Founded this year by New York artist Eric Ginsburg, the Fridge art fair presents an earnest alternative to the glitz and glam of other Frieze satellite fairs, one which also recalls a historic chapter in the Lower East Side art scene. Relatively tiny, with just 14 booths, and headquartered in one of the neighborhood’s oldest galleries, Gallery OneTwentyEight, Fridge is largely packed with work by international artists — most of whom have arrived without dealers, setting up their own booths and handling their own finances, mingling with friends in a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere.

Works in the fair are almost exclusively two-dimensional, though varying widely in style and medium. Debra Drexler’s layered, broad-stroked paintings ($80-$7,400), Susana Thornton’s sparse stills ($1,000), Cheryl Edwards’s multimedia collages and paintings ($150-$800) offer a cross-section of artists that feels comfortable in its familial Rivington Street environment. “This fair allows the viewer to come in and touch and feel the minds of the artists, to question the work and to discuss the work in an intimate and casual setting,” explained Edwards.

Founded by the artist Kazuko Miyamoto in 1986 as a space to show works by unknown artists, Gallery Onetwentyeight initially took over an abandoned building long before the neighborhood was recognized for its then-burgeoning contemporary art scene. Miyamoto was also a founding member of the women-run A.I.R. Gallery and a long-time friend and contemporary of Sol LeWitt, one of OneTwentyEight’s original supporters.

Miyamoto’s pieces in the fair — three photographs and one geometric, abstract silkscreen — are the gems of Fridge, and just a small sampling of her oeuvre, which includes dance, performance, and installation. A large photo, almost hidden in the back of the gallery, was taken during a conceptual performance she did in the ’80s, for which she wrapped herself in a blue blanket and intricately folded lengths of industrial brown paper and then walked from the Lower East Side to Tribeca. 

Fridge Art Fair runs at Gallery OneTwentyEight through Sunday, May 12.

To see image, click on the slideshow.

NEW YORK — Marina Abramovic, Paul McCarthy, Richard Phillips, and Elizabeth Peyton were just some of the many artists and celebrities who should have been getting to bed early last night to get a head start at Frieze the next day, but weren’t. They, and their art world brethren, were too busy kicking back glasses of Veuve Cliquot champagne, dancing to endless DJ sets, and raising money (over $2 million) at a Simon de Pury-led auction at a dinner and after party for the Tate Americas Foundation. The Dior-sponsored fête for 650 guests — including luminaries like Anne Hathaway, Martha Stewart, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alex Katz, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Josephine Meckseper, and Los Carpinteros — honored 30 artists and offered at auction some rare treats. One lucky bidder won a spin around the Greek islands on collector Dakis Joannou’s luxury yacht “Guilty,” for $175,000. If you missed the event, check out this slideshow for a glimpse.

To see images from the Tate Americas Foundation dinner, click on the slideshow.

Young Brooklyn-based artist Nick van Woert is everywhere at Frieze New York this year. The full booth of Amsterdam’s Grimm Gallery is given over to his gym-inspired installation; an additional sculpture resembling rough-hewn concrete beams is spotlighted by L.A.’s L&M Arts; and his massive outdoor piece, Primitive— a headless, humanoid figure seemingly hanging from a gallows — is part of the Frieze Sculpture Park. Modern Painters executive editor Scott Indrisek caught up with van Woert at the fair to talk about his recent work and his plans for an upcoming show at Yvon Lambert.

So your installation in the Grimm Gallery booth is sort of like a gym setup.

It’s a straight-up gym.

And that show you had at Room East on the Lower East Side last year was based on street-fighting, and street-fighting manuals. So there’s a lot of athleticism in the work.

There is. But I think athleticism and lifting weights paints a picture of the human body, in a way, and the gym [equipment] is a figurative sculpture. The arms, legs, and chest are all articulated within the machine. So for me it serves as a weird drawing or floor plan of the human body, which I think is seen in the same light as classical sculpture, a monolithic understanding of the human body carved in stone. The other objects [in Grimm’s booth] are these kind of silicone hula hoops. With the gym [machine] being a figurative sculpture with a weird geometry, I wanted to make other sculptures off of it, so those hoops are sized to fit around the machine. As you know, I’ve been into classical sculpture and how those materials have changed, and I think this is one of the logical stepping stones to evolve into. 

Do you go to the gym?

No. But there’s an interesting thing about gymnasium – the root of the word is “to be naked.” Primitive, [my piece in the Sculpture Park] is about this primitive lifestyle where things are stripped away. That goes into some Thoreau stuff, where I want to live simply off the land and sea, and if it’s brutal let it be brutal, and all of that.

