“Everyday” depicts the grueling effects a man’s prison sentence has on himself, his wife, and their young children. The prolific British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom shot the movie in scraps over five years, seizing days when his lead actors, John Simm and Shirley Henderson, were between other projects, and often during the Christmas holidays when the children (played by real-life siblings Stephanie, Robert, Shaun, and Katrina Kirk) were most available. The prison sequences, including visiting times, were filmed in actual British prisons with real wardens and convicts.

Living in a rural community in Norfolk in eastern England, Karen (Henderson) and the kids face arduous day-long treks by bus and train to visit Ian (Simm). The reason for his conviction is not disclosed, nor are Winterbottom and co-writer Laurence Coriat disposed to judge him as a criminal, though viewers may conclude that as a father of four he has acted irresponsibly.

Not being a high-security risk, he is granted days out toward the end of his sentence and on one occasion is caught, off-screen, smuggling in hash for prisoners who demanded it. Yet this can’t be attributed to recidivism. The explanation that he was frightened of not complying is justified by a beating he had previously taken (and passed off as the result of a accident).

The film’s focus is on how each family member copes with separation. Upbeat during Karen and the kids’ visits and during phone calls, Ian is usually filmed on the top bunk of his cell after they leave. He looks at the ceiling, but is far away, perhaps (or perhaps not) cogitating on his and his family’s plights and how he contrived his absence.

Karen, a resigned woman who works stocking shelves in a supermarket and as a barmaid, struggles on, but is not as stoical as she seems. Her face is already blotchy with tears when, on one visit, Ian coaxes her to lean forward so he can look down her dress and then asks that she talk dirty against her will. They grab hurried, anxious sex when they can on Ian’s days out.

Karen admits at one point that she can’t take much more, but there are no histrionics. When, lonely, she turns to a male friend who seemingly aspires to take Ian’s place as her partner and the kids’ father, the filmmakers again withhold judgment. Her involvement with this man eventually yields a moment of melodrama so muted that it can be barely be described as such. Winterbottom veterans Simm and Henderson are admirably reticent actors who, as Ian and Karen, call to mind the Thoreau-inspired line in Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon”: “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.”  

The seasons roll by — Winterbottom contrasting the open spaces of nature with the claustrophobia of Ian’s cell — and the children grow. Although Stephanie, the eldest, an adolescent by the film’s close, remains serene, the younger ones, Shaun and Katrina, are both given to crying. The boys get into fights at school and steal. Robert acts out the most. One day, he takes a loaded air rifle from a shed, mock-fires it at the back of Shaun’s head, and heads into the fields, not returning until late. He gradually develops a glower suggestive of repressed rage that does not augur well for his future.   

Shot in the observational, near-vérité style that also characterized the non-speeded-up sections of Winterbottom’s “Wonderland” (with Simm and Henderson), as well as his “In This World,” “9 Songs,” and “A Mighty Heart,” “Everyday” may be too dour and lacking in incident for many audiences. Michael Nyman’s score is so plangent it draws attention to itself.

A likely influence here, Ken Loach would have leavened the story with gentle humor. Shane Meadows (who has directed Henderson) conceivably would have dwelt on the children’s travails. As it stands, “Everyday” is a commendable experiment in shooting over a protracted period and a persuasive social realist study of a problem that draws scant attention in the media.

“Everyday” opens at New York’s IFC Center and is available on VOD on November 22.

“The home isn’t just a physical space. It is family, it is food, it is about culture and the stories and history that was made in that house,” says Korean artist Do Ho Suh. 

Known for exploring concepts around this as well as the notion of private space in his work, Suh's six new works on view currently at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong belong to his “Specimen Series”: Highly detailed life-size replicas of domestic objects from his former New York apartment (where he lived for 15 years), including a fridge and a toilet, all made out of sheer fabric. Each piece is flooded by bright fluorescent light from behind, emphasizing the transparency of the sculptures, which resemble three-dimensional X-ray scans.

The exhibition coincides with an installation the artist currently has on view in his native Seoul,“Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home” at Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. At the opening of the Hong Kong show, BLOUIN ARTINFO chatted with Suh about the new works and our peculiar attachment to everyday objects. 

People say moving house is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can go through. Was it for you?

Yes, I think I read research that said the death of your own child is the most stressful, then it is betrayal by your spouse, then the third most stressful event is moving. Moving is very difficult, and creating this series has helped me to process it. When I first moved to the U.S., there was a sense of loss. I wouldn’t necessarily call it longing or homesickness, but there was a sense of an absence of something very important. That’s how I started to recreate my former home in Korea.

As you continue moving across the globe, will the series continue?

I never plan that way. Now that I'm leaving London, people ask me if I will turn the apartment into a piece. Well, yes and no. I never plan way in advance, but I doubt I will make another very big piece right away from my London apartment.

The title of these pieces, “Specimen Series,” suggests a scientific examination of things. It’s a bit cold and clinical, especially with the items lit from behind, like a specimen on a slide under a microscope.

I wouldn’t say it’s clinical. It’s an emphasis on decontextualization of the object. The original objects I spent so much time with for 15 years, they almost become a part of me. The process of making the items was actually a very caring and loving one. In my memory, I have this data of measurements and things like that so that I can recreate memories. 

Why is the transparency of the objects emphasized here with the lighting?

When these objects were in a much larger installation context, they were lost in the rest of the installation. The installations were quite translucent too. You don't get this type of attention for these pieces. This is the first time that I want to show every aspect of the piece. So it is really transparent, there’s no mystery, no tricks. It lifts up the weight of the piece, it brings the piece to a different level. 

They are quite spectral when presented in this manner.

Yes, they are like a shed skin of energy. You spend so much time in the home and touch these objects every day; if I had the ability to trace energy, I’m pretty sure there’d be an accumulation of the energy on the object. It’s almost like I’m peeling the energy off from the object to render that sort of intangible trace of touch. 

