North Korean painter Song Byeok (a pseudonym adopted for protection) was chosen to be an official propaganda artist for Kim Jong-il’s regime when he was just 24. The artist now uses his satirical work to critique the North Korean government, depicting the late Great Leader in a Marilyn Monroe-style dress or documenting the country’s harsh landscapes, while still depicting the North Korean people as strong and hopeful, if hard-pressed — effectively turning the devices of propaganda back on themselves. These outspoken paintings are possible only because of Song’s flight to South Korea.

What made Song turn from a state propagandist into an escapee ex-patriate? Growing up, Song writes on his Web site, he was “brainwashed into believing tyrant Kim Jong-il loved his people.” What made him reconsider the government’s relationship to his countrymen was the North Korean famine, which lasted through much of the 1990s and caused the death of millions of people — including Byeok’s mother, father, and sister. Before he finally escaped to South Korea, Song was brutally punished for attempting to cross into China to find food.

Song turned his art into a tool to expose the hypocrisy of the North Korean regime: "I want to tell the world the secrets being kept by North Korea,” he told the Los Angeles Times in an interview. “My artwork is that conversation." With the help of American supporters, Song will soon bring his dissident voice to the United States.

A Kickstarter fundraising project called “Propaganda Meets Pop Art” is working to help Song find a voice in the U.S., planning exhibitions in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. The artist’s work will be displayed at Atlanta’s Goat Farm Arts Center, and Song himself will lecture at Georgia’s Emory University on February 21. Noted organizer Greg Pence, who first met Song while doing research in South Korea as a Fulbright student, “The more eyeballs we can get to see Song Byeok’s works of art, the better.”

Works that will be on view in the Atlanta exhibition include “Mass Games,” a representation of the Olympics-style competition that sees North Koreans performing in unison. In this version, though, the coordinated dancers wear shawls that become bloodied flesh as they run together. “Hillside Slums” depicts a wintry village, cold and lifeless save for one lit window in the foreground. In contrast, “Hope” shows a young North Korean boy in uniform, his outstretched arms echoed by spread wings.

The work reflects Song’s love of North Korea, but also his independence from the country's dangerous ideology. Interviewed by the Guardian after Kim Jong-il died, Song said that he felt “rather calm” after hearing of the dictator’s passing. "I thought to myself about him, 'You, too, are human in the end.’”

Song’s Kickstarter fund has received $3,300 in donations, out of a $6,500 goal. Supporters can contribute through the Web site.

See more of Song Byeok’s work by clicking on the slide show.

NEW YORK — Part of the art crowd filled a section of Cynthia Rowley’s front row Thursday night. Artist Terence Koh sat with National Arts Club curator Stacy Engman while art writer Glenn O’Brien was situated a handful of seats away. Minutes before the show started, photographer Terry Richardson showed up with his girlfriend Audrey Gelman (who so happens to be Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer's press secretary). Rowley’s own partner, Half Gallery owner (and Rowley’s husband) Bill Powers had to tell people in the already-full front row to scoot over and squeeze together to make room for them. Also in the house were artists Josephine Meckseper, Richard Butler, Will Cotton, Richard Phillips, Richard Butler, Sarah Hoover, and Tom Sachs, and Gagosienne Rose Dergan.

Cynthia Rowley’s fall/winter 2012 collection gave a nod to blue-collar workers, specifically to welders, mechanics, cobblers, and leathermen. The designer also cited Meckseper’s upcoming oil rig installation and Rachel Feinstein’s carriages as inspiration in her show notes. Gorgeous tortoise-shell and kaleidoscope prints in fiery orange, brick red, and black-and-white covered the dresses. (Our favorite was a kaleidoscope shell-print number.) A palette of navy, black, and army green was scattered over leather, tweed, and denim. Jeweled turtlenecks, which were actually the designer’s necklaces from her Dannijo collaboration, added a bit of a sparkling contrast to the otherwise muted looks. Rowley reinterpreted a mechanic’s uniform with deep brown coveralls embellished with colorful feminine baubles, while brown leather shortalls served as her take on what a machinist would wear. Rowley’s collection did indeed capture the spirit of the working man, channeling it into a fashionable woman’s wardrobe.

Click on the slide show for images from Cynthia Rowley's fall/winter 2012 collection.

Click here for more New York Fashion Week coverage.

Last night the Asia Society launched its first major branch outside the United States, when it opened the Asia Society Hong Kong Center on the site of a former explosive magazine in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong.

Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsein were chosen to transform the site, which was previously used by the British military to make and house explosives and munitions and has lain fallow since the 1980s, into a cultural and heritage museum to rival the Asia Society’s famous Park Avenue digs.  With 10 centers already across Asia and the United States, the Asia Society has grown considerably in the 56 years since it was founded by John D. Rockerfeller III in 1956 as a non-profit educational institution to promote Asian cultural heritage in the United States.  The museum space in Hong Kong will be the first of two to open this year with another to open in Houston, Texas in April.

The Asia Society Hong Kong Center building is an architectural anomaly amidst its towering neighbors. Very much accenting the horizontal, the museum lies surrounded by lush green vegetation in the heart of the city. It is a substantial addition to the cultural fabric of the region, especially in a city that is notoriously lacking in established art museums.  

The museum’s curatorial program opens with the exhibition “Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art,” a pan-Asian look at Buddhism in art that places superb works from the Asia Society’s permanent collection side by side with contemporary works from artists such as Zhang Huan, Mariko Mori and Michael Joo.

ARTINFO HK spoke with Asia Society director Melissa Chiu, who was also the lead curator of the opening exhibition,  ahead of the opening of the Asia Society Hong Kong Center.

You have used the architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, can you tell me about the process of choosing the right architects for the project? 

There was an architectural design competition. They were chosen because they had the best way of conceiving of the campus, and it really is a campus, because there are actually three heritage buildings in one building and it is also on a sharp incline and there were a lot of natural elements to consider as well. 

It is an extraordinary site, especially for Hong Kong. 

Yes, It is important to the sense of heritage here in Hong Kong. When we were first given the site there was not a great community awareness of it. In the process of us restoring the place people began to take notice.

What was it about Williams and Tsien’s design that attracted you to them? 

With Billy and Tod’s design I think it was that their view of a campus that was able to unite the buildings. That piece of land has a complex structure in regards to flow.  Also the design has changed somewhat from the original. It has been an incredibly complex site and it is a great tribute to them and their ability to really pull it off. 

Is seems like there has been a slight shift, in the traditional sense of what Asia Society’s role is about as a result of being based in Hong Kong. Is there now a shift from teaching people about Asia into having a mutual relationship going back and forth? 

