronunciation: "I've spent too many years reminding people 'it rhymes with road,'" the collector said in a statement. Museums that bear Broad’s name, including the institution formerly known as the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State, will be asked to overhaul their literature and signage within the week. [Bloomberg]

– Creative Time Initiates New "Creative Time Heals" Program: On the heels of its successful "Creative Time Reports" project, which dispatches artists around the globe to report the news, the New York-based public art nonprofit launched another program to promote social good. "Creative Time Heals" sends artists to far-flung communities to offer its citizens deep-tissue Swedish massages. "Artists really know how to connect with people, and they aren’t afraid to dig into knotty problems," explained curator Nato Thompson. "Swedish massage seemed like a logical extension of what so many artists are already doing." [NYT]

– UES Woman Dubbed "William Wegman of Cats": Curator Massimiliano Gioni has added a last-minute name to his list of participating artists at the 2013 Venice Biennale: 78-year-old Ethel Gamerman, an amateur photographer who has been taking photographs of her cats dressed in various costumes since 1972 from a makeshift studio in her Upper East Side apartment. Her longest-running series, "Tabbies in Raincoats," will be featured prominently at the international art event. "She’s part William Wegman, part Francesca Woodman— it’s a real feminist reclaiming of Wegman’s practice," explained Gioni. [TIME]

– Sotheby's Announces Full-Service Art Custodianship: The auction house has launched a new full-service art custodianship program that will "free collectors from the burdens associated with owning blue-chip works of art," according to a statement from the company. For a fee of $10,000 per year, specialists will take possession of new acquisitions upon a collector's successful bid, store them safely at one of Sotheby's own freeports, and alert owners when it might be a good time to sell. "With the help of our expert custodians, collectors will never actually have to look at their art again," explained Sotheby's Tobias Meyer. [WSJ]  

– Guggenheim to Host "The Arts of Scientology": The New York museum announced yesterday that it is teaming with the Church of Scientology to develop an ambitious three-part series of exhibitions about the art, music, and "auditing technology" of the famed self-help religion. Funded by a landmark $40-million donation from the Church, the so-called Church of Scientology Guggenheim CLEAR Initiative will kick off in fall with a show focusing on the watercolors of Church founder L. Ron Hubbard, featuring more than 100 works. "Like the Guggenheim, the Church of Scientology has a truly global ambition, and has attempted to expand its influence to countries around the world," museum head Richard Armstrong said at a press conference. "Though also like the Guggenheim, Scientology has been ejected from several of those countries." Asked whether the partnership might be seen to endorse the Church’s controversial practices, Armstrong replied, "We believe that cultural engagement is a force for understanding… The very fact that they are willing to give us so much money indicates that there is more to this Church than many critics think." [NYT]

– MoMath and MoSex's Performance Art Collaboration Sparks Protests: The Museum of Sex and the Museum of Math, two veryspecialized New York institutions located within a few blocks of one another, have added their two areas of specialty together and created a performance art project that has proved exponentially controversial. Titled "Sexy Math Tutors," the initiative features a lineup of artists curated by MoSex director of exhibitions Mark Snyder who perform provocative, show-and-tell math tutorials at MoMath that have divided the institutions' patrons. "I'm glad the museums are promoting more open discussions of sex and math," said Constance Welling, whose eight-year-old son had attended a performance titled "Ecstatic Algebra." "But I'm not sure a demonstration of 'doggie style' is the most effective way to illustrate what a 90 degree angle looks like — what about ‘the wheelbarrow’?" [NYPost]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The radical art of Ethel Gamerman

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Pace Gallery Goes Ahead and Buys the Rest of 25th Street, Renaming it “Pace Way”

James Franco and Marina Abramovic Seek Annulment After Accidental Marriage in Performance Art Ceremony

Moving into Pre-Primary Market, Christie’s Launches “Art Futures” Program

$5 Garage Sale Purchase Turns Out to Be Tino Sehgal Performance Piece Worth $3M

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

Name: Marela Zacarias
Age: 34
Occupation: Artist
City/Neighborhood: Gowanus, Brooklyn
Current Show: “Supple Beat” at the Brooklyn Museum, through April 28

Your exhibition “Supple Beat” at the Brooklyn Museum features four wall sculptures inspired by the Williamsburg Murals. Those murals — the first entirely abstract public murals in the United States — were created during the Depression for the Williamsburg Houses, a public housing project for workers. What interested you about the murals, and how did they shape your own designs?

I liked the story of the Williamsburg Murals as objects. They were painted by young unknown artists against the artistic current of the time (when social realism was the norm); then they were painted over and forgotten about until their re-emergence in the ’80s, when they were restored and placed at the Brooklyn Museum in a permanent loan. I see these works as resilient objects that bounced back from adversity — a nice metaphor to think about in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which is when I wrote the proposal for the show.

I also enjoyed interacting with them visually — I looked carefully at the color palette and composition of each mural, then scrambled all the visual information into my own interpretation of the works.

In previous interviews, you’ve noted that the Williamsburg Murals are a testament to the government’s respect for workers during the Depression era — a type of respect that doesn’t necessarily endure today. What role should the government play in facilitating art in public spaces? What role should artists play in addressing labor issues?

A good start to facilitate more public art (and art in general) would be to give more financial support to organizations that are on the ground and that are already providing opportunities and projects for artists. I appreciate the variety of approaches coming from a healthy mix of organizations that are putting forward artistic initiatives. The WPA was a great financial resource that took care of a lot of artists in need of work. At the same time, the kind of art that it supported was a bit narrow.