Do you think we have a heightened relationship with our domestic space nowadays as more and more people stay isolated at home, only communicating virtually with the outside world?

It’s happening right now, and it’s constantly changing. I’m just fascinated that Internet and smartphone culture is changing. It’s almost like we’re evolving and this evolution is happening right in front of your eyes. It’s hard to grasp it to make any comment.

Would you say our home furnishings become companions to us in our everyday lives?

These objects are very important landmarks within our small apartments. A close friend in New York recently moved to a much bigger apartment, but her daughter didn’t want to move out because she has this very peculiar and close relationship with the doorknob on the door to her bedroom. So she didn’t want to leave the house because of the doorknob. People make an interesting attachment to this everyday life stuff. 

Do Ho Suh at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Hong Kong, until January 25, 2014, www.lehmannmaupin.com

LOS ANGELES — Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Like Father, Like Son,” the Jury Award winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is a powerful melodrama that pulls heartstrings without ever spilling over into bathos. Its trenchant themes and compelling emotion are undoubtedly what led Cannes jury head Steven Spielberg to acquire remake writes for the film on behalf of Dream Works.

Masaharu Fukuyama stars as a successful architect who, with his wife, learns their 6-year-old son was accidentally switched at birth. As he tries to correct the mistake he begins to look inward, examining his own flaws as a parent.   

Hirokazu Kore-eda sat down with ARTINFO recently to talk about working with Fukuyama, one of Japan’s biggest stars, and his country’s identity crisis in a floundering economy.

Tell us about working with Fukuyama. He’s a huge star and it’s a surprise to see him in this type of movie.

Fukuyama has only been in major studio films where he’s the big star, so I had no idea that he would even be interested in my films that tend to be much smaller. It was interesting the way he approached it. Instead of saying, “I want to be a big star in your film, write something for me.” The way he said it was, “I would love to be a resident in one of your films. I don’t have to be necessarily the lead, I could be the lead, but I just want to be in one of your films.” I thought it was very modest of him, but very like him.

And your work with the children is sublime. What’s the secret to getting performances of that caliber?

Ever since I shot “Nobody Knows,” the style I’ve been taking with kids is that I don’t give them a script and I don’t explain the story to them. That process really begins in the audition stage where instead of having them read lines, I’ll verbally interact with them. The boy who plays Keita, he would come to sit and play around on set and almost as a kind of extension to it just kind of flow into the performance. What I try to do more often than not is not have me explain things directly but to have the actors that are performing their fathers and mothers be the ones explaining.

Although it’s not an autobiographical movie, I understand it was inspired by the birth of your first child.

Obviously when you have kids you learn about your kids, but what was unexpected for me was when I had a kid it began to make me think a lot more about my own father, who has passed away. But I began to sort of remember back to my childhood and the relationship I had with my own father, which was not particularly healthy. But in trying to figure out what kind of father I want to be to my own daughter, I realize that I can’t really get to that if I don’t first process and digest the relationship that I had with my father.

One of the main questions raised by the movie is what constitutes family. What have you concluded?

In presenting this duality between nurture versus nature, I don’t believe that I’ve tried to give an answer, nor do I actually have one. I think a valuable lesson is to certainly realize the time with your child is very, very precious, but that isn’t to deny the importance of blood entirely. In Japan today, despite all the changes, adoption still hasn’t taken root there, it’s not very common. Japan as a nation does still value bloodlines quite a bit and couldn’t possibly deny, conservative though it may seem, that value on the blood isn’t important in some way.

The film is also about identity. How does it reflect broader questions about the crisis in Japan?

I think that notion of identifying oneself with the economic growth that Japan experienced for a time, that’s dead. Even myself, I found employment during the economic bubble days. Now young people are coming into the job market and they’re having a lot of trouble finding employment. So you have all these people who no longer identify with the company and economic growth, and so you have all these splintered individuals who are now being coopted by the nationalism movement.

How has 10 years of recession affected national identity?

Japan used to be very much a corporate culture where everybody is part of a greater whole, and that whole was a corporation, that’s who you dedicate your life to. That’s crumbled and now we have a lot of people that are trying to figure out where they belong. But in Japan, individualism never really took off the way it did in the U.S. They don’t have that strong chord that supports them. So what happens is nationalism begins to take advantage of them and bring them into their fold. That’s the danger Japan faces today.

Philippe Starck’s citrus juicer and Michael Graves' teapot, amongst other designer housewares, will now be permanently on show at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) in Indiana, thanks to Alessi's donation of 29 objects from the company’s catalog to the museum's design galleries.

The lot, which includes designs from a number of different periods throughout the stylish Italian housewares company’s 90-year history, will join the more than 50,000 works already housed in the museum’s permanent collection.

They kitchen classics include: Riccardo Dalisi’s ‘90018’ Neapolitan coffee maker, Alessandro Mendini’s Anna G. corkscrew, Richard Sapper’s‘9090’ espresso coffee maker and ‘9091’ kettle, Michael Graves’ Coffee and Tea Piazza Service and Philippe Starck’s ‘Juicy Salif’ citrus juicer, as well as newer items in the Alessi collection such as the Campana Brothers’ ‘Peneira’ baskets, Alessandro Mendini’s ‘Moka Alessi’, Marc Newson’s Gemini salt and pepper mills, and Andrea Branzi’s ‘Mama-ó’ kettle.

Over the last six years, the IMA’s Department of Design Arts has acquired many designs by the company that, founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi, has managed to make virtually everything from a whistling teakettle to a fly swatter a design collectible. 

IMA’s new contemporary design galleries will open on November 22 after a three-year renovation project. Focusing on design after 1980, a period of immense growth and creativity, the galleries will be based on the two overarching concepts: design as industry, and design as art.

The 150th anniversary commemorations of the Civil War have sanctioned the making of a cluster of films about slavery and abolition. “Django Unchained,” “Lincoln,” and “12 Years a Slave” will be followed by a movie about John Brown.

