– "Mini-Monet" Draws Fierce Bidding: In case you had any doubt that the market for "emerging artists" was still going strong, 10-year-old painter Kieron Williamson recently saw an online and telephone sale of 23 of his canvases net a whopping £242,095 in just 20 minutes of bidding. The Norfolk-based pre-teen art star has been dubbed the "mini-Monet" on the strength of his luminescent pastoral landscapes. "Everyone in the art world reckons that his work has gone up a load of notches in the last year," said proud father Keith Williamson. "Some of the bits and pieces he has done lately are just phenomenal." He and his wife Michelle Williamson expect their son's earnings to top £1.5 million very soon. [Telegraph]

– Landscape Photography Show Blasted for Mining Sponsorship: The UK's Natural History Museum is being criticized for taking on as a sponsor for an exhibition of Brazilian artist Sebastião Salgado's landscape photography the world's second-largest mining company, Vale, whose activities in Brazil threaten some 500 square kilometers of the Amazon rainforest. [Independent]

– Degas Show Has Cheap Shelving: "Degas' Method," an exhibition devoted to Edgar Degas at Copenhagen's Carlsberg Glyptoteket features a series of bronze sculptures the French Impressionist used as models that for his paintings and drawings. The Wall Street Journal breaks the story that works by the famed Impressionist are installed on the sort of rudimentary wood shelving one might buy at Ikea. [WSJ]

– Masterpieces Likely Incinerated: It looks increasingly certain that the mother of several Romanian men charged with stealing art from the Kunsthal Rotterdam incinerated the works:

– NY Dealer Indicted for Fraud: New York art dealer Glafira Rosales was indicted on Wednesday for a scheme to sell $30 million worth of fake paintings to two Manhattan galleries. According to prosecutors, Rosales has already sold more than 60 allegedly never-before-seen works by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, among others. "The indictment depicts a complete circle of fraud perpetrated by Glafira Rosales — fake paintings sold on behalf of non-existent clients with money deposited in a hidden bank account," Manhattan attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. [Reuters]

– French Icon's Ukrainian Feminist Roots Spur Row: Olivier Ciappa, one of the artists behind France's new stamp of the allegorical figure Marianne — icon of the French revolution — has caused a stir by announcing on Twitter that his cartoonish rendition has some eclectic inspirations, including the Ukrainian radical feminist Inna Shevchenko, known for her many topless protests. Shevchenko has been granted political asylum in France and now heads up the national branch of the feminist activism group FEMEN. [AFP]

– The Russian anarcha-feminist collective Pussy Riot has released a new video slamming Putin, and the Russian oil industry. See it here:

– Conceptual artist Jill Magid and Triple Canopy editor Alexander Provan have won the New School’s Vera List Center fellowships for 2013. [Artforum]

– The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum has selected 21 artist — including Xylor Jane, Rachel Gross, and Jonathan Calm — for its third Biennial. [Press Release]

– The Art Institute of Chicago has hired Gloria Groom to be its new senior curator. [Press Release]

– Alex Colville, giant of Canadian painting, has passed away (read ARTINFO Canada's obit, here). From the CBC archives:

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Check our blog IN THE AIR for breaking news throughout the day.

Auction activity at the major New York houses has historically been extremely quiet during July and August; once the fireworks of the major spring auctions and headline grabbing seven- and eight-figure prices have subsided, the art world typically goes on hiatus until fall. But that trend appears to be changing as the increasingly global art market and fast-growing demand for modern and contemporary art ensures an ever-proliferating roster of art fairs, biennials, and sales.

Christie’s has obviously been finding rising opportunities amid the traditional summer lull. This week, after announcing record first-half worldwide sales of £2.4 billion ($3.7 billion), up nine percent on year-ago levels — not to mention plans to expand its auctions to Shanghai and Mumbai later this year — the house launched two new sales of lower-priced modern, postwar, and contemporary art that underscored the continued hunger for quality works by top artists at all price points.

The house’s regular First Open sale, first launched in 2005 and held in New York each March and September is aimed at newer buyers of contemporary art. On July 17, Christie’s debuted a new summer edition, with a relatively modest overall estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million (the past March First Open sale scored $12.4 million by comparison), and works starting at $400 to $600. The summer edition, organized by Christie’s powerhouse postwar and contemporary department was focused even more sharply on “new collectors and clients wishing to expand existing collections in new directions.” By mid-afternoon results had already blown past the low-end estimate and eventually landed at  $5.8 million. Of 232 lots offered, 201, or 87 percent, found buyers. By value the auction was 95 percent sold.

Headlining the sale was a colorful 1965 abstract painting by Jack Bush, “Red Side Right (Right Side Red),” which soared past its high $50,000 estimate to sell for a record $603,750. The provenance undoubtedly had added cachet for buyers, having come from the collection of singing legend Andy Williams, who acquired it directly from London’s Waddington Galleries. Several of Williams' works were offered here (major works from his collection were sold in the house's May auctions) and led the sale including the second highest lot, Willem de Kooning’s bronze, “Head #3” (1973), number 11 from an edition of 12, which sold for $423,750 (est. $220–280,000). Three other colorful Bush paintings from Williams’s collection landed in the top ten, all with six-figure price tags that far-exceeded their five-figure estimates.

"Across the board, the success of this sale was due to the extraordinary range of work on offer, with a particular focus on strong examples by artists underrepresented in the secondary market," said Saara Pritchard, head of the First Open sale. "Another driving factor in the sale was exceptional provenance."

In addition to Williams, the wide-range of offerings — paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and video art spanning the 1940s to the present — also included consignments from private, but high-profile collections, including those of Douglas Cramer and Donald Young. A trippy, untitled Arshile Gorky drawing, dated 1944, captured $315,750, well above its estimate of $80,000 to $120,000, and a large Mark di Suvero steel sculpture “Ira’s Piece” (2002) from the estate of the late Ira Lowe, a prominent Washington, D.C. attorney and collector who acquired it directly from the artist, fetched $219,750, within the $200,000 to $300,000 estimate.