What’s the heavy-looking material attached to the gym machine?

The weights are cat litter. I use plastic resin to get it to stick together. It’s Fresh Step.

I just had a show in L.A. [“No Man’s Land” at OHWOW Gallery], and the [basis] for the show, was all things that are substitutes for natural materials.  So cat litter, to me, equals dirt.

And the other piece at Yvon Lambert?

Cat litter. And that rack [structure] is kind of based on a Home Depot lumber rack. So the show that’s coming up at Yvon Lambert is going to be set up kind of like a Home Depot.

The cat litter also looks a bit like aquarium gravel.

Well, that was another material in the L.A. show; it’s a substitute for coral and all of that. That got me into this territory of altered states: I’m walking around in this drunk landscape, where nothing is what it seems.

What’s the drunk landscape? The whole world?

Yeah, just go down any street. Architecture nowadays, it’s crazy. Faux-finished to look like wood, to look like marble. It’s a weird fantasy where you’re in this Western ghost town with fake facades. That kind of approach to architecture — we’re going to make the ‘Home Depot’ based on that. 

NEW YORK — As if the heavens favored art fairs, the rain lashing weather greeting the VIP opening of Frieze New York on Thursday morning at Randall’s Island Park soon turned into clear skies and brilliant sunshine. The spectacular SO-IL-designed tent — a kind of bespoke light box/tethered dirigible, illuminating the 180 or so gallery stands from around the globe with natural light — afforded fairgoers a pleasingly sophisticated structure to transact in. The freshly painted and barely dry battleship-gray plywood floors had a slightly tacky feel as if the organizers wanted you to stick around for a long while.

All the elements conspired to lighten wallets. The impression of fresh commerce was confirmed at a number of stands. Business was rocking at Paris-based Thaddaeus Ropac, with Robert Longo’s impressive “Untitled (after Clyfford Still, 1957-J No.2)” (2013), convincingly executed at an AbEx-scaled in charcoal on mounted paper, selling for $330,000. Another newly minted work at the Ropac booth, Alex Katz’s head-and-shoulders portrait of a dark haired women, “Untitled” (2013), sold for $350,000, while an intricately conceived Tom Sachs, “Untitled (Spider Web)” (2012), in pyrography (as in fire) on wood, sold for $200,000.

As if refreshed after a long siesta from the 1980s Neo-Expressionist bubble, David Salle’s new, large-scale painting, “Age of Reason,” featuring two floating female heads, went for $190,000. Ropac was also offering an older work, the massive Sigmar Polke, “Nachtkappel” (1986), in spirit varnish on muslin, for $4 million, noting, “normally I would keep this for Basel,” referring to the big daddy fair held each June in Switzerland.

A few lower price point sales were also noted at Ropac, as two India ink and watercolor on paper works by Georg Baselitz, identically titled “Ohne Titel” and featuring an upright figure, sold for €35,000. “This is a very contemporary art fair,” said Thaddeus Ropac, “and that’s what I like about it.”

Early business was also brisk at London’s Lisson Gallery, where Haroon Mirza’s complicated “Shelf for Carl Cox” (2013), an assemblage featuring a wooden cabinet, LED, copper tape electronic components, and speakers sold for £30,000, while an untitled Anish Kapoor wall sculpture went for £500,000. In between those price points, a Rodney Graham light box work sold for $90,000.

Though it wasn’t physically at the fair, Lisson also sold an Ai Weiwei sculpture for €300,000. “There’s a strong international demographic to collectors,” said Lisson’s Alex Logsdail, “which extends far beyond those based in New York.”

One of the best things about Frieze is the chance it offers of finding unfamiliar artists who grab your attention (or at least temporarily distract you from more established names). That was the case at London’s Carl Freedman Gallery, where Ivan Seal’s small-scaled and lushly executed memory paintings, such as “19wabim on a shif” (2013), sold for approximately $8,000 (the titles are derived from an automatic writing machine). Five others sold at prices ranging between $6,000-15,000

Similarly, at Lower East Side gallery Canada, Michael Williams’s “Morning Meditation with Mud and Jenny Mac” (2013) sold to London-based collector and emerging artist patron Anita Zabludowicz for approximately $25,000.

At almost every turn, art transactions were popping, as evidenced at New York’s Paul Kasmin, where star photographer David LaChapelle’s “Gas Shell” (2013), an edition of five chromogenic prints, sold for approximately $65,000, and Walton Ford’s unique and quite fantastic painting of a flying tiger, “Tri Thong Minh,” sold to an American collector in the vicinity of the $950,000 asking price. In Warhol-inspired style — but with more humor — Deborah Kass’s “12 Barbaras (Jewish Jackie Series)” (1993), a silkscreen on canvas at 60 by 55 inches, also went for approximately $95,000 at Kasmin.