Ed Harris will play the radical abolitionist, who was committed to the belief that only violence could eradicate slavery, in Giancarlo Esposito’s “Patriotic Treason,” adapted by José Rivera from the 2006 book by Evan Carton.

Esposito will himself play Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and emancipator famed for his oratory. The film is being backed by Spectrum Films and Act 4. Deadline, which broke the news, reported that Spectrum’s Keith Sweitzer studied Brown under Professor Carton at the University of Texas and “helped develop the ‘Patriotic Treason’ book deal” (with the University of Nebraska Press). An early summer 2014 shoot is anticipated.

Two months before Brown led the armed raid at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia on October 16, 1859, he visited Douglass’s home and tried to recruit him as a liaison officer to enlist black recruits. Douglass declined, arguing that the attack on a federal arsenal “would array the whole country against us.” Though she was opposed to the use of arms, Harriet Tubman helped Brown plan the raid but was either too ill to participate or away recruiting slaves or rescuing family members.

Thwarted by marines led by Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee (aided by Lt. “Jeb” Stuart), the raid culminated in the killing of 10 of Brown’s 20 men, six civilians (including the local mayor and two slaves), and two marines. Wounded in the action, Brown was tried for treason, convicted, and hung on December 2 that year; he was 59. Walt Whitman and John Wilkes Booth were in the crowd that witnessed the execution. The heavy military presence included an artillery unit commanded by Major Thomas (later “Stonewall”) Jackson. Six of Brown’s raiders were also hung.

In John Cromwell’s “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” (1940), the biblically white-bearded Brown was played by Cromwell himself (without a credit). Raymond Massey went from playing Lincoln in that picture to playing Brown in his next, Michael Curtiz’s fictionalized Stuart biopic “Santa Fe Trail” (1940). Massey was Brown again in “Seven Angry Men” (1955), Hollywood’s only significant previous film about his insurrection, which made the war inevitable.

Sterling Hayden, who looked like Brown in “The Long Goodbye” (1973), wound up his career playing him in the 1982 “The Blue and the Grey” miniseries; Johnny Cash followed suit in another series, “North and South” (1985). Royal Dano, a genuine Brown lookalike, played him in the 1971 comedy Western “The Skin Game”; he had been a TV Lincoln in 1952-53. Dano appeared in the Civil War classic “The Red Badge of Courage” (1951) with another great character, John Dierkes, who would have made a formidable Brown but never got the chance.

When Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” opened a year ago, it generated speculation about why there had never been a Douglass biopic. In August, Russell Simmons announced he would be making a seven-part miniseries about Douglass and a series or feature about Tubman. The latter biopic grew out of the furious reaction to the Tubman “sex tape parody” with which the hip-hop mogul launched his All Def Digital Channel on YouTube and subsequently pulled.

In this interview with the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, however, Simmons says, “I was going to do Frederick Douglass and they [HBO] were very excited about it” [italics mine]. The status of the Tubman project is equally vague.

Both have been given short shrift in the movies, an obvious residue of racism. Cicely Tyson starred as Tubman in NBC’s 1978 miniseries “A Woman Called Moses,” which was narrated by Orson Welles. Summer Selby played her in a 1992 TV short, “The Quest for Freedom.”

Douglass has been portrayed on screen 25 times, mostly on TV, according to IMDb. James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, Ossie Davis, Cleavon Little, Don Cheadle, and Richard Brooks are among those who have played him. In 1989’s “Glory,” Brown was portrayed by Raymond St. Jacques, an actor who played a major part in lowering racial barriers for black actors, initially by becoming a series regular on “Rawhide.”

Around 20,000 handmade Chanel camellias bloom yearly in the ateliers
 of Maison Lemarié in myriad materials, each crafted from a minimum of sixteen petals cut and curled on white-hot curling irons before being whisked off to the Chanel couture and accessories workshops to garnish Karl’s creations.

Founded in 1880 by Palmyre Coyette, Maison Lemarié started out as a luxury feather supplier, furnishing the millinery industry with precious plumes from birds of paradise, peacocks, swans, ostriches, rheas, cockerels, and vultures that were meticulously cleaned, tinted, and trimmed before being applied to fabrics.

It was Coyette’s grandson André Lemarié who extended the business to flowers when he joined the firm in 1946, growing a gardenful of varieties requested by the house’s increasing coterie of fashion clients—including Dior, Balenciaga, Nina Ricci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Alexander McQueen — not to mention the blossoms required for the six yearly collections of Chanel, which acquired Maison Lemarié in 1996.

Few know that Lemarié also has
 an atelier specializing in decorative couture adornments from romantic flounces and cascade pleats to rich ruffles and smocking. Chanel’s couture and Métiers d’Art collections serve
as playgrounds for the atelier’s talents; among the recent examples of their handiwork are the delicate silk origami squares in Chanel’s fall 2013 couture collection.

Music

Corbett vs. Dempsey, a gallery space and record label based out of Chicago, has released one of the music packages of the year: jazz legend Joe McPhee’s “Nation Time.” The four-CD set, which contains a 56-page book featuring an in-depth interview with McPhee, includes the original albums “Nation Time” and “Black Magic Man,” along with a 1969 concert in Poughkeepsie, NY, and a whole disc of unreleased tracks recorded at Vassar College. This is a must-have for jazz fans, the missing link between Ornette Coleman’s free-jazz experimentation and Miles Davis’s wild electric period. [Corbett vs. Dempsey, $50]

Film

On DVD, the Criterion Collection releases a gorgeous new Blu-Ray of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu’s “Tokyo Story.” If you’re in the mood for something more recent, pick up a copy of Margarethe von Trotta’s “Hannah Arendt,” a biopic of the late German thinker. [Criterion, $31.96/Zeitgist Films, $22.49]

In theaters, two of artist Ed Ruscha’s films are showing at New York’s Anthology Film Archives on November 24 at part of their “White Cube/Black Box” series, while the French Institute Alliance Française is screening Philippe Garrel’s “Regular Lovers” on November 26 as part of their essential series on the director.