On the previous day (July 15), Christie’s debuted another new sale, “First Impressions,” this one focusing on prints and multiples, and offering more than 450 lots by over 100 artists, including examples of work from museum collections such as the Brooklyn Museum, SFMOMA, and LACMA. In all, the sale netted $1.9 million (est. $1.2–1.9 million) with 405, or 88 percent of the lots sold. By value the auction realized a robust 93 percent.

Perhaps not surprisingly, iconic works by Andy Warhol— “Marilyns” and “Flowers” — dominated the high end of the sale, accounting for the three highest lots, including a 1967 colored “Marilyn” single print that sold for $87,500 to an American dealer, surpassing the high $60,000 estimate.

Elsewhere the top end of the sale sported an eclectic mix of well-known names including Frank Stella, Edward Hopper, Marc Chagall, and Rene Magritte, all of whose works performed well. James Rosenquist’s eye-catching lithographic collage “Time Door Time D’Or” (1989), from his “Welcome to the Water Planet” series, doubled the high $10,000 estimate to take $20,000.

Christie’s junior specialists in the prints department, Conner Williams and Lindsay Griffith were pleased with the sale, noting the strength of the contemporary and modern works and saying the results demonstrated “the market’s continued appetite for high-quality pieces across all price points.”

Howard Norton Cook’s black-and-white aquatint etching, “Harbor Skyline” (1930), sailed to $21,250, triple the high $7,000 estimate. And the same price was realized for Hopper’s 1915-18 etching, “Don Quixote” (1915-18), albeit on higher expectations of $10,000 to $15,000.

Eight works by Bruce Naumann found buyers, at prices ranging from $1,000 up to $10,625 for his witty, 1975 block letter screenprint “AH HA,” which served as the sale’s cover lot. And indeed, as the title would indicate, the print must have been a revelation to the buyer who took it for well above its $6,000 high estimate.

Seven works of art including some by Picasso, Matisse and Monet were stolen from a Netherlands museum last October. Now some media reports say a Romanian woman, though to be the mother of one of the suspected thieves, has admitted burning them.

Dressed in an infantilizing bow-tie that made him look like a stand-in for Pee Wee Herman, “Breaking Bad” co-star Aaron Paul stood on a stage in Los Angeles this morning, accompanied by Neil Patrick Harris (a last-minute substitute for Kate Mara, who missed the announcement due to plane trouble), and continued the annoying tradition of announcing the nominees for the Emmy Awards at an unacceptably early hour of the morning.

Too bad Mara missed the presentation. “House of Cards,” the Netflix series in which she is a co-star, walked away with a Best Drama Series nomination, along with nods for Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Drama Series, respectively. These are game changing nominations, and their effect will be felt for years. A few months ago, the Netflix original programming model was nebulous and most people didn’t know if the streaming-service’s shows would even qualify for awards. Now we have our answer, and no doubt people are taking note. Network television executives are most certainly not happy with what is happening right now.

In the drama categories, the rest of the nominees are the usual suspects: “Breaking Bad,” “Homeland,” “Mad Men,” and “Downton Abbey” were nominated in most of the major drama categories. Vera Farmiga pulled in a nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series for “Bates Motel,” which I thought was a comedy, while Jeff Daniels, a fine actor, received the “we can’t keep ignoring you” nomination for “The Newsroom,” even though the show is pretty terrible. It’s also worth noting that Jonathan Banks was nominated for “Breaking Bad,” which is amazing, and maybe the most deserving nomination in the whole list of nominees. Too bad we all know he won’t win.

Wait, scratch that last part. Laura Dern was nominated for “Enlightened,” and now we can all laugh in the face of HBO for cancelling what was the best series on television. Imagine if “Enlightened” was on Netflix? It would have been huge! If you’re not into sexy vampires or dragons, I don’t understand why you would watch HBO anymore.

As for the rest of the comedy nominees, it’s much of the same thing. “30 Rock” is nominated for a bunch of awards, including Tina Fey for Best Actress. Lena Dunham is there too, along with Adam Driver, and a bunch of well-deserved nominations for the underrated “Veep” (I guess there’s one reason to watch HBO). Louis C.K. gets a rightful nod for “Louie,” but he will probably lose to Don Cheadle or Matt LeBlanc, who both star on shows that I and nobody I know has ever seen.

“American Horror Story” managed to squeeze a few nominations into the confusing mini-series category, even though it’s more of a traditional series than “Downton Abbey.” Either way, I appreciate its craziness, so it’s nice to see it show up here. Jane Campion’s excellent “Top of the Lake” received a bunch of earned nominations, which makes you feel better about “The Bible” being nominated.

All said, the nominations are pretty well chosen this year. Of course, I still have a few quibbles: No love for “Justified?” No nomination for Vincent Kartheiser? Why do some categories have more nominations than others? Do I need to watch “Scandal” and “The Good Wife,” or are those shows, as I’ve always suspected, catering to the Grandma demographic? I definitely never have to watch “Big Bang Theory,” right?

Watch video report on Netflix making Emmy history:

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Among the collateral events of the 55th Venice Biennale, Dora Garcia’s “The Joycean Society” at Spazio Punch on the island of Giudecca is one of the most compelling, despite a presentation that looks forbidding at first glance.

Garcia is the winner of the 45th International Contemporary Art Prize (PIAC), which is awarded every three years by Monaco’s Pierre Foundation. For the first time, the winner’s work is being shown in Venice, though Garcia herself was also here two years ago when she represented Spain at the 2011 Biennale. The artist is also known for participating in international exhibitions such as Documenta 13 and the Lyon Biennale; her work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, MACBA, and the Pompidou Center.

On the strength of her 2010 work “The Deviant Majority,” and with the support of art historian and curator Agustin Perez Rubio, Garcia received €40,000 ($52,000) from PIAC, with €20,000 earmarked for mounting an exhibition. With artistic direction by Abdellah Karoum, a permanent member of the prize committee and the future director of Mathaf in Doha, Garcia devoted several years of research to a project that consists of a show and a film about a group of readers of James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake.”