“All of the serious, major collectors and museum people are here,” said Bethanie Brady, the Kasmin director. As if confirming that impression, storied art collector and former gallery owner Irving Blum sat on one of the chairs in the Kasmin stand, studying the Frieze map, before resuming his travels.

If there is such a thing these days as “good vibes,” that rather antique phrase resonated here at Frieze. The constant shift of natural light and pleasant vistas of the verdant surroundings outside seemingly put fairgoers in a buoyant mood. New York exhibitor Jack Shainman was definitely smiling as all three figurative paintings by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, the Turner Prize candidate, sold at $30,000 apiece, while the intricately conceived “Decagram No. 2” by Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman sold for $35,000.  

“So far,” said Shainman, “the fair has been really good. Collectors and museum people love this fair. The light here is beautiful.”

The dealer also sold three Kerry James Marshall drawings, “Untitled (Stono Drawings),” for $50,000. The works feature the vivid likeness of the slaves involved in that first rebellion in the South Carolina colony in 1739.

Another kind of mayhem for on display at New York/London/Zurich gallery Hauser & Wirth as hungry collectors vied for the 40 made-in-China “Balloon Dog” sculptures by Paul McCarthy, which were selling at $25,000 apiece. Each of the friendly looking dogs came in a different color. The one example displayed in the stand was in lipstick pink and seemed lost against the backdrop of the two-artist display of young heavyweights Rashid Johnson and Matthew Day Jackson.

Gallery partner Marc Payout said the entire grouping had sold out but the gallery hadn’t as yet decided who would take away the works at prices ranging from approximately $15,000 to $175,000. “The level of interest is so high,” said Payout, referring to both private collectors and museums, “we thought it would be best for the artists for us to decide who gets what.”

The assembly included a trio of Jackson’s refurbished armchairs, made out of former B-29 bomber pilot seats that were re-powder coated and set on bases resembling the geometry of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes.

There was also considerable museum interest in one of the fair’s standout works, Do-Ho Suh’s “Wieland Str18 2159 Berlin” (2011), a diaphanous structure in a pale green shade of polyester fabric. Set invitingly at Lehmann Maupin’s stand, the asking price wasn’t revealed by the gallery in deference to the otherwise unidentified museum interest.

It’s always good to have a bit of mystery amidst a cavalcade of hard numbers.

— We're giving away an iPad to anyone who can write something interesting about an art fair, which is much harder than it sounds.

— The Metropolitan Museum held its annual gala, with this year's extravaganza being punk-themed to match the new Costume Institute exhibition, prompting actual punks to sound off on the show, while ARTINFO's in-house fashion punk Lee Carter reflected on the edgy theme, and Chloe Wyma likened the glamorized aesthetic to the retro stylings in the new "Great Gatsby" movie.

— Frieze New York returned for its sophomore edition, with dozens of galleries dropping out and others joining up, and Daniel Kunitz picking out the mega-fair's foremost works.

— Judd Tully spied rapper LL Cool Jat Sotheby's $230 million Impressionist and modern sale Tuesday night, and then reported from the following night's notably less large sale at Christie's.

— Barbara Kruger responded to fashion label Supreme's ongoing use of her distinctive text style.

— Céline Piettre attended "Boléro," a new ballet co-created by Marina Abramovic that premiered at the Paris National Opera, and lived to tell about it.

— Ben Davis parsed the Guggenheim's dazzling yet perplexing survey of the mid-century Japanese art movement Gutai.

— Sara Roffino spoke to David Horovitz, an emerging, unusual, often non-material-based artist whose most recent project was an itinerant land art work using seeds from the trees in Zuccotti Park.

— Curator Carson Chan discussed his forthcoming Biennial of the Americas, a beer-themed exhibition that opens in Denver on July 16.

— J. Hoberman recalled the life and work of Taylor Mead, a beat poet and Andy Warhol film star who died this past Wednesday at age 88.

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NEW YORK — Though the booths are lined with photographs and sculpture, what stands out at Pulse New York is the performance art.

On opening day, artist Tim Youd was perched on a seat at L.A.-based gallery Coagula Curatorial reading aloud from Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Capricorn” while transcribing the novel via typewriter. “Look,” said a woman, “it’s performance art.” At Ethan Cohen, South Korean political Pop artist Mina Cheon stole the show dressed in a military uniform as her North Korean alter ego Kim Il Soon, holding two red water pistols and posing in front of a self-portrait. She handed us one of her red guns. “Squirt water not bullets,” she said as we had a faux shootout.