As artists we are on a tough spot to be able to address labor issues because each of our experiences as “working artists” is different. Some artists rely on grants and part-time jobs to survive while others have a business and make a good living from it. We are all over the spectrum. There are, however, some important similarities in our needs — like having access to good healthcare, or having some kind of security for retirement. It would be great to be able to achieve something like this as a group.

You’ve created more than 30 murals across the United States and Mexico. At a time when street art is becoming increasingly mainstream and commercialized, do you see a difference between that kind of public art and murals created in partnership with the community and local government?

I think that street artists have a lot more freedom and can be more creative than artists who are painting murals in partnership with the local government (which usually happens through non-profit organizations). Street artists do not need to get their sketches approved by committees, or take into account the opinions and suggestions of a group of people before they can create (unless they are commercial ones, of course). Painting “approved” murals, however, gives you the possibility to work and engage with the entire community for long periods of time, which I’ve always really enjoyed — and which I am now doing through different kinds of projects.

Your folded, rippled wall pieces — neither painting nor traditional freestanding sculpture — look as if they are scrambling up the walls of the museum’s lobby. They strike an interesting contrast with El Anatsui’s wall sculptures, also on view at the museum. Are you influenced by other artists who blur the line between painting and sculpture?

I arrived at the convergence of painting and sculpture through my own path and investigation; but now that I know more artists who are “blurring the line,” I am starting to think about my work as part of a larger context. I was just in a panel with Valery Hegarty, for example, and we were talking about how we both create the illusion of three-dimensional paintings as a statement about the themes we explore. I think that having this kind of conversations with other artists opens up a dialogue.

What project are you working on now?

I’m working on a site-specific commission and on more than 12 smaller works at my studio.

What’s the last show that you saw?

“LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital,” at the Brooklyn Museum.

What’s the last show that surprised you? Why?

“NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” at the New Museum. It was surprising to learn that many of the artists were showing in small alternative spaces at that time. It was nice to see how so much collaboration and improvisation led to groundbreaking artistic careers.

Describe a typical day in your life as an artist.

I wake up at 8 a.m., make coffee, shower; I have breakfast with my boyfriend and then I go to the studio. Once I arrive I make coffee again and I start working. I usually sand, paint, layer all day unless I have somewhere to go — like an opening, or a party. Sometimes I go home for dinner, as I live only three blocks away from the studio. I also receive a lot of visits, which is something I really enjoy.

Do you make a living off your art?

So far, so good.

What’s the most indispensable item in your studio?

Coffee.

Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?

In the past.

Do you collect anything?

Tape balls from each of my projects.

What’s the last artwork you purchased?

An artist book made by S. R. Rose and J. J. Seitz. I bought it at their two-person show at Heliopolis Gallery in Greenpoint. 

What’s the first artwork you ever sold?

An un-commissioned portrait. I was six years old. My mom took me to her office and I decided to draw individual portraits of her co-workers and then charge them for the drawings. I made so much money, it was great.

What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw happen in a museum or gallery?

Seeing my works being installed at the Brooklyn Museum was pretty weird.

What’s your art-world pet peeve?

I don’t have one yet.

What is your karaoke song?

“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen because there is a part for everyone at the bar — the sopranos, the basses, the tenors, the hopelessly tone-deaf. And then everybody head-bangs together, like in “Wayne’s World.”

What’s your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?

Depends on the area where I’m making rounds. Lately I’ve been going to a lot of openings in LES. Some of my favorite spots in that area are Casa Mezcal — love the ambiance and they obviously have amazing beverages. Lolita is nice for a quick drink before or after openings but some of my guy friends prefer The Magician — because it has cheap beer and a jukebox.

Do you have a gallery/museum-going routine?

Not really. I go by the shows I want to see and try to plan around them.

What’s the last great book you read?

I just finished Susan Sontag’s “Illness as Metaphor.” I don’t know if I would qualify it as a “great” book but I found it very interesting.

What work of art do you wish you owned?

A dress by Sonia Delaunay (preferably more than one).

What would you do to get it?

Trade it for labor.

What international art destination do you most want to visit?

Mexico City is always fun and there is so much happening there — but I would also like to spend some time in Amsterdam and Berlin.

What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?

Heliopolis Gallery in Greenpoint. It’s very small but they have been putting together great shows. Paul Ramirez Jonas has work there right now (through April 7th) and it was quite a treat to see his work in such an intimate setting.

Who’s your favorite living artist?

Nari Ward. I really admire his work and I also like and respect him as a person. He was my thesis advisor at Hunter and we have kept in touch since. I also love Emily Mason, she is very much a mentor to me.

What are your hobbies?

I enjoy dancing and organizing really fun parties.

Convincing new reviews of Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” and Jane Campion’s and Garth Davis’s “Top of the Lake” make edifying reading. 

Heather Long, who attacked “Spring Breakers” in The Guardian last Thursday, and Michael Sicinski, who expresses disappointment with “Top of the Lake” in the current online edition of Cinema Scope, contextualize these radically different works in the light (or should I say miasma?) of the Steubenville rape case.
 
