JERUSALEM — Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have archaeologists stumped. Israeli diggers who uncovered a complex of rooms carved into the bedrock in the oldest section of...

Wednesday evening marked the end of December's Old Master and British painting auctions in London, where the three major sales at Christie's, Sotheby's, and Bonhams brought in over £50 million ($78 million) — revealing a robust yet selective market with high demand for work by 17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists. On the whole, there were high buy-in rates, but the works that did sell often went for prices that far surpassed estimates.

The sales began on Tuesday evening at Christie's, where the auction house brought in £24.2 million ($37.6 million) — at the high end of its £18.2-26.5 million pre-sale estimate. A 1798-9 Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes  portrait of Phillip II's court embroiderer, failed to sell on an estimate of £4-6 million ($6.1-9.2 million), but otherwise the sale was a tremendous success. Sell-through rates were a respectable 72 percent by lot and 79 percent by value, with 73 percent of the works that sold going above-estimate.

The top lot ended up being Pieter Bruegel the Younger's "The Battle Between Carnival and Lent." Bidding blasted through the £3.5-4.5 million estimate for the painting — one of several studies that the younger Bruegel did of his father's 1559 masterpiece of the same name — to hammer down at £6.9 million ($10.7 million), setting a record for the artist. Rounding out the top three were Willem van de Velde II's maritime painting "Dutch Men-o'-War and Other Shipping in a Calm," which sold for £5.9 million ($9.2 million), tripling its £1.5-2.5 million estimate, and a recently rediscovered 1646 portrait by Govaert Flinck, a student of Rembrandt. "An Old Man at a Casement" found a buyer at £2.3 million ($3.6 million), well ahead of its £700,000-1 million estimate. Both sale prices set records for the artists at auction.

At Bonhams the next afternoon there was a mix of wildly overperforming prices — and an abundance of unsold work. While only 32 of the 62 offered lots found buyers, making for a sell-through rate of 52 percent by lot, the sell-through rate by value was a remarkable 92 percent. The star of the afternoon was a Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez portrait that the auction house stumbled upon last year during the sale of little-known 19th-century British painter Matthew Shepperson's collection. It was analyzed extensively by Peter Cherry — an authority on the Spanish master — and found to be authentic. The painting fetched just under £3 million ($4.7 million), at the high end of its £2-3 million estimate ($3.2-4.8 million).

In a more unexpected turn of events, Adriaen Coorte's 1693-95 still life "Three Peaches on a Stone Ledge With a Painted Lady Butterfly" also passed the £2 million ($3.2 million) mark. The work, estimated to sell for £300,000-500,000, set an auction record for the Dutch artist, who specialized in small, simple still lifes that often contained just a few objects.

At the £20.1 million ($31.4 million) sale at Sotheby's Wednesday evening (est. £17.6–24.2 million, $27.5-37.9 million) 12 of 38 lots were passed up, making for a 68 percent sell-through rate by lot. However, the rate by value was a lofty 90 percent — meaning that many of the paintings that did sell achieved prices higher than expected.

As predicted, the highest price paid at the auction was £6.8 million ($10.6 million) for a pair of group portraits known as "conversation pieces" by German-born artist Johann Zoffany. Zoffany was good friends with the British actor David Garrick, and these two paintings depicted him and his family at their estate near Hampton Court, just outside of London. The pre-sale estimate on the duo was £6-8 million.

Just below the top lot was a 1660 Dutch interior painting by Jan Steen — the artist's masterpiece, according to Sotheby's — which depicts several people playing cards. The £4.9 million ($7.7 million) total set a record for the artist at auction, though it fell at the low end of the £4.5-6 million ($7-9.4 million) estimate.

WHAT: “Francesca Woodman”

WHEN: Through February 20, Friday-Tuesday 11 a.m. - 5:45 p.m., Thursday 11 a.m. – 8:45 p.m.

WHERE: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street, San Francisco

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: While we may never know what could have become of Francesca Woodman’s career had she lived — she committed suicide at age 22 in 1981 — we can look back at her brief and prolific bodies of work as an example of both innate talent and sheer obsession. The photographic prodigy was the product of an artistic household, whose parents Betty and George Woodman fostered her interests from an early age. She continued to develop them at RISD, studying photography both in the Providence studios and abroad in Italy. At the completion of her college years she pushed the boundaries of conventional photographic styles, building architectural forms with her images, like in “Temple” (1980) a collaged series of diazotypes (a photographic technique used to produce architectural blueprints) using the prints to create fragmented architectural forms, alluding to a Grecian façade. After graduating in 1978 she moved to New York where she attempted to enter into the fashion photography world, to little avail, as her own style and vision was inseparable from her commercial work.

Woodman’s legacy and influence on portraiture is undeniable, often making dark and introspective — almost narcissistic — works for which she is the primary subject, caught floating through domestic spaces with inquisitive and meditative quality. Her works were youthfully explorative and on the verge of artistic maturity, though the issues she struggled with were not unusual for her age group, generation, and social class. While not completely unique, especially when reconsidered today amongst the rise of a compulsively documentary Internet culture, the reason Woodman’s work endures is because her approach was captivating, trend setting, and raw. 

