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Tolkien Geeks Alert! Peter Jackson Might Be Messing With the Climax of “The Hobbit”

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Tolkien Geeks Alert! Peter Jackson Might Be Messing With the Climax of “The Hobbit”

The actor Benedict Cumberbatch, PBS’s modern Sherlock Holmes, unknowingly stirred up Tolkien purists last week when he hinted in an online interview with the British movie magazine Empire that he was going to provide the voice of the Necromancer in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” films. The reason this is controversial is that the Necromancer — who rematerializes as the Dark Lord Sauron in “The Lord of the Rings” — doesn’t physically appear in “The Hobbit” book (but then nor do Galadriel, Legolas, and Saruman, who, played by the same actors, have also been imported into the new movies from Jackson’s “Rings”).

“The Hobbit” follows the odyssey of Bilbo Baggins, 13 dwarves, and Gandalf (before he leaves their company) from the Shire to the eastern Lonely Mountain where the rapacious dragon Smaug guards a hoard of dwarven treasure.

It’s long been known that Cumberbatch is creating Smaug. What he actually said to Empire was: “"I'm playing Smaug through motion-capture and voicing the Necromancer, which is a character in the Five Legions War or something which I'm meant to understand. [laughs] He's not actually in the original ‘Hobbit.’ It's something [Jackson]'s taken from ‘Lord of the Rings’ that he wants to put in there."

Cumberbatch is referring to the climactic Battle of the Five Armies, of which Tolkien wrote in the chapter “The Clouds Burst”: “Upon one side were the Goblins and the wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves.” The unseen Necromancer is referred to in the earlier chapter “Queer Lodgings” when Gandalf, responding to Bilbo’s reluctance to enter the forest of Mirkwood, says: “Before you could get round [Mirkwood] in the South, you would get into the land of the Necromancer; and even you, Bilbo, won’t need me to tell you tales of that black sorcerer. I don’t advise you to go anywhere near the places overlooked by his dark tower!”

The future Sauron is not yet in Mordor but making mischief in his stronghold of Dol Guldur in the south of Mirkwood. Leaving Bilbo and the dwarves, Gandalf sets off to raise the council of white wizards to drive the Necromancer from the forest, which he does, off the page, before the Battle of the Five Armies. “Yet I wish he were banished from the world!” Gandalf says, ominously, to Elrond at Rivendell in the last chapter, setting up “The Lord of the Rings.”

If, as Cumberbatch suggests, the Necromancer shows up, presumably at the head of the goblin army at the battle, in the second film, then Jackson and his writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, are taking a sizable liberty. They are doing it presumably with their legacy in mind, forging a stronger link between their “Hobbit” films, “An Unexpected Journey” (which opens December 14) and “There and Back Again” (December 13, 2013), and their “Lord of the Rings.”

Despite the inevitable grumbles, the latter triptych was as faithful to Tolkien as most devout readers could have wished for, but giving the Necromancer corporeal form, if that’s the plan, won’t enhance the aura of ultimate diabolical mystery he’d retain by remaining firmly in the shadows. 

by Graham Fuller,Performing Arts, Film

Marc Jacobs Recruits Yayoi Kusama for Latest Louis Vuitton Collaboration

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Marc Jacobs Recruits Yayoi Kusama for Latest Louis Vuitton Collaboration

Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs has tapped the legendary Japanese polka-dot painter Yayoi Kusama as the company's latest artist collaborator, most likely with an eye toward the Japanese market, one of the world's largest for luxury goods.

Kusama worked with Jacobs (who visited her studio in Japan in 2006) on a line of Louis Vuitton products, including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, watches, and jewelry, reports WWD. The items are scheduled to premiere at Louis Vuitton stores in early July, with window installations specially designed to mark the collaboration.

This year will be a big one for the 82-year-old Kusama. January 9 is the last day of a Centre Pompidou retrospective in Paris, which goes on view from February 9 to June 5 at the Tate Modern in London. From there, the survey will head to the Whitney in New York, where it will remain from July 12 to September 30. Both the Tate Modern and Whitney shows are sponsored by Louis Vuitton.

The multimedia artist, whose electric-hued wigs and bangs define her look, is known for her polka dots, phallic references (she covered ladders, chairs, and shoes with such protrusions in the ‘60s), nude performance pieces, and several novels, including “Double Suicide at Skuragazuka” (1989). Gagosian Gallery has shown her work in nine exhibitions since 2007. 