“’Spring Breakers’ isn’t just a terrible movie,” Long writes, “it’s 90 minutes of reinforcement of the party girl image, the kind of bad girl who’s ‘just asking for it’. The kind of girl whom some in the media and in court tried to portray the Ohio rape victim as – pointing out she was allegedly drunk and living it the night two football players took advantage of her.” (The case is hideously close to that of the alleged sexual assault of an intoxicated British teenager by four young British soccer players, who, jurors were told, wanted to have “a permanent record of their conquest.” They are facing a retrial on April 22.)
 
Before analyzing “Top of the Lake,” Sicinski notes his horror that the Steubenville atrocity engendered a kind of rape version of a snuff movie. “Can a group of young white men truly be so completely at home in their own sense of entitlement that they not only see an unconscious underage girl as their plaything, but whip out a cellphone camera and perform their own prosecuting evidence as if they were doing comedy improv?," he writes.
 
He goes on to say that “from its very opening episode, ‘Top of the Lake’… presents an isolated New Zealand backwater that, purely in terms of textual construction and tone, seems almost like an allegory for a war between the sexes, if not one woman’s paranoid projection of all-enveloping male control. The community of a Laketop is a universe in which men do as they please, the police look the other way (when they are not openly complicit)… and women understand that they must either make nice or suffer untold misery and humiliation.”
 
In such films as “The Piano,” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and the hugely underrated “In the Cut,” Campion has powerfully depicted the dehumanizing effects of misogyny on both women and men. Sicinski admires the “tonally awkward and inconsistent” early episodes of “Top of the Lake” for their rendering of the Laketop community as “so openly hateful to the female sex [that they] reflected a fundamental crisis of our times.” 
 
He regrets, however, how Campion sacrifices her feminist worldview – “male dominance as a toxic force, strangling the world like kudzu in a garden” – to “off-the-rails plot twists, character contrivance, and convenient episode-seven mopping up.” The series “contents itself with fashionable cynicism, and that’s not enough,” he ends. “There’s way too much on the line.”
 
Despite these criticisms, “Top of the Lake”’s presentation of a microcosm of patriarchal cruelty makes it imperative viewing in the era of the Steubenville case, the appalling details of which indicate the sinister influence of the drive to mediate digitally sexual abuse and disseminate the images. That one cellphone image described in the phone text transcripts from Steubenville is suggestive of the much-discussed “semen” shot in a recent episode of Lena Dunham’s “Girls” should set alarm bells ringing.
 
While I still contend that there’s an element of moral condemnation in Korine’s depiction of spring-break debauchery (particularly in terms of its degradation of women), any notion that it’s a righteous screed is qualified by its celebratory exploitativeness. The prankster in Korine might be horrified at the notion that the film “tells” as much as it “shows.” (Larry Clark’s “Kids,” which Korine wrote, similarly had its cake and ate it, too.) Any suggestion that the young heroines of “Spring Breakers” empower themselves is absurd.
 
It’s hard to disagree with Heather Long when she disparages the scene in “Spring Breakers” in which one of the girls “is drinking even more than the guys and making sexual poses as the young men encircle her and urge her to ‘take it like a stripper,’” and another in which “young men lick drugs off a topless woman…. She’s just a sexualized serving platter.”
 
“We’re left with a homage to the worst of spring break,” Long concludes. “It’s a film that tells young women that ‘the time of their life’ is getting drunk and exposing themselves to guys. And we wonder why we have problems with rape culture.” 
 
There’s little doubt that the four heroines are in danger of being raped or pimped out by James Franco’s Alien, and thus it's revealing that Korine removes the innocent Faith (Selena Gomez) and the sexually provocative Cottie (Rachel Korine) from harm’s away before the other two become killers. You sense he is being protective of the erstwhile Disney child star and his wife, as if enough is enough. 
 
The key problem with the movie, though, is that its satire doesn’t bite hard enough to indicate to future spring breakers that re-creating Caligula’s Rome on Florida’s beaches and in its bars and hotel rooms is not in their best interests.   

The first thing you notice about the Hyundai HCD-14 Genesis Concept is its imposing face.

That futuristic four-bar grille is hard to ignore. It’s big. It’s aggressive. It’s complex.

The glinting flat lines feature thin needle-like eyes on either side. Look closely between the lines to see the truly intricate design work — a rugged range of pyramid-shaped pits and peaks in perforated dark metal.

“It’s a bit brutal, it’s a bit out there,” said Christopher Chapman, chief designer for Hyundai Design North America. “We’re kind of shark-nosing at front a little bit.”

A striking snout no doubt, but not entirely non-traditional, according to Chapman: the shape of the polished stainless steel grate stays true to Hyundai’s usual hexagonal look, if just barely. Left and right lines bend very subtly to make it a full six sides. “This is a concept car,” Chapman said, “so we’re allowed to play around a little bit with the materials.”

By the looks of things at the 2013 New York International Auto Show, designers have been playing around a lot, especially with regard to the grille.

From the newly refined split-wing face on the Lincoln MKC to the sprawling spindle-shaped meshing that has entirely swallowed the front bumper on the Lexus IS 350 F Sport, grilles are getting bigger, shinier, and more distinctive all the time.

With good reason, too: the chrome frontage is an increasingly important marker of a car’s identity. After all, the shiny badges and hood ornaments that serve as the automaker’s signature are usually tiny, whereas a well-defined grille can be spotted from blocks away.