Yes, I think that is exactly it. We actually changed our mission recently to reflect this. Fifty years ago when Mr John Rockefeller III founded the Asia Society he believed that Asia would in time become very important and he thought Americans needed to know about Asia. That was in the post war period when most people when they thought of Asia thought of World War II and poverty. 

Now we have a completely changed scenario where China is the country with the second largest economy in the world. We know that the twenty first century will be a time of not one-country-dominance but a shared future. So we are preparing Americans for a shared future. 

How has the response been from your American contemporaries? 

I think most of my American museum colleagues are very envious. Having a presence here in Hong Kong really allows us to focus on a global program. I think what we are really looking at in the next few years is an idea of true exchange and reciprocity. I think that by having a presence here in Hong Kong that enables that to happen. 

You were the head curator of the opening exhibition “Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art.” Can you tell me a bit about putting it together?

I think the criteria for us, being the inaugural show, was about really trying to encapsulate what Asia Society’s strengths are and what our contribution can be to Hong Kong life. On one hand, I think more then anything the exhibition is pan-Asian. Hong Kong audiences are used to seeing a lot of Chinese art, especially on the traditional side, but here we have traditional Buddhist iconography, great works of art, and those that span about 10 different countries. Then on the other hand, we have selected artists whose works speak to Buddhism in different ways. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are practicing Buddhists but it means that they have created works that are about Buddhist iconography or Buddhist practice and Buddhism sensibilities. Each of them has made their own kind of statement if you like. 

Are you pleased with how it has turned out? 

I think it is a very rare example of a kind of conversation between the past and the present. I think we often see shows of antiquity and we often see shows of experimental, especially contemporary art but rarely do we ever see a real conversation between the two that shows new ideas about the past and I think that is what the show really does. 

NEW YORK — Japan, the purveyor of technology that gave us Toyota, Nikon, and Playstation, arguably has its best days behind it. For the past twenty years, the country has been experiencing economic in light of rising competition from China and South Korea for its bread and butter — the manufacturing of electronics and automobiles.  "We are facing such difficulties," Japanese fashion journalist Yoshiko Ikoma told ARTINFO. "The market for us isn’t expanding. It’s shrinking." What's Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's (METI), then, come up with as a solution? Jumpstarting international interest in its other endeavors, of course — fashion, design, anime. And to put a little umph in its appeal, they named their latest campaign Cool Japan.

Ikoma is currently the producer of "Future Tradition WAO," a Cool Japan traveling exhibition of contemporary design aesthetics formed with Japanese traditional craftsmanship debuting stateside in New York this weekend. The combination of “wa,” Japan, and “o,” birth, WAO stands for the rebirth of Japan (while simultaneously letting out a sound of awe). It fuses ancient traditions with new technology, familiar shapes with foreign designers. Featuring a crystal Baccarat bowl created for tea ceremonies, cypress trays accented by neon plastic lids, keyboards crafted from walnut and oak, and lacquered USB drives adorned with Japanese cultural symbols in gold leaf, the show is a demonstration of the Japan’s duality — a deeply traditional culture rooted in meticulous, time-perfected craftsmanship with an inventive and innovative eye towards the future.

We’ve always known Japan was cool — let’s not forget the pioneer in progressive, futuristic design also gave us (and Gwen Stefani) Harajuku fashion, Metabolist architecture, and Murakami. But the nation needed some practice in capitalizing on its cool factor. "We’d like to expand our market,” Ikoma said. “We have so much to offer in terms of the arts, but Japan has no idea how to sell outside Japan. For now we have to cultivate the new possibility on the global stage."

"Future Tradition Wao" is on display at Capsule Studio through February 12. To see highlights of its innovative offerings, click the slide show. 

Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Style, and Performing Arts, February 6 - 10, 2012:

ART

— ARTINFO was sad to report that painter Antoni Tapies, pioneer of European abstraction and a devotee of the mystic, died at age 88. We remembered the different stages of his career through his work.

— We gauged the success of the online-only VIP Art Fair’s second outing from the perspective of collectors, dealers, and artists. Sales were slow — but maybe sales aren’t the only metric to measure VIP by.

— Judd Tully reported that Christie’s had a “rock solid” Impressonist/Modern and Surrealism sale in London, netting $213 million with top lots from Van Gogh and Henry Moore. However, Sotheby’s Impressionist/Modern sale didn’t go quite as well the next night, taking in an anemic total of $125 million.

— Julia Halperin previewed the public art projects that will decorate New York City’s upcoming Second Avenue subway line, featuring work by Sarah Sze and Jean Shin.

— What’s holding back India’s art scene? Shane Ferro investigated.

DESIGN & FASHION

— New York Fashion Week kicked off, but even if you’re not hitting the runway shows, Ann Binlot gathered a list of related art events, including shows by Ouattara Watts and Juergen Teller.

— We talked to Band of Outsiders designer Scott Sternberg about using iconic California painter Ed Ruscha as a model for his Fall/Winter 2012 collection.

— Designer Steven Alans created his collection under the influence of Diego Rivera’s intensely political exhibition of murals at MoMA.

— A café in Helsinki let viewers control their furniture over the Internet — making it a little hard for one couple to have a romantic moment. 

— Janelle Zara talked to architectural firm HWKN being selected for MoMA PS1's Young Architect's" program: an environmentally friendly tower that cleans the air passing through it.

PERFORMING ART

— Performing arts editor Nick Catucci argued that HBO’s hit show Boardwalk Empire just won’t be the same without star actress Paz de la Huerta.

— The politics of Iranian movie “A Separation” have caused a few out-there theories to surface as to its motives.

— Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks are rumored to be considering the roles of P.L. Travers and Walt Disney in a film exploring their conflict over the creative direction of “Mary Poppins” (which Travers wrote).

— Surprising for a country notoriously hard to shock, French citizens are aghast at suggestive posters for a new film called “The Unfaithful Ones.”

— Naomi Watts is replacing Hollywood star Jessica Chastain as Diana, Princess of Wales in “Caught in Flight,” a movie that spans the last two years of the Princess’s life.

BONUS

— What’s the latest news from Australia? Why, cat art, of course! These cats make paintings that help rescue other cats (but their owners are careful to explain that the cat painters are treated well and are not art “slaves.” )

When is a Cady Noland not a Cady Noland? A lot rides on this question — millions of dollars and now a lawsuit. 