Although she's had a great deal of success (one of her "Infinity Net" works, the 1959 drawing "No. 2," briefly held the record for highest price bid on the work of a living female artist when it was auctioned at Christie's in 2008 for $5.1 million), Kusama has long struggled with mental illness. Since 1977 she has remained volutarily institutionalized at a psychiatric facility, the Seiwa Hospital in Tokyo, located near her studio, where she spends her free time creating paintings, sculptures, and installations.

Kusama, a celebrated feminist, is the first female artist to collaborate on a line of products for Louis Vuitton. Jacobs has collaborated with a number of artists since his start at the brand in 1997, including Richard Prince, the late Stephen Sprouse (who had an exhibition at Deitch Projects during the reissue of his Louis Vuitton collaboration in 2009), and Takashi Murakami, who injected the company’s signature quatrefoil and monogram pattern with bright colors, friendly flowers, and cartoon eyeballs. The Murakami partnership was a huge success in 2003.

 

The New $2,000 Swiss Army Flash Drive Can Store 1000 Gigs and File Your Nails

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The New $2,000 Swiss Army Flash Drive Can Store 1000 Gigs and File Your Nails

Victorinox, purveyor of the iconic Swiss Army Knife, just added a new utility to the all-purpose tool. In addition to the requisite blade, scissors, and nail file-screwdriver hybrid, they’ve added a jump drive that comes in various capacities, the largest of which holds up to a terabyte of information (that’s 1,024 gigs, people). It's enough to hold 220 million pages of text, in case you need the Bible, the entire "Lord of the Rings," "Harry Potter," and "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" sagas and then some on hand while you’re roughing it out in the woods. Or, you could hold two continuous years’ worth of music, just in case, God forbid, that hypothetical “if you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring your top 40,000 albums with you” scenario ever comes true. The high-speed storage device also comes equipped with an LCD screen on its body for easy digital labeling.

This futuristic piece of hardware, unveiled today at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, will be released in limited edition of 1,000 to 4,000 starting in April, with prices varying from $570 for the 128 GB model to upwards of $2,000 for the terabyte. To put things in perspective, a 1,000 gig external hard drive may cost just a fraction, but will it scale a fish, cut your meat, and peel an apple while you’re out camping? Think about it. 

 

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Mercedes Collaborates With Top Tech Companies To Create Mobile Workplace

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After creating a mobile office loaded with Apple gadgets in the Mercedes S600, German car tuner Brabus turned to the Mercedes-Benz Viano van, transforming it into a 3D multimedia lounge and workpla

Vintage Chic: The Leonardo da Vinci-Designed Handbag

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Vintage Chic: The Leonardo da Vinci-Designed Handbag

Leonardo da Vinci is known as an artist, inventor, cartographer, scientist, engineer, anatomist, botanist, writer, and mathematician. Add fashion designer to that list. About 400 years before it become trendy for fashion houses like BallyDior, and Louis Vuitton to commission artists to create handbags, Leonardo sketched his own. Although the design, made in 1497, was first published in 1978 by leading Leonardo scholar Carlo Pedretti, who discovered it among the tens of thousands of drawings in da Vinci's 12-volume “Atlantic Code,” the image remained in obscurity until recently, when Agnese Sabato and Alessandro Vezzosi, director of Museo Ideale (located in Vinci Itali, Leonardo’s birthplace), reassembled the fragmented drawings.

"Leonardo designed several fashion accessories, but this bag is pretty unique, " Vezzosi told Discovery News. "It blends beauty and functionality in a very harmonious way." Florentine fashion house Gherardini (founded by a family said to have Mona Lisa in their bloodline) have recreated the handbag, dubbed the "Pretiosa di Leonardo" (pretiosa used to mean "precious" in Italian), crafting it in fine leather. The reproduction will make its debut on January 10 in conjunction with the Florence fashion trade show Pitti W.

"It's a very chic handbag, very modern in its vintage concept. It is also very functional and capable. Indeed, it embodies the best Florentine tradition of leather work," Lorenzo Braccialini, marketing director of Braccialini, Gherardini’s holding company, told Discovery News.