The setting includes wallpaper with enigmatic diagrams and sketches and a table with several annotated works by Joyce, including “Finnegans Wake” and a book on the exhibition. In a video playing on a parallel wall, different protagonists are plunged into the hermeneutics of texts by Joyce, with some Freud thrown in.

“It’s a natural process where I translate my thinking into the physical space, so to speak. The books on the table are the three works by Joyce: 'Ulysses,' 'Finnegans Wake,' and 'Dubliners,' altered and annotated by me — enhanced, you could say,” Garcia told BLOUIN ARTINFO.

The video is the culmination of the artist’s lengthy observations of this book club over the course of several meetings where the commentators developed their interpretations. According to Garcia, “The Joycean community are all the book’s potential readers — this strange book was written for this enigmatic public.”

“The film’s structure is very simple: the length is determined by a reading session, almost in real time. Already this gives meaning, structure, and a time frame. Afterwards I inserted other conversations that helped me to construct the four characters of the story: the book club, Joyce’s grave, the academics, and the devoted Joycean,” Garcia said.

This installation thus becomes an invitation to the literary journey that is “Finnegans Wake.” Between the project's filmed scenes and the reality of the space and the tools presented by the installation, a “critical” space is opened up. Here, the viewer is confronted with the cognitive difficulty that this book represents and is led to activate his/her senses, especially the imagination. Garcia’s exhibition offers an exploration that is connected to knowledge without making knowledge its goal.

“‘Finnegans Wake’ is a book that chooses its readers; however, it’s not a book that touches everyone,” Garcia says. “It’s a book for people who want to understand the world absolutely, almost Indiana Joneses of language. So it’s an elitist book, but not for the rich or the beautiful, but for the brave who are skeptical at the same time.”

The uniqueness of this project lies in the deep understanding of Joyce’s writing and the dialogue that Garcia sets up with the Irish author's work: The viewer doesn’t learn anything, but something is shown that resembles a horizon for intellectual fulfillment. This, it seems, is what Garcia is getting at when she says, “I think that ‘Finnegans Wake’ is utopian because this text is written for the future, for a viewer who is not there yet…. I don’t question this utopia, I celebrate it.”

To this, we might add that this “viewer who is not there yet,” in addition to perhaps implying a messianic reference, also supports the idea that knowledge is developed not through a linear and discrete process, but through the interplay of connections within language itself.

“The Joycean Society” by Dora Garcia is on view through November 24 at Spazio Punch on the island of Giudecca in Venice.

To see images from the film, click on the slideshow.

Pat Metheny plays John Zorn? Why not? At this point in the careers of guitarist Metheny and composer-saxophonist Zorn, should anything surprise us? Metheny, who turns 59 next month, has pleased about as broad and diverse an audience as any instrumentalist: He’s won 20 Grammy Awards in 11 different categories. And yet he sounded as natural alongside Ornette Coleman on 1996’s “Song X” as with his longtime quartet. Zorn, who turns 60 in September, may once have represented a renegade downtown Manhattan scene, but that was long ago. His 60th is being celebrated throughout this year at venues as varied as Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, and the Japan Society — a reflection of the depth, breadth, and reach of his celebrated work.

Musicians of many stripes have found special inspiration in Zorn’s “Book of Angels” — 316 songs that extend his Masada project, a body of music based on scales that are elemental to Jewish music. Metheny is the 20th to head into a recording studio thus inspired, and with Zorn’s blessing and input. His recent “Tap: John Zorn’s Book of Angels, Vol. 20,” (Nonesuch/Tzadik) is a mesmerizing triumph.

I brought that CD and a few others along with me on a two-week trip to New Orleans. I was alone in a rented apartment in the Marigny section with a boombox-alarm clock next to the bed. Pretty soon, the playlist was all “Tap,” all the time. (My recent review for The Wall Street Journal explains why.) That Journal review was originally intended as a feature story, for which I tracked Metheny down (he was traveling in Brazil) and did an email interview about the project and his connection to Zorn’s music. Here’s that exchange in full:

Musically, what sparked your interest in recording pieces from Zorn’s “Book of Angels”? Why did you want to dig into it?

John is someone who I have admired on many levels for a long time. We began a nice correspondence over the past few years and he sent me a bunch of his recent projects, which was great and really inspiring. I had been following his various Masada projects and had a real admiration for the continuity of it all as well as the range and variety that he offers to the musicians in the pieces. It was just an idea that came to me, that maybe I might be able to offer something to the series.

Except for drummer Antonio Sanchez, the music is performed entirely by you, on various guitars and other instruments, including piano, marimba, flugelhorn, and the Orchestrion, a one-man electromechanical orchestra of your own creation. Is there something about “Book of Angels” that led you to play nearly all the instruments and parts yourself?

Honestly, when I started, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but in a good way. I was having fun with it all and kind of getting under the hood a little bit by exploring what John’s thing was really like by way of the notes on the page. So, I was kind of using what tools were readily available to me in my workroom, which includes a bunch of guitars and the various elements that wound up being the instrumentation of the record. It sort of naturally took shape from there. I have done a fairly wide variety of projects like that over the years where it is basically just me, including the records “New Chautauqua” and “Zero Tolerance for Silence,” several film scores (“Passagio per il Paradiso”), and more recently the Orchestrion stuff. To me, that method can be a pretty viable way to define a sound or a feeling that hopefully has some kind of distinct identity.

Zorn told me that although this recording was meticulously produced, each solo part is a first take. Is that true? Why was that important?

I find that it is useful in any project to set a kind of work template that fits the vibe of what you are going for. You may wind up taking a detour from your plan here or there — it isn’t written in stone — but it is good to start with a guide or a set of aspirations. Because of the nature of the tunes and the kind of improvising that I hoped to get to, that seemed to be the most efficient way to get to the result that I hoped to get to.

So much of Zorn’s music sets up strategies, as in his “game pieces.” Did you employ any strategies here that were unusual for you or especially designed for these pieces?

No, because it was done the way it was done on a production level, it was the kind of thing where I started each new piece with a kind of blank slate and let each one sort of tell me what it seemed to want to do.