Contemporary art dealer Marc Jancou is suing both Sotheby’s and the reclusive artist after the auction house pulled a work he had consigned by the artist from a sale, apparently at her request. According to Jancou’s lawyer Paul J. Hanly, Jr., Noland told Sotheby’s there were problems with the work’s condition. Jancou is now suing Sotheby’s for $6 million in compensatory damages, and Noland for $20 million in punitive damages. The artwork, a silkscreen print on aluminum called "Cowboys Milking" (1990), was to be included in a contemporary day sale on November 11, 2011 and was estimated to sell for between $260,000 and $350,000. The lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, raises questions about what legal right artists have — if any — to disavow early works.

Jancou’s complaint doesn’t describe the exact circumstances of Noland’s intervention, beyond stating that she “tortiously interfered with the consignment agreement by persuading Sotheby’s to breach the agreement by refusing to put the work up for auction, despite there being no basis under the agreement to do so.” Noland is famously particular about her work, but in this case a lot was at stake. If the sale had gone through, Jancou may have stood to gain even more than the $350,000 high estimate: as Gallerist mentioned, another Noland artwork set an artist record at Sotheby’s the night before Jancou’s thwarted sale, selling for $6.6 million with premium over a high estimate of $3 million.

A statement from Sotheby’s describes the suit as "meritless." Hanley told ARTINFO that, as of Friday, neither the auction house nor Noland had filed papers in response to the suit. Jancou himself declined to comment, but his lawyer noted that Noland’s alleged claim that the work was damaged or in poor condition stands in opposition to an independent conservation report made prior to the sale. Sotheby’s auction catalogue insulates the company from such claims, saying that it can withdraw any lot at will, but, Hanley asserts, "that was not a unilateral statement, and was not part of the consignment agreement my client signed." 

The legal rights of artists over their works are murky and have been the subject of many recent battles. The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 states that "the artist shall have the right to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation" — yet this statute has not stopped a variety of controversies about artist's rights to control their work.

In one notorious instance, landscape artist Chapman Kelley went to battle with the Chicago Parks Department, claiming that its alteration of a bed of flowers he had created infringed on his rights under VARA; a court finally decided that landscape art was not copyrightable, but left the question open in relation to other types of work. Similarly, the artist Christoph Buchel got into a very public dispute with MASS MoCA over his installation "Training Ground for Democracy," which related to the question of whether or not the institution could show his work in a form he didn't endorse. Finally, in what is perhaps the most relevant example, last year Phillips auction house got in trouble with Damien Hirst's company Science for selling individual works that were meant to be bundled together as a set. In that case, Phillips voluntarily decided not to sell the work.

Although film noir seems unlikely to be revived as a genre as it was in the seventies and in the early nineties, it still rears its ugly-beautiful head now and again. The last flourish was in 2001-06, when “Mulholland Drive,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “The Road to Perdition,” “Sin City,” “The History of Violence,” “Hollywoodland,” and “The Black Dahlia” emerged.

Since then the most significant entry has been the Jim Thomson adaptation “The Killer Inside Me” (2010), reviled by many for the ferocious battering meted out to Jessica Alba’s character. Little has been heard since 2009 of Universal’s proposed film of Raymond Chandler’s story “Trouble Is My Business,” which was to star Clive Owen as Philip Marlowe.

Noir fans, though, can rejoice in the news that Tom Hiddleston and Anna Paquin have been cast as the leads in a potentially steamy thriller, long in development, based on Elliott Chaze’s novel “Black Wings Has My Angel,” published by Gold Medal in 1953 (and winner of its Fawcett Gold Medal Paperback Award). An undistinguished French adaptation called “Il gèle en enfer” was released in France in 1990.

Following a 10-year quest by producer Christopher Peditto to track down and secure the rights, the film was originally announced in 2007 with “Lord of the Rings” star Elijah Wood attached as a co-producer. The adaptation was done by Peditto, Barry Gifford, who co-wrote “Wild at Heart” and “Lost Highway” with David Lynch, and the Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Pineda Ulloa. The movie will be Ulloa’s first English-language feature as director. There are no details yet about whether it is to be a period piece or a neo-noir. Shooting is scheduled to start in September.

Chaze’s story, influenced by James M. Cain’s 1934 “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and the 1946 noir starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, is narrated by an ex-con roughneck called Tim Sunblade, a Garfield lookalike (in the novel at least) to be played by Hiddleston, who hires the beautiful but initially icy prostitute Virginia to visit him in a backwoods Mississippi hotel. She's a femme fatale with a difference, one who dreams of luxuriating naked in greenbacks, and Paquin should have a ball playing her.

Despite Sunblade’s attempt to dump her after a protracted sexual idyll, circumstances bring them back together and they become a couple joined by lust, love, amorality, and not a little hate. They rob an armored van carrying $89,000 in Colorado, killing the guard in the process, but their dreams of an easy life are destroyed by Raskolnikov-like guilt that, to cite Chaze’s metaphor, eats into them like cancer.

A more vivid writer than Thomson but a less lyrical one than Chandler, Chaze was an electrifying hard-boiled prose stylist. There was clearly a humorous glint in his eye when he wrote, though he never allows the sleaze to get out of hand or undercut his story’s existential drift or its Cain-like fatalism. Writing in Oxford American magazine, Gifford said "Black Wings" was “an astonishingly well-written literary novel that just happened to be about (or roundabout) a crime.”

Chaze (1915-90) never attempted to became a master of hard-boiled fiction. “Black Wings” (which he submitted to Gold Medal with “Red” not “Black” in the title) was his sole foray into the genre. A respected newspaperman, who worked for the Associated Press in New Orleans and Denver, he joined the Hattiesburg American in Mississippi as a reporter in 1951, eventually becoming a city editor and an award-winning columnist. He left the paper in 1980 but completed three more novels in his last decade. Over the years he wrote articles on a diverse array of topics for such magazines as the New Yorker, Collier's, Life, Reader's Digest, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.

Admired by Ernest Hemingway for his early fiction, Chaze  wrote nine novels beginning with “Stainless Steel Kimono” (1947), based on his experience as a paratrooper with the 11^th Airborne Division in Japan during and after World War II. Most of his nine books feature reporters and have a crime element, including “Tiger in the Honeysuckle” (1965), which dealt controversially with an interracial relationship in Mississippi during the Civil Rights era.

That novel offended liberal critics at the time and has fallen out of sight, but a potent film of “Black Wings Has My Angel” could make Chaze a cult author – if not necessarily the instigator of a new noir wave.