After its premiere, the "Pretiosa" will be displayed along with drawings, a mechanical drum, and a clock by the Renaissance master at an exhibition curated by Vezzosi and displayed at
the 16th-century l'Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (January 11 to 13).

 

10 Museum-Worthy Music Videos, From Bright Eyes to R.E.M.

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10 Museum-Worthy Music Videos, From Bright Eyes to R.E.M.

Jonathan Wells — co-curator of “Spectacle: The Music Video,” opening March 3 at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinatti, Ohio — selected 10 exceptional videos from the show to share with ARTINFO. Read his thoughts on the videos in our slideshow, and watch samples from each clip below.

A great music video combines music and moving image in a package that transcends its individual elements. These 10 videos, when considered together, can give insight into the extensive exhibition "Spectacle: The Music Video" we are preparing to open at the Contemporary Arts Center. "Spectacle" presents the genre's role as an important and influential art form in contemporary culture; both its antecedents and likely future; and its place as a fertile playground for creative experimentation. — Jonathan Wells 

 

Slideshow: Three Masterpieces Stolen from Athens Museum

Coachella Announces Milquetoast Headliners Black Keys, Radiohead, and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg

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Coachella Announces Milquetoast Headliners Black Keys, Radiohead, and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg

There is some good news and some bad news about the lineup announced yesterday for Coachella, the music festival for cool people put on every spring in Indio, California. First, the good news: At The Drive-In, the beloved indie punks who broke up in the mid-aughts, spawning Mars Volta (and, we guess we should mention, Sparta) will reunite for the fest. ATDI are the type of band — and thrashed out the type of high-intensity shows — that some writers seem only able to describe as “legendary,” and while we wouldn’t put the band up there with the likes of Paul Bunyan and Jesse James, we will say that their live show should rate among 2012’s best — even with all legend-spotters sure to be sloshing beer on you wherever the band might wind up playing beyond the California desert.

Which brings us, indirectly, to the bad news, which is that Coachella’s organizers have chosen a trio of headliners who — while sure to please the beer-sloshers, the types whose music discovery peaked in other people’s dorm rooms — will disappoint anyone in search of even the mildest spark of the new.

The Black Keys, playing the first night of the festival, have, with the support of the Grammy committee, buyers of ad music, and Rolling Stone, dragged rock and roll ultraconservatism back onto the charts. If it weren’t for the White Stripes, you wouldn’t even be able to locate them in this century. (Sure, Danger Mouse produced them. So what?) Meanwhile, Radiohead — a band that’s been repeating the same rock-collage experiment since 2000, in a secret handshake for anyone who wishes they were still in college — will close out day two. Coachella will finally climax with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg sharing the main stage. Dr. Dre, his talents as a producer and the let’s say legendary status of “The Chronic” noted, is not a good rapper, and rapping is what he will be called upon to do in April. Snoop, meanwhile, is a distinctive rapper who has maintained a productive career. He is also the patron pimp-saint of beer-sloshers, the ultimate projection of smirking rap-trope appropriation. Which isn’t to say that you can’t just enjoy the many good bands leading up to each day’s milquetoast headliners. You’ll just wanna watch out for what might get spilled on you.

by Nick Catucci,Performing Arts, Music

Smart Unveils a Green Pickup Truck at the Detroit Auto Show to Lasso the Urban Cowboy

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Smart Unveils a Green Pickup Truck at the Detroit Auto Show to Lasso the Urban Cowboy

The automotive industry is back in a big way, and nowhere is that more apparent than at the 2012 North American International Auto Show, Motor City's version of Fashion Week. The highly-anticipated annual showcase opened to the press Monday, and automakers have plenty to cheer about: United States sales are at a three-year high, and projections say they’ll keep growing. Forty new vehicles, both of wildly conceptual and totally attainable varieties, will debut admid plenty of glitz.