There is such a broad range of feels and styles here — from propulsive to pensive, clearly pentatonic to much more complex and overlapped. Was that an idea from the start, or did that just happen? Did you set out to conjure many moods and to, in essence, alternate between complexity and tenderness?

When I wrote to John indicating that I would really like to pursue this, he sent me a list of the tunes he thought could be candidates, and that hadn’t been done yet. Within that subgroup of tunes there were a few that immediately jumped out to me and each one seemed to suggest a sound to me, or an approach. I always kind of let the tunes “decide” about orchestration in any context. It is usually really clear that this one wants to be done this way or that way, etc. I just kind of did my best to follow through on those initial impulses and this was the program that emerged from it.

What can you tell me about “Hurmiz,” the closer, which is stunning and sounds very much like it fits within the aesthetic of Zorn’s “event” pieces?

In a way, that is the most traditional approach in that it really does follow the head/solo/head thing while most of the others have other sections and elements. However, I really wanted the soloing to stick very closely to the material that John set up in the initial statement of the melody.

On some level, “Book of Angels” exists somewhat like the book of Thelonious Monk tunes exists — in that there are head/solo/head elements, or essential fragments, but there’s always something more deeply important about the tune’s identity. Is that a meaningful parallel for you? More practically, what existed for you on paper as raw materials and what liberties did you take?

I thought that an interesting approach to this would be to kind of extend the compositions themselves. Sometimes it was through things that were improvised that I later orchestrated, but sometimes through adding counterpoint (as you mentioned), reharmonizing things and just in general, making the kinds of associations that we as improvisers do all the time have a more formal connection to the notes on the page. Setting a framework for each piece was really fun for me and the real testament to John’s writing is the amazing differences that each participant in the series brings to the table and how flexible and inspiring the pieces are. They really invite you to pound on them and they fully retain their essential Zorn-ness no matter what you throw at them.

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This summer has seen its fair share of underperforming blockbusters — “After Earth” and “White House Down,” in particular — but with most of them you knew the reason they failed: they were bad films, even by mindless fluff standards. This isn’t the case with Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim,” which opened in third place and brought in a paltry $38.3 million this past weekend. The film, which cost a reported $190 million to make, won’t garner any award season buzz (not that that was ever the intent), but it’s a great example of spectacle done right, and one that you’d expect to excel at the box office.

So why did del Toro’s latest film flop? Is it because the giant robot vs. giant monster flick features uninspired acting, underdeveloped characters, and lack of star power (I love Idris Elba, but he probably shouldn’t be your biggest star)? No. “Pacific Rim” is most definitely a flawed film, but its sense of joy and wonder overcomes this.

It also does what we expect a tent pole film to do really well: wow us. Watching its skyscraper-tall robots (called Jaegers) butt heads with equally mammoth monsters (Kaiju) is at times breath taking. There’s one scene in particular where a clash is briefly taken to space (or at least the edge of Earth’s atmosphere), which actually made me say, “Whoa.” And that’s the point. This film is all about robots and monsters punching, blasting, and slashing each other. If that doesn’t appeal to you, this film is not for you. Based on the fact that the decrepit looking “Grown Ups 2” made more money last weekend, that seems to be the decision that most of the movie-going public came to.

I fondly remember many lazy Sundays spent watching Godzilla films on TV as a kid. And it was giant robot cartoons, like the Gundam franchise, that first drew me to anime. I’ve out grown both somewhat since then, but both genres are still of interest to me and I cannot think of a better modern day realization of the two. The film is a flashy live action anime filled with impressive CGI monsters.

“Pacific Rim” might initially look like the sort of action and explosion-filled film that would do well during the summer, but its appeal actually isn’t broad enough. To me, that makes for a more interesting blockbuster, but an idiosyncratic tent pole is a studio’s worst nightmare. Thanks to foreign markets — which the film is clearly aware of based on nods towards its Japanese, Chinese, and Russian audiences — “Pacific Rim” should end up doing fine in the end, but its domestic haul will be viewed as a mini catastrophe, or at least something to make a studio think twice before handing its next blockbuster over to del Toro. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

“Pacific Rim”

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Writer: Travis Beacham, del Toro

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Ron Perlman

Opening Weekend Gross: $38.3 million

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– Museums Riding the Bike Trend: At institutions across the United States the new trend is special programs catering to art-loving cyclists. These range from "bike nights" at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and and the Hammer Museum, to entire exhibitions devoted to bicycles at the Portland Art Museum — which not only opened "Cyclepedia: Iconic Bicycle Design" but also hosted the city's chapter of the World Naked Bike Ride— and New York's Museum of Arts & Design, which unleashed "Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle" in 2010. "Art museums that have design departments can really tackle bicycles full-speed and frontally," Paola Antonelli, the Museum of Modern Art's senior curator of architecture and design, says. “It’s a phenomenon of social living that’s really exploding." [ARTnews]

– Turrell Uncovered in Malibu: James Turrell really is turning up everywhere this summer — even in the guesthouse of Malibu resident Tobey Cotsen. After visiting Turrell’s exhibition at LACMA, Cotsen felt the celebrated Light and Space artist's work looked similar to a green-colored recess in a home she purchased from neighbor and art collector Sydney Goldfarb. The Turrell studio confirmed that the recess, which Cotsen had been using for storage, was indeed a Turrell piece formerly purchased by Goldfarb. "I called the handyman and asked him to clean out the space," recounts Cotsen. [WSJ]

– Krugier Sale Promises to Be Blockbuster: On November 4 Christie's will hold a special sale of select works from the collection of late dealer Jan Krugier, as well as from the inventory of his famed Geneva gallery. The auction is expected to fetch over $160 million, with star lots including Picasso's study for a public sculpture in Chicago that has a $25-$35 million pre-sale estimate, and a 1911 Kandinsky landscape expected to go for between $20-$25 million. "This painting represents a world he loved, one that falls between the figurative into the abstract," said Christie's Imp-mod specialist Conor Jordan. [NYT]