To see selections from "Francesca Woodman" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, click on the slide show.

– “Damien Hirst Is the Great Anti-Artist”: In an action-packed interview with the Guardian (read it all, it’s great) on the eve of his biggest show ever in Britain, Anselm Kiefer talks about his affection for Angela Merkel, his plans to refurbish a decommissioned nuclear power station, and his thoughts on Damien Hirst. “To go to Sothebys and sell your paintings directly” — as Hirst did in 2008 — “is destroying art. But in doing it to such an exaggerated extent, it becomes art.” [Guardian] 

– Hideous Public Art Freak Show: In the latest look at ugly statues inflicted on the world's helpless citizenry, Travel + Leisure has assembled a slide show of public works that should be draped in cloth, Elephant Man-style. New to this list? The obnoxious, inexplicable statue of a track-suited Michael Jackson appearing to do the locomotion outside Fulham Football Club in England. [HuffPo] 

– Take My Art, Please: In an effort to grow its business, a Melbourne hotel is displaying an original work by street artist Banksy — and inviting people to walk off with it. For the next month, starting on December 15, any guest who successfully manages to steal “No Ball Games” — a painting valued at up to $15,000 — will be allowed to keep it. [Australian]

– Export Ban on Manet: The UK government has placed a temporary export ban on Édouard Manet's unfinished "Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus," once owned by painter John Singer Sargent, until next February. The ban seeks to allow time for an individual or an institution to raise the £28 million ($43.6 million) necessary to keep the painting in the country. [Guardian]

– Academics Muzzled: Owners seeking authentication of their works are more likely than ever to go to court if they don't get a stamp of approval, according to the Art Newspaper. This has lead to a freezing effect on academics now afraid to voice their opinions: "Specialists are often academics earning $100,000 [or less] a year and they can't afford litigation," said one art lawyer. [TAN]

– Science Class: The American Museum of Natural History is starting a master's program for science teaching targeted at middle and high school Earth science teachers. The paid teaching fellowship with benefits aims to address the national shortage of science teachers. [AP]

– Much Love from Google to Diego Rivera: The search engine gave a nod to the Mexican muralist, whose work is currently on view in an exhibition at MoMA, on yesterday’s home page. [LAT]

– Tate's App: London's popular art gallery has released the "Tate Guide to Modern Art," an art dictionary for iPhone and iPad. "For many of us the language in which modern art is described is as mystifying as the art itself," said Tate publishing director Roger Thorp. "This comprehensive but concise guide is the answer." [Press Release]

– MSU Broad Art Museum Appoints Curator: The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has appointed Alison Gass curator of contemporary art. Gass, who was named a young curator to watch by the New York Times in 2009, currently serves as assistant curator of painting and sculpture at SFMoMA. [Press Release]

– Montreal Museum Craves a Major Extension: In order to show more of its rapidly growing collection, the Musée d'Art Contemporain (MAC) has called for a CA$88 million ($85.78 million) reconstruction of the building. The institution has committed to raising CA$10 million ($9.7 million) in private sponsorship. At the moment, only 1.5 percent of the collection is on display. [Radio Canada]

– Portland Art Museum Gets $2 Million Gift: The Portland Art Museum received a $2 million gift from an anonymous donor to fund its curator of photography position. [Oregonian] 

– London Art Fair Announces Art Projects' Participating Galleries: Twenty-nine galleries are to take part in the curated section of London's other art fair, including Hannah Barry Gallery, Bearspace, and the newly-opened Salon Vert. [Press Release] 

– Millionaire Withdraws from Zurbaran Deal: Jonathan Ruffer, who had offered £15 million ($23.3 million) to keep 12 paintings by Francisco Zurbaran in Auckland Castle, home of the Bishop of Durham in the North East of England, has pulled out, saying that Church Commission's conditions were "insurmountable." [BBC]

– A Result From the Gods: The antiquities sale at Sotheby’s in New York last night brought in $30.9 million, five times the $5-7.5 million pre-sale estimate. Much of the overperformance can be attributed to a marble statue of Leda and the Swan, which fetched $19.1 million (est. $2-3 million) after a four-way bidding war. [ITA] 

Many people were surprised when Baghdad-born, London-based starchitect Zaha Hadid was commissioned to design the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University back in 2008; it would be her first university building, and at that time... 

Bisazza has recently expanded its core business of mosaic tiles by launching a new bathroom division of the brand. Bisazza Bagno will focus on quality and variety as the main commercial strategy for the new brand and has already enlisted the help of some...

HONG KONG—This year marks the centenary of the 1911 revolution, which overthrew imperial China, ending the Qing Dynasty and ushering in China’s first republic. This revolution was not just about introducing a new political order, the aim was also to create a new society, which — building on ideas from the West — would transform China into a truly modern nation.

One hundred years on we have certainly seen plenty of modernization in China — industrialization, urbanization, technological transformation — but still many wonder, have we modernized without actually becoming modern? 

It was with that question in mind that Hong Kong’s experimental theater company, Zuni Icosahedron, launched the second edition of its Architecture Is Art Festival (AIAF) in the harbor city this month. The brainchild of architect, theater director, and all round polymath Mathias Woo, the festival brings together five performance pieces, seminars, and an urban design exhibition all in pursuit of a fresh understanding of the last 100 years of history by viewing it through the lens of that ultimate modernist pursuit: architecture.  