Aside from the blazing bright lights, two-story-tall TV screens, sexy models (the human kind), and flashy presentations, show-goers will notice a trend toward more fuel-efficient cars in response to record-high gas prices, with brand new added perks to lure consumers. Take, for example, Smart's For-Us concept prototype, a petite pickup that fuses a classic American truck aesthetic with zero fuel usage. While it comes with its own flatbed (perfect for hauling your electric bicycle when not in use, because — surprise! — it acts as a charger for that, too), the entire vehicle takes up only 11.6 cubic feet of space — meaning it could easily fit on the flatbed of a standard pickup, itself. Smart For-Us is equipped with a lithium-ion battery that brings its 55-kilowatt magneto-electric motor to 80 miles per hour. The mother-of-pearl white-and-brushed-aluminum interiors, accented with banana-yellow seat covers, feature a high-tech perk: a smartphone mounted above the dash and a rear-view video camera, since mirrors are so last millenium.  

Smart, a member of Germany's Daimler AG family, has been struggling to gain popularity in the U.S., and this looks like an attempt to cater to the nation's infatuation with trucks. We're skeptical whether it will ever actually come into production, and the fact that it was ominously introduced at the show by comedian Jon Lovitz may keep it relegated to its current punchline status. 

The NAIAS opens to the public January 14.

 

 

 

Marina Abramovic Advocates Serfdom for Artists in Overlooked MOCA Gala Video

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Marina Abramovic Advocates Serfdom for Artists in Overlooked MOCA Gala Video

Marina Abramovic's L.A. MOCA gala, and the outrage inspired by it, was certainly one of the biggest stories of 2011 in art. If you will recall, back in November, legendary avant-garde dancer Yvonne Rainer denounced the spectacle — which, titled "An Artist's Life Manifesto," involved diners eating around nude female models draped with skeletons and other models serving as human centerpieces —  in an open letterSarah Wookey, a dancer who refused to participate, penned her own open letter explaining why she had opted out: because she saw the event as economic exploitation of hopeful young dancers, who were compensated only minimally for their participation.

At the end of December, L.A. MOCA released a slickly produced black-and-white video about the gala, which, in addition to making the whole thing look strangely like a luxury perfume commercial, will probably do nothing to disperse this controversy. It begins with shots of the rich and famous attendees (Eli BroadWill FerrellGwen Stefani) on the red carpet, grinning for the paparazzi, as Abramovic's voice intones that art is the "oxygen of our society." Then we see guests putting on their white lab coats to eat around the freaky human party decorations, an ominous score giving the decadent imagery an unmistakable "Eyes Wide Shut" vibe. The film ends with Deborah Harry performing "Heart of Glass," before she and Abramovic cut into a woman-shaped cake. (It leaves out the part where members of the audience chanted "Violence against women!" upon witnessing this spectacle.)

But really, it is Abramovic's narration, in which she explains her thinking behind "An Artist's Life Manifesto," that might throw fresh fuel on the fire. She distances herself from the government art patronage of her native Europe, indicating that she prefers the American way, where "industry" supports art. She points out that the Renaissance was made possible by "Popes, aristocrats, or kings" (um, Marina: patronage by "Popes, aristocrats, or kings" is also government patronage), and then she says that she thinks an artist should be a "servant," evidentally to people "who actually have a substantial amount of money."

So, to sum up: people were mad at Abramovic for economically exploiting her performers, and she's talking about how much she appreciates the wisdom of the free market and/or the virtues of the pre-modern system of rule by kings. At the very least, you would say that this is pretty tone deaf, particularly given the controversy. We've taken the liberty of transcribing her whole narration (preserving her charmingly idiosyncratic English, for the most part):

I see the art as oxygen of our society. I come from Europe and we have a completely different system of sponsoring art. Governments give money for culture. The system here is completely different. Which is quite interesting, to look in the past and think about who actually sponsored the culture. If you look in Renaissance time, any of these great artists — it was Popes, aristocrats, or kings who actually support these kinds of artists and make it possible to support these monumental works.

Today, we don't have kings but we have industry, we have business, we have banks. The kind of people who actually have a substantial amount of money, who can support culture. I see the function of an artist as a servant. I think that art have to be shared, art have to be disturbing, art have to ask questions, art have to predict the future, in some cases, and have many layers of meaning.

When I was asking to do this kind of gala, I was really concerned with what should be my contribution, that I actually don't make any compromise to my work and do something which is different. I don't think that I should only provide entertainment. I have to create situation where we are actually not at ease and you come with an experience that you didn't have before.

I think that today we have so much concern about art as a commodity, with art market, with the times we are living in. I think that the context of the artist is very important to clarify, so I had the need to write this manifesto.