– Vatican Sends Its Native-American Sculpture on Tour: The Vatican Museums own a large collection of works by German artist Ferdinand Pettrich, known for his life-like depictions of Native Americans, created as a protest against their treatment by the U.S. government in the mid-19th century. Now they are being touched up and sent on a world tour, billed as the world's "first monument against genocide":

 – Art Seized From Former President: South Korean authorities have seized several paintings, including works by Cheon Kyoung-ja, Francis Bacon, and Mauro Staccioli, from former dictator and president Chun Doo-hwan and his family. Apparently he owes the state some $195 million. [Yonhap News]

– Art Crime Class Is in Session: For art crime fans, Southern Methodist University is the place to be this fall. Retired art crime specialists from the FBI and Scotland Yard will be teaching a class titled "The World of Art and the Fine Art of Crime." [Artdaily]

– Picasso Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné Planned: Picasso’s "determined" granddaughter Diana Widmaier-Picasso is working on a catalogue raisonné of his 2,000 sculptures, the first volume of which will coincide with a major show at the Grand Palais. [WSJ]

– Mega-Collectors Buy Mega-Condos: Both Aby Rosen and Alberto Mugrabi have purchased condos in the yet-to-be-completed Schumacher NYC in downtown Manhatten. In fact, Mugrabi bought two units, for $11 million and nearly $10 million, respectively. The WSJ takes a look at the spaces where they will be presumably hanging their famous art collections:

 
– The New York-based non-profit ArtTable, which is devoted to the advancement of professional women in the visual arts, has hired Ada Ciniglio as its new executive director. [Press Release]

– Photographer Gus Foster will gift his personal collection of 341 artworks — including pieces by Ken Price, Lynda Benglis, Vija Celmins, and more — to the University of New Mexico's Harwood Museum of Art. [The Taos News]

– MoMA is planning the first posthumous retrospective devoted to Sigmar Polke, "Alibis," which will feature some 300 works spanning 1963-2010 and run April 19-August 3, 2014, before traveling to Tate Modern and the Ludwig Museum. [Press Release]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Portland's naked bike ride, explained

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Check our blog IN THE AIR for breaking news throughout the day.

The only architects Denise Scott Brown knew as a child were women: “I thought architecture was women’s work!” she recently told ARTINFO. Because her mother studied the discipline twenty years prior to her own entry into architecture as a student at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand in 1949, Scott Brown had long known that she could be an architect. In fact, she went on to become one of the most influential architects of the 20^th century at a time when female practitioners were nearly unheard of in the profession. After finishing her studies as “one of five women in studios of 60 men” at the Architectural Association School of London and the University of Pennsylvania, Scott Brown began a lifelong teaching career that complemented her work as an architect, planner, and theorist. “When I was a young professor,” she recalls, Scott Brown insisted on teaching her own studio, annoyed by the belittling remarks of a senior colleague she worked for. She succeeding in getting her own studio, but “one day…the dean’s secretary told me: No, we’re not giving you your classroom for the seminar, we’re taking your room away because we decided you talk too much.” Scott Brown, an expert on public space, was undeterred — she finished teaching her seminar in the bleachers of the sports arena.

That characteristic determination inspired two Harvard Graduate School of Design students, Arielle Assouline-Lichten and Caroline James, to launch a petition in March, 2013 to retroactively add Scott Brown to creative collaborator and husband Robert Venturi’s 1991 Pritzker Prize; he won the highest honor in architecture for work they largely completed together. In the ensuing debate, Scott Brown has been the center of virulent discussion on the place of women, minorities, and creative collaboration in architecture — does Denise Scott Brown deserve a Pritzker inclusion ceremony? Should her name be honored in the annals of architectural history with the same prestige the Pritzker Prize accorded to her husband? What role models do women and other underrepresented minorities have in a profession that has long venerated the perceived genius of singular white men? These concerns pertain to all architects, especially those who fall outside the privileged male demographic typically lauded by the old boys’ club known as the Pritzker Prize jury.

Peter Palumbo, chairman of the 2013 jury, failed to answer these questions when he responded to the petition on June 14, writing: “A later jury cannot re-open, or second guess the work of an earlier jury, and none has ever done so.” His dismissive tone seemed to highlight a still-prevalent sexism in the profession, in response to which the two recent GSD alumnae pressed Palumbo again on July 11: “Addressing these biases now is a moral and decent act to ensure that these injustices won’t happen again.” Correcting Scott Brown’s legacy is essential both because she deserves equal honor and because “it really impacts the way future women see their own position in relation to women over time…and the way future opportunities exist,” Assouline-Lichten told ARTINFO. In a profession still dominated by privileged men, Scott Brown has become a role model not only for her revolutionary work in architecture, planning, and theory, but also for her perseverance and outspoken insistence on receiving credit where it is due.

In the introduction to the 1977 second edition of Scott Brown’s era-defining treatise, Learning From Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form, co-authored with Venturi, Steven Izenour, and a cadre of student researchers, she expressed “personal pique at the cavalier handling of my contribution and at attributions in general by architects and journalists,” analyzing the “social structure of the profession, its domination by upper-middle class males, and the emphasis its members place upon” the veneration of solitary creative genius. 

However, her outcry against misattribution and sexism was disregarded by those it targeted: Scott Brown tells ARTINFO about an instance when one of the “big honchos in New York architecture offices” abruptly stormed out of a presentation upon being told that it was not “Venturi’s project” because she was the principal in charge of the proposal at hand. In the 1980s she was forced to acquiesce partly to sexist attitudes, even though she and Venturi have collaborated completely at their firm, Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates: “I had to move over in the 1980s because of the fact that I couldn’t make our office lose…money,” she says of the firm’s move away during that decade from the planning projects that she carried chief responsibility for. When Pritzker called to congratulate Venturi in 1991 and he “said it should be Denise too,’” — Pritzker disagreed — “I felt very broken, very heartbroken,” Scott Brown recalls. “It takes away from your ability to be creative because it’s breaking you down. It took me a lot of time, a lot of building myself up in different ways,” to feel better. 