“It is easier, and more revealing, to study our history through architecture rather than by studying politics,” argues Woo, who has arranged his festival around that notion, presenting theatrical pieces that dramatize everything from the Bauhaus movement to the building of China’s national railways.  

As passionately as Woo asserts architecture cannot be separated from history, he also believes that the discipline must develop as an adjunct to art and culture, not economics and development.

This puts him rather at odds with his native city of Hong Kong, which is confident that it has put itself at the very forefront of contemporary architecture by being the most adept and innovative place in the world at turning space into property. Woo will have nothing of such self-congratulation: “Everything is the same here. Most buildings are mediocre, you can’t even say they are good or bad.”

In an attempt to indicate how much more is possible he curated an exhibition for the AIAF focusing on Hong Kong’s Cattle Depot Artist Village, a former Kowloon slaughterhouse which over the past 10 years has developed into a home for upwards of 20 arts groups. For Woo the depot indicates the way Hong Kong should be going — away from showy development and towards sustainable growth.

On the occasion of the festival, ARTINFO China sat down to talk with Mathias Woo.

Where did the idea for the Art is Architecture Festival come from?

Art festivals around the world have become rather stylized these days. Look at the Edinburgh Festival and the Hong Kong Arts Festival, which these days have a bit of everything, from classical music to opera, becoming more and more like high-class entertainment for the wealthy. I believe the main function of an art festival is to trigger our mind to go in search of some new aesthetics or to investigate some social issue or phenomena. But since the 1980s when festivals did have such aims they too have been gradually eroded by the globalization of capitalism, making cultural events more akin to consumer activities. So I thought about whether it could be possible to stage a relatively pure art festival, a festival that would investigate more serious topics, and at the same time maybe be a new genre in itself.

What are you trying to express in this edition of the festival?

We live inside architecture, yet our understanding of architecture these days always remains in the economic dimension. But the essence of architecture is not economics, but art. Architecture is everywhere, in every part of our world of the senses: sounds, colors, smells, light and air. Architecture before was always considered as an art in both Chinese and Western traditions, an art that created various aesthetic systems for the delineation of space.

Both the Chinese Siheyuan (courtyards) and Western Gothic churches use architectural spaces to draw relationships between men, heaven and earth. However, with the globalization of capitalism in recent decades, as well as the development of a market-driven environment, architecture all over the world has become more and more unified, serving only economic benefits, and focusing solely on monetary returns.

Why do you use “architecture” as the starting point for an arts festival?

Architecture should only be art, and nothing else, just as cinema should only be art. Economic benefits should be derived from artistic effects, but now the nature of architecture is distorted by the market. If the true nature of architecture is lost, and architecture is no longer art, then architecture is no longer architecture. What we are left with is luxury apartments and properties for sale and speculation. What is the meaning of architecture for the human race, without the art of architecture?

You suggest architecture provides a more honest way to look at history than politics. Given that how would you evaluate China’s architecture over the past 100 years?

There have been great changes in the relationship between politics and architecture in this last century, and China has experienced huge political changes. Chinese and Western architecture went in different ways during the past one hundred years. A century ago, industrial revolutions in the West brought development and transformation in the modes of construction, and modern architecture emerged, and along with it came mass production in housing, and buildings became another product which could be reproduced. Over the last 100 years you can see Western architecture has been evolving and improving. Meanwhile, in China, for the first eight decades of the last century, there was simply a denial or rejection of traditional Chinese architecture under the influence of various political orders, but there was no development whatsoever of a new national architecture model. Then beginning with China’s reform and opening up to the West from 1978 the country began a thirty year crash course in 100 years of Western architecture ago the country began absorbing one hundred years of Western architecture, compressing it into a crash course in architecture. What is interesting is that architecture was led by industries a century ago in the West; while in China, architecture is dominated by property business a century later. The recent problem of developer hegemony on property in Hong Kong is also an architectural problem. What kind of architectural style would come out under such a real estate model?  Negative things like constructions of screen buildings creating wall effects, property units with “inflated” saleable floor area would appear. Traditional Chinese architecture a century ago put plenty of stress on the metaphysical aesthetics and concept of space, and it is such a great pity that one hundred years later, Chinese architecture has become a maxed-out consumer product which is anti-aesthetic and anti-concept.

What do you think of Hong Kong’s architecture?

Although Hong Kong people spend a lot on property, their knowledge of architecture is so thin and poor. No courses on architecture are offered in schools, and the mass media is not proactive in talking about architecture. However when we look at the Mainland China, due to events like the Olympics, earthquakes and the recent economic development, there is a growing interest in architecture and many new architectures have been created. On architectural culture, there are also many attempts to investigate on the relationship between architecture and society. But in Hong Kong, we see less and less innovativeness and understanding of architectural culture. People often have a misunderstanding that good designs are expensive. It is not necessarily the case. Innovative and creative designs do not necessarily mean higher costs. Good designs have more to do with time and ideas than with money. Many classics of architecture were created in a very cost-effective way. For example, Le Corbusier’s public housing estates in France are well known for their no-frills simplicity, and created many pleasant living spaces.