[Referring to Debby Harry] Both of us are performance artists, and we both work with the public. It a way, offering the body for the public, that is the ultimate gesture. [Apparently referring the audience] They are not just looking into the spectacle, they are part of the spectacle, and that's a big difference.

Here's the clip:

 

MOCA Gala 2011: An Artist's Life Manifesto from MOCA on Vimeo.

by Ben Davis,Contemporary Arts

NADA Announces New NYC Edition as Art Fair Competition Reaches Fever Pitch

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NADA Announces New NYC Edition as Art Fair Competition Reaches Fever Pitch

Spring is art fair season in New York, and this year it will be more crowded — and more competitive — than ever. Earlier today, news broke that the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), the gallery collective that organizes an annual fair in Miami during Art Basel, is launching a new event in New York this May. The event is set to run the same month as Frieze New York, the first-annual stateside installment of the popular British art fair. Two other art fairs, Pulse and Red Dot, have also reshuffled their dates to coincide with Frieze. So what does this mean for New York's art fair season? Well, for one thing, there will be two of them.  

March and May are quickly turning into rival encampents for two sides that are trying to lay claim to the New York fair market. In March, collectors can take in the Armory Show, the Art Dealers Association of America show (ADAA), Independent, Scope, Volta, and Moving Image. In May, there’s the aforementioned cluster of Frieze, Pulse, Red Dot, and, now, NADA — not to mention the major contemporary and Impressionist art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's

The international spring art calendar offers even more competition. Five weeks after the Armory show ends, Art Cologne, kicking off its debut partnership with NADA, opens in Germany, Then, fewer than ten days after Frieze ends on May 7, Art HK — which was recently purchased by Art Basel, and is poised to be a hotter ticket than ever — begins in Hong Kong. Less than a month after that, then, the grand dame of art fairs, Art Basel, opens in Switzerland. 

Is our collective appetite for art fairs large enough to sustain two rival groupings in New York, let alone countless others worldwide? Fair organizers are betting on it. George Billis, the director of the Red Dot fair network, kept his hotel fair, Art Now, scheduled for March to coincide with the Armory, but moved his flagship Red Dot fair to May. While he said logistics played a large role in the decision — staff found itself racing to prepare for Red Dot New York after completing Red Dot Miami in December — he also noted that, “typically, even without any New York fair, it seems to me that most collectors are in the city in May for the auctions, or one reason or another.”

One development is certain: in New York, galleries now have to either pick allegiances or participate in both the March and May fairs. Some, like Luhring Augustine, David Zwirner, Regen Projects, and Lehmann Maupin, have signed on to both ADAA in March and Frieze in May (as has Nicole Klagsbrun, who, to make matters even more complicated, is also a NADA member). Hotel, Gavin Brown, and Elizabeth Dee — as well as Jack Hanley, the treasurer of NADA, and Bortolami Gallery, another NADA member — have also signed on to both Independent and Frieze.

Still other NADA members, like 303 and James Fuentes, could have been anchors for the group’s New York fair had they not already signed on to exhibit with Frieze. As of press time, NADA has not yet announced any details about its fair, but it bears noting that despite the loss of a handful of dealers to Frieze, several prominent members — Rachel Uffner, CANADA, Untitled, and Leo Koenig  among them — exhibited with the Armory Show last year and are said to be likely to jump ship. All this is made more uncertain, however, by the fact that the Armory Show has not released its exhibitor list — despite the fact that the fair is less than two months away.  

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Four Suggestions for How the Met Could Become a Contemporary Art Powerhouse

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Four Suggestions for How the Met Could Become a Contemporary Art Powerhouse

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in choosing Tate Modern chief curator Sheena Wagstaff to split off and power up its long-becalmed modern and contemporary art department, has made an inspired choice. She replaces Gary Tinterow, decamped for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in December after years of keeping the contemporary collection a sleepy adjunct to his core area of interest, 19th-century paintings. The 19th-century division will now be handled separately, by curator Keith Christiansen. Wagstaff has both the credentials and the opportunity to usher in a whole new era — the contemporary era — at the nation's most revered art institution.

