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Six Best Secret Gardens in London

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Jane Anderson
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London Barbican Conservatory -- Courtesy of the Barbican Centre
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The bustle of Britain's sprawling capital is part of its appeal. But where do you go if you're in need of an oasis in the urban landscape? We've unearthed six of London's best secret gardens — just in time for springtime's slow crawl to the continent.

 

 

Main cover image: Courtesy of The Geffrye Museum 

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Chelsea Physic Garden
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Forward thinking and utterly beguiling, the Chelsea Physic Garden was founded in 1673 as the Apothecaries' Garden, with the purpose of training apprentices in identifying plants. Highlights include a Garden of World Medicine and a new Pharmaceutical Garden. Frequent talks and workshops and pop-up events tantalize the home gardener and aesthete alike. Open Tuesdays through Fridays noon to 5 pm, Sundays noon to 6 pm through October 31; £9 (£6 concessions).

 

 

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Geffrye Museum Gardens
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The Geffrye Museum has long been a beacon of culture and horticulture in the city's East End. The museum shows the changing style of English domestic interiors from 1600 to the present day. Outside, there is a sequence of period town gardens highlighting the key styles over the past four centuries. It includes a 17th-century garden with medicinal and culinary plants in medieval patterns. Running through August 26, a photo exhibition "Stands Alone" documents life in a north London housing project that's arranged around a communal garden. Admission and events are free to the main museum and gardens; special exhibition £5. 

 

 

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One hundred feet above the bustle of High Street Kensington, on top of a 1930s former department store, you'll find three lush gardens with mature oaks, fruit trees, and a flowing stream, all which celebrate their 75th birthday this year. Visitors are free to roam the Moorish Spanish Garden based on the Alhambra in Granada; the Tudor Garden with its lilies, roses, and wisteria; and the English Woodland Garden, best right now for spring when thousands of narcissus and crocus are in bloom. There's also a restaurant serving lunch, Wednesdays through Fridays, and dinner, Tuesdays through Saturdays. Gardens open daily; call ahead to confirm times (+44 20 7937 7994). 

 

 

 

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Few people know about the tropical conservatory garden with coffee bean and citrus trees, palms and ferns, and finches and quails in the Barbican, a huge performing arts center in the City of London. Hidden within the blockish Brutalist architecture, the conservatory is a great place to chill and chat between bouts of culture. Alternatively, take the Architectural or Hidden Barbican Tour. Both give fascinating insights behind the scenes of Europe's second largest arts center.  Open Sundays and public holidays 11 am to 5:30 pm; £8 (£6 concessions). But go quick: it will be closed for maintanence from May 28 till July 21.

 

 

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The Secret Garden at The Montague
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Bloomsbury, known for its literary associations and garden squares, has a off-the-radar green space at The Montague Hotel. The work of floral designer and fragrance creator Kenneth Turner, this enchanting English garden is landscaped with birch, Leanna vine, summer roses, and hanging wisteria — and is due to re-open as soon as the weather warms and England's freak snowstorms subside. It's the perfect place for a glass of Pimms, afternoon tea, or an evening barbecue. Visitors needn't be staying at the hotel but, if its popularity is anything like last summer's buzzy debut, booking in advance is recommended.

 

 

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Tucked away beside Lambeth Palace Gardens, across the River Thames from Tate Britain, The Garden Museum celebrates the design, history, and art of cultivated places. At its heart lies a knot garden in honor of the great plant hunters, John Tradescant the Elder and Younger, where you can discover red maple and tulip trees scarlet runner beans. "Green Fuse: The World of Dan Pearson" opens May 23 and promises to multimedia immersion into the works of the famed landscape designer. Sundays through Fridays 10:30 am to 5 pm, Saturdays 10:30 am to 4 pm; £7.50 (concessions £6.50/£3/children under 16 free).

 

 

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As springtime makes its slow crawl to the continent, we've unearthed six lesser-known leafy spots in which to celebrate

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Henry Moore Sculptures Head to Amsterdam to Inaugurate the Rijksmuseum Gardens

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Henry Moore Sculptures Head to Amsterdam to Inaugurate the Rijksmuseum Gardens

Twelve sculptures by Henry Moore have been shipped to Holland to inaugurate the newly reopened Rijksmuseum’s Gardens next month. 

The full list of works being transported has been revealed by the Henry Moore Foundation, with many of the pieces having never been seen in Holland before, marking an exciting debut for the Gardens, which have been updated to coincide with the institution’s reopening last month after a 10-year, £320-million development programme. This “outdoor gallery” will see a rotation of annual sculpture displays over the coming years, of which the Moore exhibition is the first. The show will open on June 22, 2013.

Highlights of the work on display will be Reclining Woman: Elbow (1981), which has not left its position next to the façade of Leeds Art Gallery since it was created, and Large Reclining Figure (1984), for which Moore enlarged a tiny 1938 maquette to over nine meters in length. Other pieces include Large Two Forms (1966), which can be physically entered by the public, and the white fibreglass work Locking Piece (1963-1964).

Rijksmuseum senior sculpture curator Frits Scholten told ARTINFO UK: “It started with the idea that we wanted to make our garden more a public space with summer exhibitions and then a private donor allowed us to realise the plans for five or six years. Moore was high on my list because I consider him the primordial sculptor. The Henry Moore Foundation could help us at fairly short notice as we started talks 18 months ago.”

Scholten said the Moores were selected with specific sites in mind. They will fall into two groups: “reclining figures” will be shown in more open spaces, while bigger, abstract work from the late 1950s and 1960s will be shown on three of the four sides of the garden close to the museum.

He added that the British pieces would complement 17th- and 18th-century Netherlandish garden sculptures already in place, including a newly restored copy of a work by Adriaen de Vries (the original is now in the Louvre). Utrecht-based Landscape architectural firm Copijn has also updated the original gardens to feature a water maze designed by Danish sculptor Jeppe Hein, complementing the original lawns and ponds created in line with Pierre Cuypers’s plan for the site.

Henry Moore Outside,Rijksmuseum Gardens, June 22, 2013 – June 22, 2014

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Christie's Rakes In $495 Million — the Highest Total for Any Art Auction, Ever

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Christie's Rakes In $495 Million — the Highest Total for Any Art Auction, Ever

NEW YORK — Auction history was made at Christie’s postwar and contemporary evening sale on Wednesday, which raked in $495,021,500 — the highest ever tally for any auction in any category. It nicked the $491.4 million mark set at Christie’s Impressionist and modern evening sale back in November 2006, the previous high for any single auction. The tally also eclipsed last May’s $388.4 million total.

Tonight, only four of the 70 lots offered failed to find buyers for a near-perfect buy-in rate by lot and value of six percent. The tally crushed presale expectations of $288.9-401.4 million, though that spread does not reflect the buyer’s premium included in the overall result. Head-turning statistics included the fact that 59 of the 66 lots sold hurdled the million-dollar mark. Of those, 23 made over $5 million. More incredibly, nine topped $10 million.