“The Architecture is Art Festival” continues till Dec 12 at various venues around Hong Kong, check out www.zuni.org.hk  for details.

Apple's fifth Manhattan location opened in Grand Central Station at 10 a.m. today — and if not for the inevitable hordes of frenzied shoppers that descended upon it, the 23,000-square-foot shop could have gone unnoticed by busy commuters. That's because, unlike with the tech juggernaut's celebrated glass-box outlets around the world, here the retail operation was designed to disappear into its surroundings.

One of the largest Apple stores in the world — second only to London’s Regent Street location, in fact — the Grand Central outpost has a surprisingly understated presence. Deferring to the vaulted landmark's iconic interior, the retail space comprises only simple white tables set up beneath the celestial ceiling, with illuminated white Apple logos tastefully seeded throughout the store. It stretches across the east balcony where Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant (which Apple paid $5 million to vacate eight years earlier than scheduled) formerly stood, measuring in at 23,000 square feet, with no glass cubes in sight.

The retail hot spot is not without controversy. The store is under a 10-year lease with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the details of which have raised suspicions that its receiving sweetheart deal from the MTA. Unlike most Grand Central tenants, which include more than 70 other shops and restaurants, Apple will not have to share its revenues with its landlord. Reportedly the company will only be paying $60 per square foot, well below the price its neighbors are paying, according to the New York Post. New York state’s Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions has begun a probe on the store’s lease.

Whether or not Apple received special treatment, the enormous foot traffic of Grand Central (roughly 750,000 visitors per day, and 1 million during the holidays) combined with the company's power over its spellbound consumers mean an inevitable surge in business for everyone involved, including surrounding businesses.

Bending to the hectic conditions of the train station, Apple has adapted its shopping method to suit harried commuters: an iPhone app that allows customers to check out their own purchases without having any cumbersome interactions with actual humans. Yes, you can pick up the latest gadget and still make your train on time — and hardly even notice that you were in a store.

In a brilliant stroke of counterintuitive casting, the teen idol Selina Gomez has been given a part in Harmony Korine’s next film, “Spring Breakers.” The thought of Gomez — the witchy but squeaky clean star of the Disney Channel’s “The Wizards of Waverly Place” — working for a director dedicated to subversion and degradation is tantalizing to say the least.

What will her boyfriend, Justin Bieber, think?

“Spring Breakers” depicts the misadventures of a group of college girls who rob a restaurant to pay for a spring break vacation but land in jail. They are bailed out by a drug and arms dealer, which is where their troubles really begin.

“It’s a different character than I have ever played before,” 19-year-old Gomez told MTV. “It’s a different kind of vibe I think than people are used to seeing me in. What you’re going to see is more raw, I think. It’s going to be raw and more about acting.”

The fact that James Franco, Emma Roberts, and Vanessa Hudgens have also been cast in the film raises the possibility that Korine is going mainstream. It’s hard to imagine, however, that the writer of “Kids” (1995) and writer-director of “Gummo” (1997), “Julien Donkey-Boy” (1999), “Mister Lonely” (2007), and “Trash Humpers” (2009) would willingly abandon his brand of semi-avant-garde provocation.

After surviving her debut in “Barney & Friends” at age seven, Gomez had small TV and film parts and appeared on “Hannah Montana.” In 2007, she began her long run in the massively successful “Wizards,” which will complete its fourth and final season with an hour-long finale on January 6.

Korine may have been partly intrigued by Gomez because her character on “Wizards” is much spikier than most TV heroines for tweens. Alex Russo, like her brothers a wizard-in-training growing up in an Italian-Mexican Greenwich Village family, is a lazy, sneaky high-school student who’s not so much sassy as mercilessly sardonic—and sometimes disagreeably so. Though essentially good-natured, she frequently gets her comeuppance as her magic schemes go awry.

Branching into features, she starred in the innocuous family films “Ramona and Beezus” (2010) and “Monte Carlo” (2011). She has also built an impressive pop career singing with her band Selena Gomez & the Scene, which has cut two gold albums and two platinum singles.

There’s no telling what Korine will ask her and her co-stars to do. “Gummo” depicts (or alludes to) cat-torture, glue-sniffing, the pimping of a girl with Down syndrome, child molestation, and teen sex. “Julien Donkey-Boy” focuses on a schizophrenic who may have impregnated his sister — and she tragically goes ice-skating when close to term. “Trash Humpers” is about three masked anti-social geriatrics who have sex with stuffed garbage bags. Calculated to offend while following their own surreal logic, Korine’s films are invariably funny black comedies that use free expression to plunge the depths of bad taste and question the viewer’s complicity.

Too bad the chances are that Gomez’s legions of young fans won’t be flocking to see what will be her most interesting movie yet.

In the surge of interest for the arts from the so-called MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, Algeria has been consistently ignored. The art world has long been raving about Beirut's edginess, lounging in Morocco's riads, and touring Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi, but Algiers is hardly ever talked about, let alone visited. There are reasons for this. The tense political and social climate, as well as the aftermath of more than a decade of terrorism, don't necessarily make for an environment conducive to flourishing artistic initiatives. Plus, English is still very little spoken. But this makes the Festival International d'Art Contemporain d'Alger — now its third edition — all the more vital.