Unfortunately, Scott Brown’s 1991 exclusion is not an isolated or outdated instance. When a similar snub occured in 2012 — Wang Shu alone was awarded the Pritzker for work completed in concert with his creative partner and wife, Lu Wenyu — the Pritzker Prize jury proved that it still does not properly understand the collaborative nature of design, nor is it truly interested in lauding practitioners who don’t mirror the class and gender of its own members. In an age when nearly half of architecture school graduates are women, but only 17 percent of female architects are managing partners or principals, this pattern of exclusion speaks volumes about the role of women in architecture. “You’ll still find the differences I saw,” remarks Scott Brown. “Women are discovering,” she explains — after years of insisting that they didn’t want to be known as ‘female architects’ and that gender equity has been achieved amongst architects — “that sexism is still prevalent.”

Caroline James and Arielle Assouline-Lichten / Courtesy Caroline James+Arielle Assouline-Lichten

Recognition of and reaction against the systemic gender and racial biases within architecture, Assouline-Lichten tells ARTINFO, are essential to “slowly creating change.” Thus far, the Harvard alumnae’s efforts appear to be working: whereas Venturi and Scott Brown were four times turned down for the AIA Gold Medal because they applied jointly, the American Institute of Architects voted last month to update the rules governing its highest honor, allowing two individuals who have worked together on a single body of architectural work to share the honor. Meanwhile, the Pritzker jury refuses to budge, which prompts another question: How can the Pritzker Prize remain a relevant and prestigious honor if it doesn’t respond to the changing values and demographics of the profession it represents? The 18,000 signatories — and counting — to the Scott Brown petition signal the beginning of the end for the hegemony of the old boys’ club.

This year’s edition of the Salzburg Festival comes with a scandal courtesy of director Alexander Pereira’s announcement to step down from his position after an ongoing and public budget dispute with the festival’s directorate that included the latter’s decision not to renew his contract in 2016. Pereira, who had been appointed director of the world famous Austrian festival only two years ago, recently accepted the position as head of Milan’s La Scala, yet another affront to the Salzburg board, which made it known that they would not tolerate a degradation of Salzburg to Pereira’s “other job.” Pereira will now take his leave in October to fully focus on his new position in Milan.

Meanwhile, the hometown of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is buzzing in anticipation of the new season, which starts this weekend. A spectacular program featuring over 200 concerts and performances will transform the picturesque city and its medieval castle into a gigantic open-air summer stage over the next six weeks, with more than 250,000 visitors expected to attend.  

Originally a theater event, the festival pays tribute to its roots with Austrian playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s“Jedermann,” an adaption of the English 15th-century morality play “The Summoning of Everyman.” Hofmannsthal’s play premiered in 1920 under legendary Austrian director Max Reinhardt and marked the beginning of the Salzburg Festival. It has been performed at every edition since and this year will be shown in a British-American production by Julian Crouch and Brian Merte, starring Cornelius Obonoya and Brigitta Hobmeier.

With respect to concerts, visitors are in for a myriad of highlights: Nikolaus Harnoncourt will conduct Joseph Haydn’s “The Creation,” which traditionally opens the festival, as well as his great oratorios “The Seasons” and “Il ritorno di Tobia.” Gustav Mahler’s completed symphonies, nine in total, will be performed by the Children’s Orchestra of VenezuelaEl Sistema under Sir Simon Rattle, the Vienna Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, and others. Rudolf Buchbinder, Evgeny Kissin, Maurizio Pollini, and Grigory Sokolov will perform solo concerts featuring piano sonatas by Beethoven,Schubert, and Chopin.

Salzburg’s opera program circles around Wagner and Verdi’s bicentennials this year. Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will premiere an anniversary concert dedicated to the two legendary composers, and two major opera productions are scheduled to premiere in collaboration with the Vienna Philharmonic: Verdi’s “Don Carlo,“ directed by Peter Stein and conducted by Antonio Pappano, and Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger,” directed by Stefan Herheim and conducted by Daniele Gatti.  

The first opera production to be presented will, however, explore contemporary classical music: Harrison Birtwistle’s“Gawain,” based on a medieval legend, which premiered in 1991, will be shown in a new production directed by renowned Lithuanian director Alvis Hermanis and conducted by Germany’s Ingo Metzmacher.

For the first time in the festival’s history the program will include venues beyond the traditional locations, a radical innovation that Pereira has indulged: Mozart’s “Il Seraglio” will be staged at the Salzburg airport in a new production by Adrian Marthaler and conducted by Hans Graf. The spectacular structure is dominated by glass and steel, and boasts collections of historic airplanes and Formula 1 racing cars, a restaurant, and art exhibitions — expect an illustrious setting!

Salzburg Festival, July 19-September 1, Salzburg, Austria

At the palazzo that houses the Prada Foundation in Venice, curator Germano Celant has created something rather unique. Specifically, he has asked artist Thomas Demand and architect Rem Koolhaas to meticulously recreate Harald Szeemann’s legendary “When Attitudes Become Form” show, originally organized in 1969 at the Bern Kunsthalle. The scholarly endeavor has been curated from Szeemann’s archives, which are today gathered at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
 
This original exhibition showcased the works of a number of artists who became essential in the history of art, including Carl Andre, Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Nauman, Eva Hesse, Giovanni Anselmo, Hanne Darboven, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Marinus Boezem, Richard Tuttle, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Keith Sonnier, and Lawrence Weiner. (Some of their original works, however, couldn’t be moved or recreated in the foundation.) Critics and art historians often see the 1969 exhibition as an event that changed the history of art, because Szeemann chose to spotlight artists who had broken the “typical categories of painting and sculptural tradition” based “on the strength of the imagination” (as Celant explained).

At the outset, a paradox haunts this new show. The principle of “attitudes becoming form” appears in Prada Foundation as something that happened in the past. With its inherent fetishism, the idea of recreation puts into brackets the vitality of these works — not to mention Szeemann’s original curatorial intentions of breaking free of tradition. Considering the reenactment as a “readymade” (in Celant’s framing), the exhibition from 1969 takes on a different color, one that is difficult to interpret.