Everybody, even we lily-livered art lovers, enjoys a hearty throwdown. Last year was delectably contentious, giving us Prince vs. Cariou, Rainer vs. Abramovic, Cowboys vs. Aliens, and Beyonce's Womb vs. The Tabloid Press. This year, New York City is treated to a duel between comprehensive museum group shows.  The second New Museum Triennial, titled “The Ungovernables,” (February 15-April 22) and the 76th Whitney Biennial (March 1-May 27) open a mere two weeks apart from one another. Some may say this is a coincidence — but we know a knock-down, drag-out, Rocky-style battle for contemporary art survey domination when we see it. 

The Whitney Biennial, or WhiBi (for short, and because we can), has been the reigning champion of museum survey shows for 80 years. It has the clout, the money, and the Werner Herzog going for it. However, the parochialism of the Whitney’s lineup has already been criticized on multiple platforms. So far, WhiBi has been called out for being too white, too American, too male, too “Artforum-y,” and for privileging trendier media like video and installation over painting. Recently, Herb Tam of the Museum of Chinese Art criticized the show for largely eschewing identity politics and underrepresenting nonwhite artists. The NuMuTri, on the other hand, is concept-driven, has a sexy title, and shows a group of young, spry, more or less Jesus-aged artists. Appropriating a pejorative term for South African student protestors for its title, "The Ungovernables" spotlights a group of mostly unknown international artists, born between the mid-'70s and the mid-'80s, who grew up in societies marked by political turmoil.

ARTINFO has compiled the stats on both competitors as they prepare to go head to head in a contest of brain and brawn.

Number of Artists:

WB: 51
NMT: 34 artists (with groups and collectives counted as one entity); over 50 indivudials in total

Number of Women Artists:

WB: 20, or 38 percent
NMT: 13, or 44 percent (excluding artists participating in collectives)

Percentage of American-Born Artists:

WB: 39, or 76 percent
NMT:  3, or 9 percent  

Oldest Artist:

WB: Forest Bess (1911 — 1977); the oldest living artist is Frederick Wiseman, born in 1930
NMT: House of Natural Fiber’s Venzha Christ, born in 1973

Youngest Artist:

WB: Kate Levant and Cameron Crawford, both born in 1983
NMT: Kemang Wa Lehulere, born in 1984

The Venue:

WB: While the Whitney is slated to move to the Meatpacking District in 2015, this year’s biennale is still housed in Marcel Breuer’s dated-feeling, virtually windowless building at Madison and 75th Street.

NMT: The museum-going masses — still sugar-high off the critically disparaged but massively popular Carsten Höller show — have been convinced that the New Museum isn’t a museum at all, but a very artsy, conveniently-located amusement park-cum-interactive pleasure dome. This misconception might draw crowds, but they are going to be in for a disappointment when Abigail DeVille's installation about homelessness and urban poverty doesn’t include 3D glasses or carnival games. Architecturally, the New Museum’s sleek, SANAA-designed, metal mesh building is the Millennium Falcon to the Whitney’s Brutalist Death Star.

The Artspeak:

WB: “Sculpture, painting, installations, and photography — as well as dance, theater, music, and film — will fill the galleries of the Whitney Museum of American Art in the latest edition of the Whitney Biennial. With a roster of artists at all points in their careers the Biennial provides a look at the current state of contemporary art in America.” [Press Release]

NMT: “'The Ungovernables' is meant to suggest both anarchic and organized resistance and a dark humor about the limitations and potentials of this generation… through both materials and form; works included in 'The Ungovernables' explore impermanence and an engagement with the present and future. Many of the works are provisional, site-specific and performative reflecting an attitude of possibility and resourcefulness.” [Press Release]

The Lineup:

WB: Aside from the patent focus on film, video, and white dudes, this year’s Biennial lineup is one glorious hot mess of artistic styles, proclivities, and media. Where else can you see the work of the Texan psychedelic noise rock/art collective Red Krayloa rub elbows with the venerable 82-year-old documentarian Frederick Wiseman? Or Andrea Fraser, a pioneer of institutional critique who rose to prominence mocking the grandiloquent, inflated rhetoric of art history, alongside the Neo-Romantic filmmaker Herzog, the most Wagerian, bombastic genius of our time? Or radical feminist K8 Hardy paired with Vincent Gallo, an artist most famous for receiving unsimulated oral sex in the universally despised “Brown Bunny”?

NMT: If the New Museum’s first triennial traded on the seductive notion of youth, this year’s iteration offers a decidedly more focused and serious meditation on protest and civil disobedience. Most of these artists are relatively unknown in the United States. All are born between the mid-'70s and the mid-'80s and make work that responds to formative geopolitical events such as the IMF crisis, religious fundamentalism, military dictatorships, increased globalization, and the rise of global capitalism. As in the Whitney Biennial, video and performance are prevalent. Politically loaded sculpture is well-represented by Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas’s deliberately dilapidated monumental sculptures, Vietnamese-born artist Danh Võ’s reproduction of the Statue of Liberty’s copper skin, and Iman Issa’s proposed alternatives to her native Egypt’s monuments.

The Curators:

WB: This year’s Biennial is double-teamed by seasoned in-house curator Elizabeth Sussmann and former Greene Naftali gallery director Jay Sanders. Sussmann has curated surveys of 20th-century titans Eva Hesse, Gordon Matta Clark, Nan Golden, Keith Harring, and the late Mike Kelley. The abundance of film in this year’s Biennale probably has something to do with Sanders, who has curated major monographic exhibitions of the artist/filmmakers Tony Conrad and Paul Sharits. He has also edited a DVD on the work of theater artist Richard Foreman and published a book of Jack Smith’s drawing.

NMT: “The Ungovernables” is the solo effort of the New Museum's Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs, Eungie Joo. Having served as the commissioner for the Korean Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, Joo has been behind the scenes at the New Museum since 2007, spearheading programming for the “Museum As Hub” initiative and coordinating projects with My Barbarian, Lisa Sigal, and Anton Vidokle. Joo approaches curating not from the point of view of orthodox art history, but from a broader field of cultural, visual, and ethnic studies. Her catalogue essay cites the Occupy movements, WikiLeaks, Félix Guattari, and Slavoj Žižek. Her international, socially conscious, and post-colonialist choices are likely to catapult her into the stratosphere of curatorial superstardom (if such a place exists).

The Money:

WB: Despite the inclusion of Georgia Sagri, an artist associated with the Occupy movement, the cooperate sponsorship behind the Biennial is as 1 percent as it gets. Major support is provided by the auction house Sotheby’s, who has been involved in an ugly labor dispute with its locked-out art handlers from Teamsters Local 814. Mega-bank and art-world power player Deutsche Bank is also providing partial support.