“The grille, or the face of the car, really is the first thing that people see from a brand standpoint,” said Phil Zak, exterior director of design for Buick, standing in front of the company’s new 2014 LaCrosse, which, like many new models, features a larger, more prominent grille than its prior incarnation. The up-sized waterfall-style design includes slightly undulating vertical bars atop a tight geometric grid, which frames the company’s circular three-shield logo. The finish, too, is greatly enhanced. “Right now, we have black chrome, which is accented with a chrome surround,” Zak said. “[It] really gives the car an upscale, premium look.”

Likewise, the shield-shaped grille on the new 2014 Cadillac CTS is both wider and emits a more refined luster than its predecessor. “We’re making a transition away from bright chrome to what we call Galvano chrome, which is a little bit softer, more premium, more of a polished aluminum look,” said Cadillac designer Eric Clough. Also featuring “more fillets and radii” and “more subtlety in the secondary textures,” Clough added that the new CTS grille has a newfound depth to it, as well.

If bigger is better, then Ralph Gilles is happy to take some of the credit for the explosion in modern grille proportions. Gilles, senior vice president for product design at Chrysler, pointed to the 2005 launch of the company’s 300C sedan, with its supersized chrome grille, as a catalyst.

“We actually argued with ourselves because grilles are typically designed around the required cooling. You don’t have to make them any bigger than necessary,” Gilles said. “But on the 300, it didn’t look right because the car had this beefiness, this chunkiness to it. We just kept making the grille bigger and bigger and bigger. Finally, it was, like, ‘Now, it feels right.’ All of a sudden, it became this very distinctive part of the car.”

Initially, the car’s larger-than-life toothiness was the source of some ridicule. “Now, it’s like there’s this big trend,” said Gilles, mentioning the new Aston Martin Rapide S, in particular, and the entire Audi lineup, more generally, as examples. “A lot of car makers are making the grille almost outsized.”

In Gilles’s opinion, that’s a good thing. “It gives the car this kind of puffed chest, this proud look,” he said. “So, I think it’s here to stay.”

To watch more videos and other coverage from the New York International Auto Show, click here.

New York’s iconic bohemian paradise, the Chelsea Hotel, came upon its status in part because its former managing partner, Stanley Bard, was friendly to artists of all stripes, and would sometimes accept artwork in lieu of rent.

But it seems that the hotel is artist-friendly no longer — unless that art can turn a profit somehow. The building’s new owner, real estate tycoon Joseph Chetrit, filed a $4.15 million lawsuit (PDF) in New York earlier this month claiming that Bard deliberately misled him into believing that the artwork on the walls of the building belonged to the hotel. Because he recently found out that a number of artworks don’t actually belong to him, and that many tenants pay a lot less in rent than Bard originally said they did, Chetrit is experiencing some buyer’s remorse over the $78.5 million he paid for the business.

In the suit, Chetrit, via his company Chelsea Dynasty LLC, alleges that Bard and his now-dissolved company Chelsea 23rd St. Corp., “deliberately lied about their ownership of the artwork, and lied about the apartment units, the space and tenancies.” According to the suit, Chetrit only found out that the artwork did not belong to him when the artists or their successors-in-ownership showed up looking to take it away.

It seems the realization came about when Colleen Weinstein, the widow of the late nightclub owner Arthur Weinstein, came to claim various artworks made by her husband, which still hung on hotel walls. It’s unclear whether she came for the art before, after, or during the purge of residents’ artwork mandated by the new owner in November 2011.

Because of the number of items that Bard allegedly lied about during the hotel sale, Chetrit is asking the court for $2.15 million in damages for the loss of the artwork and the rent he thought he was getting, plus $2 million more in punitive damages, making for a total of $4.15 million.

In addition to the Weinstein works, the suit alleges that Chetrit was led to believe three other works belonged to the hotel: Larry Rivers’s “Dutch Masters,” an unidentified work by Gagosian-represented artist Philip Taafe, and “Bunny” by David Remfry. Together, the three works are estimated to be worth $500,000, $100,000, and $50,000, respectively. (That is, for the record, an fairly outlandish valuation, based on ARTINFO auction data for the three artists).

Complicating the issue is the fact that some of the work that Weinstein claims belongs to her is no longer at the Chelsea Hotel — it has disappeared at some point over the course of the last few years along with a number of other pieces, one of which showed up at a Sotheby’s auction in early 2011.

So why is this coming out now? It appears that it took Chetrit a while to realize the unusual ownership situation of the hotel’s artwork, partially because he was not allowed to speak to the hotel’s employees and permanent residents before the sale was finalized — a detail about which he still seems to be slightly bitter.

The complaint reads, “This prevented the plaintiff from freely obtaining information, even a hint, that could lead plaintiff to suspect that it was being defrauded.” It goes on to call out Bard, in rather spectacular language: “the wrongful conduct of defendants was outrageous, fraudulent, shocking to the consequence [sic] and deliberate.”

As a sidenote, it is worth noting that Chetrit, while claiming to have paid $2.15 million too much for the building, in the complaint notes that he paid $78.5 million for it — quite a few million less than the “more than $80 million” reported at the time of the sale. In recent weeks, he has also been accused of harrassing current hotel tenants and is involved in more than one lawsuit against them.

“Lucky Guy,” the new play starring Tom Hanks which opens April 1 on Broadway, begins with a group of hard-boiled New York City reporters singing an old Irish song in a bar. “It’s a boy thing,” says George C. Wolfe, who is directing the drama about the trials and tribulations of the real-life tabloid journalist Mike McAlary. “You put too many boys in the room and you get competition, a brawl, an orgy, or a war.”