Would the Prada Foundation exhibition have been more successful if it had been shown with the palazzo in its original state, without special arrangements from Koolhaus et al, instead of attempting to juxtapose the spaces as if the 1969 art works had been archaeologically unearthed and restored? The whole thing feels forced, as if it were trying to bend the magnificent architecture of this Venetian palazzo to yield up some anachronistic meaning. Yet the architectural display allows the curator to leave aside the issue of how once ground-breaking art has become fodder for celebration in museums.

Finally, what do the spaces of the Prada Foundation bring to the 1969 exhibition? Lots of questions. Can we really consider the entire system of an exhibition as a “readymade”? To try and recreate whole the space of such a show basically turns the whole thing into an architectural problem. But isn’t it also possible that the art works themselves might interpret the space where they are displayed?

To see images from the exhibition, click on the slideshow.

LOS ANGELES – New York’s Gotham Chamber Opera goes Hollywood this weekend, bringing its production of Daniel Catan’s opera “Rappaccini’s Daughter” to Beverly Hills’s Greystone Park for two productions on July 20 and 21.

Based on Nobel laureate Octavio Paz’s only play, “La Hija de Rappaccini,” which in turn is based on the short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the opera is set in Padua during the Italian Renaissance.

It tells the story of a mad scientist who breeds a garden of poisonous flowers and sends his daughter Beatriz to tend it after inoculating her. A side effect leaves her toxic to living things, complicating her love affair with Giovanni, a student who has second thoughts when flowers wither at her touch.

The opera had its world premier in Mexico City in 1991, but for this production the original score by Catan is replaced by his alternate orchestration for two pianos, harp, and percussion.

After emigrating to the U.S., Catan was the first Mexican to have an opera produced in the United States when “Rappaccini’s Daughter” was mounted in San Diego in 1994.

He is most famous for the 2011 opera “Il Postino,” based on the 1994 movie by Michael Radford. Before his death in 2011, he was working on an opera of “Meet John Doe,” based on the classic film by Frank Capra.

After a pair of performances last June in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” will fit harmoniously in Greystone Park, formerly part of the legendary Doheny Estate situated off Sunset Boulevard, back among the palatial homes of Beverly Hills.

Doheny was an infamous oil tycoon and the inspiration behind Upton Sinclair’s “Oil,” which in turn inspired the P.T. Anderson movie “There Will be Blood.” The park was at one time part of the gardens surrounding Greystone Mansion, but was purchased by the city of Beverly Hills in 1965 and was dedicated as a public park in 1976.

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A former slum dweller in Buenos Aires escapes poverty to tell the true story of life in the capital's mean barrios in a groundbreaking film that has critics in Argentina buzzing.

"Diagnosis Hope", directed by Cesar Gonzalez, is a semi-autobiographical story that follows the life of former teen inmate Alex as he attempts to break out of a life of stark poverty in one of Latin America's most unequal capitals.

I wasn’t among the 50 film critics who received an email from SeaWorld’s publicists attacking Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s nature doc cum exposé “Blackfish” as “shamefully dishonest, deliberately misleading and scientifically inaccurate.” But I have to confess that reading a newspaper account of the aquatic magic kingdom’s PR blitz made me awfully curious to see the movie.

Premiered earlier this year at Sundance and opening today at Lincoln Center, “Blackfish” is a slick, TV-style documentary that presents the 2010 death of an experienced SeaWorld trainer, Dawn Brancheau, as a deliberate attack by a disturbed captive male orca named Tilikum. There’s a sensational component to be sure, but the movie also makes strong, emotional muck-raking argument. Frank Norris and Upton Sinclair would be proud. Cowperthwaite not only questions the treatment of orcas or killer whales by SeaWorld (and other less well-known aqua parks) but, in a larger sense, her movie is a moral tract illustrating the cruelty inherent in all trained animal circuses, as well as zoos and aquariums. Of course, the fact that orcas are so obviously intelligent, emotionally developed, and seemingly self-aware creatures makes the nature of their captivity that much more painful. It’s hard not to conclude that SeaWorld is practicing a form of exploitation, if not slavery.

A smooth, somewhat repetitive mix of amateur movies, training films, news footage that includes an OSHA investigation (glad to see them on the case), and a generous helping of grandiose, mystifying SeaWorld TV spots, “Blackfish” is founded on the testimony of a half dozen former SeaWorld trainers. Talking about their relationship with “their” orcas, as well as the species in general, often brings them close to tears. That no one from SeaWorld agreed to speak to Cowperthwaite or indeed cooperate with her film may account for the trainers’ repeated attribution of negligence or mistreatment in the case of Brancheau and Tilikum to the mysterious “they.” The movie doesn’t name names, except in so far that the corporation SeaWorld is a person.

Actually, I believe that SeaWorld has good reason to fear this movie. Who is responsible for Dawn Brancheau’s death? Was it an act of God? (It really would be interesting to know the insurance pay-out.) The corporation, not surprisingly, seems inclined to blame the victim. But if not SeaWorld, is Tilikum then the perpetrator? Dogs and, as shown in the famous 1904 Thomas Edison actualité “Electrocuting an Elephant,” even circus pachyderms have been put down for killing humans. “Blackfish” makes the point that Tilikum, who was involved in two prior human deaths (!), is far too valuable a property to destroy — albeit valuable less as an entertainer (he seems to have been semi-retired, spending most of his time in orca “jail”) than as a sperm machine used to breed orcas in captivity.

Still, the lawyer in me can’t help but wonder what would happen if Tilikum was charged with a crime and put on trail. He might well be declared psychologically unfit — the documentary makes it clear that, despite his unusually large size, he suffered considerable bullying in his life. But there is also ample evidence that, given the extenuating circumstances under which Tilikum was raised and maintained, a Florida jury might well find that he acted in self-defense. Imagine the publicity that SeaWorld could reap from that: Tilikum, the Killer Whale who stood his ground!

Read more J. Hoberman at Movie Journal.