NMT: The Triennial is sponsored by the affordable fashion retailer Joe Fresh (that’s Canadian for H&M).

The Star:

WB: Prior to his shocking and untimely death, Mike Kelley was arguably the most famous artist represented in the Biennial. Now, due to the most tragic and unfortunate of circumstances, there is no question. His grungy, lapsed-Catholic installations and videos have been Biennial fixtures for years (he has been included eight times; in 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 2002, and, now, 2012). The three films related to Kelley’s public art project “Mobile Homestead” — an unfinished replica of Kelley’s childhood home in working-class Detroit — will undoubtedly take on new weight and significance.

NMT: While “Younger than Jesus” can be partially credited with launching the careers of Ryan Trecartin, Cyprien Gaillard, and Keren Cytter, this year’s Triennial really isn’t in the business of making art stars. In fact, one might argue that “The Ungovernables” itself is a patent rejection of celebrity, emphasizing anonymity and collaboration. Six collectives and/or temporary projects are featured, including the Israeli performative research group Public Movement, the new media collective/micro-distillery House of Natural Fiber, and the trans-African photojournalism project Invisible Boarders.

If one career is about to be made by this art show showdown, it is that of transfeminine performance artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang (no affiliation with the homonymous Clan), who is the only artist to show work in both shows. “WILDENESS,” Tsang’s documentary film about transgender Latinas in a Los Angeles bar, screens at the Whitney, while his Performa-tested work of “living sculpture,” “Full Body Quotation” — a concert inspired by samples from transgender cinema — will be shown at the New Museum. Of course, this means increased visibility for Tsang. It also is in line with a growing visibility of transgenderism and gender queerness in art and culture, from Antony Hegarty’s museum survey in Los Angeles to Andrej Pejic walking both male and female catwalks at New York Fashion Week.

Click here to see the complete list of artists involved in the Whitney and New Museum shows. 

Today the New York Times profiles the indie rock duo Sleigh Bells, who are releasing their second album, “Reign of Terror,” next week. You may already know how you feel about the band’s music, and if so, you’re unlikely to change that opinion after hearing the new disc, which is streaming exclusively alongside the article. The group started with a distinctive sound and have stuck with it.

But maybe you’re not familiar with that sound; maybe all you know about Sleigh Bells is that they’ve generated some attention, mainly online and among people who track indie rock. Knowing this, it would make sense for you to be curious about the band. Then again, you might be wary — you may suspect that you’re being drawn into a cycle of hype. That is where a backlash starts. But what makes a backlash grow? What makes a person decide that they not only don’t need to learn more about this band, but resent the suggestion that they should know anything about it in the first place?

There is a paradox at the center of every backlash, and it is this: Anyone who bothers to weigh one knows that its sources have nothing to do with directly experiencing the cultural product, but rather, the promotion of that cultural product, and whether or not this promotion is somehow earned. We don’t want to be told to like something unless we can provide the reasons, to ourselves and others, for liking it. At the same time, we realize that’s a pitfall — the authenticity trap. Everyone defines the parameters of authenticity slightly differently. It’s like the Hunger Games: Within the arena, smaller traps are laid for specific tributes, playing on their individual insecurities.

Sleigh Bells can be thought of as inauthentic for a number of reasons, depending on one’s fears and biases.

1. They were marked, and analyzed, as a buzz band from the start. (Therefore, the thinking — or, perhaps emotional, reaction — goes, they never connected with a small, authentic, homegrown audience in the first place.)

2. Their guitarist was in a screechy Florida hardcore band, Poison the Well. (Screechy Florida hardcore is not cool — or, at least, not anymore; or, not among as many people — so the guitarist must be sacrificing his authentic self to seem cool.)

3. Their singer was in (a presumably “manufactured”) pop act as a teenager. (Never cool; see #2.)

4. They seem like a band you have to know about to be cool. (To learn about them would be an attempt to also become cool; see #2 and 3.)

5. But the New York Times also profiled them. (Which might actually make them uncool.)

6. Their sound is gimmicky: Girly vocals over metal guitar and drum machine beats. (It doesn’t represent a scene or rooted interests; it was invented.)

7. They are from Brooklyn. (Which might as well be Williamsburg.)

To criticize Sleigh Bells for any of these things would of course be dumb and pointless, especially since many people are already familiar with them. (Although many more are likely about to be.) What’s interesting about Sleigh Bells is that listening to them is a lot like thinking about them: Once you’ve absorbed the sound they create (big beats and guitar, dissections of authenticity), there’s not much to sustain one’s interest. And, they both kind of make your head hurt. “Comeback Kid” is pretty good, though. 

After a two-year, much-speculated-about search, the J. Paul Getty Museum has chosen a new director: Timothy Potts, the current director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the former director of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Like his predecessor, Michael Brand, who abruptly left his post in 2010, a year before his contract was set to expire, Potts hails from Australia and boasts a hefty acquisitions record.

“I have known Dr. Potts for almost fifteen years and have worked closely with him on policy positions taken by the Association of Art Museum Directors," J. Paul Getty Trust president James Cuno, who announced the appointment at a staff meeting Tuesday morning, said in a statement. "I know him to be a person of integrity, intelligence, advanced learning, and refined connoisseurship." Potts will be the second director in Getty history to oversee both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa sites.

During his nine years at the Kimbell (which, the Los Angeles Times notes, has a similar acquisitions budget to the Getty), Potts proved his mettle in the field of acquisitions, scooping up sculptures by Bernini, Donatello, Michelozzo, and Gian Cristofero Romano. This is undoubtedly part of his appeal: In previous interviews, Cuno has emphasized his desire for a director with an "appetite" for big acquisitions.

Trained as an archeologist, Potts received his doctorate in ancient Near Eastern art from the University of Oxford, and has conducted excavations in Jordan, Iraq, and Greece. In a statement, Potts pointed to the Getty's own strong acquisitions record as a reason why he looks forward to taking the reins: “Like others in the museum world, I have for many years admired (and sometimes been frustrated by!) the quality of its collecting and the innovative way it pursues its scholarly and educational mission," he said.

But Potts's history isn't all Renaissance sculpture acquisitions and early Middle Eastern art. During his term as director of the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, where he served before moving to the Kimbell, Potts was embroiled in a controversy surrounding Andres Serrano's photograph of a urine-submerged crucifix "Piss Christ." After two separate incidents of visitors attacking the artwork, Potts set off an uproar when he decided to close the exhibition in an effort, he claimed, to protect the gallery and its staff.   