A dozen artist records were set, led by the ravishing cover lot, Jackson Pollock’s small but mighty “Number 19, 1948,” a stunning drip painting in oil and enamel on paper mounted on canvas, which sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for a whopping $58,363,750 (est. $25-35 million). The epic bidding battle for the Pollock began at $18 million and quickly escalated at million-dollar increments to a point where three bidders were still competing at the $40 million plus mark, including dealers Jose Mugrabi and Dominique Levy.

Described in the catalogue as the property of an American foundation, the shimmering painting, which last sold at auction at Christie’s New York in May 1993 for $2,422,500, subsequently entered the collection of Potomac, Maryland billionaire Mitchell Rales and his Glenstone Foundation. The price obliterated the mark set by “Number 4,” a 1951 canvas that made $40,402,500 at Sotheby’s New York last November.

It couldn’t have hurt that critic Clement Greenberg, reviewing the Pollock exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery in January 1949, singled out “Number 19,” saying it “seemed more than enough to justify the claim that Pollock is one of the major painters of our time.”

Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” may have sold for $120 million at Sotheby’s last year, but still, the fact that an AbEx work on paper could sell for $50-plus million is an extraordinary milestone. The question easily arises, what the heck happened between Sotheby’s strong but sober $293.5-million sale on Tuesday and Christie’s fantastic results on Wednesday?

“We had two single-owner collections,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s America and global head of private sales, shortly after the fireworks ended, “and we had great single works, so we had the culmination of both elements.” Porter was referring in part works from the Armand and Celeste Bartos collection, which together made $30.2 million, and a trove of paintings from the estate of crooner Andy Williams, which brought $46 million.

Singular artworks across a broad spectrum of time and styles went through the roof, including the huge and funky Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, “Dustheads” (1982), executed in acrylic, oilstick, spray enamel, and metallic paint on canvas, which sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for a record $48,843,750 (est. $25-35 million). The Wild West bidding for this Basquiat, known in the trade as a classic “pissing contest,” saw two mega-rich individuals duke it out in a cat-and-mouse bidding game that started at $20 million. It left the previous Basquiat record, set at Christie’s New York last November when “Untitled” (1981) made $26,402,500, in the dust.

Semi-retired art dealer Annina Nosei, who sequestered Basquiat in her basement space on Prince Street at the dawn of the 80s, and sold the painting for under $5,000 to Maggie Bult (at least as she recalled it), attended the sale. Now a senior champion ballroom dancer, Nosei said, “I wish I kept it. I never come to auctions, but I did for this painting. It is a masterpiece, both for its intrinsic size, the painterly language, and the structure itself. I’m without words.”

The record Basquiat came to market with a third-party guarantee, taking the risk off Christie’s and assuring that the anonymous speculator made a fortune on the transaction.  

Another Basquiat, this one a work on paper, “Furious Man,” also made a huge sum, selling to Jerry Lauren for $5,723,750 (est. $1-1.5 million). It last sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2001 for $302,750. Here, it was one of the standout pieces from the Andy Williams collection.

“I’m a folk art collector,” said Lauren, as he exited the heaving, standing-room-only salesroom, “and I can identify with this because it’s American street folk art.” Lauren, who bid from a last row seat in the salesroom, is the creative head of men’s fashion at Ralph Lauren (no relation). He explained that he collects Bill Traylor, a storied folk artist, as well as American weathervanes, stoneware, and “very rare Americana.” Needless to say, it is his first Basquiat.

Another record went to the remarkable Roy Lichtenstein painting from 1963, “Woman With Flowered Hat,” a pastiche-slash-Pop-appropriation of a Picasso painting that sold to London-based jewelry magnate Laurence Graff for $56,123,750 (est. on request in the region of $30-40 million).

“I got a masterpiece and I’m very lucky, because it’s one of four ladies Lichtenstein did and this is the best example,” said a still-elated Graff, buttonholed outside Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. “There are fewer and fewer masterpieces coming to market and I love this painting.” Graff also cracked that it is just weeks away from his birthday, “so it’s going to be my birthday present.”

The painting mashed the previous high set a year ago at Sotheby’s New York when Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl” (1964) sold for $44,882,500.

The art market tonight appeared giddily bulletproof as London-imported auctioneer Jussi Pylkannen confidently extracted multi-million-dollar bids from the room and banks of telephone bidders. In this super-charged atmosphere, certainly reminiscent of past bubble moments, uncanny prices popped like vintage champagne corks. The top-class and widely exhibited Philip Guston AbEx-era painting, “To Fellini” (1958), which was chased by at least five bidders, soared to a record $25,883,750 (est. $8-12 million). Piero Manzoni's folded abstraction, “Achrome” (1958) made a huge $14,123,750 (est. $6-9 million).

In fact, no matter where you turned, it seemed as if the spigot was left on. Another AbEx icon, Mark Rothko and his darkly luminous “Untitled (Black on Maroon),” also dated from 1958, sold to New York dealer Dominque Levy for $27,003,750 (est. $15-20 million). (Levy also bought Willem de Kooning's sexy, 28-by-20-inch “Woman (Blue Eyes),” from 1953, for $19,163,750 [est. $12-17 million]).

Gerhard Richter’s richly textured and colorful “Abstraktes bild, Dunkel (613-12)” (1986) sold to a telephone bidder for $21,963,750 (est. $14-18 million). The anonymous seller bought it from Sperone Westwater in New York during one of Richter’s first exhibitions in the U.S. in 1987. At the time, the work was well under $100,000.

But the standout evening wasn’t all about the past either, as evidenced by Julie Mehretu’s mural-like architectural landscape, “Retopistics: A Renegade Excation” (2001), which sold for a record $4,603,750 (est. $1.4-1.8 million).

“This is a landmark moment for us,” said Koji Inoue, Christie’s head of the evening sale in an after-sale remark. “It was a win-win across all categories.”

The contemporary action closes out the season Thursday evening at Phillips.

To see highlights from Christie's record-setting sale, click on the slideshow.

What You Need to Know About Canada's Chicken-Killing Performance Art Scandal

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What You Need to Know About Canada's Chicken-Killing Performance Art Scandal

UPDATE: Gordon Ferguson has now been reinstated to his position at Alberta College of Art + Design, following the petition described below. Read more on the recent update here. 

The Canadian art world is putting the Alberta College of Art + Design on trial this week, after the school's recent firing of one of its most-respected and longest-standing instructors, Gordon Ferguson, for his perceived role in a student’s demonstration of performance art. With the exception of a brief citation on CBC.ca, and a short piece in the National Post, only fringe news sites have since carried the story and issued editorials; while a wave of popular petitions, damning letters, and an appeal on the behalf of a national teacher’s association have been otherwise issued through formal channels and on the public stage. As the issue gains momentum, ARTINFO Canada has examined the available facts, responses, and notable precedents. 

The Event

On April 18th, an ACAD student presented a live white chicken, “cooed at the creature, comforted it,” and then summarily slit its throat and stuffed its feathers and innards into a pot, writes the National Post. Reaction, apparently, “was mixed.”

Police were brought to the scene but did not press charges; ACAD offered counseling for witnesses. The student, who identified himself to media as Miguel Suarez to CTV, explained that his intention had been to bring some consideration to the visceral process by which we consume chicken. “I just wanted to put it out there, that that’s the process that it takes,” he said in a video aired by the station.

