I don’t expect to spend any part of my weekend (or my life) with the 3-D animated version of Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax” that opens today, but it is interesting to note that, beginning with a Lou Dobbs screed on Fox TV, the movie has been attacked by the right, left (Huffpo and NPR), and center, both as tree-hugging propaganda and a shill for Japanese autos, among other prominently placed, less than green consumer products.

In its commercialism as well as its politics, “The Lorax” is bizarrely true to its creator. Theodor Seuss Geisel drew editorial cartoons for the liberal tabloid PM throughout World War II. (Most were anti-fascist representations of Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini, but his 1942 cartoon of two “reactionary” congressmen aiming a wrecking ball at the “US social structure” could run today.) Upon enlisting in Frank Capra’s documentary film unit, Geisel bonded with future “progressive” filmmakers Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman; in the early ’50s, Kramer bought the rights to Geisel’s “The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.” — a mad, allegorical representation of Hitler in the person of tyrannical, child-abusing piano-teacher named Dr. Terwilliker. (Foreman, originally to direct, had by then been blacklisted.)

A hyper-designed, three-strip Technicolor musical, “The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T” combines a comic opera vision of WW2 with a tract for progressive childrearing (Dr. Seuss, meet Dr. Spock). Dr. T (Hans Conreid, who voiced more than a few comic fascists during the war) is planning to conquer the world through music — he practices slave labor, coercing 499 boys as well as the movie’s hero Bart (Tommy Rettig, later of “Lassie”), to sit together and play a monstrous piano. (Boys who refuse to practice are consigned to a dungeon). The elaborate sets evoke “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and make reference to Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will,” there are images of deportation and, in what has to be a first, one of the songs made reference to “gas chambers” (among other torture devices), although this was later cut. To add to the allegory, the adult hero, an all-American plumber named Zabladowski, must be coaxed to join Bart in the struggle against fascist oppression.

Although “Dr. T” ranks as paranoid kinderkultur with William Cameron Menzies’s similarly expressionist “Invaders From Mars,” also released in 1953, Seuss was evidently unhappy with the result. Columbia, however, prepared for a big release. Seuss biographer Charles D. Cohen writes that the studio orchestrated what was then “the largest merchandising campaign in cinematic history.” The dizzyingly optimistic array of ancillary merchandise included:

barrettes, bracelets, brooches, pins, charms, keychains, rings, stickpins, tie clips, women’s hats, children’s beanies, button-down shirts, T-shirts, dungarees, handkerchiefs, suspenders, ties, puppets, lollipops, balloons, roller skates, phonographs, horns, harmonicas, accordions, concertinas, organs, player pianos with rolls of Dr. T songs, clarinets, and original instruments like the wonder harp and the pick-a-tune gondolier.

A quick look on eBay yielded none of these things, although someone is asking $250 for an original press book and the LP can be had for $199. The official “Dr. T” “Happy Fingers” beanie, topped with a flaccid hand, must be priceless.

Anticipating “Disneyland” ’s epochal “Davy Crockett” show by some 18 months, “Dr. T” was the kiddie craze that never happened — although America might have been a different, better country had there been such a craze. The movie was panned (“strange and confused” per the New York Times), retitled “Crazy Music” and pointlessly rereleased in 1958, and thereafter consigned to TV, where it garnered an underground reputation. Listed in “The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film,” frequently programmed by New York’s Anthology Film Archives, “Dr. T” remains a cult object to this day — a fate that, despite Lou Dobbs’ best efforts at making it sound cool, seems unlikely for “The Lorax.”

Urban Outfitters is under fire yet again for another series of offenses. The Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the retailer after it allegedly ignored a cease and desist order to remove the word “Navajo” from products, as the term is trademarked under the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act. In a separate incident, the company was taken to task by a U.S. congressman for selling insulting St. Patrick’s Day products, including a green T-shirt that reads, “Kiss Me I'm Drunk, Or Irish, Or Whatever” and a baseball cap that has a figure crawling on all fours, vomiting. The hat’s captions states, “Irish Yoga.”

Urban Outfitters has gained notoriety over the years for crossing the line. It has lifted jewelry designs from small designers, earning it a reputation for thievery, and has released items with off-putting themes, like T-shirts with the words “Eat Less”; “New Mexico, Cleaner than Regular Mexico”; and “Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl,” surrounded by dollar bill signs. In 2003, the company upset the African American community when it sold a game called Ghettopoly, which came with cards printed with statements like, “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50.”

The more recent offensive products have representatives of various ethnic groups lambasting the company’s ignorance through open letters.

In October 2011, Sasha Houston Brown of the Santee Sioux Nation wrote an open letter criticizing the Navajo-named products — which included a “Navajo Hipster Panty” and a “Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask” — to Urban Outfitters’s then-CEO Glen T. Senk that read:

“Your corporate Web site claims to ‘offer a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual.’ If this is the case, then clearly you have missed the mark on your target demographic. There is simply nothing educated about your collection, which on the contrary professes extreme ignorance and bigotry.”



A group of legislatures, including U.S. Representative Joe Crowley of New York, who are part of the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs penned a letter aimed at Urban Outfitters CEO Tedford Marlow:

“We recently learned of images used by Urban Outfitters in its St. Patrick’s Day clothing line that depict severe and negative stereotypes of Irish and Irish-American people as well as may promote binge drinking,” read a portion of the letter. “We strongly urge you to end the sale of these items.”


At press time the word “Navajo” was no longer found on the Urban Outfitters Web site, but several products with Native American-inspired patterns were still there. A full range of the questionable Irish-themed items were also for sale.


It’s time for Urban Outfitters execs to take some responsibility for their actions. They boast that their customers are educated, but the Philadelphia-based company needs to get an education of its own, specifically through some courses in race relations and ethics. We’re not sure if it’s hipster irony the company is aiming at with its mockery, but it needs to stop. Here’s to hoping Urban Outfitters doesn’t attempt to capitalize on Linsanity with a T-shirt that reads “Me love you Lin time,” one of the distasteful slogans that appeared during New York Knicks player Jeremy Lin’s overnight climb to stardom. But we wouldn’t be surprised. 