There is joyful competition, a brawl, and lots of testosterone in “Lucky Guy,” as it tells the story of the ambitious and arrogant McAlary who rose to fame and success in the ’80s and ’90s, until a drastic misstep over what he called a trumped up rape nearly brought him to ruin. He redeemed himself by breaking the sensational case of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant whose ugly brutalization at the hands of police led to four convictions. McAlary won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting just before he died, at age 41, in 1994.

There are of course a few women among the cast of “Lucky Guy.” But the one who looms largest over this drama is its author, Nora Ephron, the journalist, screenwriter, director, and playwright.  “Lucky Guy” is the third play and last work of Ephron, who died last June at age 69 after making a name for herself with an amazing run of hit movies including “Silkwood,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Julie and Julia,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “You’ve Got Mail.” The last two starred Hanks, who is repaying the favor by making his Broadway debut in Ephron’s swan song. In the process he has made it one of the hottest tickets on Broadway.

Wolfe worked for nine months with Ephron on the play. She turned in about six drafts to the director, who says that he never even knew that she was sick with leukemia until the day she actually died. Her steadfastness and determination, under the most strenuous of circumstances, awed Wolfe, a Broadway veteran who has won Tony Awards for the landmark production of “Angels in America” and “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk.”

ARTINFO recently sat down with Wolfe to talk about Ephron, Hanks, and the nature of ambition, fortune, and grace in “Lucky Guy.”

Ephron began her career as a journalist and gained fame as a screenwriter. But theater is so different from either of those disciplines. What were the challenges when you first read the play?

An early title of this play was “Stories About McAlary.” And a lot of the work that Nora and I did was to make it more about “Lucky Guy” and less about the stories about McAlary. The primary nature of our focus was how much gets told and how much gets revealed. As the character of [editor] John Cotter says, “At the end of the day, there’s only one truth: go to the morgue. Count the bodies.” Everything else is how you tell the stories. The play is built on that construct. Everyone who is telling the story has a vested stake in how their story is told. Their ego, identity, career are invested in the phenomenon of this guy and there’s an inherent theatricality in that. 

What made Ephron so fascinated with these guys?

She had an incredible love of this work and these people and their reckless, dangerous functional madness. The play is chock full of incredible romanticism. There is also a cynicism to it, pretending that you’re not doing an heroic deed and underneath you hope that it will be heroic, that people will see it, and then you go to a bar and drink.  She understood that passion, that self-destruction, that love of a great story. Being a part of the city and being a part from it, the whole mythology of it.

Much is made of McAlary being an outsider. Did Hanks’s outsider status — as a movie star with very little stage experience — work for the character?  

I don’t know if he’s an outsider or not. But I think that, aside from success and all that sort of stuff, what Tom brings to this play is the fact that he just loves to play. That’s the energy he brings. He loves doing it, loves the unknown of it, loves working on it. 

What made him right for the role?

One of the key directing things I say to every cast is, “If you want the audience to stick around for the pain, you have to invite them to the party.” You have to make the audience go, “Oh, I want to go on this journey.” And Tom has the charisma, the charm, the presence, whatever you call it, to make them go on it. He has that in buckets full.

How does Hanks manifest that male aggression you were talking about?

Personally? I don’t think… It’s just in the work. There have been no showdowns in the rehearsal process. There hasn’t been any sort of madness.

In a recent interview, Peter Scolari, who acted in the TV series “Bosom Buddies” with Hanks and who is one of the cast members of “Lucky Guy,” mentioned that he thought his former co-star had never before been challenged before like this.

I just talk to him the way I talk to any actor. “What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing?” It’s the way I talked to Nora. “Yeah, that’s the answer, but …” “Yeah, I get that, but…” It’s not about challenging anybody, it’s all in the pursuit of clarity. Tom’s been great, the whole cast has been great. They have 9,000 opinions because when you’re working with smart actors, they have opinions.

Hanks himself has described the character as a fucking jerk.

I spent years in the musical theater program at New York University, in which everybody said, “Is the character likable?” I got so sick of it. You don’t play an unlikeable guy, you play a person! I don’t even acknowledge the concept. Drama is a character thinking he or she is making the most brilliant choices they can make until they realize, oh my god, this is the worst possible choice I can make. So I love characters who do that. And either they transform or they don’t.  

There is a moment when McAlary first gets success and money and tries on a snazzy new suit. There’s a certain cocky strut that he doesn’t have before. How did that moment happen?

That was Tom. We spent a lot of time talking about it. With success can come a subtle intolerance for life’s little moments. All of sudden things drive you crazy, whereas they didn’t when you were struggling. It’s a subtle and dangerous shift when your romantic notions about yourself start to be affirmed by other people.

You know Hollywood. How has Hanks avoided that in his own life?

I don’t know. I can only speak about him in the rehearsal room. He has an incredible joy about working. And as long as you don’t allow anything to contaminate that joy, you’ll be fine. That’s so crucial.

Why did McAlary get in trouble over the Jane Doe case? The story of the black lesbian who McAlary accused of making up that she’d been raped when in fact she had been?  

By that time, New York had become a new city and he didn’t recognize that. New York’s a city of different tribes and the nature of those tribes is change, and if you’re not aware of those shifting dynamics you can fall victim to those changes. He had an understanding of good guys and bad guys in a city which is more complicated than that.