A 55-year-old career curator who began at Tate in 1998 as a top staffer involved in creating Tate Britain, Wagstaff — the fourth Britisher to be recruited by Met director Thomas Campbell — transitioned to Tate Modern after it was created in 2000. There, she pioneered its world-renowned Turbine Hall commissions and organized shows on artists from Jeff Wall to Roy Lichtenstein, whose forthcoming retrospective she co-curated. In the New York Times story announcing her appointment, the curator stayed mum about her plans, other than to say she wanted to place the museum “in the vanguard of reinventing a new understanding of what art means, having a dialogue with the past and the present, the most vital conversation we can have today.”

Happily, she's going to have convenient laboratory for this reinvention: come 2015, the Met will take over the Whitney's Marcel Breuer-designed building on East 75th Street, a "very exciting" move that Campbell says will provide "space to show Modern and contemporary art in the context of our encyclopedic collections.” Moreover, the Met is considering an overhaul of the current home of its Modern and contemporary collection, the oddly-laid-out Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, which opened in 1987 and is somehow redolent of an even earlier era (think "Annie Hall").  

As a way of welcoming her aboard, here a few suggestions for how she can bring the Met's contemporary division up to the stature of its commanding historical programming — while claiming a unique and appropriately august identity to distinguish it from its superior peers at MoMA, the Whitney, and other cutting-edge New York institutions without playing an embarrassing game of catch-up.  

1. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS

Some institutions, like the New Museum, are at their best when they introduce unknown talents to the world. The Met is at its best in terms of contemporary art when it carves living artists into the totem pole of art history, contextualizing them in a considered, scholarly way — as in the Met's canonical 2009 "Pictures Generation" show, its 2010 Richard Serra "Drawings" show (which got a powerful stealth assist from the proximity of the museum's Egyptian collection downstairs), and the Betty Woodman vases retrospective in 2006. Shows like last year's "Reconfiguring an African Icon," showing ancient African masks alongside contemporary sculptures that pay homage to that tradition, have recently been using this institutional strength in an extraordinarily intriguing way — and one sensitive to the thorny issues of "Primitivism" and the legacy of colonialism, too. The Breuer building, with its brutal neutral walls and hulking spaces, would be an ideal venue to continue experimenting with collapsing the temporal gaps between old and new art, pointing viewers toward a less hieratic way of looking at art that's native to our Internet-flattened age. Massimiliano Gioni's 2010 Gwangju Biennale made an enormous splash by bringing this approach of historical mix-and-match to bear on the large-scale exhibition format, and the planned Frieze Masters art fair promises to advance it into the commercial sphere. The Met could do it better than anyone else. 

2. GO GLOBAL

Take the above cross-temporal approach and apply it across culture — it worked from Picasso, when he placed ancient Iberian statues (stolen from the Louvre) alongside Japanese prints and contemporary works in his Bateau-Lavoir studio, and it would work for the rest of us too. Wagstaff, who is a founding board member of the Middle Eastern cultural journal Bidoun, and who "conceived an innovative model of small-scale exhibitions based on bilateral research exchanges" while at Tate Modern that partnered with organizations from Kabul to Mexico City, seems to have something like this in mind. “The global context is increasingly important to all of us as we live in an increasingly complex world, and contemporary art is a great enabler to make sense of that world,” she told the Times. 

3. THINK BIG

As for the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, why not use its restructuring to rectify an aching lack in the New York City art landscape: aside from MoMA's soaring atrium, there is no space for large-scale installations here that comes close to Turbine Hall, a civic treasure in London that both brings together its citizens (remember Olafur Eliasson's sun?) and generates tremendous press attention for whatever artist gets shown there. At the Met, what better way to signal the seriousness of its commitment to contemporary art than to create a glassed-in vaulted space, a twin to the one encasing the Temple of Dendur, that could be given over to the most ambitious living artists? And who knows… if a sponsor could be found to fund the project, like Unilever does in London, it could generate even more money for the museum than all those gaudy Temple of Dendur galas. (As long as the Whitney doesn't do this first with their planned Renzo Piano-designed headquarters downtown, that is.)