ACAD issued a statement shortly thereafter acknowledging that “there was an incident yesterday” and that it was taking it “very seriously” and was “in the process of investigating.” It promised to “take all steps that it deems necessary and appropriate to deal with the incident in a timely manner.”

On May 8th, ACAD professor Gordon Ferguson was let go from the institution, something the 32-year sculpture instructor has confirmed to the media, saying his dismissal was "absolutely related" to the incident. Ferguson's lawyer has advised him not to speak to media, though he has admitted that he “has a lot to say.”

The Aftermath

Over the week that’s followed, a petition to reverse Ferguson’s dismissal has received nearly 1,500 signatures, with that count quickly rising. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has announced it has retained legal counsel to represent both Ferguson and the ACAD Faculty Association (ACADFA), “which also supports him.” Meanwhile, public letters of admonishment authored by the likes of Lisa Steele (co-signed by Joanna Householder and Tanya Mars, among others), Vera Gartley, Miruna Dragan, Paul Robert, and Paul Anderson have been widely disseminated.

CAUT executive director James Turk issued a statement Monday that reads, "We find it unacceptable that an art college would fire a professor because one of his student's projects, while legal, was controversial." In her public letter, Lisa Steel, who is a respected Canadian video and performance artist and head of the Masters of Visual Studies program, University of Toronto, expressed her “revulsion” for ACAD’s “over-reaction,” and lamented the school’s failure to produce a “teaching moment” from the controversial work. “Unpopular opinions will continue to surface within our classes and our schools. It is our job to actively listen,” she wrote.

The Precedents

Similarly controversial works and performances have appeared throughout contemporary art education history, but have rarely provoked the same type of response. In 2004, a 24-year-old UCLA student  Joseph Deutch presented a work of performance art named “untitled Russian roulette,” in which, using a wooden gun, he staged a fake suicide in front of his classmates, many of whom initially believed the act to be real. Deutch was awarded an A- for the work, and was unpunished by his administration, but the jarring incident (with its lack of mentionable aftermath) incited legendary performance artist Chris Burden and his wife, sculptor Nancy Rubins, to resign from the school’s faculty. What Deutch had done, they said in a statement issued through their art dealer, was a kind of "domestic terrorism" that made onlookers "fear for their lives." Burden stated that university grounds possess "rules of speech and decorum," and emphasized that in his own canonized gun piece, "Shoot," 1971 (in which the artist had his assistant shoot him in the arm with a rifle), the audience had been forewarned.

In a 2008 incident at Yale UniversityAliza Shvarts, a senior art major announced that she had artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages for her senior art project. The Yale Daily News dismissed the project a “creative fiction,” though Shvarts's response to this one various public platforms defended the impregnations as “real.” The administration had the last word, however, explaining that "Shvarts is engaged in performance art." A Yale spokeswoman attempted to clarify that Shvarts "stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman's body." Klasky went on to suggest that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. "Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."

Closer to home in Canada, OCAD University student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson gained infamy when he crafted a fake bomb art project and placed it outside the Royal Ontario Museum in 2007. The project's accompanying video simulated the 'bomb' exploding, and faculty alerted the administration around the same moment that a bomb squad was brought onto the museum site. A prestigious fundraiser for the Canadian Foundation for AIDS research was evacuated from the ROM that evening, effectively canceling the event as well as the $100,000 it had been planned to raise. Jonsson was granted a discharge on $33,000 in sureties, and was also suspended from OCAD; the student later terminated his studies and returned to his native Iceland. The school also initially suspended two faculty members who had led the video production course in which the student presented his project, though they were cleared a week later. In his decision on the “ROM bomber” nearly a year later, Judge William Bassel declared it "a really stupid act, even for a young person," and mandated that Jonsson volunteer 320 hours over the summer for an AIDS organization in Iceland. OCAD president Sara Diamondwas quoted as saying "the student was just right out of line," and that OCAD emphasizes ethics in art. "The sad thing is," said Diamond, "this is the kind of event that puts us in the spotlight and makes contemporary art seem irresponsible, which it isn't."

Last, in an earlier and far more gruesome example also at OCAD in 2001, part-time student Jesse Power and two of his friends videotaped a cat being skinned alive, for an artwork allegedly intended to discuss the hypocrisy of eating meat. A roommate called the police, who came to find the tape and a beheaded cat in the fridge. The tape and case, both referred to as "Kensington the Cat," sent animal activists into a fit and made headlines internationally, and Power ended up serving 90 days in jail. 

An Editorial

I have been hesitant to weigh-in on the Ferguson case because it’s almost too obvious a problem to write about. I've watched as popular arguments have veered unsteadily toward questions of is-it-or-isn’t-it (art), and God knows that’s stupid. Further, bringing the legitimacy of debate to an act so malevolent in its cowardice (ACAD's) seems too much like reward.

But I will say this: first of all, this isn’t – and cannot be – about good or bad art. No, we will not perpetuate that conversation, and certainly not on a public forum with those so far outside its parameters as to have the bad sense to engage in it.

Further: We should be discussing the element of risk that’s actively being stripped-down and bullied-out of contemporary art. We’ve been watching it happen in the academe for over two decades, now, as advisors and juries demand theory and defense; as performance art, in its growing popularity and insipidness, continues to be neutered on the public forum by such gadflies as Tilda Swinton; and as the academe finally presents a singular – and singularly harmful – vulnerability to its tenured faculty: stand behind a student taking risks, and we’ll risk everything to drop you flat.

My final thoughts? The reversal of trends we’re seeking will not be found in the very place that’s born-out its devolution. We will do our best work and take our greatest risks by being brave, by standing outside the institution. We are standing with Ferguson, right now, aren’t we? And we are so many.

 

VIDEO: Local Distilleries Take a Shot at Making Vodka

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VIDEO: Local Distilleries Take a Shot at Making Vodka

In a 6000 square foot space in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, the five founding partners of Industry City Distillery are making their own vodka. Distilleries were once popular pre-prohibition, but strict laws have kept many from springing up again. However, smaller companies like Industry City Distillery are thoughtfully engineering a comeback, doing everything themselves. Blouin ARTINFO's Vanessa Yurkevich got an inside look at how this time old tradition is getting infused with some modern day thinking.

Goodbye and Good Riddance to “The Office,” the Show That Had It and Lost It

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Goodbye and Good Riddance to “The Office,” the Show That Had It and Lost It

So much of the chatter about television these days is centered on shows whose life has been cut short. “Arrested Development,” which Fox cancelled in 2006 due to low ratings, has become such a cult success in the television afterlife that is has been resurrected by Netflix and is now the most anticipated show this year. The CW’s “Veronica Mars,” cancelled after three seasons, raised an unprecedented amount of money via Kickstarter to make a movie that will continue the show’s storyline. Even though it consistently scores low ratings, NBC’s “Community” has been kept on life support by groups of dedicated fans (not to mention a network that, really, has nothing else that works).

If only there was more discussion about shows that stick around too long, squandering whatever goodwill they’ve accumulated. Instead of saving them, maybe we can launch a Kickstarter to put these shows out of their misery.

Of course, I’m talking about the main offender: “The Office.”