As the fourth person to take on the Getty director position (the museum opened to the public in 1998), Potts will have to contend with the complex bureaucracy that has led to the ouster of many previous Getty higher-ups. While the director (and the board) usually have supreme authority at most museums, the Getty presents a complicated balance of power among not only those two parties but also the CEO of the Getty Trust. Brand reportedly resigned due to a personality clash with the late former CEO James Wood, while the museum's first director, John Walsh, had similar conflicts with the founding CEO Harold Williams. Perhaps Potts and the recently-installed James Cuno, who joined the museum in May of last year, can finally get along.

Meanwhile, those looking to get a window into Potts's directing philosophy before he hits the west coast should check out an op-ed he wrote for the Washington Post back in 2007, which focuses on the perils of populism and the dangers of overexpansion. Just how this sits with Cuno's admiration for "appetite" is something that museum watchers will have to wait and see.

To take a virtual tour of “The Ungovernables,” click on the slide show

WHAT: “The Ungovernables”

WHEN: February 15 through April 22

WHERE: New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York, NY 

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: Though the New Museum is New York City’s marquee contemporary art space, the institution has a history of embracing artists who aren’t exactly recognizable names, sprinkling in laser-targeted, periphery-focused curatorial efforts (“Ostalgia”) among bigger blockbusters (the recent “Experience”). “The Ungovernables,” to its credit, tilts towards the former category. In her travels to South America, North Africa, and the Middle East, ace curator Eungie Joo has assembled a gathering of international emerging artists who use their work to push at global boundaries of politics and identity.

What to expect? The museum’s lobby gallery provides a microcosm of the show, courtesy of the photographs and other media of the collective Invisible Borders Trans-African, a group who travels throughout the African continent testing the permeability of borders that are legally open (and documenting their adventures as art). “The Ungovernables” includes a number of collectives, ad-hoc groups, and organic support networks that form in the absence of market-driven competition and gallery infrastructure often found in non-Western countries.

Also greeting you on the ground floor are Kuwaiti artist Ala Younis’s forced-perspective floor paintings, “Junior General on Iraq,” which form pixelated but instantly recognizable icons of soldiers, terrorists, and guerrillas. The work is a scrappy flashpoint to kick off the show, and its spirit is echoed by the first work seen on the second, Iman Issa’s memorably titled “Material for a sculpture representing a monument erected in the spirit of defiance of a larger power.” That work is a mahogany obelisk laid on its side, tipped over. That the work was made just this year speaks to its relationship with the Egyptian revolution and the Arab Spring.

Other works testify less directly to politics and more to issues of general identity. Pilvi Takala’s alternately hilarious and sad series of videos depict a month spent working (or faking work) at risk management firm Deloitte. It’s a half-hearted attempt to find a purpose in a world filled with overwhelming purposelessness and pointless industry. Jonathas de Andrade’s “4,000 Shots” submerges individual identity in a cavalcade of faces captured on film on urban streets. 

Throughout the show, conceptual power underpins aesthetic delicacy. Mariana Telleria’s “Days of Truth” (2012) are ephemeral (one assumes) assemblages created from a hodgepodge of everyday objects; the most poetically sublime is a tree branch upended into a group of coffee mugs. Julia Dault’s precarious sculptures torque Plexiglas and Formica into shimmering towers, each one named for the date of its creation. 

By all rights, the fourth floor should have been the crescendo of “The Ungovernables,” with massive works by Danh Vo and Adrian Villar Rojas. Vo has replicated the Statue of Liberty’s pounded-copper exterior and deconstructed it into panels, laid out like debris from some Frank Gehry building — a slick piece of visual and conceptual play. Yet the work is dwarfed by Rojas’s floor-to-ceiling clay-and-Styrofoam sculpture “A Person Loved Me,” which looks like a broken-down alien spaceship or a grounded Gundam robot — a clunky, cartoony finale that would better fit at an anime convention. Despite the awkward top floor, "The Ungovernables" sticks in the mind, and should propel Joo on to even greater platforms. 

To take a virtual tour of “The Ungovernables,” click on the slide show.

LONDON — Powered by a rare-to-market Francis Bacon painting of a reclining female nude, Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary Art evening sale shot to £80,576,100 ($126,504,477), the highest contemporary mark for the house here since June 2008.

The tally came close to the high end of the £56.77 to 84 million ($88.96-131.9 million) estimate range, selling 58 of the 65 lots offered. Percentage wise, 11 percent by lot failed to sell and only five percent by value. Three artist records were set, 16 lots fetched over a million pounds, and 26 exceeded one million dollars. It surpassed the February 2011 figure of £61.4 million ($99.2 million) and ranks as the second highest earning contemporary London sale for Christie’s, trailing only June 2008’s boom-time figure of £86.2 million ($172 million).

Deep pocket bidding was felt early on as Christopher Wool’s ultra-graphic, enamel-on-aluminum word painting, “Untitled,” from 1990, spelling out the word FOOL, sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for a record £4.91 million ($7.71 million) (est.£2.5-3.5 million). It vanquished the previous Wool mark of $5 million set for “Blue Fool” at Christie’s New York in May 2010. It was one of three works carrying so-called third-party guarantees, meaning a sale was guaranteed no matter what the outcome.

At least five bidders chased the work, including Paris dealer John Sayegh-Belchatowski, who dropped out at £4 million, a mere £350,000 shy of the winning hammer bid. “It’s a masterpiece,” opined Sayegh-Belchatowski, “but at this level, it’s not for a dealer.”  

The same anonymous telephone, bearing paddle number 905, bagged the next lot, Gilbert & George’s red-hued, early mixed-media piece in 16 parts from 1975, “Bloody Life No.13.” The winning bid was £1.27 million ($2 million) (est. £700,000-1 million).

British-bred art played hard all evening as a long undiscovered Lucian Freud ink-and-tempera on paper, “Boat, Connemara” from August 1948, considered Freud’s only landscape executed on site in Ireland, sold to London dealer Stephen Ongpin for £657,250 ($1.03 million) (est. £200-300,000). “I think I went up to £450,000,” said London dealer Ofer Waterman for the sharply observed scene of a boat in dry dock, “and I thought it was a great drawing, but you have to set a limit and it was enough.”

That sentiment also played a supporting role for Freud’s page-sized “Small Figure” of a reclining female nude from from 1983-84, that sold to New York’s Acquavella Galleries for £1.6 million ($2.52 million) (est. £1.5-2 million). It last sold at Sotheby’s London in June 1996 for £122,000.