4. DON'T BE SHY

Back when Henry Geldzahler was the Met's first curator for 20th century art, he threw pot-smoke-clouded opening parties that drew the downtown scene and displayed art — famously James Rosenquist's giant-scaled "F-111" — that scandalized the patrician classes while drawing crucial attention to what was then called "advanced art." Perhaps the parties could be toned down a notch, but the Met should not be afraid to let its freak flag fly. Instead of showing Damien Hirst's shark over a decade after it lost its bite, or putting Jeff Koons's puppies on the roof, the museum could use its historical rep as a pedestal to show new work that shakes preconceptions about the canon, and prompts reconsiderations. After all, there's nothing so shocking that a few minutes of quiet time in the Chinese Garden Court couldn't cure. 

by Andrew M. Goldstein,Museums

Slideshow: Damien Hirst's Spot Painting retrospective at Gagosian

Tod's Promises They Won't Plaster the Colosseum With Ads

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Tod's Promises They Won't Plaster the Colosseum With Ads

As Italy’s relics slowly crumble, fashion companies like Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton are scrambling to contribute funds to save them. But in some instances, the gesture comes with a price. When Tod’s founder Diego Della Valle agreed to hand over $34 million to restore Rome’s most famous ruin, the Colosseum, the city agreed to compromise the treasured relic’s image.

According to details of the agreement between Della Valle and Rome mayor Giannia Alemanno and other city officials, the transaction gave Tod’s the right to use a logo of the monument on its products for up to 15 years, stamp its own logo on entry tickets, and the right to cover restoration works with the Tod’s logo, the Telegraph reports. Tod’s officials and their guests also get exclusive access to the Colosseum. Two groups are protesting the agreement. On Monday Codacons, the country’s consumer protection organization, expressed their displeasure, and Italy’s antitrust authority agreed that same day, citing “a series of distortions” in Tod’s bid and “a lack of detailed projects” as cause for concern, according to WWD.

Tod’s issued a response Tuesday, maintaining that it is not seeking to profit commercially from the sponsorship and that it would not plaster the landmark with its advertisements. Let’s hope Tod’s keeps its promise and refrains from tainting Rome’s star monument.

 

 

by Ann Binlot,Architecture, Fashion

Preview the Crazy Damien Hirst Spot Paintings Show Everyone's Talking About

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Preview the Crazy Damien Hirst Spot Paintings Show Everyone's Talking About

Let the carnival begin! The thin crowd present for the New York City preview of Damien Hirst’s globe-spanning “spot painting” retrospective (opening at all 11 Gagosian galleries worldwide on January 12) was dwarfed by the enormous works installed in the blue-chip empire's West 21st Street space. In fact, the assembled guests were so few that the sheer profusion of dots in druggy pastels seemed even more overwhelming, while an anticipatory vibe filled the gallery, as if some momentous event was about to transpire. But, despite the presence of so much expensive art, and the advance promotional blitz presenting the show as an international happening, the overall effect was intensely underwhelming — like witnessing the mayor of a small town cut the ribbon on an undistinguished public park.

Hirst himself was there to perform the symbolic unveiling, decked out in a lab-jacket-white blazer, blingy silver necklaces, a total of three skull rings, loose-fitting jeans, and a Che Guevera-style t-shirt reading “we are all undesirables” in French. Gagosian London director Millicent Wilner introduced the artist and the exhibition before offering Hirst up for a photo op. The most dramatic moment of the morning was the clacking of dozens of shutters as Hirst mugged silently in front of "Minoxidil" (2005), at one point pulling his nose up into a pig face, but offering no further commentary on his work.

Asked by one visitor to address the meaning of Hirst’s spot paintings, Wilner smoothly deflected the question, saying that Hirst had spoken many times about their significance in the past. Having read those interviews, one knows that the artworks are part of a series formally called “Pharmaceuticals” — but known to all as the "Spot" paintings — and their individual titles are largely drawn from chemical compounds; their compositions might be linked to atomic structure diagrams. To find meaning in the paintings’s visual beauty would be difficult but not impossible. The colors are too sickly to be joyful, and the variation from canvas to canvas too woozy to really enjoy.

Perhaps the paintings don't have any meaning, but are simply supports for whatever perspective you bring to them. If you desire them, then they’re either anodyne interior decoration or antidepressants for aimless, postmodern lives. If you’re angry with them, then they’re lifestyle trophies for the rich and symbols of the exploitative one percent. You pick — there’s no wrong answer.

Preview Damien Hirst’s "The Complete Spot Paintings: 1986-2011" retrospective at the West 21st Street Gagosian space by clicking on the slide show

by Kyle Chayka,Contemporary Arts
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