There is a moment in the play when McAlary wonders if his luck has run out. Do you think we only get so much luck in life and when it’s used up, you’re done?

I don’t know. I think McAlary feels he’s very lucky. But there is an incredible fear underneath. One of the reasons that McAlary is so driven is because he feels that he is unworthy. He says that when he wins the Pulitzer Prize. But it’s been going on all along. He’s such an overachiever because he has this primal fear that the luck will be gone, and that fear is based on “I am not worthy.”

The ghosts of McAlary and Ephron must have been very strong in this process. What did you learn about playing the cards that life can deal you?

I’m still figuring what this whole extraordinary experience has meant.  But a lot of my discussion with Nora had to do about the process of where you trade in ambition for grace, what it means to negotiate that relationship. And very rarely do you go on that journey without being bruised, being knocked down, and crawling back. You really grow only from failure. It’s only when you hit a wall that you figure out a deeper version of yourself. At one point in the play, McAlary says of the subjects of his stories, “You care about them — most of the time.” When he meets Louima to hear his story, he says, “Take your time. I’m here. I’m hearing your story.” And it is in that state of grace that he ascends higher than he ever expected. He discovers a deeper version of himself amid all that ambition. 

After more than 35 years of touring, American rocker Meat Loaf is quitting the road.

Meat Loaf, whose 1977 "Bat Out Of Hell" remains one of the biggest selling albums, said his "Last At Bat" tour starting in Britain this week and heading through Europe, would be his last, after struggling with health problems in recent years.

While other ageing rockers like the Rolling Stones are returning to the lucrative tour circuit, Meat Loaf said he has had enough.

"This is really it ... I just don't want to travel anymore," the portly singer told Reuters TV in an interview before his tour through Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

"I outweigh (Mick) Jagger by about 100 pounds and that counts for something. He hasn't seen the wear and tear."

Meat Loaf, whose real name is Marvin Lee Aday, cancelled a European Tour in 2007 after being diagnosed with a cyst on his vocal chords, saying he received some "vicious" reaction to this.

He then sparked further fears for his health in 2011 when he collapsed on stage. He later blamed the blackouts on past concussion injuries and his health issues on asthma.

Last year he underwent a knee replacement operation from which he is still recovering and is due to have an operation on his other knee shortly.

Meat Loaf said his health was "fine" but it was important to be able to perform to your best.

"When your name is on the marque, you either get the glory or you get the hits," said the rocker, dressed all in black, who has also appeared in a list of movies, including cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".

"Over the years, a lot of stones and a lot of arrows have been flying my way. You expect that."

In the "Last at Bat" tour, Meat Loaf will perform his greatest hits in the first half of the show such as "Dead Ringer for Love" and "I'd Lie For You".

In the second half he will perform, in order, the seven songs from his "Bat Out Of Hell" album which has sold around 45 million copies to date.

Meat Loaf did not rule out performing live again, such as in Las Vegas, particularly after releasing his 13th album, "Brave and Crazy", that is currently in the pipeline.

The rocker said he was working on this album with Jim Steiman, the reclusive producer and songwriter behind his biggest hits with whom he last worked on his 1993 album "Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell".

But Meat Loaf cautioned fans that if he cried while singing "Crying Out Loud", the closing song of "Bat Out Of Hell" while on tour, this was not due to sadness at quitting touring.

"Even in rehearsal when I go to sing it I start crying so it's not like when you see me in the show and I am crying it's like "oh I bet he...". I would do it in rehearsal, I can't help myself," he said.

A Roman gold ring that might have inspired JRR Tolkien’s fantasy novels “The Hobbit” (1937) and his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (1954) is the star exhibit of a new show opening on April 2 at the former aristocratic house The Vyne in Basingstoke, England. According to the Guardian, the hefty piece of jewellery — which could only fit a gloved thumb — is likely to have been excavated by a farmer ploughing on the ancient Roman site of Silchester, at the end of the 18th century.

The 12-gram solid gold ring bears the motif of a head wearing a diadem and is engraved with the Latin inscription: “Senicianus live well in God.” Although the details of the transaction are unknown, it is assumed that the farmer sold his find to the Chute family at The Vyne, where it has been kept ever since. This could have remained a relatively banal archaeological anecdote, but a few decades later a tablet inscribed with a curse linked to the ring was found at Lydney, Gloucestershire, on a Roman site known as “Dwarf’s Hill.”

In the tablet's text, a Roman man called Silvianus stated that his ring was stolen and he asked the god Nodens to punish the culprit, Senicianus. “Among those who bear the name of Senicianus to none grant health until he bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens,” reads the inscription. Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, knew of the story of the cursed ring. In 1929, the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who connected the two pieces, had called him in to get some advice on the god’s unusual name.

Whether or not this was the trigger for the author’s popular books is still up in the air, but it sheds a new light on their origins — until now thought to include mainly literary sources, including Norse and Germanic mythology. 

PARIS — ARTINFO France met recently with Jérôme de Noirmont in his office on the rue Matignon in the eighth arrondissement, surrounded by the red, blue, and apple-green catalogues published by his now-defunct gallery. For 20 years, Jérôme and his wife Emmanuelle represented important contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Fabrice Hyber, Benjamin Sabatier, Shirin Neshat, and the late Keith Haring. When they announced March 21 that the gallery would close its doors on March 23, at the end of its exhibition of Marjane Satrapi’s paintings, the art world here was taken by surprise. Noirmont explained his reasons for closing, his disagreements with the current French government, and what he and his wife are planning to do next.