Over the past couple of days, as the NBC show flails and flops toward the finish line — the series finale airs Thursday — I’ve attempted to catch up on episodes I’ve missed, basically the entirety of the last two seasons. It hasn’t been easy. What was once great about “The Office” — the way it mixed the comedy of awkwardness with heartfelt sincerity — has turned shrill and agonizing, with jokes repeated until they have nowhere to go. The single-camera mock-doc format, which “The Office” popularized on U.S. television, is now so ubiquitous, and some would say stale, that networks are retreating back to live studio audiences. For a while now, “The Office” has been spinning in circles, unsure of where they are headed, continuing to exist, sadly, just to exist and for no other reason.

It’s worth remembering that, in the beginning, nobody thought “The Office” would succeed. It was an American remake of a British show that, at least in comedy nerd circles, was unanimously loved. The remake, which during its initial, shortened first season, relied on the same scripts as the British version, premiered six months before Steve Carrell, at the time best known as a correspondent on “The Daily Show,” became famous with his starring role in Judd Apatow’s “The 40-Year Old Virgin.” It seemed like a misfire at best, pointless at worst.

When it emerged as a surprise hit, it was because of what it did differently than the original — the way it put more focus on the love story of Jim and Pam, or the way it transformed some of the cynical elements of the British version into genuine moments of earnestness. The show wasn’t just a network’s attempt to capitalize on the success of something else; it became its own singular thing, the success many would try to emulate, as evidenced by “Modern Family” and countless others.

Which is why it’s sad to see, especially over this last season, the parade of pointless guest stars — Michael Imperioli as a karate instructor? Roseanne Barr as a talent agent? — and new characters introduced that clearly serve no purpose but to prop this rotting corpse of a show up for a few more episodes. Why introduce a storyline, out of nowhere this season, that hints that Jim and Pam will get a divorce, when we all know “The Office” has no intention of ending things on such a dour note. The show expanded its world during its final moments instead of closing in on the people who we’ve been following for the past nine years, the reason we watch the show in the first place.

So we say goodbye to what “The Office” once was, and good riddance to what it’s become. 

Kapoor Says UK Art Scene Is "F*cked," NPG Gets Choir-in-Residence, and More

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Kapoor Says UK Art Scene Is "F*cked," NPG Gets Choir-in-Residence, and More

– Kapoor Calls U.K. Arts Scene "Fucked": As he prepares a major solo exhibition at Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau, British artist Anish Kapoor is finding Germany's art culture far more accommodating and ambitious than the U.K.'s. "In Germany, it seems that the intellectual and aesthetic life are to be celebrated and are seen as part of a real and good education, whereas in Britain, traditionally – certainly since the Enlightenment – we've been afraid of anything intellectual, aesthetic, visual," he said. "In the UK, while the arts are the second biggest sector after banking, they probably form less than one tenth of 1% of government spending. It's completely scuzzy. The UK has two things, the arts and education, and both of them it pushes into the corner… In short, Britain's fucked." [Guardian]

– Portrait Gallery Gets Choir-in-Residence: The National Portrait Gallery in London now has the U.K.'s first-ever choir-in-residence, fittingly dubbed the Portrait Choir, a 22-member group that will commission and perform one new song every year in the institution's galleries responding to exhibitions and even specific portraits, beginning on June 28. "It has long been an ambition of the National Portrait Gallery to have a choir in residence," said Pim Baxter of the NPG, adding that the program will show "how portraiture and the human voice can complement each other." [BBC]

– Interpol Seeks Qaddafi's Art: As part of its Stolen Asset Recovery (or STAR) initiative, which aims to track down late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's multi-billion-dollar family fortune, Interpol is searching for the former first family's art collection, with an eye to repatriating the Qaddafis' many overseas assets. "Art was probably bought through other organisations not affiliated with the regime or through investment groups," s spokesperson at the Libyan embassy in London, Ghazi Gheblawi, said. "It is something that should be investigated." [TAN]

– Protesters Occupy Ludwig Museum: A group of some 30 activists who are angered by the Ludwig Museum's handling of a search for its next director has been occupying the Budapest institution, which is housed in the city's Palace of the Arts, since May 9. The protesters criticized the lack of transparency of the Ministry of Human Resource's endeavor to replace former director Barnabas Bancsik, whose contract expired in February, especially when four of the six people on its shortlist of candidates were members of the Ministry. "The functioning of Hungarian public administration lacks transparency and, for this reason, does not serve the needs of its citizens," the protesters wrote in a statement. "But it’s not just about the Ludwig Museum," said a participant in the protest, Reuben Fowkes. "It’s about the fact that amateurs and politicians are taking over the arts; about the way things are being done in Budapest, not just what is being done." [TAN]

– Poland Demands Soviet-Looted Art Be Returned: The Polish culture minister Bogdan Zdrojweski has renewed calls for the return of artworks that were stolen from Poland by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, including pieces by Pieter Brueghel and Hans Holbein currently on view in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. "Of 31 official restitution requests by Poland, 18 concern works located in Russia," Zdrojweski said. "Only a few years ago, our restitution claims were dismissed as unfounded. Today, our requests are no longer called into question." [AFP]

– Mayan Pyramid Pulverized in Belize: Late last week a construction company leveled one of the largest Mayan pyramids in Belize's 2,300-year-old Nohmul complex to turn it into gravel for a nearby road-building project. "It's a feeling of incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity… they were using this for road fill," said Jaime Awe, the head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology. "It's like being punched in the stomach, it's just so horrendous… These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It's just bloody laziness." [AP]

– Cambodia Wants Its Antiquities Back: Following the recent return to two large statues from the Metropolitan Museum, the Cambodian government is calling on other American museums and collectors to look into the provenance of their Khmer antiquities, as many made their way out of Cambodia after 1970 during two decades of civil war that left the country's historic sites prey to looters. "We are calling on all American museums and collectors, that if they have these statues unlawfully or illegally they should return them to Cambodia," said a spokesperson for Cambodia's Council of Ministers, Ek Tha, who urged them to "follow the Metropolitan’s lead." [NYT]

– RISD Museum Hires Contemporary Art Curator: The Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design has appointed Dominic Molon as its new curator of contemporary art, a job he will take up in September. Since 2010 Molon has been the chief curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, prior to which he was a curator and the acting head of the curatorial department at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. He replaces the RISD Museum's inaugural and longtime curator of contemporary art, Judith Tannenbaum, who has left the position but will remain at the museum through 2014 as an adjunct curator. [Providence Journal]

– Di Suvero's Gold Medal: On Wednesday the sculptor Mark di Suvero was one of two honorees, along with novelist E.L. Doctorow, to receive a gold medal for the arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Manhattan. Di Suvero joins other sculptors recognized by the 250-member Academy, including Louise BourgeoisRichard Serra, and Martin Puryear. [NYT]

– RIP Longtime Guggenheim Director Thomas M. MesserThomas M. Messer, who served as the director of the Guggenheim Museum from 1961 — two years after it moved into its iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building — until his retirement in 1988, died Wednesday at his Manhattan home at the age of 93. He was also the director of the Guggenheim Foundation from 1980 to 1988. Among the most distinguished achievements during his tenure, one of the longest at a major U.S. museum: he helped secure the Foundation's acquisition of the collections of Justin K. Thannhauser — a trove of Impressionist and early modern artworks — and Peggy Guggenheim, including her Venetian palazzo. [NYT]

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Meet Dominic Molon

 

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For breaking news throughout the day, check our blog IN THE AIR.