Theater

Tonight, a new production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” premieres at the Lincoln Center Theater, starring Ethan Hawke in the title role. The show runs through January 11, and this is one you shouldn’t miss. [LCT, $77.00 - $157.00]

If you’re looking for a Shakespeare production that is less, well, dramatic, you should head out to the Theater for a New Audience, located in their new space near the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and check out Julie Taymor’s new production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” [TFANA, $75]

From Burberry to Moschino Cheap & Chic, from Lanvin to Saint Laurent, wild beasts have been let loose on every runway. Animal fashion is easy to wear: add pony-style, snake-wear, or leopard, tiger, or zebra prints for a touch of wildness, or mix them together with solids for a winter that’s untamed but not fierce.

Discover the Jungle Fever BLOUIN Lifestyle Pick in our slideshow.

Fifty years past a now-immemorial motorcade through Dallas's downtown Dealey Plaza, “JFK November 22, 1963: A Bystander's View of History,” on view at the International Center of Photography in New York, offers an idea of what it might have been like to witness it from the crowd. With a series of photos then captured by the motorcade's roadside instant-camera viewers – from varying distances and angles, usually blurred or slightly out of focus — the images create a type of jagged, film-still view, somewhat near Elm Street. On view among these are also some more iconic images, including Mary Ann Moorman's Polaroid of the assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald backyard portrait, and memorabilia collected in the wake of the tragedy ranging from postcards to campaign posters.

If the exhibition focuses on the Kennedy assassination as a subject it's also, as ICP curator Brian Wallis pointed out in a recent conversation with BLOUIN ARTINFO, “a look at a moment that changed photography,” where, among other things, roadside amateur snapshots captured a documentary idea that would later feed into the medium.  

Can you tell me about how you decided to put together "JFK November 22, 1963"?

ICP has a big collection of Kennedy material, in part because our founder, Cornell Capa, followed the 1960 presidential campaign as a photojournalist, and was a White House photographer during the first year of the Kennedy presidency. But we also have a surprising amount of material related to the assassination. So I thought on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy, it would be an interesting moment to look at the material.

When I looked at the photography surrounding the assassination, the thing that struck me most was of how much of it had been done not be professional photojournalists, but by amateur photographers, what I would call “bystander photographers.” You think about the famous Zapruder film or the Polaroid pictures taken by Mary Ann Moorman and other bystanders, and it’s an example of how amateur photographers stepped in to fill a void where professional photojournalists had failed to capture the assassination. That interested me as a precursor to contemporary citizen journalism, but also as a way in which vernacular photography, or popular photography, gets incorporated into the historical record.

The assassination has long been described as a media event, because television broadcast four days of national mourning virtually nonstop, but the various uses of photography [in relation to the event] had never really been examined that closely. The example of the amateur photographers is one [aspect] of this, and then there was the way that photography was used to try to solve the case, either as part of the official story, with the Warren commission, or on the part of conspiracy theorists who used photography to try to disprove the publicly accepted story. A third [aspect] is the way in which photographs were used to cope with a national trauma. These are the three points focused on in the exhibition.

The show includes images that are iconic now — stills from the Zapruder film, the Mary Ann Moorman photo — but what are some of the works that might be more surprising?

The Zapruder and the Mary Ann Moorman photo are justifiably famous because they did capture the actual moment of the shooting. But I was equally fascinated by the ones where somebody was standing alongside the motorcade route and just taking a picture of the president going by. Which is a funny and fascinating thing, when you think about it: what is the photo’s destination? How would it be received, who would be the viewers? Mary Ann Moorman actually told me that the reason she was there was, specifically, was because she was taking a picture for her son, who couldn’t attend.

What are some of the more interesting to look at from a photographic standpoint?

There was a movement from that point forward to challenge the conventions of photojournalism, from a number of different directions. One thing that’s outstanding about these pictures is that they have a very provisional, ephemeral quality to them that’s typical of popular photography, but less popular in photojournalism — which at that point, in 1963, was highly calibrated, highly composed photos of noteworthy events. Photos in which, ideally, you’re focusing on a particular, journalistic narrative arc, or on a key moment. The hallmark of these bystander photographs is that they often miss the key moment. They took a picture just before or after, kind of blurred, where the main subjects were in the background.

I wouldn’t say that’s cause and effect, but that’s part of a general movement toward a new kind of photography, both in fine-art photography and in photojournalism, that allowed for a different approach, a different vocabulary and a different way of communicating with the audience. And a breakdown of some of the canonical features of historical photojournalism.

Are there specific images in the show that highlight this more than others?

I mentioned people who were standing along the roadside. There are a few pictures that are just of the motorcade. Each one of them captures that ephemeral passing nature. On the other hand you have what I think is one of the great pieces in the exhibition, the so-called backyard photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a gun and a communist newspaper. It became a centerpiece of the Warren Commission and the presentation of Lee Harvey Oswald as this lone gunman.

Which is a really fascinating photograph when you look at it from that perspective. It’s kind of staged, it’s kind of clumsily done. But it’s an interesting, popular version of an iconic portrait. Here’s somebody standing with what might be described as the attributes of their profession. It’s like a resume — he’s got a gun [in a holster] and he’s holding a rifle and a Communist newspaper. He’s signaling all the skills he has to offer. It’s an example of the formal value of portraiture, brought it down to a very local level. This was one of the pictures that came to us from the Time Life archive,  so it’s not the exact one that was used on the cover of Life magazine, but it was from the same series. So I was quite excited about that.