I don’t know if you realize this, but the announcement that your gallery was closing caused a lot of surprise and even turmoil in the art world.

Yes, I realize. Since our letter went out, we’ve received hundreds of emails and phone calls from people who expressed their friendship but also their sadness. Saturday, the last day we were open, the gallery was full. Some visitors gave us flowers, to thank us for what we accomplished over all these years. Great artists contacted us. This show of support has been very touching.

There were only two days between the announcement and the gallery’s closing. Why did you keep it under wraps for so long, and why announce it at that precise moment?

Until last Thursday only the artists knew. That seemed to us to be the least awkward time to announce the gallery’s closing. We tried for the best timing. It would have been harmful for the artists if we made this announcement in the middle of some important event — like for Fabrice Hyber, for example, who had three exhibitions up at the end of last year (at the Mac/Val, the Palais de Tokyo, and the Maeght Foundation). Despite this imminent closing, which we had been preparing for for months, it was still important to us to show the graphic artist Marjane Satrapi’s paintings for the first time.

Was the financial health of the gallery in danger?

No, not at all. The gallery is doing very well. Was doing very well. For Marjane Satrapi’s show, which ended March 23, we were sold out! The 21 paintings shown were all sold. We aren’t closing for immediate financial reasons. We had a great 2011, and a great beginning in 2012.

Why are you closing then?

Our decision comes from an observation. For two years now my wife and I have been thinking about the economic model for galleries. We have identified two types. On the one hand, there are galleries with very lightweight structures, which support young artists with few costs, and which are clearly essential. On the other hand, there are what we call “mega-galleries,” galleries which function like brands and spread all over the world. One example is London’s White Cube, which has three huge spaces, and a new branch in Hong Kong. But also other galleries that have up to ten branches in several big cities. Faced with the growth of this system, and in order to serve our artists the best we can, we had to move to a higher stage, to a different scale, and therefore to get bigger. That’s what we almost did last year, by opening a second space in Paris. But the social, political, and financial climate in France ultimately dissuaded us. We thought it was too big a risk to take. Because opening this second space was a very significant investment — we’re talking about millions of euros — and we would have needed to recruit dozens of new collaborators.

In the letter you sent to the media, you talked about “tax pressure” and an “unhealthy ideology.” Could you elaborate on this? The term “unhealthy ideology” is a bit shocking.

What’s shocking for me is to hear, for example, the current minister of culture running down a French patron, the Wendel Group, which financed part of the Pompidou Center-Metz. In France, they turn one group of citizens against the other, instead of uniting them — they want to crucify the big French industrial families. I’m thinking of certain speeches by [Jean-Luc] Mélenchon [presidential candidate of the Left Party in 2012] and [Arnaud] Montebourg [currently the minister of industrial renewal and a candidate in the Socialist presidential primary in 2011]. The whole world is shocked!

Look, I’m not criticizing one political class in particular but a general state of mind. Every year, the UMP deputy [Gilles] Carrez puts back on the table the idea including works of art in the wealth tax. In his calculations, he forgets that works of art don’t produce any interest. On the contrary, they cost their owners money, since they have to be insured for significant sums. And these are the legacies and donations that enrich our museums. So, in such an atmosphere, I didn’t see myself taking an entrepreneurial risk. But I’m speaking personally here.

Did you think about moving the gallery abroad?

Yes, we thought about it. About moving to London or New York, and making the Paris gallery a secondary space. But for personal reasons we don’t want to leave our country. So we thought about the possibility of supporting artistic creation by other means, because there’s no question of us stopping! None of our collaborators will be laid off. We still have a full team. And we’re keeping our space on the Avenue Matignon.

What are your plans for the future?

We are still thinking about it. We want to put art back in the center of society, in the center of the city. We’re not sad — on the contrary, our frame of mind is very positive. We want to invent a new model. To give our support to artists, to other colleagues. To set up charitable operations, specific projects, without a commercial dimension. It’s kind of like we’re going from ready-to-wear to haute couture. We’re getting our freedom back. I believe in art, in creativity, and what it can do for society.

What will happen to your artists?

The weeks and months ahead will be devoted to finding the best galleries for them — in Paris for some, in London for others. That’s our priority in the short term.

Do you think galleries are being hurt by competition, from art brokers for instance?

No. Or if so perhaps only on the secondary market. Look, I’m not questioning the profession of gallerist. We’re not denouncing anything — we can’t do what we would have liked to do. It’s a strategic choice, a personal choice — it’s not a general observation. Even if it could happen, eventually the mega-galleries will impose their laws. But it will never be the same relationship with the artist as in a smaller-scale gallery. The relationship with the artist is essential.

Over 20 years, what moments stand out in particular?

First of all, the initial meeting with the artists. The first time you go into their studio, that’s always a powerful moment, and a enchanting moment. And of course all the solo shows, which were designed in close collaboration with each artist. Also the catalogues published by the gallery, which remain the only material trace of the projects.

What about Jeff Koons, whom you have represented in France since 1997?