"Rain Room" at MoMA Heralds Restoration Hardware's Bold Move Into Art Sales Biz

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"Rain Room" at MoMA Heralds Restoration Hardware's Bold Move Into Art Sales Biz

After debuting at the Barbican during Frieze London last year, rAndom International’s “Rain Room” (2012) arrived at MoMA last week in time for Frieze New York. Now through July 28, thanks to the miracle of motion sensor technology, visitors can stroll through a high-tech, simulated deluge without feeling a drop of water, all to the ambient sounds of Hollywood composer Max Richter. Aside from the inherent spectacle and whimsy, what’s really notable about this particular exhibit is that it comes to MoMA’s “EXPO 1: NEW YORK” show on loan from Marin County, California-based chain of furniture retailers Restoration Hardware.

Following an eventful year — 2012 included a $150-million initial public offering, former co-CEO Gary Friedman’s resignation in light of a relationship with an employee (“consensual and ongoing,” as of August 2012, according to the New York Times), and a patent lawsuit over an iconic chair— Restoration Hardware is embarking on a fresh start with the launch of RH Contemporary Art, a new fine art-focused division that will include an e-commerce site, an editorial publication, and a five-story space in the Meatpacking District that will show new work commissioned from emerging artists every eight weeks starting in September. At the division’s helm is chairman emeritus Friedman and RHCA vice president Holly Baxter, to whom Friedman credits the discovery of RHCA’s very first purchase. She found “Rain Room,” which exists in an edition of six, even before its hours-long lines at the Barbican caught MoMA’s attention.

“I said, ‘Holly, you need to find something that reflects what we believe and what we love. We need to find something that the world has never seen,’” Friedman told ARTINFO at the installation’s stateside debut. “She just got a digital CAD drawing that the artists had done, and I immediately saw it and loved it. I loved the whole concept of it. I said, ‘Let’s buy it!’ It really was a reflection of our values and our beliefs. It’s a lot about trust, it’s a lot about believing, and it’s a lot about thinking about you can transform any environment if you believe… There’s something very powerful about that.”

In September the gallery makes its debut with “Autonomy*,” the first U.S. survey of rAndom International’s experimental, tech-driven interactive artwork with two new commissions. (“Rain Room” will likely be on tour, but the ephemeral, heat-activated images of “Self Portrait,” 2010, will be on view.) Contrary to art-world convention, RHCA plans to buy commissions from artists directly, up-front, and in-full as part of its stated mission to “raise the visibility of international artists to collectors and viewers.” The unique approach, however unorthodox, would provide the type of financial backing that would potentially launch the career of the kind of emerging or mid-career artist RHCA is looking to patronize. As far as price is concerned, the gallery has thus far established that there will also be secondary market works available in some exhibitions, so the price range is quite broad in the gallery,” according to a rep.

Friedman, who’s enlisted the help of 20 international curators in his mission to find these artists, poses no pretense about his own curatorial vision. “When Holly and I were talking about entering the art world, I had said to Holly, ‘Look, there are going to be a lot of people, and they’re going to ask themselves, Why are these guys getting into the art world? They don’t know anything about art,’” he explained. I said, ‘You know what? They’re right.’ We don’t know a lot about art, but we know what we love and what we believe in… The artists that conceived [“Rain Room”] and had the creative courage to bring this to life — those are the kind of people we want to be advocates for.

“Rain Room” is on view as part of MoMA’s “EXPO 1: NEW YORK” through July 28. 


Slideshow: "The After Revolution" at FIAF

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Slideshow: Top Lots from Phillips Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 16

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Art Platform — Los Angeles Axes 2013 Edition, Citing a Changing Fair Landscape

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Art Platform — Los Angeles Axes 2013 Edition, Citing a Changing Fair Landscape

Art Platform — Los Angeles, the fair that debuted in 2011 at downtown’s L.A. Mart before relocating to Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hangar for its second edition last September, has canceled its 2013 edition. ARTINFO learned on Thursday that Art Platform — which is run by Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., the company that also puts on New York’s Armory Show, among other fairs — has opted to call off its third outing, which was slated to run September 27-29 at Barker Hangar.

“After careful consideration we have decided to cancel Art Platform – Los Angeles 2013,” the fair's director Adam Gross said Thursday. “Even with an incredible amount of support from collectors, artists, and galleries, changes in the art fair landscape have made it a challenge to produce the high quality fair the Art Platform team has always been committed to delivering.”

In its first year Art Platform — Los Angeles not only coincided with the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative, but also attracted satellite fairs PULSE and Fountain to make their West Coast debuts. The following year, however, Art Platform went it alone, relocating to the historic Hangar for the convenience of out-of-town collectors and jettisoning the previous installment’s requirement that exhibitors include California-flavored work in recognition of PST.

“We’re broadening our focus from the L.A. and California art scene to an ultimately international framework,” Gross told ARTINFO at the time.

Last year there were concerns that the fair’s new location would be made virtually inaccessible by the so-called “Carmageddon 2,” the closure of Los Angeles’s 405 freeway for construction on the weekend of the fair.

Connie Butler Leaves MoMA to Become Head Curator at L.A.'s Hammer Museum

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Connie Butler Leaves MoMA to Become Head Curator at L.A.'s Hammer Museum

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has appointed Connie Butler as chief curator. In her new role, Butler, who recently resigned from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, will be in charge of developing and organizing exhibitions, building the Hammer’s contemporary collection, and overseeing its artist residency program and artist council.

In mid-April, the Hammer confirmed Butler’s appointment as a co-curator of its 2014 biennial, “Made in L.A.,” but only as a replacement for Karin Higa, who withdrew from the role for health reasons, according to a story in the L.A. Times. At the time, Butler had said she expected to fly back and forth a lot between the East Coast and the West Coast.

ARTINFO has learned that Butler has since resigned from her position at MoMA as the Robert Lehman Foundation chief curator of drawings, a position she had held since 2006. The departments of Drawings and of Prints and Illustrated Books are being combined into the Department of Prints and Drawings as of July 1. Christophe Cherix will be the chief curator of the combined department.

During her tenure at MoMA, Butler played a major role in numerous influential and well-received shows, including “On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century,” which ran from late 2010 to early 2011 at MoMA, and  “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1 in 2010.

Butler is replacing Douglas Fogle, who left the Hammer in 2011. She was formerly a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, from 1996 to 2006. In a statement, Hammer director Ann Philbin said, “Connie is returning to L.A. after an impressive tenure at MoMA and the Hammer is thrilled to be welcoming her back to this community — one she knows very well.” Her new appointment at the Hammer is effective in July.

In the same statement, Butler adds: “Los Angeles is a great city for the production of art and the Hammer is a museum with artists at its center… I look forward to bringing my vision, both as a recent outsider, but also as someone with a long history in Los Angeles, to the museum.”