There are also great examples in the show where photographs are used in reproductions. One is an early campaign poster of Kennedy, and then a poster that was hung in a storefront after the shooting to designate that it would be closed for mourning, using the exact same picture from that poster. These uses of photography are fascinating in the way [they show how] most people accessed photography. And then there’s probably the most extraordinary photographic document of the Kennedy assassination — the Warren Report itself, 26 volumes that J.G. Ballard called “the greatest photo novella ever published,” because it’s just volumes and volumes of miscellaneous photographs, every piece of clothing in Lee Harvey Oswald’s closet, page after page of the contents of his wallet, crazy site reconstructions and so forth. It’s this sort of blizzard of information that ultimately bolsters the highly contested conclusion about the assassination.

You mentioned that the third point of the exhibition was the way that photography was involved with the grieving process, which is a point that seems to come up less. What are some of the more interesting things to point out here?

One of the things that really struck me, beyond the actual taking of photographs, was the way that people wanted to consume images. I don’t exactly know enough about the psychological process, but I see this as a way of negotiating grief. People wanted to  buy a postcard portrait, or they wanted to create a scrapbook, or they wanted to buy a commemorative magazine of pictures. Some of the souvenirs are really bizarre, like a statuette of John John saluting the coffin, or reproductions of iconic photographs on plates or glasses. It takes all form of retail objects, but clearly there was a huge desire for people to hold onto something and to try to understand this and surround themselves with objects that would be touchstones for them in trying to understand this confounding, political situation. You’ll often see people with pictures of a rug of JFK on it in the background, or something.

One of the best things in the exhibition is a small work we commissioned from a filmmaker, Alan Governor, which consists of just folk recordings of music that was composed immediately after the assassination, to address this grieving process. And there are hundreds and hundreds of these songs – it’s this whole genre of musicians trying to address this tragedy through song. So it’s a kind of parallel experience to the popular response of people through photography. And the responses seemed like a good case study for an investigation that you could do with other historical exhibitions, like 9/11, where you have people summoning a lot of interesting and creative cultural responses to a historic event — some fall back on traditional forms, but many of the others are just completely new, and unique.

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

Pushing through the well-heeled crowds pouring into the recent LAPADA art and antique show in London, the thickest knots of visitors were clustered around the booths showing antique and period jewelry. The buyers were peering into the vitrines, leaning, pointing, or trying on; this was serious business.

Though the show was organized by the Association of Art and Antique Dealers (formerly the London and Provincial Antique Dealers Association), these were not the kind of “glass case” collectors — academic, esoteric, living in the past — but rather au courant women of style and substance.

There laid glamorous spreads of Victorian jewelry, from the reign of Britain’s Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901, which produced a bounty of charming, whimsical pieces that connoisseurs clamor for today. The burnished-gold fringed collars; cuffs and bangles; drop earrings with their amphora shapes, virtuoso granulation, and wirework borrowed from antiquity; naturalistic diamond spray brooches; great garnet carbuncles; Renaissance-inspired brooches and pendants, elaborately chased and sculpted; voluptuous golden lockets, bows, and butterflies; bunches of lustrous seed-pearl grapes. Everywhere that marvelous mash-up of cultural and historical themes that is so uniquely Victorian. The true appeal of Victorian jewelry, of course, lies in the depth and breadth of its expression, its sentiment and symbolism. The telling of beliefs, allegiances, flirtation, romance, celebration or mourning, science and discovery. These were jewels oozing confidence and curiosity, prosperity and pride.

It was this richness that lured Lorenz Bäumer, artistic director for fine jewelry at Louis Vuitton, when he dreamed up Voyage dans le Temps, one of the recurring themes in his haute joaillerie collections for the brand. In the eclecticism
of 19th-century jewelry, he saw the Victorians’ new awareness of a wondrous world that was fast expanding with the growing appetite and possibilities for travel.

As with his first collection, L’Ame duVoyage, he continued to tap into Louis Vuitton’s association with travel; Voyage dans le Temps, however, is a trip through time, to the company’s beginnings in the mid 1800s. Bäumer decided the journey should be taken by the instantly recognizable Louis Vuitton logo, the monogram flower that has been a constant in his designs for the house. He sent the little flower hurtling back through history to the age of Victoria, where it picked up the flavors and sensations of the era, which it brought back to the present, trans- forming tradition into sharp, chic modernity, glossing it with space-age materials and cutting-edge techno- logical wizardry.

A highlight of the 2012 Voyage dans le Temps collection was the Dentelle
de Monogram necklace, a classic Peter Pan collar of intricate diamond lace, to be worn against the skin or over clothes with all the coy charm of a Victorian lady, her secrets carefully hidden. The collection’s Galaxie Monogram neck- lace referenced Belle Epoque chokers, while its Fleurs d’Eternité designs proffered incarnations of the love knot, one of the most enduring and emotive Victorian motifs, signifying the indis- soluble bonds of love. Representing the 19th century’s exploration of the natural world, the collection’s Monogram Infini pieces translated the Fibonacci sequence—the mathematical code behind the sacred geometry of curving leaves and shells—into spinning spirals of diamond light.

The newest evolution of Voyage dans le Temps, released in July, comes alive with colored gems (perhaps evoking the mineralogical discoveries of the 19th century and the growth of colonialism)—ravishing spinels
in shades of pulsating red, lavender pink, and silky blue grey; heavenly blue Ceylon sapphires; electric Paraíba tourmalines; stately Imperial topaz in tones of warm bronze or dusky pink; and Australian black opals, a night
sky shot through with flashes of red and green. Bäumer says that he continues to be enamored with Victorian jewelry, especially its ingenuity and craftsmanship. “The closures, the clasps, the way in which a piece of jewelry can be transformed and worn in multiple ways, is very inspiring to me.” For this collection, he has created a long sautoir set with two black opals that can be transformed into a shorter necklace and two bracelets by means of invisible clasps.

In this, as in every aspect of the collection, Baumer considers not only the past but the woman of today: how she thinks and dresses, her lifestyle, her moods. “In the 19th century, women wore jewelry as if it were armour, from the tiara to the huge corsage ornament; in Voyage dans le Temps, each of these elements is given a new interpretation for the woman of our times,” he explains. “Everything starts with the woman.”