Of the Pulse Projects, Lisa Lozano and Tora Lopez’s live tableau (three women seated in lawn chairs wearing sunglasses) was a tropical reprieve from the fair madness. Franco Mondini-Ruiz, dressed in a tuxedo and striped pants, hawked small, delectable, punny wares at Creative Capital’s booth, like his “Bloomburgers”: little sculptural burgers that sold for “$200 with carbs,” and “$100 without.”

To see highlights, click on the slideshow.

NEW YORK — Ambitious projects peppered the floor at NADA, which is held this year at a sporting facility on the East River waterfront that’s been converted into a light-filled exhibition space with an outdoor café area. Vast spaces outside the more traditional booth setup are set aside for special sculpture installations, and on the first day, fairgoers seemed particularly drawn to these. 

Matthew Dipple of American Contemporary placed a work by artist David Brooks, “Roof Cuts,” in one of the six sculpture installation spaces. Consisting of a series of roofs that look like they have been ripped off of their homes, all of them suspended by cables above the floor, the installation was one of NADA’s more breathtaking contributions.

It was also a relative bargain: At roughly $750, the space was a lot less costly than the much-smaller booths, priced nearer to $10,000. Though the gallery had done NADA before, it had never been able to bring such a large work to an art fair. “It’s cheap real estate at a fair, so you can have these difficult pieces,” said Dipple.

Other highlights from this section: Thomas Kovachevich’s “Untitled (16 Paper Cubes),” a sculptural installation consisting of a set of large parchment paper sculptures, which is bathed in sunlight from the outdoor area. Visitors can actually walk through David Shaw’s sculpture “Gem,” an open cube constructed from iridescent steel tubing.

Such exciting works attracted a lot of attention, but were not the only thing attracting commercial interest. Dealer Nicelle Beauchene, whose large booth was filled with plaster works by Ruby Sky Stiler, had plenty to celebrate right off the bat. “Everything sold,” said Beauchene, “within the first hour.”

To see highlights, click on the slideshow.

From cocktails honoring MoMA senior curator Paola Antonelli to PS1’s raucous kickoff featuring Mykki Blanco, the art world heralded the second coming of Frieze New York with a cavalcade of parties. We were there, and hereby offer you some of the highlights from the opening days of the fair.

To see highlights of Frieze Week 2013 festivities, click on the slideshow.

Missed out on anything during the frenzied opening days of Frieze Week? Our ARTINFO photographers were there, documenting the panoply of art fairs, from the Randall's Island leviathan Frieze to its many satellites: the ever-cool NADA, the French import Cutlog, satellite fair stalwart Pulse, upstart entries Wish Meme and Fridge, and the swanky new design fair, Collective .1. Here, we round up pictures of the art from all these far-flung events — because, let's be honest, what one person could even see it all? — in one handly place.

To see pictures of the art of Frieze Week New York, click on the slideshow.

You may remember seeing an article on ARTINFO Australia in December 2012 about a giant sculptural hot-air balloon by world-renowned Australian artist Patrica Piccinini that had been commissioned to celebrate the 100th birthday of Australia’s capital city, Canberra. Well, the balloon dubbed the “Skywhale” has been revealed in all its glory and sent on its maiden voyage for its official unveiling in Canberra this past Saturday.

With a turtle-like face and ten udders hanging from its undercarriage, “Skywhale” has a strangely serene presence that belies its somewhat grotesque form. Through the unmistakable maternalism of the giant floating creature, Piccinini asks viewers to question the relationship between people, nature, and technology as well as contemplate issues relating to genetic engineering and biotechnology. 

The strange yet beautiful creature created by Piccinini has raised eyebrows around Australia and received mixed reviews. Comments so far have ranged from “hideous” to “innocent and naive.” But regardless of whether or not the work is to your taste, one thing is for sure, you can’t miss it. And this is one of the reasons that it will go down in history as such a memorable and remarkable gesture.

“I imagine it against the clear blue canvas of a Canberra sky, odd yet somehow comforting,” Piccinini said in her original vision for the commission. “It plays on the idea that the relationship between planning and nature can lead to outcomes that are extraordinary in ways that are unanticipated.”

It may resemble what one person described on Facebook as a “10-titted dodo,” but those who follow Piccinini’s career will recognise the commission as a grand and wonderful continuation of her favourite theme of questioning our responsibility to the creatures we create.