The museum also announced the appointment of Aram Moshayedi to a newly created curator position, also effective in July. Since 2010, Moshayedi has served as associate curator of the gallery at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), where he organized exhibitions and oversaw production of new works by various artists.

 

Phillips Takes In $78.6 Million, Led by Warhol's $38-Million "Four Marilyns"

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Phillips Takes In $78.6 Million, Led by Warhol's $38-Million "Four Marilyns"

NEW YORK — Speaking of a hard act to follow… Phillips's evening sale commenced just 24 hours after Christie’s record-setting half-billion-dollar result. It proved mildly successful. The boutique-scaled auction house, headquartered on Park Avenue and 57th Street, sold $78,618,000 of contemporary art, with 30 of the 37 lots offered finding buyers. That translates into a buy-in rate by lot of 19 percent and 12 percent by value.

The total fell shy of last May’s $86.8 million sale with a similar buy-in rate by lot of 20 percent. It just nicked (with premium added) the low-end of the $77,550,000-105,500,000 pre-sale estimate. (Speaking of the buyer’s premium: the fees added onto the hammer price for each lot offered, Phillips now charges a whopping 25 percent of the first $100,000, then 20 percent up to $2 million, and 12 percent for anything above that.)

In tonight’s sweepstakes, 13 works sold for over a million dollars; of those, four made more than four million dollars and one scored over $30 million. The lion’s share of the major lots this evening carried third-party guarantees, meaning the works would sell no matter what happened in the salesroom, thanks to pre-sale selling done to calm reluctant consignors.

Unlike at previous Phillips auctions, here there was considerably less so-called cutting-edge art and more examples of less-than-stellar work by blue-chip artists. It was also unsettling at first to see Simon de Pury, former Phillips chairman and star auctioneer, sitting like a civilian in the center of the salesroom as his protégé Alexander Gilkes confidently and crisply navigated from the rostrum.

The auction started off with Wade Guyton’s mirrored stainless steel “U sculpture (v.5)” (2007) from an edition of three plus one artist proof that sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $365,000 (est. $250-350,000), followed by Nate Lowman’s “Escalade” (2005-07), which sold to another phone buyer for $545,000 (est. $400-600,000).

On the guaranteed side, of the 11 or so works, Christopher Wool’s text painting, “And If” (1992), comprised of the bold-faced, run on, full-cap message, “and if you don’t like it you can get the fuck out of my house,” sold to the telephone for $4,085,000 (est. $3.5-4.5 million). The same price greeted Thomas Schütte’s giant “Großer Geist Nr. 9” (1998), a Cor-ten steel sculpture of a striding man (est. $3-4 million). A C-print laminated on Plexiglas by Andreas Gursky, “Rhein” (1996) — one of the artist’s central images from an edition of five — sold to another telephone bidder for $1,925,000 (est. $1-1.5 million).

Surprisingly, given the record-breaking Basquiat fireworks at Christie’s, the 60-by-60-inch “Untitled (Soap)” (1983-84), died at a chandelier bid $3.9 million (est. $5-7 million). Asked later why this Basquiat didn’t sell, Michael McGinnis, Phillips’s top contemporary specialist as well as CEO of the firm, said it wasn’t a question of an over-reaching estimate. “Maybe it’s a case of being too much Basquiat [on the market] and being at the end of the week. There was pre-sale interest,” he said, “but it didn’t materialize.”

Another Basquiat offering, this one backed by a financial guarantee, “Untitled” (1981), featuring a bat-wielding baseball player, sold for $4,085,000 (est. $3.5-4.5 million).

The evening’s top lot was also the cover lot, Andy Warhol’s rare “Four Marilyns” (1962), featuring the blonde-tressed screen siren in electric red lips and turquoise-colored eye shadow. It sold for $38,245,000 (est. $35-45 million). According to the artist’s catalogue raisonne, it is one of four compositions with the quartet of Marilyn headshots poached by Warhol from a movie studio publicity still from the 1952 black-and-white film “Niagra.” It last sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York in November 1998 for $2,312,500.

According to several reliable sources, the painting was recently acquired from New York dealer Robert Mnuchin and put up as the firm’s star lot, without a guarantee. It was bought tonight by Victoria Gelfand of Gagosian Gallery, bidding with a cell phone clasped closely to her ear.

Another Warhol offering, “Flowers” (1964), measuring 24 by 24 inches, sold for $2,461,000 (est. $2-3 million) to Kristy Bryce, director of New York’s Eykyn Maclean, a private gallery that recently staged a Warhol “Flowers” exhibition. “I think it sold just right,” said Bryce as she exited the salesroom.

A third Warhol offering, “Blue/Green Marilyn From Reversal Series” (1979-86), sold to another anonymous telephone bidder on a single bid for $1,325,000 (est. $1-1.5 million). It last sold at auction at Christie’s New York in May 1996 for $46,000. That’s some appreciation!

On a more esoteric note, Franz West’s “Untitled (Two heads)” (2004), sold to Steven Henry of Paula Cooper Gallery for $461,000 (est. $400-600,000). Buttonholed outside the salesroom, Henry said, “I was happy with what we got — it’s a terrific piece at a fair price.”

Henry also expressed a sentiment echoed by others regarding the boutique-scaled Phillips: “You want to root for them, they’re making inroads.”

At the end of the night, grunge rocker (and more recently, visual artist) Courtney Love brushed by in a rather elegant white dress, tattoo well in evidence. The celeb sighting was big news to art dealer Andrew Fabricant of Richard Gray Gallery, who moments earlier bought the last lot of the evening sale, Thomas Houseago’s “Untitled” bronze head from 2010, for $209,000 (est. $150-200,000).

“Wow,” said a flabbergasted Fabricant. “I was sitting next to her in the salesroom.”

Reflecting on Jeff Koons's Hollow Triumph in Chelsea

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Reflecting on Jeff Koons's Hollow Triumph in Chelsea

1.

When I walked into “Gazing Ball,” Jeff Koons’s new show at David Zwirner, my first reaction was… pleasant surprise.

The show, advertised as the opening shot in a Year of Koons leading up to his Whitney retrospective in 2014, consists of a number of creamy white plaster sculptures scattered around Zwirner’s beautifully lit 19th Street space, evidently intended as an extended riff on types of lawn decoration. Some are giant casts of familiar classical sculptures — pert, armless female nudes and brawny, writhing warriors — of the kind you might find lining the way to some godawful nouveau riche Beverly Hills palace; others are simulacra of elaborately decorated mailboxes; one is a jumbo-sized snowman. What binds the whole series together is a repeating element, a shiny blue sphere — here perched on the hip of a languishing figure, there balanced incongruously atop a row of mailboxes.

I’ve so come to associate Koons with mindless rich-guy spectacle that these new “Gazing Ball” works come off as unexpectedly daring. They offer the semblance of a fresh formula, though Koons's queasy interplay of the high and the low remains unmistakable. Here, that theme is refracted through a whole system of other polarities: calculated variation and knowing repetition, matte white and mirrored blue, and finally the turbo-charged production values of the statuary (check out the surface of that snowman) and the store-bought character of the “gazing balls” (on Amazon, you can buy a blue “Odyssey Glass Gazing Globe” for $29.97; maybe the goofy classical reference fired Koons’s imagination). 