Most people don’t associate Russian protest art with mansions on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, but Soviet-born real-estate-developer-turned-art-collector-turned-artist Janna Bullock found a fitting venue for her installation, “Allegories & Experiences,” in the bare space of a Beaux Arts house on East 82nd Street. Sparked by the massive demonstrations in Russia in late 2011, the exhibition — Bullock's response to the 12-year rule of Vladimir Putin — is timed to coincide with the country’s March 4 presidential elections. 

"The latest developments are quite fascinating and I think as with any dictatorship, no matter how bulletproof it seems, it comes to an end," Bullock says, explaining the motivation behind the work. "And it is my responsibility – and the responsibility of anybody who has position, knowledge, expertise, and will – to make sure that people understand that dictatorship is not forever and they have to stand up for themselves and they have to speak." 

The installation itself is inspired by artists she has worked with as an art patron, like Richard Prince and Ilya Kabakov. It consists of 24 large-scale images of public figures (all but one appropriated from the Internet) – including journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya; former Head of State Mikhail Gorbachev; and billionaire and New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov – strung along the walls. Each image is paired with background text, along with an allegorical “title,” in Russian and English, conceived by Bullock to represent the person in the photo. The images are reproduced with performations around the edges like a giant film strip to emphasize the fact that "all these images look like things we’ve seen before – the cult of one person, the enforcement of one party," she says. 

The 44-year-old Bullock, who emigrated from Saint Petersburg to the United States in 1989, amassed a fortune as founder of the RIGroup, an international real estate investment firm that has made money on development both in New York — where in 2007 she purchased the hole in a building on East 62nd Street where an Upper East Side doctor blew himself up — and Russia, where she has developed shopping malls and luxury homes. Bullock was a one-time trustee of the Guggenheim museum, but took leave abruptly two years ago because of a bitter business dispute in Russia, which, according to the New York Times, involved her company being seized by a firm part-owned by Putin’s former judo coach.

"What I’m seeing now in these last 12 years of Russia under Putin is just a reproduction of an old movie that’s been playing over and over again," Bullock explains, bringing together her aesthetic and political interests. "That old movie was called Socialist Realism."

“Allegories & Experiences,” is on view at 14 East 82nd Street through May 1. The exhibition is open Wednesdays-Sundays, 11 a.m.-6p.m.  

It’s only getting easier and cheaper to make a music video these days — and all the more important, as artists compete to be heard, largely without the benefit of big pushes from major labels. For those reasons, the music video has undergone something of a mini-renaissance. Every week ARTINFO video editor Tom Chen, photo editor Micah Schmidt, and performing arts editor Nick Catucci will choose five of the most visually engaging music clips from the previous few days, presenting highlights from each in a video supercut, and a slideshow of stills that link back to the full videos.

This week:

Gorillaz bring their avatars to life in “DoYaThing.”

Sophia Knapp takes her rain cloud for a walk in “In Paper.”

Ssion throw a sexy/hilarious party for “My Love Grows in the Dark.”

Grimes hangs tough at the big game in “Oblivion.”

Alex Winston experiences indigestion in “Fire Ant.”

Previously: Yuksek, Odd Future, Screaming Females, Islands, Willis Earl Beal

PARIS — Paris Fashion Week has only just started, but it’s already made several big impressions. For the fall/winter collections, each designer has created something new, something subtly bizarre, without going overboard. In particular, two young designers have infused French fashion with a new dynamic spirit, focusing on a female image that is complex, urban, and dreamy. With both fantasy and restraint, they have reinvented the clothing codes of the Parisian woman with a light touch and a clear emphasis on fabric and cut.

At age 33, Cédric Charlier is starting his own line, after injecting a dose of freedom into Cacharel for four seasons and then finding out that his contract had not been renewed — a decision that many found surprising, since Charlier had increased profits along with the trend-value of Cacharel. At Tuesday’s show, the designer offered a very personal vision of a woman who is determined and yet indefinable — much like Catherine Deneuve viewed by Helmut Newton. Secretive, angelic, and demonic, Charlier’s looks included a black leather skirt and blouse; long, tapered coats worn over navy blue flannel; trench coats and T-shirts made of vinyl and Lurex; and a very beautiful piece, which is symbolic of certain French perversion: an immaculate tunic dress, almost monk-like, but with a wide-open back. The show received wild applause and the press seems to be unanimous: Charlier has joined the French fashion dream team, with a pared-down style, a sharp sense of detail, and pedigreed fabrics. As Figaro fashion editor Virginie Mouzat put it, “it’s an emotional experience to see a new signature emerge.”

Anthony Vaccarello’s new line was also hotly anticipated. The Italian-Belgian designer made his mark with a schizophrenic show, somewhere between a very, very Belgian preppie style and a very, very Italian sparkly cocktail dress. To refine the style of his femmes fatales, the new media darling worked with Italian shoe designer Giuseppe Zanotti, who perched the models on golden stilettos, giving an erotic edge to a bold collection that alternated between a military and a jet-set look. Starting with a series of midnight blue satin outfits that were rather manly (fitted pants, sharp shirts, and officer’s coats with many pockets), the collection developed into a hybrid style, presenting asymmetrical dresses with busts that came up like jackets over the shoulder, in an iridescent green palette that is reminiscent of his Belgian compatriot Jan Fabre’s scarab art. Finally, long, alien furs established a classical elegance: geometric at the top, very fluid at the bottom, contrasting deep black with vintage gold. According to Libération's Théodora Aspart, Vaccarello’s collection went “from Savile Row to the Côte d’Azur, via an S&M club ... while avoiding, fortunately, the pitfalls of the Russian mafia look.”

On Wednesday, the high priests of Paris fashion got into action. For them, too, the iconic Catherine Deneuve (who is a fervent Paris Week attendee) imposed a paradoxical female image: very present, very clear, possibly pragmatic, but always moving toward a secret destination, thus necessarily scandalous (didn’t Truffaut say that she was a perfect “daydream actress”?) Felipe Oliveira Baptista showed his “Belle de Jour 2012” collection (after the housewife-turned-prostitute played by Deneuve in the 1967 film of the same name). But on the runway, the Yves Saint Laurent designs worn by Deneuve’s character were traded for patent-leather suits with gray vinyl yokes. Deneuve’s style in the film was exaggerated here by almost rigid mini-dresses and accessories that were fetishized to death, such as long black gloves that climbed up to the models’ shoulders underneath their jackets and overcompensating architectural boots that were more evocative of “Blade Runner” than Paris in the swinging ’60s.