Yes, in 2000 in particular there was his monumental plant sculpture “Split-Rocker.” Today it’s still his most imposing work — it’s 41 feet tall. It was supposed to be installed at the Champs-Elysées traffic circle but that wasn’t technically possible. So it was shown at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, for an exhibition titled “Beauty.” It was a very demanding project, and very financially risky. Later in 2008, the gallery was behind Jeff Koons’s exhibition at the Château de Versailles. For this American artist, Louis XIV was the greatest patron in the history of art. He is fascinated by this symbol of power. So it was very coherent to suggest an exhibition in the palace, where one finds the same grandiosity as in the artist’s work. That is still an extraordinary memory.

There’s a strong possibility that not one, but two Norwegian films could become crossover hits in the United States in the near future. Both of them star the 32-year-old Norwegian stage, film, and television actor Pål Sverre Hagen. Among those watching casting developments in Hollywood will be Alexander Skarsgård, if not Viggo Mortensen.

In the Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee “Kon-Tiki,” which the Weinstein Company opens on April 26, Hagen plays the ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, skipper of the eponymous balsa wood raft that sailed from Peru to the Tuamoto islands in the Pacific in 1947. The picture was directed by Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning.

It will be followed by Mikkel Sandemose’s action-adventure film “Ragnarok,” which was acquired for American distribution by Magnolia Pictures at the Berlinale’s European Film Market on the strength of a three-minute promo in February. Magnolia, which will open it following its release in Norway on October 13, today issued a trailer.

“Ragnarok” suggests a cross between “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (which Jules Verne invested with Norse and Icelandic lore), with a little bit of “The Lord of the Rings” thrown in.

Hagen plays Sigurd Svendsen, a contemporary archaeologist who is obsessed with the Oseberg Viking Ship, which was excavated by the Norwegian Haakon Shetelig and the Swede Gabriel Gustafson in 1904-05.  

Svendsen discovers an inscription in the ship, written in runes, that translates as “Man knows little.” When he matches it with runes found on a stone from the north of Norway by his friend Allan (Nicolai Cleve Broch), he is persuaded they comprise a map – and the key to the cataclysmic events of “the Ragnarök” (“Twilight of the Gods”) described in Norse mythology, notably the 13th-century Poetic Edda. These events lead to the submersion of the world and its subsequent rebirth.

As a result, Svensdsen, accompanied by his two kids, Allan, and another colleague, mount an expedition to the wild lands between Norway and Russia where, no doubt gratifyingly for the movie’s potential audiences, what transpires is unimaginably terrifying. It sounds like Mordor all over again.

Below: The first trailer for “Ragnarok”

Tom Hanks made his Broadway debut in "Lucky Guy", the late Nora Ephron's final play Monday night.

After the official opening Hanks seemed thrilled by the experience.

"It's a blast, you know? Is that allowed, can I say that? It's more fun than fun should be. It's hard work, you know you don't take that lightly. And it requires a certain amount of stamina," said Hanks.

Hanks portrays tabloid journalist Mike McAlary, who won a Pulitzer Prize covering New York police scandals and lurid crimes for the Daily News and New York Post. McAlary was a hard-drinking, hard-living reporter who died young, at 41, from cancer in 1998.

Hanks had a long collaboration with Ephron, including hit films such as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail." Ephron died in June at the age of 71 of complications from leukemia. Hanks and wife Rita Wilson spoke at her memorial service.

For the role, Hanks is sporting a thick dark mustache, and said he isn't sure if his wife, likes it or not.

"She is keeping that such a deep dark secret - I do not know. I predict I will find out the day I shave it off," he joked.

In its first week of previews, the play took in more $1 million, along the lines of hits such as "The Book of Mormon," "The Lion King" and "Wicked."

Lucky Guy will be on Broadway for a limited engagement.

Angelina Jolie has opened another girls school in Afghanistan and plans to fund more from the proceeds of a jewelry line going on sale this week that she helped to design, celebrity website E! News reports.

Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, funded the girls-only primary school in an area outside Kabul that has a high refugee population, E! News said in an exclusive report.

The school educates 200-300 girls, E! said. It showed pictures of the school, which opened in November, and a plaque acknowledging Jolie's contribution.

Jolie also funded a girl school in eastern Afghanistan that opened in 2010, according to the UNCHR. Procop

Jolie's representatives did not return calls for comment.

E! said that Jolie plans to pay for more schools by selling a "Style of Jolie" jewelry line that she helped create with jewelry maker Robert Procop. Procop designed the engagement ring given to the actress by her partner Brad Pitt in April 2012.

"Beyond enjoying the artistic satisfaction of designing these jewels, we are inspired by knowing our work is also serving the mutual goal of providing for children in need," Jolie was quoted as telling the website.

Procop's website said the "first funds from our collaboration together have been dedicated to the Education Partnership for Children in Conflict (founded by Jolie) to build a school in Afghanistan."

According to the Style of Jolie website, the newly expanded collection includes versions of the black and gold necklace that the actress wore to the premiere of her 2010 movie "Salt," a pear-shaped citrine and gold necklace, and rose gold and emerald tablet-shaped rings, earrings and bracelets. No price details were released.

The jewelry goes on retail sale for the first time on April 4 through Kansas City jewelry store Tivol, Tivol said.

Procop told E! that it was "an honor to have the opportunity to be part of creating this line with Angie, as we both believe every child has right to an education."

Jolie is not the first celebrity to open schools in faraway places. Both Oprah Winfrey and Madonna have funded the building of schools in South Africa and Malawi in the past six years, although both ran into trouble.

Madonna's project provoked controversy over costs and mismanagement, while a staff member at Winfrey's school was arrested on charges of assault and abuse of students.