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For his final show as the director of the Swiss Institute, curator Gianni Jetzer did something totally inappropriate for a 21st-century curator. “It's a Swiss national show,” Jetzer told BLOUIN ARTINFO at the opening last night, sheepishly. He was standing at the back of the cavernous main gallery looking out over the vista of Olivier Mosset’s installation “Toblerones” — a set of six identical car-sized cardboard structures modeled after the cement anti-tank obstacles used by the Swiss army during wartime. “It’s about national identity, which you should never do.”

This seems like an odd statement for the director of an institution with such a strong national identity. But then again, Jetzer's programming always aimed at exceeding the boundaries of Swissness. Now, he won't have to worry about those boundaries anymore. The curator, who moved to New York to helm the SI in 2006, succeeding director Marc-Olivier Wahler, is leaving SI in August. 

“Gianni has always aimed at going beyond the national stereotypes,” SI head of development Stephen Alsa told ARTINFO during a phone call. “The space we had before on Broadway had a strong national identity. I think Gianni has been very talented at erasing the national misconceptions. He was successful in this aim.”

Elsewhere around the rooms of the Institute were paradigms of Swiss art — playing at the entrance of the institute was a 1962 video of Jean Tinguely’s “Study for the End of the World no. 2” in which the artist successfully detonated a sculpture in front of an audience in a Las Vegas desert outside Las Vegas. There was a photograph of a Fischli/Weiss work that was part of their first collaborative effort, the “Sausage Series” (1979). And Valentin Carron’s “Death Race 2000,” a menacing blue tricycle affixed with blades that looked like a child’s version of a tricked-out vehicle in a James Bond film. “All these artists are fire-starters who operate through the counterculture,” said Jetzer during a talk with Mosset, which capped the evening opening. Later after the talk turned momentarily to the essence of Swissness and the difficulty of retaining Swiss-ness while also trying to have an international career, Jetzer said, “One thing that people used to say about Swiss artists was, ‘you have to leave the country to be successful.’”

Over the course of his tenure, Jetzer has continually striven to put on shows that deflated the collective myth of Swiss identity and explored the idea of place with a kind of Swiss-plus attitude, finding ways to bring in American artists. For “Painting and Misappropriation” (2010), Jetzer paired works by Pop-inspired artist Richard Phillips with those of the late Swiss wildlife and landscape painter Adolph Dietrich, whose work Phillips had been borrowing from for his own paintings — like an outsize painting of two squirrels.

Jetzer also kept the door to SI open, collaborating with other curators and institutions around town. In 2011, Performa commissioned a work by Swiss visual artist Mai-Thu Perret and performance artist Laurence Yadi’s for its biennial. In 2012, American artist Liz Magic Laser transformed the space with a performance of “Weekly,” from her series “The Living Newspaper.” In the spring of 2008, at the height of the art fair hubbub that descends around The Armory Show, Jetzer invited a group of artists to stage “The Dark Show,” a mini art fair in the dark. “For anyone that went or participated,” said White Columns director Matthew Higgs, “it was one the greatest things that ever happened in this city.”

“I think he has a very European sensibility, a kind of Kunstalle sensibility,” said Higgs. “The shows were important and vital.” But as one who also runs a small non-profit organization, Higgs could understand the difficulty of its “complicated economy.” “Dealing with banalities is potentially 51 percent of his job. He’s got to be relieved.”

“It is a small guerilla-like entity,” Jetzer said about the benefits of working with SI. “I have a lot of freedom in doing whatever I think is relevant on the transatlantic axis of New York-Switzerland.” Jetzer ran with this liberty bringing in many American artists like Lawrence Weiner, Jordan Wolfson, Rita Ackermann, Harmony Korine, and Philips, but always stuck to a very specific focus on projects that would fit into the framework of the institution.

Jetzer has also been keeping busy curating shows outside of SI, from shows at galleries, like “Dogma” at Metro Pictures (which explored the relationship between man and mutt) and this year’s Unlimited exhibition at Art Basel.

Though the Swiss Institute has yet to fill Jetzer’s shoes with a new director, the position is open as of September 1. “Two years ago we were able to realize our dream of moving into a storefront space,” said Jetzer about SI’s move from a third-floor gallery in SoHo to its current Wooster Street space in the former home of Deitch Projects. “I wanted to bring in my experience in order to successfully relaunch the Institute. The next generation should take over now.”

“I’m going freelance,” said Jetzer about his future plans. But his move into the realm of independent curating isn’t as precarious as it may sound. He already has a few things in the pipeline such as next year’s return to curate Art Basel Unlimited. He will also co-curate “Performing the City,” a biennale in Switzerland, with Chris Sharp. He will celebrate his tenure with the publication of a book in September, which will collect documentation of the shows that he oversaw while at SI.

“I always had a space. I don't know what it’s going to be without a space,” he said. “Maybe I will like it more. Maybe I'll like it less.”

LOS ANGELES – Mike Myers will take a seat behind the cameras for “Supermensch,” a documentary he will be directing on legendary talent manager Shep Gordon for A&E IndieFilms, the production arm of A&E.

Gordon is best known within the music industry for handling the careers of artists like Alice Cooper, Blondie, Luther Vandross, and Raquel Welch.

Myers met Gordon in 1991 when the latter held his feet to the fire during negotiations over use of the Alice Cooper song “Feed My Frankenstein” for “Wayne’s World.”

“I thought he was a perfect combination of Brian Epstein, Marshall McLuhan, and Mr. Magoo,” Myers said in a statement. “I’ve been trying to get Shep to agree to let me make a movie about him for 10 years. Last year he finally he said yes. I loved him like a brother before we started making this film and now, having sifted through his life and his legacy, I love him even more.”

“Supermensch” will feature testimonials from Gordon pals MichaelDouglas, Sylvester Stallone, and Willie Nelson, among others.

Back in the 1990s, Myers became one of the biggest names in comedy as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live.” In 1995, he left the show and went on to make the “Austen Powers” trilogy, and later became the voice of the eponymous ogre in Dream Works’s “Shrek” franchise.

In recent years, Myers’s film career has been dormant. His last big-screen vehicle, 2008’s “The Love Guru,” earned just under $41 million worldwide.

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