Another highlight on Wednesday was Dries van Noten, whose collection also took a journey, though it was less sci-fi and more Zen. Imitating the art market’s current focus, the designer looked to Asia to create a luxurious and spiritual clothing line that mixed genres. Van Noten also chose to rework military menswear, plunging it into the most feminine sensuality possible. Imperial cranes were embroidered onto military jackets; Japanese samurais stood out on fluid silk smocks; Indonesian ikat prints (similar to tie-dye) took over belted linen jackets and 1930s-inspired satin evening gowns. Meanwhile, the soundtrack by Bon Iver suggested “slowing down time” — a concept that’s light-years away from the fashion merry-go-round. So, logically, this was one of the most chic collections on the runway. 

Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Style, and Performing Arts, February 27 - March 2, 2012:

ART

— Kyle Chayka selected the most worthwhile works in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, which opened this week, dubbing Wu Tsang's contribution the "Punchiest Work" and crediting LaToya Ruby Frazier with the "Best Critique of Commercial Culture." We offered video interviews with both artists, along with Michael Robinson and Georgia Sagri.

— Locked-out Sotheby's art handlers and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement planned protests for the evening of the Biennial's opening because of the auction house's sponsorship.

— The genial art collective known as Bruce High Quality Foundation returned with its 2012 Brucennial, which had some attention-grabbing artworks.

— The artist behind the massive "bat signal" for Occupy Wall Street is set to return this weekend with a new, tricked-out art-mobile for the 99 percent. 

— Armory Week is just a few days away. Check out our comprehensive guide to next week's fairs.

DESIGN & FASHION

— In an extensive feature, Janelle Zara surveyed the many revolutionary applications for new 3-D printing technologies, from rad bespoke sunglasses to prosthetic limbs and face transplants.

— A new exhibition at Los Angeles’s MOCA Pacific Design Center tracks the career of fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, whose bright colors and geometric patterns helped define the look of 1960s America.

— Architect James Ramsey explained his ideas for the "Low Line," a subterrainian park planned for the the Lower East Side.

— Chinese architect Wang Shu, a relative youngster at 48, was awarded this year's Pritzker Prize, architecture's top honor.

— A Mies van der Rohe villa in the Czech Republic that was used as a Nazi outpost and a Red Army stable is about to reopen following a $9 million renovation.

PERFORMING ARTS

— Meryl Streep may have won her third Academy Award last weekend for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, but ARTINFO's new film correspondent J. Hoberman maintains that the wrong Margaret won the Oscar.

— And speaking of the Academy Awards, "The Artist" may have swept the top categories, but "Hugo" took home the technical prizes in a ceremony that Graham Fuller says was "low on schmaltz and bombast compared with previous years."

— Hal Hartley — a hero of indy American cinema — returned to New York this week for the premiere of his latest, "Meanwhile," at the IFC Center. In our Q&A with the auteur he tells us, "'Meanwhile' grew from looking out into the world."

— Nick Catucci is fairly certain that the new hybrid CGI-live action clip for the Gorillaz-Andre 3000-James Murphy song "DoYaThing" is and will remain the best music video of 2012.

— The latest — and, we hope, last — bit of '90s cultural detritus to be nostalgically drudged up for exploitation appears to be much-loathed subgenre rap rock, whose comeback-poised practitioners include Korn and Limp Bizkit.

From the beaches of Montauk, to the VIP rooms of Cuban nightclubs, American photographer Michael Dweck shines a unique perspective on the who's who of communities hidden in plain sight. His newest body of work has just opened in Cuba in a landmark exhibition at the Fototeca de Cuba Museum in Havana. Several thousand guests attended the opening on Friday, Feburary 24, according to the museum's director, making it the single largest event in the institution's history. Alongside a slew of Cuban Cultural Ministers and foreign ambassadors from Sweden, Spain, and France, at least two offspring of Cuban revolutionary politicos, Alex Castro and Camilio Guevara — both artists depicted in Dweck's photos — were also in attendance.

Dweck's series trains its eye on an unexpected facet of the communist nation, its glamorous creative elite — the so-called "farandula." It has been touring San Francisco, Tokyo, New York, Toronto, and Art Basel Miami Beach before finally making its way to Havana. He's donating the 90 photographs from the show, valued at over $500,000, to the museum and the Cuban people. By any standard, the art event was a major event for Cuban society. The artist spoke recently with ARTINFO about his immersion in Cuban society, the politics surrounding the work, and what he is planning next.

How did this show come about? Did you have an initial interest in Cuban society as a subject, or did you stumble into it?

I suppose I stumbled onto the subject matter: the “farandula,” the parties, etcetera, but, you can't really stumble into Cuban society — not as an American. But I knew I wanted to go to Cuba for a while — there's a draw to the island I can't really describe, some kind of dangerous and sensual beauty. And there's also the factor I've mentioned before: "There's something going on here that people have no idea about."

When my friends asked about the first trip — the reasons for it — I told them "I'm going fishing," as a joke, but the joke became the truth. I spend a lot of time out in Montauk and I love to fish, but even the best fishermen in the world will tell you that there's a lot of guesswork to the sport. And that became the apparent tie — the realization that, in some cases, all you can do is do the prep work. In the case of photographing in Cuba, that meant having the Visas, the lenses, and the right mindset: "I'll talk to whoever I need to get to the bottom of something." It sounds easy when I talk about it now, but it took a lot of humility in a sense to go to this tiny, insular country as a true "outsider" and try to sneak up on beauty, truth....

I guess it snuck up on me, as much as I hunted it down. It took the bait, if you will, but not in a sinister way. And the end result was the body of work I shoot for — something in which each photograph stands on its own but also contributes to a larger spirit that informs the body's overarching narrative. Here the final narrative depicted a privileged world unknown in the West and still unacknowledged within Cuba.