The FIAC (not to be confused with that other FIAC) is held in a single venue: Algiers' modern and contemporary art museum (MaMa), a sumptuous neo-Moorish former department store in the heart of the capital. Gathering 26 artists, this edition (December 3 – February 3) is articulated around the idea of "the return," and it manages to be conceptually focused without being dogmatic. "The return is at the heart of today's reality," curator Nadira Laggoune told ARTINFO UK. She has chosen to understand her topic in the widest possible sense of the term — to encompass, for one, the exile's homecoming to the fledgling Tunisian democracy.

The museum has two levels of galleries opening up on a vast atrium. At a glance, one can take in Ivan Grubanov's rectangle monolith covered with posters mimicking concrete surfaces, as if annihilating the communicative power intrinsic to the object ("Wall of Ideology," 2002); Mona Hatoum's world map carved out of a woollen carpet ("Baluchi (Red and blue)," 2008); and Pascale Marthine Tayou's Brancusian column of colorful African cooking pots "Colonne Pascale" (2010). Domesticity, mobility, and the impossibility thereof hung heavy in the air.

An exciting number of Algerian artists in their twenties and thirties directly address their country's specifics. Zineddine Bessaï's "H-OUT" (2010) is a tongue-in-cheek "guide" for "haraga" — the young people desperate to cross the Mediterranean sea in search of a "better life" — presented as an airport-like information terminal complete with signs indicating "starting points," "countries where Algerians don't need a visa to get in," and "Western beauties" spots. Atef Berredjem' lightbox "A Relative Theory of Man" (2011) pushes the humor further with a double self-portrait, one in blackface and shiny epaulettes, the other painted black until upper chin level, both with a brass tap stuck in the mouth — a cringing and absurdist evocation, perhaps, of a people's exploitations.

Of this generation, Oussama Tabti particularly stands out with his with photographic installation "Stand By" (2011). Researching books in a public library, he noticed that there was a gap in the dates on the lending cards between 1994 and 2002 — dates pretty much bookending the Algerian "black decade" during which more than 160,000 people were killed. Tabti presents scans of these cards without further comment. "The death of culture," art historian Zahia Rahmani told ARTINFO UK, "that's what fascism is." The trauma from this period is such that very few visual artists so far have tackled the subject. Tabti's matter-of-fact approach is subtle but brave, and moving. Likewise, the 2011 video "Couvre-feu" ("Curfew"), shot at night by the Tunisian artist Amel Benattia using a mobile phone, offers a fascinating insight in the days following Ben Ali's overthrow. It shows the dark silhouettes of young people secretly gathered in the streets of Tunis. "Personally, I don’t think that 100 percent democracy exists," says one of them. "I'll be happy with 60 percent."

While firmly grounded in North Africa, one of the strengths of the FIAC is its ability to reach beyond its own context. Tellingly, the "poster boy" for the exhibition isn't Algerian, but the Russian Andrey Kuzkin. For his Sisyphean performance "Circle Wise" (2008), he wrapped around his waist a rope anchored to the centre of a fresh concrete pool, and walked in the wet magma with increasing difficulty as the concrete solidified. Dan Perjovschi's quick drawings on the walls and museum's balustrades have the freshness of the outsider's gaze. At times, his humoristic takes on Algiers's street scenes offer poignant comments on individual aspirations within the collective. In one of them, a figure holds a flag shaped like the clouds in the sky above him.

In just three editions — and only two dedicated to contemporary art (every other year the event is dedicated to an historical Algerian painter) — the FIAC has found its feet, striking the very fine balance between emerging and established artists, local and international concerns. It has all it takes to soon become a landmark art event in the region.

Maurizio Cattelan’s retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum and “Carsten Höller: Experience” at the New Museum were two of the most ambivalently reviewed exhibitions of the year. But you wouldn’t know it from the crowds they’re drawing.

On Thursday, the New Museum announced that its Höller exhibition — frequently described as an “art amusement park” and featuring a three-story slide, a sensory deprivation tank, and a mirrored carousel — is the most highly attended show in the institution’s 35-year history. Earlier this week, the New Museum even raised its general admission ticket price from $12 to $16 to help pay for the extra staff needed to shepherd the larger-than-usual crowds through the show. (The spike is, in all likelihood, only temporarily, according to a spokesperson.) 

Uptown, the Guggenheim has extended its hours to accommodate the round-the-block lines for its Cattelan exhibition, which hangs the Italian provocateur’s complete artistic output on ropes from the atrium ceiling like so many sausages in a butcher shop. (The museum will remain open for an additional two hours, until 7:45pm, on Mondays and Tuesdays until the show closes on January 22.)

The success of both exhibitions is all the more notable because of the tepid reviews they garnered. By and large, critical feedback was more negative than positive, and in some cases tantamount to a complete and utter pummeling. Of Cattelan, the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl wrote: "He doesn't make art. He makes tendentious tchotchkes." Other critics, such as the New York Times’s Roberta Smith, were more measured, but questioned the wisdom of such a gimmicky display: “Whatever their strengths, the individual works are radically decontextualized and diminished in this arrangement.”

Carsten Höller didn’t fare much better with reviewers. New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz called the show “arty junk food,” while the L Magazine’s Paddy Johnson noted, “‘Experience’ is more about emptying your mind than it is about contemplating a specific philosophical question, so the kinds of conversations the show tends to inspire will more often revolve around the work than delve into its meaning.” (Of course, there were some positive reviews in the mix: Jerry Saltz loved Cattelan's show, and Charlotte Higgins of the Guardian took Höller quite seriously.) 

In the end, however, it was the lack of complex meaning, as well as the absence of formal pith, that seems to have critics disappointed with one or both of the exhibitions. A fringe benefit to these shortfalls is the absence of the standard intimidation quotient that so often accompanies high-profile museum shows. (The same fear of incomprehension that prevents us from going to the gym because we doesn’t know how to use the machines.) Of Höller, Saltz wrote: “The show packs the house; viewers feel pleased with themselves for ‘getting it.’” Schjeldahl took similar issue with Cattelan. “We should get the joke in a flash and then, like Little Jack Horner, after pulling out a plum, congratulate ourselves,” he wrote. “The goof is all. Its form is arbitrary.” Maybe critics dislike these kinds of shows precisely because they are a concession to mass appeal — Roberta Smith called the Höller a "funhouse of participatory claptrap."

This, of course, is not the first time critically maligned shows — particularly crowd-pleasers branded “simple” — have broken attendance records or drawn big crowds. (Think Tim Burton at MoMA in 2009 and “The Art of the Motorcycle” at the Guggenheim, in 1998.) A review seems to play a different role when the art itself can be — at least superficially — experienced in the same way by everyone. One doesn't need to know the term "relational aesthetics" to quickly understand that the Höller and Cattelan exhibitions do not demand the same kind of context and background that MoMA's de Kooning retrospective does.

Perhaps, as relational aesthetics — that is, participatory art — becomes more central to museum programming, critics are becoming less influential in determining whether or not visitors will attend a show. The point of relational aesthetics, after all, was to take art off of the pedestal and make ordinary social interaction central. If viewers can literally experience a show for themselves, do they need to rely on a critic as much as they would if the artwork were something they felt less comfortable with, something they felt needed to be explained in order to be understood? We don't need critics to tell us that slides are fun.

There’s really no way to determine how many people visited the New Museum and the Guggenheim in spite, because, or regardless of the negative reviews. But the extraordinary public response to both exhibitions makes one thing clear: despite its obtuse-sounding name, relational aesthetics is quite a relatable concept, and crowd-hungry museums are likely to take note.

Super-producer Pharell Williams is stepping out of the studio and into unchartered territory. The good folks in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — who have already suffered for rash choices this year, seeing orchestrators Brett Rattner and Eddie Murphy implode — have tapped him, along with composer Hans Zimmer, to serve as consultants for the 84th annual Academy Awards ceremony next year.

It's a surpising odd-couple pairing of two talented musicians. Williams, more commonly known as simply Pharrell, has garnerned ten Grammy nods (and three wins) for his myriad collaborations with pop and hip-hop superstars (including Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg) rather than veteran composers. With this as his first foray into the coveted awards ceremony, he'll likely be taking his cues from Zimmer, the go-to Hollywood composer for big-budget movies from "The Da Vinci Code" to "The Lion King," the latter of which won him a golden statue in 1995.

Despite his familiarity with the ceremony, it's also odd that Zimmer will be taking on this role — after scoring more than 100 films, eight of which have been nominated for Academy Awards, he had announced earlier this year he would not be participating in the next awards race. “I actually think the Academy is really important, but if you’re in the race you can’t really observe,” he told the Hollywood Observer. “I just wanted to take a step back and say ‘I’m not in the race.’” It looks like he just couldn't stay away. He is currently at work on the latest installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman series, “Dark Knight Rises.”

The 84th Annual Academy Awards will air February 26 on ABC. 

The most-talked-about stories on ARTINFO, December 5-9, 2011:

– The big story of the week was Julia Halperin's breakdown of the forgery charges swirling around the just-shuttered Knoedler Gallery. 

–  Liz Taylor mania led to long lines to see her gems at Christie's before they go on sale on December 13 and 14, while tickets to the actual sale proved to be in high demand. Shane Ferro looked through the online sale of some smaller Taylor lots, and found some suprisingly affordable trophies (including a golden safety pin and Liz's Flintstones bowling ball). 

– The annual Kennedy Center Honors went to stars including Meryl Streep and Neil Diamond. Funnyman Stephen Colbert did a tribute to Yo Yo Ma, with Elmo.

– A consortium of international museums including the Louvre and the new Crystal Bridges struck a deal to bring classic works of American art to a global audience.

– We interviewed David and Victoria Farhi, the wunderkinds behind Chelsea's new Vicky David Gallery.

– Emma Allen talked to collaborators of Merce Cunningham about the legacy of the late dance genius.

– Julia Halperin talked to Amy Phelan to get a glimpse of a day in the life of a major collector at Art Basel Miami Beach.

– In the UK, Scottish sculptor Martin Boyce won the Turner Prize.