As a viewer, you enter “Gazing Ball” and you are amused. Then you walk around these sculptures and you slowly realize that, after the initial intrigue, no further thoughts appear in your brain. 

In that one-two step, the initial rush followed by the deeper emptiness, you have everything you need to know about Koons’s merit as an artist. You have his real skill — and let’s be honest, fellow Koons-sceptics, the man is talented. His eye for effects is one of his two great talents. It’s just that a single jolt of mannered peculiarity is not quite enough to convince you that it all has much of a point. You can’t help but think that the final destiny of these meta-lawn-ornaments is to end up as actual lawn ornaments for some multi-millionaire, as all the levels of irony collapse in on themselves. And ultimately the most appropriate word to describe the accomplishment of “Gazing Ball” would be “awesome” — delivered in as flat and affectless a tone of voice as possible.

2.

The Zwirner show opened opposite another at Koons’s long-time gallery, Gagosian. The latter, unimaginatively titled “New Painting and Sculpture,” is a more diverse but also less novel experience.

It contains three monumental polished stainless steel balloon animals, about which there is no more to say than there is about Koons's other monumental balloon animals, and a sculpture of a man-sized inflatable Incredible Hulk pushing a wheel-barrow. It also profers a set of works from the New York artist's newer “Antiquity” line, large photorealist collage paintings that mash together yet more images of classical nudes; “Balloon Venus (Magenta),” a large sculpture evoking the ancient, bulbous fertility totem known as the “Venus of Willendorf,” only formed out of shiny metal balloons; and “Metallic Venus,” a scale version of the so-called “Venus Callipyge” — the “Venus of the Beautiful Buttocks,” an epithet that must have amused Koons — in polished blue steel, studded with live flowers.

“Antiquity” is new territory for Koons, perhaps — but in fact it fits a very old pattern: From Picasso’s florid versions of “Las Meninas” to Warhol’s icy riffs on “The Last Supper,” late-period artists have often pivoted to apply their signature techniques to the classics. As they age, such celebrity artists find themselves forced to quote themselves; locked in the prison of their own trademark effects, they look for something to buttress their credibility. Quoting the masters thereby signifies the lasting relevance they feel is slipping away from them, while replicating the problem of being trapped within art at a higher level.

Which is to say: I can’t see much of meaning in Koons’s Koons-esque spins on antiquity, besides some kind of residual hunger to be taken seriously — though this almost makes them poignant in their own unintentional way.

3.

The opening of Koons’s double whammy of shows last week came right on the heels of a lengthy New York Magazine cover story, which was, truth be told, short on fresh insight into the guy. The headline of the article asked, “What Does the Art World Have Against Jeff Koons?” This conceit produced a particular eye roll, evoking the mega-rich who go on and on about how they are a persecuted minority.

But the title does at least make visible the ideology being beamed at you from all those gleaming surfaces at Zwirner and Gagosian. I mentioned Koons’s two talents before. One is his meticulous eye for a Baz Luhrmann-esque high-octane eye candy; the other, his ability to convince fans that the underlying lack of nuance is not a lack at all, but a carefully planned effect — in fact, a meaningful act of defiance against all those pointy-headed intellectuals who are always complaining about things. “He says if you’re critical, you’re already out of the game,” David Zwirner explains in the New York mag article, articulating Koons’s philosophy. This strikes me as a particularly One Percent kind of sentiment, a token of a world grown so unequal that a certain class of people is almost completely out of touch with the values of real humans. For most of us, after all, critical thought is important, because for most of us life is a struggle.

The new millennium, so far, has belonged to Koons, with the brief interregnum of the art crash that followed the 2008 financial crisis. Then, good critics wondered aloud whether the crisis might be positive for art, returning some critical spark to it — and Koons’s brand of industrial-strength razzle-dazzle was exactly the kind of thing that was, for that crisis-wracked moment, exposed in all its social irrelevance.

Yet the promised aesthetic renewal did not arrive, mainly because passing through the crucible of the Great Recession, the powerful stabilized their fortunes. Inequality has surged, and Koons’s status as Artist of His Time has surged back with it. But as in the general economy, where you get the sense that we have lived through a largely substance-free recovery, based on kicking the can down the road, Koons's new works give you the feeling that you are dealing with the same old schemes, though perhaps in slightly new forms.

Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" Screens at Cannes and Exposes the Dark Side of Consumerism

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Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" Screens at Cannes and Exposes the Dark Side of Consumerism
Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring

 

“I wanna rob,” deadpans a chain-smoking post-Hogwarts Emma Watson in the infectious trailer for “The Bling Ring,” Sofia Coppola’s new movie based on the real-life exploits of a gang of sticky-fingered Valley girls who burgled $3 million in designer clothing and jewelry from the Hollywood mansions of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, and other mid-aughts tabloid silage. A cabal of teenagers indulge in underage partying and grand larceny to the score of Azealia Banks’s badass anthem “212.” With their insatiable hunger for luxury branding (Chanel, Gucci, Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, and Yves Saint Laurent among them), the Bling Ring girls referred to their stealing binges as “going shopping.” Kleptomania is consumerism’s double.

Commodity fetishism — the quasi-spiritual, phantasmagorical love of stuff, made possible by capitalism, is a major trope in this year’s movies. The New York Times film critic A.O. Scott noted as much in his recent essay comparing “The Bling Ring,” Baz Lurhmann’s overstuffed Gatsby adaptation, and the hedonistic nirvana of Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers." 

In Spring Breakers’s standout scene, the vainglorious street thug Alien, played by a gold-toothed James Franco, revels in the sublime excess of all his stuff: “I got shorts! Every fuckin' color… This is the fuckin' American dream.” In an eerily parallel scene in “The Great Gatsby,” the sight of Gatsby’s wardrobe is to Daisy Buchanan an almost transcendental experience. "It makes me sad,” Daisy exclaims. “I’ve never seen such beautiful shirts before.” Gatsby is a Jazz-Age Alien, a gangster in a penguin suit, and those mind-bogglingly gorgeous Brooks Brothers shirts were bought and paid for through unsavory means. Consumerism and criminality are one.

Gatsby’s “view of American materialism is not moralistic, but pornographic,” says Scott. "[It] traffics in the sheer libidinal pleasure of money and what it can buy.” The same could be said of “Spring Breakers” and “The Bling Ring,” which exacerbate the American dream of upward mobility and self-betterment to the dissipated heights of lifestyle pornography.

Neither a celebration nor a critique of consumerism, these movies approximate what cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek calls over-identification: the strategy of pushing an ideology to its limit in order to unravel it from within. “To be really subversive," says Žižek, "is not to develop critical potentials, or ironic distance, but precisely to take the system more seriously than it takes itself seriously." Instead of harping on the evils of mammon, these three flicks literalize desire. They give the people what they want to the point of obscenity. “This is how we live: greedily, enviously, superficially, in a state of endless, self-justifying desire,” Scott concludes. “This is the pursuit of happiness, mirrored in the pleasure these movies provide.” 

At a historical moment where social class and economic redistribution have entered the public consciousness (vis-à-vis both the lefty populist rhetoric of Occupy and Mitt Romney’s "47%" blunder), these movies cast the tenants of “good filmmaking” (sympathetic characters, compelling human drama, a coherent moral program) aside like last season’s Prada, articulating a worldview defined by stockpiling fancy things. They might be criticized as decadent and superficial, but isn’t that the point? They’re materialistic, but also materialist: intentionally or not, they expose the unquenchable, desiring logic of capitalism.


Slideshow: Curiosity: An Exhibition Portfolio

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Slideshow: The Architizer A+ Awards

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Silicon Valley Gets an Art Fair, Promising "Earth-Shattering" Art-Tech Pairing

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Silicon Valley Gets an Art Fair, Promising "Earth-Shattering" Art-Tech Pairing

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the growing interest of Internet entrepreneurs in the art world. The art fair gods have heard them. Next year, their enthusiasm will be rewarded with a boutique art fair of their very own, right in the heart of tech culture itself: Silicon Valley Contemporary 2014.

The newest addition to the roster of Hamptons Expo Group — a producer of art shows like ArtHamptons, ArtAspen, and the Houston Fine Art Fair  — Silicon Valley Contemporary will gather roughly 60 exhibitors from around the world from April 10-13 at the San Jose Convention Center for an exhibition of work selected to parallel the rise of Silicon Valley itself, historically and spiritually. “It will feature work created from 1980 to the present,” said Rick Friedman, founder and president of Hamptons Expo Group. “We think that’s in sync with Silicon Valley. We want it to be cutting edge, but accessible to people.”

As with Hamptons Expo’s other boutique fairs, Silicon Valley Contemporary will be a regional show, catering to the interests of Silicon Valley’s three million locals. It will target the “intellectually curious and visually-oriented” from some of California's wealthiest zip codes, including Los AltosLos GatosPalo Alto, and Menlo Park.  The fair is also seeking to collaborate with local museums, like the San Jose Museum of Art, for fundraising events and parties. 

While visitors will be local, the galleries to this invitation-only event will be global with spaces hailing from India and Asia, as well as some from nearby San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The level of response is through the roof,” said the fair’s director Peter Bodnarchuk. Having closely studied the “impasse” between the art world and the tech entrepreneurs, Bodnarchuk, a long-time startup consultant who ran one of the first luxury goods auction sites (Finelot) and also has years of experience in the art world (most recently, he ran a gallery called Art Futures in Miami's art-centric Wynwood neighborhood), says the fair will be a “very open platform,” and especially geared to making visitors feel welcome. Everything will be accessible online and a good portion of the work displayed will involve new media and digital photography, computer-driven work, and high-tech installations.

“We have one company that is doing something earth-shattering,” Bodnarchuk promised, though he couldn’t yet get into the details. “It’s a game-changer. It’s very futuristic — something that has never been experienced in this world before, with an art component.”

Apart from such ground-breaking works, the fair will be much like any other fair, with booths and swag. Organizers, however, are aiming to minimize the inherent hierarchies of the bigger art fairs, where established galleries command pride of place. “You can’t get around the hierarchy,” he avers, “but I think it’s about being open and intelligent about it.”

Click here for more information on Silicon Vallery Contemporary.

Stockholm Cool Meets the Big Gay American West: ACNE x Bruce of Los Angeles

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Stockholm Cool Meets the Big Gay American West: ACNE x Bruce of Los Angeles
Acne x Bruce of Los Angeles

 

Nothing like a little vintage homoerotica to raise an eyebrow, especially if those in the buff posed as far back as the conservative 1940s. Such was the mission – and legacy – of Bruce Bellas, the photographer more commonly known as BruceofLosAngeles.

The Nebraska native began his professional life as a chemistry teacher, of all things. But in 1947, Bellas relocated to L.A., where he started snapping bodybuilders in increasing states of undress. His oeuvre grew and he began to define the mid-century beefcake — framing men both physically raw and visually provocative, inadvertently creating a new category in art’s ever-expanding matrix: the fifties physique.

Moreover, the photographer helped usher in a brave new era of masculinity, nude or otherwise – catalyzing a graduation from the vanilla to the explicit, à laRobertMapplethorpe. In 2001, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter wrote, “Mapplethorpe was virtually a Bruce creation, and artists like CindySherman are almost certainly beneficiaries of his prop-wielding, icon-busting wit.” While Sherman didn’t necessarily dabble in birthday-suited gents, her work typically tackles gender issues in some way, shape, or form. 

Yet Bruce of Los Angeles had a more private and buttoned-up side – a facet that Stockholm’s ACNEStudios has capitalized on in the book “Bruce of Los Angeles Rodeo,” a spectacularly juxtaposed collaboration between slick Swede cool and big gay American West. You see, Bellas shot a parallel series of work in addition to all the nakedness, specifically a selection of bona fide cowboys caught in off moments between bull-riding and bronco-busting. Considered the artist’s most personal work, the photographs elucidate a more complex view of modern masculinity. Curated by NewYorker critic VinceAletti, the 192-page tome is a fitting testament to all things Bruce, laid out in typical ACNE minimalism (if you’ve never read ACNE Paper, pick it up ASAP from your local import mag shop).

Additionally, the images are forever grafted to the Scandinavian design house in a capsule clothing line featuring Bellas’s photos screened on the brand’s ever-popular denims and blouses (the capsule is unisex). Attendees at the launch of the book and line included FranLebowitz, HanneGabyOdiele, and KateFoley– an apt, unexpected blend, much like “Rodeo” itself. 

WEEK IN REVIEW: From Christie's to Koons, Our Top Visual Arts Stories, May 13-17

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WEEK IN REVIEW: From Christie's to Koons, Our Top Visual Arts Stories, May 13-17

– Judd Tully reported from an astonishing four modern and contemporary art auctions in New York this week, beginning with Monday’s sale at Christie’s benefiting Leonard DiCaprio’s wildlife charity, followed by Sotheby’s $293.5 million sale on Tuesday, Christie’s blockbuster $495-million auction on Wednesday— the highest total for an art auction ever — and concluding with Thursday’s $78.6 million sale at Phillips.

– Rozalia Jovanovic attended a meeting of the Gertrude Salon, an exclusive gathering of artists, curators, and novice and seasoned collectors.

– Sky Goodden parsed the ongoing controversy surrounding a student’s performance art piece at the Alberta College of Art + Design that involved killing a chicken.

Jeremy Deller offered a taste of his project for the British Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale.

David Lynch discussed how his art school ambition to become a painter has shaped his filmmaking.

– New York dealer Yossi Milo announced plans to open a pop-up photography exhibition in Sydney.

– Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop offered a preview of the offerings at the inaugural edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, which makes its debut on May 23 through 26.

– Australian artist Patricia Piccinini unveiled the strange sea-creature shaped hot-air balloon sculpture that she created for Canberra’s centennial celebrations.

– Ben Davis reflected on two new solo shows by Jeff Koons at David Zwirner and Gagosian in Chelsea.

– Alexander Forbes chatted with Helsinki-based art dealers and collectors Rafaela Seppälä-Forsblom and Kaj Forsblom.

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