Since the show has traveled internationally, how does showing it in Cuba affect the meaning of the photographs?

That's a good question. I'm not sure I have a good answer though. I always find it interesting to see how people react to my exhibitions, but this was definitely the show I worried about the most, given the subject matter and the audiences.

On one hand, you have domestic reactions from people who have been told what I've been told — the Cold War rhetoric about Cuba being an evil, unhappy island; a police state. How would these people react to images of Cuba in celebration? And what about the Cubans themselves? How would they feel about the glitz that surrounds the group depicted? It was never my intention to showcase the "rules" or "exceptions" of Cuba — but would this come through?

The answers have been reassuring. American audiences, for the most part, have received the project for what it is: a document (but not documentary) reflecting a privileged class of people in a classless society. They seem to have been able to understand the political nuances, without letting that corrupt the humanity and depth of the portraits.

As for the Cuban reaction — that's been phenomenal. The opening attracted a record 2,300 people to the Fototeca de Cuba Museum, and the reception's atmosphere mirrored the reception of the work. Cubans welcomed it as what it was: an honest look into a world both foreign and local that offers escape, potential and maybe a wink of irony. And that's all it was supposed to be.

Are there any political tensions surrounding the making and showing of this body of work, either from the Cuban or American side?

The short answer is "no." The long answer is "not really." No, Cuba was great about everything — the government, I mean. Even before I knew the full scope of the project, the officials I worked with were very forthcoming and welcoming. They set me up with all the papers I needed, the visas, etc.

The artists I photographed were a little more reticent at first — as well they should have been. Americans with cameras haven't always gone to the island with objectivity — much less art — in mind. But once I hung around for a while and made the details of the project known, they were very kind and receptive.

I think they understood that the point of my art ran parallel with theirs — in that it had the potential of exposing certain truths about Cuba to the rest of the world. I've said before that Cuba's artists serve as ambassadors for a country that needs ambassadors more than anything. And that tugs on the book's political pant leg... the one that doesn’t depict people moving about cocktail parties, but moving "around" political ones.

That ties to the only tensions that I encountered in the US — the large ex-pat community, especially that in Miami. There are misguided individuals among them who have accused the book of being "pro-Castro," to which I counter, "It's not pro-Castro, it's pro-Cuba." I try to explain to them that you can have pride in a country — or at least, concern for it — without having pride in its leadership. (If you hung a flag after 9/11, you may know the feeling.)

I think "Habana Libre" is for them — the ex-pats in Miami — as much as it's for the Cubans in Havana, or the Americans in Washington: it's about being mature enough to put aside prejudice and the past and see things as they truly exist… whether you like it or not.

The participation of figures like Alex Castro and Camilo Guevara makes your work inextricably linked to Cuban and American politics, yet the photographs present a group of people that seem to come and go, and live life without restraint from the government. What impact does the "farandula" have on Cuba's political present and future?

I’m not sure you can separate the impact the "farandula" has on government from the impact of the government on the "farandula," you know?

For starters, this scene exists — the art scene and the celebration within it — because Castro allows it. He's a self-proclaimed patron of the arts as much as he's a fan of baseball or a proponent of medicine. For him, having a vibrant art scene is essential to have a vibrant population — and that's why these artists receive the considerations they do. That's why they're allowed to travel freely and the like. As I said, they're the ambassadors.

That said, this isn't 1959 anymore. The increasing ease of communication and travel has led to a certain global community and that's going to be felt everywhere — even in countries where communication and travel is difficult. That's where these artists come in. They show the rest of the world Cuba and they show Cuba the rest of the world. It moves slowly, but it moves surely, and while they may not be frontline activists, they're helping to inform Cuba's evolving 21st century policy.

In the last year, we've seen increasing freedoms granted in regard to travel, home sales, business creation, money transfers… Sure, part of it is that the country's functionally broke and not receiving the foreign aid it once had. But I believe the soul of the artist contributes, as it does anywhere.

You make life in Havana look absolutely decadent — sexy and full of the leisure afforded only by privilege, money, and youth. However, if "Habana Libre" depicts "the other" Cuba, it must have been hard to avoid the rest of the populace that doesn't feature in the book. What else did you experience in Cuba, which affected your work and made an impact on you?

I don't think I made a conscious effort to "avoid the rest of the populace that doesn’t feature in the book." I made artistic decisions about the book's subject and held my focus.

I think it's important to remember that "Habana Libre" doesn't depict Cuba, nor Havana, but a group of people in the city, in the country — my ideal vision. It's no different than the photographs that come out of Fashion Week in New York. They depict a very small subset of a very large and complex society. When publishing photographs of a model on a catwalk, the photographer doesn't have a responsibility to juxtapose them with images of impoverished children in the South Bronx or remind the audience that to get to the shoot, he or she had to share a subway car with a homeless man who soiled his pants. It's the same city, but a different focus.

Cuba is a diverse place with no shortage of suffering and poverty. I’m not pretending that it's not, but I'm also not presenting that as my thesis. When the Cultural Ministers open the doors for a National Geographic crew, they can field those questions. I went to Cuba with long and short lenses, but I aimed them very carefully.

Now that you've left Havana, what projects do you have coming up?

I’m working on a tantalizing project called "Checks and Balances" featuring candid shots of "pro-family" US Congressmen engaged in extramarital affairs. No. That's a joke (though it's not a bad idea… plenty of material for fodder).

If you know me, you know my next move is dependent on the prior move — like I described before about my arrival in Cuba. You can see the process in all my work. I pick settings, set-up the cameras, then I zoom-in on elements of note. With Montauk, it was Island — Beach — Youth. With Mermaids, it was Water — Impressionism — Female Form. All I can do is give you a hint of the next keywords floating around in my head: Film. Paris. Growth. Now you know as much as I do.

To see photos of the opening and some of the works in the show, click on the slide show.

Much has been made of the changes in store at this year’s Armory Show. To stave off competition from all sides — most notably, the arrival of Frieze Art Fair in May — New York’s marquee art fair is marketing itself as smaller, more elite, and more curated than ever before. But exactly what kind of alterations and additions can we expect? ARTINFO has rounded up the major changes at this year’s Armory Show, from interactive performances to an entirely new floorplan. Now you’ll know what to look for when you hit the piers.