– Munich Art Trove Grows as Gurlitt Goes Free: According to Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Germany is very unlikely to prosecute Munich art hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt retroactively for the Nazi-looted art found in his apartment. In fact, some 300 of the seized artworks will likely be returned to him as early as next week, a development that earned the ire of Dieter Graumann, director of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who said: "After the whole thing was handled over 18 months nearly conspiratorially, the hasty reaction for a general return is certainly also the wrong one." Meanwhile, details and images of several dozen more works from the cache — including pieces by Edvard Munch and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec— were released. The whole situation doesn't surprise World War II veteran and Monuments Men member Harry Ettlinger, though. "I think this is the beginning," Ettlinger said. "It was anticipated by the Monuments Men that I knew that these things were going to come to the surface in the future, and it's happening." [Bloomberg, AFP, NYT, Reuters]

– Lucas Museum Rejected, For Now: It looks like MC Hammer’s vote of confidence just wasn’t enough for George Lucas's museum proposal. The Board of the Presidio Trust in San Francisco has rejected all three finalists’ proposals for a Crissy Field arts institution and has demanded revisions, especially from Lucas’s museum project. Board chairman Nancy Bechtle said the 3,000-square-foot Lucas Cultural Arts Museum plan was "too big" and had an "inappropriate configuration." She also said she wouldn’t be intimated by Lucas’s celebrity supporters. "We have an obligation to San Francisco, not political pressure," she said. "If (Lucas) walks, he walks. We'll take the brunt of the pressure." [SF Chronicle, SFBG]

– Another Banksy for Sale in Miami: A 1,500-pound piece of a Brooklyn building onto which Banksy painted a balloon heart and a car door featuring running horses from the Lower East Side will be on sale at the Art Miami fair during Art Basel Miami Beach. The pieces, which are estimated to be worth about $800,000, will be at the booth of New York dealer Stephan Keszler. Keszler claims that he regularly receives calls from New York property owners offering to sell their Banksys. "It's Banksy mania," he said. [Telegraph]

– Pérez Museum Preps for Launch: The Pérez Art Museum Miami, which will open next month during Art Basel Miami Beach, recently reached the 90-percent mark in its $220-million capital campaign, with a recent flood of donations including funds totaling $8 million and art boosting its holdings. [Miami Herald, South Florida Business Journal, Bloomberg]

– Carnegie Mellon Builds Brooklyn Art and Tech Campus: Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University is planning to build a 16,000-square-foot campus at Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that will focus on projects combining the arts and technology. The Integrative Media Program is due to launch in August 2015. [NYT]

– No Permit for Pawel's Performa Piece: Artist Pawel Althamer's massive sculpture "Queen Mother of Reality," part of his Performa 13 project, was ordered removed from Williamsburg's East River State Park by state officials because the appropriate permits had not been procured. The sculpture was scheduled to be removed Thursday anyway, as the performance art biennial winds down. [DNAinfo]

– Guess Jeans co-founder Georges Marciano is anonymously selling of hundreds of works at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. [TAN]

– Abu Dhabi Art has been shut down after a huge storm caused water leakage in the main building of the fair. [TAN]

– Gagosian now represents Michael Heizer, who will have his debut with the gallery in 2015 on 24th Street. [NYT]
 

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

This holiday, why not wear your art on your sleeve? Or on your feet, for that matter.

From Mark Rothko to Gustav Klimt, designers have created accessories that reinterpret some of the best works originally created on canvas, and that will surely be great conversation starters at parties this season.

Break the ice with an intricately beaded clutch, hand-made by artisans in Lebanon for Sarah’s Bag, depicting a cartoon-inspired image of polka-dotted red lips that evoke Roy Lichtenstein.

To kick up the fun, why not add on a resin bangle, featuring a print of Jeff Koons’ “Loopy”, from the third Lisa Perry Limited Edition Artist Collection?

If you can’t wait for Chanel’s paint studio-inspired Spring 2014 collection, a pair of paint-splattered low top sneakers by Maison Martin Margiela will do just the trick in the meantime.

For a touch of pure sophistication, however, Manolo Blahnik has rendered his classic BB pump in graphic black-and-white dots, surely appealing to Yayoi Kusama fans; while Calvin Klein Collection’s color block bootie is not just oh-so-trend-right, but will also spark a debate on which Rothko composition it resembles.

Speaking of compositions, Piet Mondrian would approve of the perfectly apportioned blocks of yellow, white and red on Prabal Gurung’s tricolor leather belt.

Jewelry designer Vicki Sarge literally transforms Mario Testino's photographs of costume designs in Peru into wearable pieces of art: A limited-edition pair of earrings and a pompom necklace feature colorful Swarovski crystals and gold-plated fringing, lending cheer to even the plainest of Little Black Dresses.

Meanwhile, for Klimt fans, a multicolor glass crystal and gold plate pin by Marni makes the perfect whimsical addition to anything — a sash, a handbag, and even the most austere winter coat.

And if you prefer something more three-dimensional, award-winning artist and designer Hervé Van Der Straeten’s stunning hammered gold cuff, handcrafted in Paris and resembling the sensuous curves of a Frank Gehry architectural masterpiece, will stand out best against the simplest silhouettes and most pared down designs.

To see these items and find out where to buy them, click on the slideshow.

The smog and golden hue of Hollywood have often permeated the work of artist Ed Ruscha. Sometimes, as in his paintings of the Hollywood sign (“Hollywood,” 1968) or the 20th Century Fox logo (“Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights,” 1962), literally; other times, as in his text-based work, the influence is less obvious. Bold and brightly colored, his earliest pop works display an affection for the surfaces of Los Angeles, the warm glove that surrounds Hollywoodland, with a hint of something rumbling just below — an undercurrent of sadness, even ambivalence. They are like episodes of “The Twilight Zone” on canvas, brimming with the sense that something is happening that you don’t understand.