“The Freud market seems to be strong to us, that’s for sure,” said Eleanor Acquavella — who also acquired Alexander Calder’s standing mobile, “Petits disques blancs (Small White Discs)” from 1953 for £1.55 million ($2.44 million) (est. £700,000-1 million) — as she exited the salesroom with her brother Alex. The fact that Freud died last year and is the subject of a just opened retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery here, as well as a major drawing show opening tomorrow at Blain/Southern in Mayfair, certainly helped the atmosphere for acquisition.

But all stops were unplugged for Freud’s one-time pal Francis Bacon and his “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” (1963), a sizzling, full-figured reclining nude on a bed with legs suggestively spread and set against a spectacular lilac-hued background. Pegged at an unpublished "estimate on request" price of £15-20 million, bidding opened at £12 million for the cover lot and ticked along with a small global posse of telephone bidders chasing the raw fleshed trophy at £500,000 increments until £19 million. The final price with buyer’s premium was £21.3 million ($33.5 million), making it the seventh most expensive Bacon to sell at auction. It also crushed last week’s top price for an Impressionist-Modern work with Henry Moore’s large-scaled bronze, “Reclining Figure: Festival” (1951) that made £19 million ($30.1 million) at Christie’s.

Bacon’s seller this evening was New York real estate magnate Sheldon Solow, the same consignor as the top-drawer Moore as well as the Joan Miro “Painting-Poem” that made £16.8 million ($26.6 million) from last week. Solow apparently acquired the 65-by-56-inch Bacon privately from a European collection in 1983, and the paintings hasn’t been on public view in years. The edgy and downright erotic nude's pose is based on black-and-white photographs of the model who was also a one-time lover and model of Lucian Freud, snapped by Bacon’s friend John Deakin, according to Bacon’s strict instructions. Bacon painted Moraes 16 times, but this example apparently takes the prize.

Another, decidedly less interesting Bacon, the two-part oil-on-canvas “Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne” from 1983 sold for £1.7 million ($2.7 million) (est. £1.8-2.5 million). It last sold at auction for £1.8 million at Sotheby’s London in October 2007, right at the top of the market, proving those happy days are not quite here again.

But it was hardly a British and Irish evening alone. Gerhard Richter’s grandly scaled and lusciously colored “Abstraktes Bild” from 1994 soared to £9.9 million (£15.5 million) (est. £5-7 million) and Nicolas de Stael’s brilliant, color-drenched seascape, “Agrigente” from 1953, surged to £5.3 million ($8.3 million) (est. £3.5-5 million). There were also a few scattered works by younger, blue-chip in waiting artists, including the Maurizio Cattlean like sculpture "K 36 (The Black horse)” (2003), comprised of a stitched horse hide plus other elements, which fetched a record £325,250 ($510,643) (est. £200-300,000).

One surprise was the 11th hour withdrawal of a major Mark Rothko painting, “Untitled” (1955), a square-shaped canvas in reddish hues that was expected to sell between £9-12 million. “It was withdrawn for a private sale,” said Christie’s contemporary head Francis Outred, though he couldn’t confirm the sale had as yet finalized.

There was no problem dispatching more of the remarkable collection of the late German cinema magnate Hubertus Wald and his eponymous charitable foundation as Piero Manzoni’s stunning white abstraction, “Achrome” (ca. 1959) made £1.7 million ($4.2 million) (est. £1.8-2.5 million). Nine works from Wald tallied £6.5 million, close to the £7 million high end of the pre-sale expectation.

The action resumes tomorrow evening at Sotheby’s.

To see some of the star lots from Christie's London's Postwar and Contemporary Art evening sale, click on the slide show. 

The 40th Hong Kong Arts Festival opened last month but there are still three weeks left (the festival ends March 8) to sample the array of quality local and international performances which give weight to the claim that this is Asia’s premier arts festival.

Over its 45 day run the festival features over 170 productions staged at 17 venues, including 38 ensembles or solo artists dropping in from overseas and 16 from Hong Kong. The program runs the gamut from orchestral works, opera, and ballet to modern dance and drama, with productions catering to both the traditionalists and devotes of more innovative approaches. So how do you choose what to see? ARTINFO HK brings you our picks for the events you shouldn’t miss.

Drama: “Journey to Home”

Playwright Santayana Li’s first ever script, “Journey to Home,” was chosen to be one of the commissioned local productions featured in the Festival’s New Stage Series, which is designed to  promote up-and-coming young writers. “Journey” tells the story of an 18-year-old girl who decides to go to Taiwan to look for her mother, who left the family when her children were still young. Inevitably the search becomes not just one for her mother but also for an idea of home. Li’s play benefits from being directed by prominent actor/director Lee Chun-chow.

Be quick for this one, it runs Feb 15-18 at the Hong Kong Cultural Center

Drama: “The Classics of Of Mountains and Sea”

Directed by mainland China’s most prominent director Lin Zhaohua, this specially-commissioned work utilizes music, dance and puppetry to reimagine Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian’s play “The Classics of Mountains and Seas.” The work itself draws heavily on Chinese supernatural stories and myths and Lin Zhaohua infuses it with elements of Nuo opera, a thousand-year-old art form that grew out of sacrificial customs and religious rites. Given Lin’s high reputation in avant-garde theatre and Gao’s literary vision, the play promises to be an extraordinary experience.

Feb 24-27, Auditorium, Kwai Tsing Theater

Opera: “Così Fan Tutte”

Mozart’s famous riff on the question of women’s fidelity “Così Fan Tutte,” has been declared a jewel in the repertoire of the famed Bavarian State Opera. The magicial simplicity of Dieter Dorn’s direction and Jürgen Rose’s elegant design perfectly complement the story about two army officers who attempt to woo each other’s fiancés in order to win a wager about whether all women are fickle. The opera will be performed in Italian with English and Chinese subtitles.

Feb 23-26, Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Center

Multimedia: “TeZukA”

The inspiration behind this show was the work “Astro Boy and Buddha” by the Japanese animator and manga artist Osamu Tezuka. With a cast of ten performers, three musicians and a calligrapher, “TeZukA” blends tradition, science fiction and the contemporary world. Tezuka’s original illustrations are presented alongside work by video artist Taiki Ueda and calligraphy by Tosui Suzuki. Using the dancers’ movements to trace the physical evolution of Tezuka’s drawings, this show brings the so-called “God of Manga’s” philosophy, drawings and characters vividly to life.  