IT'S SMALLER

Perhaps the biggest difference from editions past is the number of galleries participating in the show. Last year — and many years past, actually — visitors complained the Armory felt a bit bloated and overwhelming. In an effort to address the issue, organizers cut the list from 274 galleries to 220. “You’ll see the difference very materially on Pier 94 in particular,” said Noah Horowitz, managing director of the Armory Show. The contemporary art section was slimmed down by 25 percent, he said, which will give the galleries that remain a substantially larger footprint.

THERE WILL BE NEW FACES

In addition to luring back some galleries that had defected from the Armory in previous years — Spruth Magers, Greene Naftali, and David Zwirner among them — the fair will host a new section for young galleries mounting solo presentations. Horowitz said he looked for galleries doing innovative work in their local markets, including On Stellar Rays, which will exhibit work by Clifford Owens on the heels of his exhibition at MoMA PS1, and Winkleman Gallery, which will show pieces by Jen Dalton, known for her biting, feminist art-world critique. The roster is also more international than in years past, according to Horowitz: the Armory will host four galleries from Korea and three from Istanbul, among other new international names.

IT WILL HAVE A NEW FLOORPLAN

No makeover would be complete without a new look, and the Armory’s got one. For the first time, the company hired an architect — Bade Stageberg Cox — to streamline the fair’s layout. (That meant reducing the number of aisles, adding new sit-down restaurants, and expanding the size of the VIP lounge. The redesign also, hopefully, means less time retracing your steps to find an exit.) Some of the additional cafes have been designed with a wink: one is entirely furnished with found tables and chairs spray painted taxi cab yellow.

PERFORMANCE COMES OUT TO PLAY

Perhaps the most innovative change to this year’s Armory program is a focus on performance. The Armory’s official artist, Theaster Gates, will hold court at Pier 94 Café from Thursday through Saturday, inviting friends and unfamiliar visitors alike to engage in conversation. (The event recalls his breakthrough performance from 2007, “Plate Convergance,” in which Gates invited locals and artists to a highly stylized dinner party.) In keeping with the fair’s geographical focus, many of the performers hail from Nordic countries. On Wednesay at 7 p.m., the collective FOS will recreate "Osloo," a floating pavilion and performance hub that most recently appeared in the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The Icelandic artist Örn Alexander Ámundason will also perform a 14-minute concert, titled “Kreppa,” that attempts to show what a financial collapse sounds like. “Too often art fairs are seen as a bubble-like shelter for painting, photography, and sculpture,” said Horowitz. “We really wanted the Armory to reflect the whole breadth of practices that are capturing the attention of audiences and artists today.”

Now, we’ll just have to wait to see whether their substantial effort pays off. Happy fairgoing.  

– Eddie Izzard Conceives "Italian Job" Performance: Eddie Izzard has something special planned for the upcoming 2012 London Olympics. And we mean special as in "strange," "bizaare," or "out of the ordinary." The comedian has announced that he is  paying an artist £70,000 to recreate the final scene of the 1969 film "The Italian Job" by balancing a coach off the roof of the De La Warr Pavilion in East Sussex. Make no mistake, this is a patriotic gesture: The vehicle used in the exhibition will be painted in British team colors. "By the end of 2012 I hope the word goes out from our country that not only do we run excellent world events, but also balance coaches on the edges of buildings like no one else ever could," said Izzard. (The happening is also funded by Arts Council England and the Henry Moore Foundation.) [Telegraph] 

– Tate Acquires Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds: London's Tate has acquired 10 tons of Ai Weiwei's famous porcelain sunflower seeds, which filled the museum's Turbine Hall in 2010, for an undisclosed price. Don't expect a full-scale recreation anytime soon though: The amount the Tate has purchased represents less than a tenth of the 100 million seeds, all individually sculpted and painted by Chinese craft works, used for the original installation. [Guardian] 

– Rembrandt Headed to London Auction Block: The Rembrandt panel painting "A Bust of a Man in a Gorget and Cap" (1626-27) will lead an auction of works from Pieter Dreesmann's private collection of Dutch Old Masters at Christie's in July. The entire collection of 19 works is expected to fetch over $30 million, and the Rembrandt portrait's high estimate is $19 million. [Bloomberg]

– Sotheby's Stock Tanks After Quarterly Income Announced: Shares of the publicly traded auction house fell nine percent after it announced that quarterly net income fell 26 percent from a year earlier, to $71.5 million. Though Sotheby's reported annual profit of $171.4 million, its best year since 2007, it believes European economic turmoil spooked some potential sellers in the last quarter. [Bloomberg]

– Vermeer's Woman in Blue Shines Anew Thanks to Japanese Tour: The Rijksmuseum's "Woman in Blue Reading a Letter" (1663-64) has been fully restored thanks to a hefty fee paid by Japanese museums to exhibit the piece last year. During the conservation process, carried out at the Rijksmuseum before the tour, several layers of yellow varnish and discolored retouching were removed, revealing the original shape of a chair in the right-hand corner as well as a row of brass nails beneath the seat. The piece will be unveiled in Amsterdam on March 30. [TAN]

– Viral Art Hits Learn New Tricks: Los Angeles-based photographer Seth Casteel's series of vivid underwater photographs of dogs became an Internet sensation last month. But unlike many viral phenomena, Casteel (with the help of a publicity firm) has managed to parlay his online popularity into financial success — and more exposure for his non-profit, which trains animal shelter workers to take better adoption photos. [Wired] 

– Slick Art Fair Expands to Brussels: Paris's intimate Slick Art Fair art fair, founded in 2006, will launch its first edition in the Belgian capital from April 20 to 22, during Art Brussels. It will take place at the Wild Gallery and is expecting 10,000 visitors. [AMA]

– Prince Harry Visits South American Artists: On an official tour of Belize, the red-headed prince toured an art exhibition on the border of Guatemala and spoke with children at work in a local art studio. He went on to visit Xuanantunich, a centuries-old Mayan site with a pyramid and former royal palace. [Examiner] 