– ARTINFO China summed up the Hong Kong auction season, where business seemed to be cooling and even once unstoppable wine sales went sour. 

– Sienna Miller is set to star in a BBC movie about Alfred Hitchcock's obsession with Tippi Hedren, ARTINFO film editor Graham Fuller reported. 

– We had two videos this week: "Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta talked with photographer Warwick Saint about his new pics of "Hardcore Tattoed Women," and  artist Marilyn Minter talked about her most recent video of frolicking babies, "Play Pen," which was on view recently at Salon 94.

– In his "Net Work" column, Kyle Chayka explored some of the strategies Internet art supporters are exploring to monetize the medium, including "micro patronage."

WHAT: "Jeff Wall"

WHEN: Opening December 9 through January 21, Monday-Saturday 10AM-6PM

WHERE: Marian Goodman Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, New York

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: Jeff Wall is at it again with his newest exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery. The artist, who has made a name for himself with a stylized form of highly cinematic photographs (part-staged, part-documentary) shows new works along with three pieces made in Sicily in 2007, shown together for the first time. Wall’s newest pieces contain much more subtlely and stillness than is typical of his oeuvre (neither are any of these works presented as lightboxes, as his most famous pieces are). The large-scale piece “Boxing” (2011) features two teenage boys sparring in a pristinely kept, cream-colored, Ikea-furnished living room. Their athletic poses and freeze-framed fast motions contrast heavily with the static setting, making them appear as if they’ve been cut and pasted into the composition, their shadows cast on the carpet a reminder of the thin line between reality and fiction in the photograph.

That photograph, along with “Boy Falls From Tree” (2010) seems consonant with his older work, while “Ivan Sayers, Costume Historian, Lectures at the University Women’s Club, Vancouver, 7 December 2009," "Virginia Newton-Moss Wears a British Ensemble c.1910, From Sayer’s Collection” (2009) and “Authentication. Claus Jahnke, Costume Historian, Examining a Document Relating to an Item in His Collection” (2010) seem a welcome departure. As the titles indicate, these are portraits of collectors with their troves of art. They are stunning and intimate, perfectly capturing a subject within his element. At first glance, without a background in Wall’s constructed set-ups and penchant for obsessive details, one might dismiss this new body of work as a random assortment of landscape shots and perfect decisive-moments. But, don’t be fooled, the new pictures are just as calculated as ever. We may just be seeing a new side to him.

To see images from "Jeff Wall" at Marian Goodman Gallery, click on the slide show.

While Morocco had no Tahir Square or no-fly-zone implemented this past spring, the effects of the protests that swept North Africa weren’t lost on the country: the King conceded new powers to the parliament, resulting in a much-anticipated election earlier this month and the ascension to power of a new, moderate Islamist party. Caught in this flux of democracic progression is the Marrakech Biennale’s fourth edition, “Higher Atlas” (29th February – 3rd June 2012). Curated by Berlin-based architecture writer, curator, and PROGRAM Initiative for Art & Architecture Collaborations director Carson Chan together with London-based independent curator and art historian Nadim Samman, the biennale has been forced into a state of adaptation, rolling with the ever-changing context of the region in preparation for what will be by-far its most visible iteration to-date.

ARTINFO Berlin spoke with Chan about the fallout from protest, the challenges of reassessing post-colonialism, and why it's important to break the rules.

The Marrakech Biennale is distinguished among its brethren in that it combines the film, art, and literature. Are you all working in concert towards a conversation between the mediums?

Well, there’s the film, literature, and the art. All three are run by different people. So, myself and my co-curator Nadim Samman, we’re running the art. But within that we’ve also invited writers, composers, bands, musicians. We invited the band Coco Rosie and they are doing an installation, they’re recording an album in Marrakech. We invited Gideon Lewis-Kraus, who’s New York based — he’s a writer for Harpers Magazine and he’s writing a piece. We invited a composer, Christopher Mayo, and he’s writing a symphony. And we invited architects to be involved as well.

How did your background in architecture influence the exhibition? I remember you saying over the summer that a lot of it was based on the architecture of El Badi Palace and that you were going to be doing a lot of site-specific installations?

Yeah, well, some things have changed in terms of the site in the last week or so, which has been a bit nerve-racking. There’s just been general elections in Morocco and so we have a new cultural minister. In the fallout of this really momentous event for the country we lost El Badi, so the site-specificness of it is changing into what we could call a context-specificness. The context of North Africa right now is that it’s a tumultuous area of the world. The people there are really voicing their own sovereignty, their own ambitions, and it’s really exciting to be there. But part of being involved in that excitement is to accept a lack of groundedness in one’s own projects. So, the funding hasn’t changed, the support hasn’t changed, everything hasn’t changed, except the location. We’ve found three other locations, and we’ve been in touch with all the artists, and they’ve all been really supportive and understanding in adapting to the new situation.

It’s kind of a great irony in a way, given that the title of the biennale “Higher Atlas” invokes the notion of transcending cartography. Now you’re transcending the actual physical space where it was supposed to be.

Yeah, we’re definitely going to capitalize on the turn. It was really hard to take but one deals and continues and tries to do a good thing in the end. The support has been so unanimously strong.

With that though comes the issue that the biennale has always been supported by the west financially, by Vanessa Branson in particular, which puts it in a kind of precarious post-colonial space. Is that something you are contending with within the exhibition itself?

That kind of colonialist gesture hasn’t escaped us for sure. I think one can reflect on it through post-colonialism or one can reflect on it by saying, “well, Morocco is in fact part of the international community.” It’s been what, half a century, so to say that anyone going to do a project there is a post-colonial gesture is kind of like beating an old horse. For sure none of the officials and business people we’re working with there feel such a thing. They have the upper hand, actually. They call the shots. And within our board and our management, the whole team is Moroccan. I’m not, but everyone else is. Vanessa’s money, I mean she’s British but I’m from Hong Kong. People are from all sorts of different places. More importantly, I think, is how a post-colonial identity has affected people in Morocco. It was a French protectorate from 1912 to 1956, so French as a language was installed, certain codes of how to operate, what to show, what culture is being expressed was dictated by the French for a long time. When they became independent in ’56, Morocco was desperate to show that they were international, so the artists adopted Abstract Expressionism as their mode of communication because — I mean think about MoMA and New York at that time, Abstract Expressionism was the international mode of art. But, to this day, the schools there still teach Abstract Expressionism. So I think the relationship Morocco has within itself to a cultural legacy of aesthetics is exactly what we’re addressing. We’re addressing an audience that didn’t grow up looking at contemporary art exhibitions. We’re addressing an audience that finds art, contemporary art specifically, the realm of the elite. So we’re doing a lot of children’s programs, and we’re doing our internship programs with local university students. They administer large aspects of the biennale.

In a way it reminds me of the Tate Triennial in 2009, "Altermodern," in terms of this similar interest in looking at ways in which the contemporary has now moved into a space of transcending boarders, previous nomenclature of “post-colonial," disciplines, and ridding these boundaries from exhibition-making and practice.

Yeah, I mean that’s sort of why we felt the license to invite musicians, bands, writers, composers, architects to a contemporary art biennale is because these boundaries didn’t exist in the first place, these are boundaries that we in the west have created, so why adhere to them when we don’t have to.

How will the music function within the biennale? Will there be specific performances coinciding with Surrender, the opening, or will they be featured throughout the run of the exhibition?

It’s funny actually, because "Surrender" is just a name that Vanessa thought of: surrendering to ones senses but also playing with misreading of the term within an Arab situation. But who’s surrendering to whom. The music will be concerts.  But the live stuff with the composer, there’s many sound pieces in the show, it’s recorded and then projected again. It’s done periodically, which we thought was kind of nice; I don’t know if you’ve been to Marrakech before but the call to prayer is very present there. So we wanted to work with the aural, the audio context of the space as well.

So there’s some ritualistic sense to it? I know exactly what you mean when you’re in Marrakech, or anywhere in the Arab world for that matter, you’re going to wake up at 5 a.m., for a little while at least.

Yeah, the symphony that Chris is going to write for us isn’t going to be played continuously but periodically throughout the day, so it takes on a similar ritualistic quality.

You said that you were mainly focusing on emerging artists but are there any ties of praxis or certain things in particular that bring together this group of people?

The reasons have been different for everyone. For, let’s say Alexandra Domanovic, who’s doing amazingly well in her own right, she’s from Slovenia but born in former Yugoslavia. So this idea of a mixed cultural heritage that I was describing about Marrakech exists for her. We wanted her to reflect on that aspect. Elín Hansdóttir deals a lot with direct spatial experiences. So we wanted to have her produce something that you don’t need to read anything, you don’t need to know anything about art to experience it.

So you’re mediating another way of accessing the exhibition within the context of this cultural legacy of not being exposed to contemporary art.

Right, they may have seen images on the Internet, but in a way that we in Berlin or in New York aren’t exposed to it. Names like Jackson Pollock are household names in New York, but there it wouldn’t be. So to see something referring to a Jackson Pollock painting would mean something different to someone there. But to be experiencing a space as it is, and that being the piece itself, is universal. The same goes for our other Icelandic artist, Finnbogi Petursson. He’s 60, so he’s not emerging in that sense, and he’s done so many great things, but he really works with primary experience as well.

What else are you working on at the moment in preparation for February?

Actually, the reader is something that we’re strongly developing right now because there isn’t so much writing out there on North African contemporary art exhibition-making. So we wanted to make the catalogue much more of a reader that discusses this as opposed to a kind of catalogue that has face-shots of all the artists. It will center on a lot of the problematics that you’re talking about. We’re also working very closely with a residency program in Marrakech called Dar Al-Ma’mûn and they’re housing a number of our artists, producing a number of the works, so that’s something that’s been really exciting as well.

So the catalogue more of an intellectual history of art in the region?

We’ve found scholars who have been specifically working on it. Katarzyna Pieprzak wrote a book on contemporary art exhibits in Morocco, so she’s in the catalogue. And also the idea of, instead of post-colonialism, let’s call it cultural exchange, so we’ve got Tirdad Zolghadr who did the UAE pavilion at Venice [in 2009]. He’s a writer, curator, and he’s going to act as an interlocutor and comment on all of the essays. So the idea of one person coming into another system to give a certain comment is within the structure of the book as well.