Feb 17-19, Grand Theater, Hong Kong Cultural Center

Theater: “Faith Healer”

Irish playwright Brian Friel’s extraordinary and highly acclaimed work “Faith Healer” has been reinterpreted by the U.K.’s oldest theater company, the Bristol Old Vic. The play relates the tale of Francis Hardy, an itinerant Irish faith healer, who for years travelled the remote and desolate halls of Wales and Scotland attempting to cure the sick and suffering. It takes a deeper look at the nature of art and belief through monologues put into the mouths of Francis Hardy, his wife Grace, and his manager, Teddy.

March 1-4, 6-8, Shouson Theater, Hong Kong Arts Center

Check out full programme details and booking arrangements on the Hong Kong Arts Festival website: www.hk.artsfestival.org/tc/

Kon

The towering and serene poplar trees of the Dutch village of Neunen, immortalized in Vincent Van Gogh’s "L'allee aux deux promeneur" could soon take up permanent residence halfway around the world in the tropical setting of a modern-day mansion in New Dehli. Saffronart, the booming Indian art auction Web site co-founded by Harvard Business School grads  Minal and Dinesh Vazirani in 2000, is set to open bidding in its inaugural sale of Western art over the next two days, February 15 and 16. The sale, featuring 73 lots by 35 blue-chip western artists, is estimated to bring in $3.3-4.2 million. The works hail from the modernist period in its widest sense, from 1860s to the 1970s, and range in price from $1,500 to $1 million.

While the major brick-and-mortar houses Sotheby's and Christie's look East, Saffronart seems to be looking West — counting on expanding its (mostly) Indian clientelle's taste beyond more familiar domestic masters towards the big names in European and American art. The auction house is a pioneer in the online auction niche — it was the first to sell a work for $1 million at an online auction as well as the first to get a $1 million bid via mobile phone — but it still has a lot of growing to do before it is on the level with the global competition. Saffronart's Chief Operating Officer Nish Bhutani told ARTINFO that varying its offerings is a way for the titan of online art commerce to reach out to new audiences, attracting "young, first-time collectors." He addd that the auction house is "conscious of the growing interest of Indian collectors in Western art, particularly over the last four or five years, and is optimistic about this pioneering auction." 

While the Van Gogh is the standout, there are plenty of other works by well-known artists, and many at relatively affordable prices. In the Impressionist camp, Camille Pissarro’s lush green, sweeping strokes in "Lisiere du Bois" is valued at $220,000-280,000, while the small but colorful "Chalands sur la Seine par temps gris" by French neo-Impressionist Maximilien Luce is expected to fetch $22,000–28,000. The 20th-century works on offer include Salavador Dali's "Untitled (Angels)," a sketch depicting two angels locked in an embrace (est. $20,000-25,000), and a prolific selection of ceramics by Pablo Picasso. The artists Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Georges Braque, David Hockney, and Andy Warhol are also featured. 

– Senator Requests Smithsonian Travel Records: Storm clouds are gathering, once again, over the Smithsonian Institution. Republican senator Charles E. Grassley is demanding to see complete travel documents for Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough after a report revealed that $112,000 of Clough's travel costs were financed by outside donors. Clough's predecessor resigned in 2007 after he was caught using federal funds to finance his travels. [NYT] 

– Breaking the Basquiat Code: Who knew Basquiat was into invisible ink? Experts at Sotheby's have uncovered a hidden signature on the 1982 painting "Orange Sports Figure," which is to go on sale today with an estimate of £3-4 million ($4.7-6.3 million). The artist is known to have signed very few of his works, and the find opens up a whole new front for Basquiat enthusiasts. "The prospect that he might have left other invisible writings on his canvasses that are only visible under ultraviolet light is very exciting," said Cheyenne Westphal, head of the auction house's European contemporary art arm. [AP]

– Huge Trove of Karl Appel Works Found in British Warehouse: The drawings, sketches, and notebooks have been recovered more than a decade after they were stolen from the expressionist artist. They were unearthed by a logistics company while cleaning out a recently purchased warehouse. Appel died in 2006, but the Art Loss Register was appointed to represent his heirs and foundation. The company has released its claim to the find. [Guardian]

– Saatchi Wants to Sell Britain's Turners: The UK should sell some of the 30,300 JMW Turner paintings and drawings given by the artist to the nation in order to buy significant modern and contemporary artworks, writes Charles Saatchi in the Guardian. "It could allow Britain to have a collection of 20th-century art to rival that of MoMA, in New York." [Guardian]

– Watch Psycho Before Heading to MoMA: A new study by the American Psychological Association suggests that people are more likely to be intrigued by abstract art if they have just experienced a good scare. The finding suggests the allure of art may be "a byproduct of one's tendency to be alarmed by such environmental features as novelty, ambiguity, and the fantastic," said Kendall Eskine, the lead author. [Miller-McCune] 

– Champagne Maker Launches Art Foundation: Fondation Louis Roederer pour l’art contemporain has been created to give more visibility to the company's art sponsorship. The Champaign manufacturer's new institution will be a partner of the new Palais de Tokyo, to be unveiled next April. Artist residencies in the Roederer vineyards are also being considered. [AMA]

– Public Artwork Honors Havel: A massive wax heart sculpture, formed from the thousands of candles that Czechs lit to mourn the death of President and poet Vaclav Havel, who died in December, has been placed in front of the National Theater in Prague. [AP]

– Goya Discovered in Mumbai?: While searching a real estate agent's house for firearms, Mumbai police discovered something else explosive: a possible (though unlikely) Goya masterpiece. The painting has been sent to experts for authentication — though the original is thought to be in the collection of the Prado Museum. [Times of India] 

– Silicon Valley Needs More Art: A panel of experts at the recent 2012 Silicon Valley Conference suggested that the tech-focused region may fail to build community because it lacks investment in the arts. [Peninsula Press] 

– Fulya Erdemci Named Curator of the 13th Istanbul Biennial: The writer and curator is currently based in Amsterdam, where she is director of SKOR | Foundation For Art and Public. Erdemci was curator of the 2011 Pavilion of Turkey at the last Venice Biennale. [Press Release] 

– Arts Council England Announces Artists International Development Fund: The Arts Council and the British Council have teamed up to create a £750,000 ($1,178,670) fund dedicated to help English artists travel and develop collaborations overseas. [Press Release]

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Getty Museum Names Timothy Potts as Director, Ending a Two-Year Hunt

BIG Love: Bjarke Ingels Group Architects Built a Luminous Love Letter to New York City

Know Your Backlash: Sleigh Bells’ “Reign of Terror,” Streaming Now

The Show Down: Handicapping the Great Whitney Biennial Vs. New Museum Triennial Face Off of 2012