– A New Prize for Arts Journalism: The British Sunday paper the Observer has teamed up with the Anthony Burgess Foundation to lauch a prize for arts journalism. To enter the competition, which celebrates the work of the "A Clockwork Orange" author, applicants must write an essay on "brand new work in the arts." The winning entry will be announced next November and published in the Observer. [Guardian]

– Rolling Stone Gathers Moss: The 340-boulder that will become Michael Heizer's "Levitated Mass" once its 11-day, 105-mile journey from a quarry east of Los Angeles to the LACMA campus is back on schedule. After coming up two miles short on Thursday night, the 100-person crew guiding the rock towards its resting place pulled a double-shift Sunday morning to get the stone up to speed. It's due to arrive at LACMA on March 10. [LAT]

– '70s Bohemians Versus Millennial Careerists: Painters Deborah Kass — who moved to New York in 1974 — and Amy Lincoln — who arrived in 2006 — discuss their different expectations and experiences of the art world in the Wall Street Journal. "We're definitely very career-oriented," says Lincoln. "Art wasn't a career, I just wanted to paint," retorts Kass. "I moved to New York to become a famous waitress." [WSJ]

– Meet the Latest Museum Director Darling: The tiny Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver is quickly becoming one of the most successful experimental exhibition spaces in America with the help of director Adam Lerner. (His trademark lecture series pairs a highbrow topic with a lowbrow one, tackling subjects like "Wittgenstein and Hula Dancing.") Lerner says his unorthodox approach comes out of a desire "to capture the spirit of art, which may be more important than art itself." [NYT]

– Spanish Architect Rafael Moneo Recieves Thomas Jefferson Award: Moneo will be presented the medal in architecture by the University of Virginia on Jefferson's birthday.  His best-known works in the U.S. include the Davis Art Museum at Wellesley College and the Northwest Corner Building at Columbia University. [Press Release]

– RIP "Star Wars" Artist Ralph McQuarrie: The artist who designed some of the most iconic "Star Wars" characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and R2-D2, has died at 82. "His genial contribution, in the form of unequalled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy," said director George Lucas in a statement. "When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph's fabulous illustrations and say, 'do it like this'." [BBC]

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Name: Mary Kelly
Age: 70
Occupation: Artist/Professor at UCLA
City/Neighborhood: Los Angeles

What project are you working on now?

Another spin on the domestic bomb shelter. This one converts the kitchen table into an all purpose bed and bunker. Would make a great "Occupy" camper, too.

Both of your works on view at Postmasters, “Habitus,” a sculpture modeled from a bomb shelter, and “Mimus,” a compressed lint painting that incorporates depositions taken from anti-McCarthyist activists, look back to the Cold War era. Why is it important to revisit this political moment today?

Obviously, the Cold War isn’t over yet. We’re on the brink of a confrontation with Iran, and McCarthy would have loved the Defense Authorization Act.

You have used dryer lint before in other project-based works, such as “Mea Culpa,” “The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi,” and “Vox Manet.” What is it like to work with dryer lint, and what continuously draws you to this medium?

The ephemeral quality of it. 

You have said that the bomb shelter work, “Habitus,” harkens back to “the political primal scene.” (In psychoanalysis, the Primal Scene occurs when a child witnesses his or her parents having sex.) What do you mean by this? 

Freud says the primal scene is basically a question about origins, and as children, we answer it by filling in the gaps in what our parents say with an imaginary family saga. So the mystery of where we come from is initiated by the sexual scenario, but it ultimately includes the grand narratives of social change that make claims on the present and the future, and I call this “the political primal scene.”

Your famous “Post Partum Document,” which detailed your relationship to your son over a six-year period following his birth, radically exemplified the feminist slogan, “The personal is political.” In your opinion, what are the stakes of feminist art today?

I would say “art informed by feminism” rather than feminist art. It’s not a style or  definitive movement, but an interrogation of sexual difference and patriarchal social forms that cuts across all disciplines. But right now, there’s a kind of “been there, done that” mentality that risks losing everything we’ve gained so far, simply through lack of vigilance.

What's the last show that you saw?

Sanja Ivekovic at MoMA.

What's the last show that surprised you? Why?

 “Under the Big, Black Sun” at MOCA. I was reminded that a lot of real thinking was going on in the '70s and '80s, and I was surprised the work still looked so good.

What's your favorite place to see art?

The Met, not necessarily to see art, but to feel immersed in an overwhelming density of cultural legacies while I’m listening to chamber music in the loggia.

Do you make a living off your art?

Depends what you mean by living. I’m still part of the 99%.

What's the most indispensable item in your studio?

My kitchen spatula.

Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?

Around the house.

Do you collect anything? 

Nope.

What's the last artwork you purchased?

I trade work with artists I like.

What's the first artwork you ever sold?

The first significant sale was a section from "Post-Partum Document" that went to the Zurich Museum in 1979, I think.

What's the weirdest thing you ever saw happen in a museum or gallery?

In 1969, a grad student from St. Martin’s School of Art was cutting up and bagging a would-have-been beautiful work as a prologue to an event at the London ICA called “Unword.” Afterwards, I introduced myself and asked him why. A few years later, I married him.

What's your art-world pet peeve?

VADD (visual attention deficit disorder).

What's your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?

Cookshop.

Do you have a gallery/museum-going routine?

I’m not a routine type.

Know any good jokes?

What do you call a sentence without a period? Menopausal.

What's the last great book you read?

"Anna Karenina," again. But this time I felt sorry for Vronsky.

What work of art do you wish you owned?

Duchamp’s "Dust Breeding" work from the Green Box.

What would you do to get it?

Umm … get up early?

What international art destination do you most want to visit?

Cairo.

LONDON — An early Picasso painting, which has been publicly displayed in Britain since 1974, is to be sold at Christie's if no public museum or gallery comes forward and bids on it in the next three months. Though it has become a national treasure, the painting is privately owned by the aristocratic Aberconway family of Wales, which has announced its intention to sell off the work, estimated to be worth a staggering £50 million ($79 million).