My work rarely attempts to present the viewer with a definite answer to the great questions of our day,” Piccinini explains on her website.  “I believe it is up to the community to discuss and resolve these issues. However, I do have very clear views about some things. I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to anything that we might create, regardless of whether we judge it to be useful or successful or otherwise. I am also convinced of the intrinsic value of diversity. As far as I’m concerned, the more different creatures there are in the world the better it is.”

See a video of the “Skywhale” on its maiden flight below:

Decades before New York's Central Park was created, Green-Wood Cemetery's ponds, hills and winding paths provided not only a pastoral final resting place for the nation's elite but also a recreational spot for picnics and horse-drawn buggies.

The still-active cemetery in Brooklyn was the largest cemetery in the world at the end of the 19th century. It was also the second most-visited tourist destination in New York behind the Niagara Falls.

The 478-acre site is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year with an exhibition opening Wednesday at the Museum of the City of New York. While it cannot replace a visit to the cemetery grounds, "A Beautiful Way to Go: New York's Green-Wood Cemetery" provides historical context for one of only four U.S. cemeteries to be granted National Historic Landmark status.

Founded in 1838 in what was then the City of Brooklyn, Green-Wood was an early example of the "rural cemetery." In contrast to the somber church graveyards in lower Manhattan that were rapidly filling up, it offered vistas of the New York Harbor and a new view of death that essentially said: "If you live a good life, this is the kind of afterlife you will have. It will be a place like this," said curator Donald Albrecht.

Visitors enter Green-Wood through the soaring spires of Gothic Revival-style gates designed by Richard Upjohn, the architect of Trinity Church in lower Manhattan who is buried there.

"It became THE place to be buried because of the varied features that it has," said Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman, and it attracted such luminaries as actress Laura Keene, who was on stage when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, New York Tribune founder Horace Greeley and "The Father of Baseball" Henry Chadwick.

"There was no Metropolitan Museum of Art or Brooklyn Museum, so you went to Green-Wood," he said. The scenic place offered an escape from crowded and unsanitary streets and an outdoor museum of hillside mausoleums, obelisks, statues and tombs designed by leading architects of the day.

Decades later, Green-Wood's natural topography became the model for the creation of Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park and Llewellyn Park, N.J., America's first planned suburb.

By 1890, the cemetery encompassed 478 acres. Today, it is the largest New York City cemetery in terms of acreage with 560,000 people interred under or within 100,000 monuments or tombs. Among them are Cooper Union founder Peter Cooper; "The Father of the Erie Canal" and New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton; composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein; and graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The exhibition, which runs through Oct. 13, transplants visitors to the cemetery via a giant Green-Wood map superimposed on the gallery's floor and walls. Important gravesites are marked by illuminated glass cases.

It addresses five major themes: Green-Wood and popular culture; the Hudson River School painters buried there; Green-Wood's architecture; Green-Wood's influence on American parks and suburbs; and Green-Wood and mourning, which includes such 19th-century objects as a locket containing the hair of the deceased.

In the early days, when the combined population of Brooklyn and Manhattan was 1 million, 500,000 people a year visited Green-Wood. Today, it has 200,000 to 300,000 annual visitors.

Souvenirs and prints with Green-Wood imagery were wildly popular. People bought them to hang on their walls or view them through 3-D stereographs. Two vintage clocks decorated in Green-Wood motifs are among the artifacts in the show.

One thing visitors won't see at the exhibition is a singing docent.

On a recent cemetery trolley tour, volunteer guide and professional singer Marge Raymond regaled a group at Bernstein's gravesite with a rendition of his "Somewhere" from "West Side Story."

The graves of Bernstein and Basquiat are simple and among the most visited. Basquiat's, located in a row of small gravestones, stands out for the paintbrushes, stuffed animals and other souvenirs left by fans.

The cemetery also houses 30 catacombs, built because of the Victorians' fear of being buried alive. Since a coma could mimic death, they were equipped with skylights, air vents, safety caskets with buttons that flipped open the lids and bells that would sound above ground.

Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn and the first major Revolutionary War battle fought after the Declaration of Independence, also is found in Green-Wood. A statue of the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva, marks the spot, positioned to face the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

From the gravesites of 5,000 Civil War soldiers to the handsome chapel designed by the same architects of Grand Central Terminal, the cemetery is a symphony of art, architecture, history and nature. Yet today, there are New Yorkers who have never set foot in Green-Wood or know of its rich history.

"The goal of the exhibition," Albrecht said, "is to convince people that this incredible national treasure is sitting in plain sight."

At first glance, Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder” is simple: an architect, obsessed with the younger generation in his wake, channels his neurosis into the young women in his life, ultimately leading to the demise he feared. It’s been performed hundreds of times, in almost as many languages, and is widely known as one of Ibsen’s most accomplished works. But it’s also known as one of his most perplexing. “In February 1893,” according to the Guardian, “the first London production at the Trafalgar Square Theatre met with puzzled incomprehension, even among Ibsen’s supporters.” One critic called the production a “pointless, incoherent, and absolutely silly piece.”

“I had a love/hate relationship with Mr. Ibsen for a long time,” said Andre Belgrader, director of a new production of “The Master Builder” that stars John Turturro and premiered May 12 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. “I could see that the play was fabulous, but I thought, my god, if people say these words, sometimes so heavy and intellectual that it gave me a headache, I’m in trouble.”

When it comes to Ibsen, a headache is an understatement. His plays are dark psychological studies, thin on plot and emotionally exhausting; productions tend to lean toward the histrionic and veer into melodrama. Reading the early, dry, translations of Ibsen’s work can be like trudging, all alone, through the icy Norwegian tundra.

“The first time I read ‘The Master Builder,’ there was nothing about that play that attracted me to it,” said Wrenn Schmidt, who plays the beguiling Hilde, seducer and destroyer of the main character. For the actress, the new translation by British playwright David Edgar turned the play around. “It’s a lot less wordy and I feel like, although the heart of the play is still there, at the same time the words don’t feel strange in your mouth, like you’re saying something in a convoluted manner.”

“The Master Builder,” like many of Ibsen’s later works, straddles a line between the naturalism of the period and a heightened, dream-like atmosphere. This unique quality has caused proponents from both sides to champion his work, while others are left bewildered. “I’m more attracted to the plays that have more myth and symbol,” Belgrader said. “I’m not attracted to the kitchen-sink realism. ‘The Master Builder’ is a very interesting combination of both.”

For the new production, the set design, by Santo Loquasto, is stripped down, rejecting the elaborate, naturalistic sets that Ibsen, like his contemporary Chekhov, hated in his time. Belgrader refused to elaborate, but promised there will be one surprise he’s extremely excited about.

The director previously collaborated with Turturro in 2008 on Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame,” and in 2011 on Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” Their relationship is one of theatrical symbiosis, a true collaboration built over a long friendship. When the chance arrived to tackle Ibsen, Belgrader could think of nobody more suited for the role of Halvard Solness, the architect at the center of the play, than Turturro.

“He’s a powerhouse, but he’s a wildman, which is what this part needs,” Belgrader said. “There’s something very deeply wild about the part, and John can go there. Not too many actors can, and that’s amazing.”

Belgrader paused, before adding, with a laugh: “He is the master builder.”

Name: José Parlá


Age: 39


Occupation: Painter


City/Neighborhood: Brooklyn, New York

You went to Cuba last year to work on collaborative project with JR on the murals that were part of the Havana Biennial, and are now in the show at Bryce Wolkowitz. You also recently completed a piece for the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, where you live. Can you talk a little about the differences — in perspective, sentiment, process, or otherwise — between working in Havana and Brooklyn?

There are a few differences in the two projects. The Barclays Center mural commission, Diary of Brooklyn, was painted indoors in my studio near the stadium. I made the painting in a period of several months that allowed me to layer the surface of the work with the stories, names, lyrics, poems, location names, homages that deal with the history and contemporary life of the people of Brooklyn and my own. The object of this kind of story telling in painting that uses abstraction as one of its components is to analyze my own experience of living in the borough through many subjects I have come across over the years. Working from memory and from literal material to translate that into visual form that can be read by onlookers as their own diary, a mirror in a language that can be interpreted as a mixture of all languages. After the work is installed in the entrance of the Barclays Center, the painting interacts with the public and engages everyone differently.

The Wrinkles of the City, Havana Cuba project with JR is a unique collaboration project that involves many components such as location scouting, photography, and painting. Together we created 20 murals through out the city of Havana. Each mural is dedicated to an elderly woman or man. The project as a whole pays homage to the years or experience and physical appearance of the wrinkles of people’s faces in comparison with the deteriorated walls of Havana that show their own wrinkles representative of the struggle in life, the joy and smiling, all of the layers of the memories in their lives. JR and I both randomly met people in Havana by walking the neighborhoods and asking them to participate in our art project by introducing each other’s work. JR would introduce my “Character Gestures” painting book and I would introduce his “Shanghai Wrinkles of the City” book. We collaborated on the composition of the pictures on the murals and later pasted them the size of buildings through Havana while I later painted them by layering transparencies of color on the pictures as well as incorporated my calligraphic style, the stories of each person into the composition of each painting. This project began interacting with the public as soon as we started to work in front of everyone. Many people wanted to talk and ask questions and to be involved in the project. In Cuba there is no advertisement and in the 54 years since the revolution, most of the images you see in the city are of political icons like José Martí, Ché or Fidel Castro. For us to make 20 murals of random people was a big deal for people there. They asked questions like, “Who is it? Is this person dead? Is that Fidel?” Both projects in Havana or in Brooklyn incorporate the public in a unique way. Public art is necessary because it confronts people with art, maybe sometimes a lot of people who may not usually go galleries or museums.

What was it like to collaborate with JR? How did you guys plan and execute the murals? Are there any particularly memorable moments from the time in Cuba?

Collaborations are usually not easy, yet JR and I were fortunate to be able to share the same vision of the project. His work is humanitarian and has been incorporated into walls and cities and my paintings have been largely about walls and the psychological aspect of their surfaces, what they reflect about humanity. It is a natural collaboration. For our project we made several trips to Cuba and I can honestly say that every moment and all the people involved made it always memorable.

You’ve said before that you don’t feel a tension around moving from the street to the canvas because you don’t see a difference between the two and that both graffiti and fine art are narrative practices. Yet, one of the differences between making work for a gallery and making work in the street is the audience who will see it. How does, or doesn’t, your work change depending on the audience that will likely be exposed to it?

I don’t recall saying there was no tension and I imagine I didn’t use the word graffiti; I probably used the word writing. To be more precise, I said that in the creation of art there is no difference between indoors and outdoors, the impulse to create is the same. The audience does not change that for me.

Having been a part of graffiti since the beginning, you’ve seen it move from the fringe to the biggest museums in the world. How has this changed the art form and the people making it?

Since I was a child making art, I never liked the term graffiti or graffiti art, [we] always called ourselves "writers." The beginning of the style of writers comes from a time before me. However, I clearly remember starting to write, when I was a kid the age of nine years old, artists like Lee Quiñones, Futura, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Phase 2, Keith Haring, and others were already exhibiting in major museums back in the 1970s while they were still painting trains or walls around the city. Both forms were validated to me; the city was a museum from my point of view. The art form changes because of the circumstances and the individuals’ personal experiences in life. This art form in my experience and understanding has never had a manifesto, there are no rules, and it has never been a movement, for me the art remains a phenomenon, very personal, full of characters, changes and unique important developments.

What project are you working on now?

The most recent projects I’ve completed were the solo shows "Broken Language" in London’s Haunch of Venison gallery, and "Prose" at Yuka Tsuruno gallery in Tokyo.

Now I am back in New York to prepare with JR our Wrinkles of the City Havana, Cuba project opening at Bryce Wolkowitz gallery. I am also working on a mural-sized commissioned painting for the new Hunt Library at the North Carolina State University by renowned architects Snøhetta.

What’s the last show that you saw?

“The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns,” featuring an array of painting, sculpture, stage sets and musical notations, orchestrated by leading contemporary artist Philippe Parreno at the Barbican in London.

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

Dieter Roth. Bjorn Roth at Hauser & Wirth in Chelsea. First of all it was an impressive show in size and the work was revealing of the artist’s process and life in a very unique way. Certain works made me think of the Duchampian examples from the “Bride and the Bachelors” show at Barbican, but Roth was all in his own world. It was also amazing to see the gallery that is impressively built in the old Roxy nightclub. Dieter’s studio recreated inside the space gave me the impression as if he was there dancing around his space working.

Do you make a living off your art?

Yes.

Do you collect anything?

I collect paintings, drawings, photographs, music, and plants.

What are your hobbies?

Painting.

Describe a typical day in your life as an artist.

In the morning I make my famous Cuban expresso, stretch, shower, start working with my phone off for a few hours, walk, eat lunch, paint some more, travel, move, come back, play loud music, spill paint, clean up the mess, dance, dance dance, nap, wake up, eat, work again, email, text, travel, sex, more sex, sleep a little, more Cuban coffee, donate art work to a good cause, paint, meet someone about work, drink a Dark and Stormy, do some interviews like this one.

What’s the most indispensable item in your studio?

The studio door.

Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?

Traveling all over the world, randomly walking in cities or in nature.

Do you collect anything?

I collect paintings, drawings, photographs, music, and plants.

What is your karaoke song?

I don’t have a favorite, I choose randomly because I’m terrible and just end up drinking and watching everyone get crazy, specially in Tokyo.

What’s the last artwork you purchased?

A beautiful work by Cuban American artist Teresita Fernandez.

What’s the first artwork you ever sold?

A denim jacket I painted for a girl named Christy in 1986.

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

The weirdest think I ever saw was someone run out with a painting and get chased by security, then the robber fell in the street and got beat up in Chelsea.

What’s your art-world pet peeve?

I don’t have one.

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

The Standard.

Do you have a gallery/museum-going routine?

Nothing routine, always random or with a defined destination.

What’s the last great book you read?

“Clyfford Still: Paintings 1944-1966” [James T. Demetrion].

What international art destination do you most want to visit?

I’d like to go to Istanbul again.

Who’s your favorite living artist?

Rey Parlá.

artMRKT Hamptons, a contemporary and modern art fair, will feature 40 leading galleries from across the U.S. who will present painting, sculpture, drawings, photography, video and installation. Showcasing a tightly focused selection of work by important artists in a boutique setting, artMRKT Hamptons will create an ideal context for the discovery, exploration, and acquisition of art. For our third edition, artMRKT Hamptons will be housed in a single large scale structure on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Historical Society. This new facility will accomodate an upgraded production that facilitates the use of 12 foot walls, wide and commodious aisles and an integrated climate control system. It is our pleasure to put our best foot forward this coming July.

“Born to Be King,” a comedy starring Ewan McGregor and Kate Hudson, will be included in the slate of six films that Lionsgate UK is bringing to Cannes. Bonnie Prince Charlie, who launched the abortive 1745 Jacobite Rebellion to restore the Stuarts on the British throne, will thus return to the screen… sort of.

Years in gestation, writer-director Peter Capaldi’s mistaken-identity comedy is inspired by the filming of 1948’s “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” in which David Niven was hopelessly miscast as the eponymous Young Pretender.

According to Scotland’s The Herald, “McGregor will play an extra who happens to look like Niven, who suddenly finds himself in the limelight when the drunken star goes missing.” Hudson “plays a Hollywood actress increasingly at odds with her co-star but attracted to the extra who looks like him.” Early accounts said that the film is set in 1938 and that the Niven character is called Leslie Grangely.

There was no Hollywood actress in “Bonnie Prince Charlie.” The film’s English leading lady, Margaret Leighton, capable as the Highland heroine Flora MacDonald, was one of few beneficiaries of the troubled production.

Niven, fresh over from Hollywood sans moustache, was cast as the prince because he alleged he was Scottish. His paternal grandfather was Scottish, but Niven was born in London. Not that any of that would have mattered. Born in Rome, Prince Charles Edward himself was the son of James Stuart, the Anglo-Italian Old Pretender, and his Polish noblewoman wife; even his grandfather, the deposed James II, was only half-Scottish. Any notion that Charles Edward had a Scottish accent is absurd.

Niven played the prince as a smiling charmer, and the battles, including the Jacobites’ decisive defeat at Culloden, were mostly avoided. After a disastrous shoot that required the services of four directors (including the producer Alexandra Korda), the movie was battered in reviews and died at the box office. That Korda couldn't hire writers-directors-producers Michael Powell (sometime master of Celtic mythology) and Emeric Pressburger resulted in a tantalizing "What if?"

As an actor, Capaldi appeared in 1983’s “Local Hero” with McGregor’s uncle Denis Lawson and is best known as the prime minister’s vitriolic fixer in the political satire “In the Loop.” Director of the Scottish comedy short “Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life” (1993), he secured McGregor’s involvement in “Born to Be King” in 2005. Originally called “The Great Pretender,” and subsequently “The Jacobite Slipper,” it takes its current title from “The Skye Boat Song,” which laments Charles Edward’s escape from the Scottish mainland after Culloden: “Carry the lad that’s born to be King/Over the sea to Skye.”

The first “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” a 1923 silent film starring Ivor Novello, is believed lost. The never-revived 1960 film “The Young Jacobites,” which starred the teenaged Francesca Annis and Frazer Hines, was a fantasy about two children helping the prince (played by the aptly named David Stuart) to escape. Christopher Biggins played a decadent, overweight Charles Edward in flashback scenes from the 13-part 1978 Anglo-French-German miniseries “Kidnapped” (and its sequel “Catriona”), which leaves all other versions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale in the dust. 

Peter Watkins’s “Culloden” (1964) was a groundbreaking anti-imperialist docudrama that brought a contemporary camera crew to the battlefield — it still seems visionary. Viewed from the perspectives of a clansman and his son, Graham Holloway’s little-seen “Chasing the Deer” (1994) deglamorizes the ’45 rebellion; it was funded by public subscription and is said to make weak transitions between scenes.

After the success of “Braveheart” in 1995, the stage was set for a Jacobite Rebellion epic, but the failure of the same year’s “Rob Roy” nixed that. Capaldi’s “Born to Be King” will have to fill the gap.