An Oklahoma transplant born in 1937, Ruscha was fascinated, but not completely hypnotized, by the allure of the movies. Like many of his contemporaries, Ruscha embraced the medium of film in the early 1970s, but with different concerns. “Premium” (1971) and “Miracle” (1975), two short films screening at New York’s Anthology Film Archives on November 24 as part of the White Cube/Black Box series, couldn’t be any different from the conceptual film exercises of contemporaries John Baldessari or Bruce Nauman. There is little formal or thematic experimentation, and if the films resemble anything, it’s the early shorts comedian Albert Brooks made for “Saturday Night Live.” Both hinge on surreal plot devices, but don’t shy away from physical comedy of buffoonery.

As part of the program, Ruscha’s films will screen alongside work by Kenneth Anger (“Kustom Kar Kommandos”), Owen Land (“No Sir, Orison!”), Bette Gordon (“An Erotic Film”), Hollis Frampton (“Lemon”), and Morgan Fischer (“Turning Over”), which expand on and illuminate the connections Ruscha draws between sex, food, and automobiles in his work.

“Premium,” the better of Ruscha’s two films, began its life as a short story by his best friend, Mason Williams, who would later serve as a writer on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” (Tommy Smothers appears in the film.) Ruscha would adapt the story into an early artist book called “Crackers” in 1969, and the film follows the story pretty closely: An unnamed man (played by artist Larry Bell) rents a dilapidated hotel room and decides to make a giant salad on the bed sheets. Then he picks up a date (model Leon Bing) in a limousine, brings her to the room, and convinces her, after much prodding, to get in the salad bed. After drenching her in dressing, he realizes he forgot crackers. Leaving her in the room, he runs to his limousine, drives to store to pick up crackers, and goes home, where he eats in solitary peace.  

The film is not devoid of comedy. The premise is bizarre and awkwardly funny, but it’s little more than a single joke played out over 24 minutes. The same can be said of “Miracle,” which focuses on a car mechanic who, after becoming obsessed with repairing the engine of a red 1965 Ford Mustang, misses a date with a beautiful blonde (played by singer Michelle Phillips). Both films are kitschy, and resemble 1950’s entertainment turned on its head. But their absurd surfaces don’t signify depth. Unlike the painting that “Miracle” shares its title with, there isn’t an abyss of meaning to be found underneath.

This doesn’t make them bad, just different from Ruscha’s visual art. It’s a detour, and one worth looking at. But there’s a reason they are not discussed often in writings about his work. The films act as sketches for larger ideas, and seem relatively minor compared to his monumental body of work. And this, it seems, was part of the plan. Later in his career, the artist was honest about how his film work wasn’t meant to be bound by the restrictions of the white cube. “Some artists make films that are an end in themselves… they’re statements,” Ruscha said. “Mine’s not like that. I don’t want people to look at the film like it’s a deep statement on my part. It’s just an excuse, the story, to make a movie…. I don’t know where the movie fits in anywhere, and I can’t place it in my art at all.”

Using a somewhat odd choice of words, Sotheby’s announced today that it and its worldwide head of contemporary art, Tobias Meyer, “have agreed to end his association with Sotheby’s.”

We’ve been hearing news about mounting pressure on Meyer to bring in major consignments for some time now. Weeks before the big fall sales were to begin, it was known that he didn’t have work that could compete with the high caliber offerings (by Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons, and Christopher Wool, among others) that Christie’s was putting up for sale. He finally sealed a deal on a major Warhol, "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)" (1963), which ultimately sold for $105 million. His quest for that work had him flying to Switzerland to woo its owner, then inviting the owner to his Connecticut country house. His summer was apparently so difficult that, recounting the experience to a Newsweek reporter recently, he cried openly.

Even after Meyer landed the Warhol, the contemporary offerings at Christie’s and Sotheby’s were notably unbalanced heading into the fall season, with Christie’s boasting a 17 works in its contemporary evening sale  with estimates above $10 million, as opposed to six at Sotheby’s (though Sotheby’s ended up with nine eight-figure prices by the end of its evening sale).

Meyer joined Sotheby’s as head of the contemporary art department in London in 1992 after working at Christie’s in London for a few years after college, and five years later he moved to New York to head up the worldwide contemporary department. He has served as principal auctioneer for sales of contemporary art and Impressionist & modern art in New York, and contemporary art sales in London.

Meyer has made a career of selling works for unprecedented amounts. In 1998, soon after returning to New York, he sold Warhol’s “Orange Marilyn,” an iconic 1964 portrait of Marilyn Monroe, for $17 million, a record price for a the artist at the time. His sale of David Smith’s “Cubi XXVIII” (1965) for nearly $24 million in 2005 broke the auction record for that artist. And in May 2004, Meyer set the record for the most expensive work ever sold at auction when Picasso’s 1905 work “Boy with a Pipe” went for $104 million.

Last week, the contemporary art evening auction at Sotheby’s brought in $380.6 million, the highest grossing sale in the history of the auction house, with the contemporary-sales total, including the day auction, amounting to a record $474.3 million. Nonetheless, the figures still lagged behind those for the comparable Christie’s sales, which brought in $782.4 million.

“Tobias Meyer is a respected figure and has been at the center of signature moments in Sotheby’s history for more than 20 years and we are grateful for all of his contributions,” said chairman and chief executive officer Bill Ruprecht in a statement. “With Tobias’ contract soon expiring, we all agreed it was time to part ways. We wish Tobias nothing but good fortune.”

“I will always cherish my time at Sotheby’s and look forward to the next chapter in my career,” Meyer said in the same statement.  “I have had over 20 years of the most marvelous experiences at Sotheby’s where I have made many friends and had wonderful times.  I wish Sotheby’s the best of luck in the future.”

Sotheby’s has undergone some other changes in recent months, though it’s not clear if these have any connection to Meyer’s departure. In late September the house announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer, Patrick S. McClymont, who succeeded longtime CFO William Sheridan. Sheridan, who is leaving the company after 17 years in order to spend time with his family and focus on charitable work, agreed to stay on until the end of the year to help with the transition.

In early October, activist investor Daniel Loeb, head of the hedge-fund firm Third Point LLC, posted a copy of a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and addressed to Ruprecht, calling for his resignation and seeking other sweeping changes at the auction house. Over the previous month Loeb had increased his stake in Sotheby’s from 5.7 percent to 9.3 percent, making him its biggest shareholder. There had been growing speculation that Loeb might try to leverage his holding into influence over Sotheby’s business dealings.

Days later, Sotheby’s fired back with a shareholder rights plan meant to make it more difficult for an investor to gain control of the company by diluting the value of that investor’s shares.

According to a statement from Sotheby’s, the Board adopted the rights plan “in response to the recent rapid accumulations of significant portions of Sotheby’s outstanding common stock, including through the use of derivatives.”

— Following last week’s auction sales Eileen Kinsella asked the billion-dollar question: Can contemporary art keep climbing?

— Rozalia Jovanovic assessed this year’s Performa, noticing a trend for putting the audiences at the center of events.

— Modern Painters profiled Performa provocateur Clifford Owens.

— Art + Auction’s Sarah Hanson interviewed collector Eugenio López, while Julie Baumgardner took a trip to Mexico City for the launch of his new museum Museo Jumex.

— Michael Shvo, of Getty Station fame, curated “Les Lalanne: The Poetry of Sculpture” at Sotheby’s.

— Celine Piettre reported high attendance and positive sales at this year’s Paris Photo fair.

— In a surprise choice, Bernard Blistène was named head of the Pompidou Center.

— Art Miami director Nick Korniloff discussed his big plans for this year’s fair.

— Benjamin Genocchio is refreshed by Miami’s satellite fairs in this month’s Art + Auction editor’s letter.

THIS WEEK'S VIDEOS:

LOS ANGELES – Mozart’s final opera, “The Magic Flute,” was composed for his friend, Emanuel Schikaneder, who managed a cabaret in Vienna. As such, it is an outlier, his only opera with a German libretto composed in the Singspiel style accommodating various levels of vocal talent (Schikaneder himself sang the role of Papageno). Upon its premier it was an instant success, its popularity spreading far beyond its intended audience of commoners.

The opera’s populist appeal made it an easy fit for silent cinema, one of the many influences director Suzanne Andrade and animator Paul Barritt drew on for their production of “The Magic Flute,” a mixed-media performance running November 23 through December 15 at L.A. Opera.

“We really wanted to make our Papageno a Buster Keaton,” Andrade told ARTINFO. “We wanted a deadpan clown. Everything goes wrong all the time, even when he gets his Papagena.” Also fitting the silent-era motif is the Louise Brooks-inspired black bob Pamina wears, matching Andrade’s own hairstyle.

Andrade’s look fits in with her work as director, writer, and star of 1927, the London theater company she co-founded with Barritt. Their “Magic Flute” and other two productions, “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and “The Animals and Children Took the Streets,” employ the same combination of Weimar Republic cabaret and Barritt’s bold, retro animation projected on a white wall where performers enter and exit through panels.

With only two modest-sized shows to their credit, 1927 was handpicked by Komische Oper Berlin director Barrie Kosky, who saw “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and connected Weimar cabaret-style with “The Magic Flute”’s Singspiel structure.

Andrade and Barritt were blindsided by his offer to produce and co-direct the opera. Neither were opera fans, nor were they familiar with the “The Magic Flute,” a condition Andrade feels actually worked to their benefit. Unbridled by reverence, they were able to get down to the basics of music, character, and theme.

“It’s about finding a balance,” said Barritt. “We have a very intense process in which we think through the visuals, the blocking and everything, and what it means for the character.”

Like any stage performer, singers are accustomed to hitting their marks, but when they’re interacting with projected images, precision becomes even more critical. In “The Magic Flute,” they are chased by giant pendulums, frolic among flowers, birds, and bumblebees, and are tormented by an arachnid Queen of the Night.

“We kept the movement as simple as possible,” Andrade said. “There’s a tendency for all performers, when they interact with animation, to turn in toward the wall so the audience loses them. But all the other interaction they seemed to have picked up quite quick.”

The initial run in Berlin late last year was a popular and critical success, prompting L.A. Opera music director James Conlon and president ChristopherKoelsch to travel to Germany, determined to bring the production to the birthplace of cinema.

For Barritt, who hand drew the animation over 18 months, the Berlin premier was a thrill, but mostly he was just relieved to reach the finish line. Revisiting the show in Los Angeles with a year’s perspective can be hazardous, lest all its shortcomings jump to the fore. Luckily for Barritt, he suffered no such dilemma, noting, “You shelve a piece of work and then you come back to it a year or so later you think, ‘Well, we did a pretty good job on that.’”

Pirelli is marking the 50th anniversary of its iconic calendar, which for half a century has featured beautiful women captured by 31 world-renowned photographers. Several events, exhibitions and publications are being organized to celebrate the calendar, which was first published in 1964.

Addressing an audience of top models, reporters and other guests, Pirelli chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera said the anniversary was an important one for the company, “today is very special for Pirelli, it is special because we are marking 50 years of tradition, 50 years of history of our company during which there was an interruption due to the ten years of oil crisis and therefore altogether we've produced 40 calendars.”

Model Carmen Kass who appeared in the 2001 calendar, described the experience as a unique one, “it somehow shows the motion through the time, that our society has envisioned and seen women through the time and I think that makes it very very special.”

Breaking away from past practices, the company has not produced a new calendar for 2014, but instead decided to release the unpublished 1986 Pirelli Calendar created by Helmut Newton.