Analysts believe that the chances of a UK institution raising the cash to purchase the piece are slim. The logical choice to purchase the work for the country would be the National Gallery, which showed the work from 1974 to 2011 — but that institution's "legacy reserves" were spent on the recent £45 million ($71 million) joint purchase of Titian's "Diana and Callisto" with the National Galleries of Scotland, a masterpiece by the Venetian master that another aristocrat, the Duke of Sutherland, had threatened to sell off to the highest bidder if the nation couldn't raise the cash to stop him.

"Child with a Dove" (1901) was painted by the Spaniard in Paris at the beginning of his "Blue Period," when he was only 19. It pictures a small child holding a white bird to her chest, with a multi-colored ball lying at her feet. "This is a particularly iconic picture," a representative of the Courtauld Gallery told ARTINFO UK. "It's much loved, particularly because of the subject matter of a child with a dove, so it's always been a very popular picture wherever it's been on view. "

The piece has been in the Aberconway family since 1928, when it was bequeathed to Lady of Aberconway Christabel McLaren by legendary British collector Samuel Courtauld. It is currently on show at Tate Britain's "Picasso and Modern British Art" blockbuster exhibition. "It's a really important work for us because it was owned by one of the greatest British collectors of modern art, and it was a really singular picture within his collection," Tate's Helen Little told ARTINFO UK.

Since the piece was publically shown, the current owner was exempt from inheritance tax when he first received the piece, but this tax would become payable if the work was to be sold privately. Under UK regulations, owners in this situation have to publish a notice of intention of sale via the Arts Council England's Acquisitions, Exports, Loans and Collections Unit, and allow three months for national collections to decide whether they are in a position to acquire it.

The Courtauld Gallery would be a natural home for "Child with a Dove," but the organization has no acquisition budget. "We are utterly dependent on people who gift, bequeath, or loan us paintings," said the Courtauld Gallery representative. "We will not be setting up a fund to try and save it."

A version of this story originally appeared at ARTINFO UK.

The SPRING/BREAK Art Show, set to debut during Armory Week at an old school house in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood, is a fresh proposition in more than one sense: It's both the first time out for the fledgling fair, and it is trying out an entirely new art-fair concept. To wit, while most fairs center on galleries, Spring/Break promises to be "curator-focused." While an overarching theme has been set by the organizers — the cryptic title “Apocalist: A Brief History of the End” — each one of the building's various classrooms will be overseen by one of 23 invited curators, ranging from former Flux Factory director Chen Tamir to Lower East Side gallerist Helen Toomer-Labzda. Recently, ARTINFO put some questions to fair directors Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly (both of art event company The They Co.) via email, to get a sense of the inspiration behind the new event and what to expect.

How did you come to decide to add a new fair to the Armory Week madness? It seems like a big risk!

SPRING/BREAK Art Show came out of an impulse that began with the recession: to find alternative ways of showcasing artworks, supporting curatorial projects, and repurposing non-traditional spaces for an update into the art dialogue. Ambre consulted for Design Miami/ for several years, and learned the art fair world when it was at its peak. Because of the recession, now it seems like people are trying to rediscover something meaningful in the art milieu — something that reaches beyond the commercial component.

From this impulse we began doing one-night art shows in this old gymnasium. They were crazed events that would consist of assembling gallery walls in totally non-traditional, historic corners of New York real estate, building a crowd of hundreds, and then breaking it all down by midnight. Logistically, these events were grueling and the payback was uncertain, but we kept hearing "this feels like old New York," "this feels like Berlin," and "this never happens in Manhattan anymore." We knew we were on the right track.

This fair comes out of those early exhibitions, and offers a continuation of the "test run" we helmed during the New Museum's “Festival of Ideas for the New City,” last May. Our interest is in using the art fair model as a springboard for a statement. We're not a typical fair experience — the “Playtime-esque” grey cubicles are nowhere to be found, and even exhibition walls are used only on a single floor. We are redistributing the focus away from galleries and onto curators (though many curators are gallery owners/directors themselves). Additionally, the entire fair will exist under the umbrella of a unifying exhibition theme. On a week that hosts tens of thousands of spectators, there’s a great audience to appeal to, no matter the risk.

What does it mean to be a "curator-focused" fair? Why go in that direction?

The decision to coincide with Armory Week is a gesture to take this established arts week — great for many things — and make the argument that there is no reason why an art fair can't also incorporate a unified context for the artwork. A typical trade show is this incredibly exciting and overwhelming parade of contemporary art, but sometimes the parade can feel like it has no bandleader; the work is all marching to different rhythms, and is corralled by no curatorial experience. A curatorial context gives the phenomenon of an art fair a sense of purpose, exterior to mere commerce. Though we are no enemies of the fiscal transaction that powers the week, it could be nice to reevaluate why the work is valuable to begin with, why New York is a valuable home for the display of this work and the historical and intellectual context that weigh in to the equation. Specifically, it means that curators compose spaces with work for the fair rather than galleries. A gallery is an essential platform for a statement, but the person who decides what to hang and where it’s placed lends relevance. 

How did you go about selecting the curators involved with this show? What's the process of working with them been like?

The curators were selected pretty universally by parceling the relevant art movements within New York by borough, and inviting very specific contributors to those movements to show themselves to the larger international art audience. Relevancy should no longer begin and end in Chelsea — especially to the international collector and art-interested out-of-towner. Jamie Sterns and Helen Toomer-Labzda represent this growing gallery scene on the Lower East Side, with Envoy Enterprises and Toomer Labzda gallery, respectively. Then you have Tom Weinrich of Inter State gallery who is assembling these highly immersive, wildly fresh exhibitions in Bushwick, or Angela Conant who amasses these educational platforms for art in Gowanus with partner Ben Cohen. These other boroughs are growing out of "art party" infancy and achieving a real maturity in what they can say and do in the culture. Chelsea understands this, otherwise they wouldn't have migrated Luhring Augustine to Bushwick just weeks ago.

In contrast, you have the seasoned independent curator in Maureen Sullivan who brings Eve Sussman to the repurposed school we're inhabiting. She says, "this reminds me of loft shows I used to do in the '80s. I'm in," and she's doing a site specific film installation. Or, Natalie Kovaks who has arranged the New York premiere of Troika's "Farenheit 451" lightning drawings. All of them are taking on this project because they are passionate about context, and they see the historical context the building lends to the work and to the art world in general. I think we all see something enlivening in it. In terms of working with them, they are seldom difficult co-workers. They inspire us endlessly.

Can you describe a few of the projects you’re most excited about?

Independent curator Cecelia Stucker has assembled a room of emerging female artists including Sage Grazer, Violet Dennison, and Jane Moseley, among others. Amanda Schmitt will curate a room of what she calls “neo-romantic” artists, who deal with the need to revere the natural world and seek some kind of Thoreau-style relationship to it, despite cynicism. Artist Miky Fabrega will be on site the entire run, drawing attendees of the show.

Then, Eve Sussman's work and the Ted Hughes-inspired film installation of Simon Lee and Algis Kizys are thrilling contributions, curated by Maureen Sullivan. Musician group/video collaborative “Fall On Your Sword” will also be making this interactive collage of Hollywood apocalypses wired to a gutted piano. Desi Santiago's haunting inflatable sculptures curated by Jamie Sterns and Jamie O'Shea, recreating the Internet out of only natural materials in a forest — is that too many things to mention? Everything's good! 

You describe the fair as a "break" from the other fairs. How much does the audience overlap? To what degree is it a commercial proposition, or are you going for a different audience altogether?

The "break" is really in the addition of new elements. We're not saying there's anything wrong with the art fair as an entity, and shows like the Armory and Volta are doing actually quite well, and have been supportive of us since September. Where we differ is in taking the model they've perfected and offering another flavor. 

It is a commercial proposition, but one that assumes that more people always attend than buy art — so why not create an experience for everyone? We are asserting a reason to offer a commercial transaction to collectors and the international art audience. We are not subtracting the commercial element, as works will be for sale. Commerce can rise to the level of substance, and in an "art" week, it is probably about time that it does.

Any plans to do "SPRING/BREAK" elsewhere?

We're certainly interested in re-purposing unused historical buildings as a home for a new kind of annual exhibition experience. It is just as much a statement on fairs as it is a statement on contemporary art. Wherever major fairs migrate we would also love to be, to provide this complimentary amendment to the fair phenomenon by adding curatorial context to the traditional fair model in order to explore new contributions in contemporary art. 

Right now, we love the context that Old School brings to the event. Nostalgia can be its own kind of delusion, but the space does connect people instantly to a sense of "old New York,” a time before the sterilization and infinite Duane Reades. We would never claim that this is "better," but since no other art fair or an art fair location like this exists, it feels like it is an essential component. We think New York has been waiting for something like this. If you're asking whether we'd ever move to the Javits Center, the answer is no.

To see a selection of work that will be featured in the SPRING/BREAK Art Show, click on the slide show. 

The casting of Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” means there’s a fair chance Johansson will be seen in a white Maidenform bra in a re-creation of the 1960 film’s scandalous opening scene, in which Marion Crane (Leigh) and her divorced boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin) have a lunchtime tryst.

She may even be glimpsed in a black Maidenform bra if the movie shows the filming of the two scenes in which Marion wears one, the blackness signifying her “deviance” as an unmarried sexually active woman and the thief of $40,000.

But don’t bank on Johansson appearing naked in a shower as Norman Bates’s knife is plunged in and out of a Casaba melon to make the exact stabbing sounds required by Hitchcock (who will be played by Anthony Hopkins). Despite Leigh’s avowals that she appeared in all 45 seconds of the horrific murder sequence, a body double was used to show Marion's fleshiest parts.

Her name was Marli Renfro, a Playboy Bunny and Las Vegas stripper who was paid $500 for appearing in one of the most famous scenes in film history. She subsequently appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1962 soft-porn comedy Western “Tonight for Sure.”

In 2001, it was reported that Renfro, who is still alive, had been raped and strangled in 1988, but the victim of the "Psycho"-obsessed killer was the 71-year-old Beverly Hills actress Myra Jones – real name Davis – who had been Leigh’s stand-in on "Psycho." “Zodiac” author Robert Graysmith, who had been infatuated from afar with Renfro as a youth, wrote a badly reviewed book hinging on the mistaken identity.

Inherited by Fox Searchlight from Paramount where it was four years in development, “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” will be directed by Sacha Gervasi (“Anvil! The Story of Anvil”). The screenplay is by “Black Swan” writer John McLaughlin, Tom Thayer, and Stephen Rebello, who adapted it from Rebello’s meticulously researched 1990 book about how Hitchcock forced the film into being.

In 1959, Hitchcock read Robert Bloch’s novelization of the grisly career of murderer and graverobber Ed Gein, recommended to him by his highly trusted personal assistant Peggy Robertson. When he brought the idea of filming it to Paramount, the studio responded with a fit of “executive apoplexy," so he set about self-financing it and producing it through Shamley, the company which made “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” for Universal TV and CBS.

He hired key crew members from the frugally filmed show, including cinematographer John L. Russell, who shot "Psycho" in black and white to keep the cost down and because Hitchcock knew that the redness of Marion Crane’s blood would be too much for audiences in 1969. In the event, chocolate syrup was used.

Paramount agree to distribute the film after Hitchcock deferred his $250,000 salary in exchange for 60 per cent ownership of the negative. Probably the first star of a Hollywood movie to be killed off at the end of the first act, Leigh was paid a quarter of her normal $100,000. “Psycho” returned $11.2 million on its cost of $806,950.

Garvasi’s movie will focus on the struggle to get the film made and Hitchcock’s strange, troubled relationship with his loyal wife and confidante, Alma Reville. Helen Mirren has been cast as Reville and James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates (and never escaped the iconic role).

Leigh, who died in 2004, maintained that her relationship with Hitchcock was thoroughly professional, contrasting with his Svengal–Trilby relationships with her “Psycho” co-star Vera Miles, Grace Kelly, and Tippi Hedren. This could help make “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” a pro-Hitchcock portrait compared with the anti-Hitchcock portrait “The Girl,” an upcoming BBC film depicting the director’s alleged sexual harassment of Hedren, his “Birds” and “Marnie” star.

“Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” starts filming next month.

Previously: Sienna Miller to star in “The Girl”
Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” and “Suspicion” to be remade

"Psycho" trailer: