In 1954, the powerful American political columnist and cold warrior Joseph Alsop discovered that the KGB had photos of him having sex with a young Russian male in a Moscow hotel room. His response figures in the denouement of “The Columnist,” the new Broadway drama by David Auburn, the Pulitzer-prize-winning author of “Proof.” The play, which Daniel Sullivan is directing, begins previews on April 6 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Friedman Theatre and stars John Lithgow. Alsop, who had the ears of presidents, becomes a ferocious defender of the Vietnam War in the 1960s,  pitting himself against such skeptics as  James “Scotty” Reston, then Washington Bureau Chief of the New York Times, and David Halberstam, one of his eager young reporters. In the play, the latter contemptuously dismisses Alsop as the arrogant standard bearer of a “dying WASP elite.” But while Auburn debates the polarizing issues of the period, he insists that his play is not “polemical,” but rather an attempt to understand a complex and ambitious man trapped not only by his sexuality, but also history. 

What did you find so theatrical about Alsop?
In the context of the times, he certainly had a secret that would have destroyed his career had it become publicly known. So the idea of someone operating at a very high level under that kind of pressure just seemed inherently dramatic. This person is under strain all the time. Also just the idea that someone who was so vociferously anti-Communist was himself a victim of Soviet treachery out to humiliate and destroy him. Everything must’ve been very personal to him.

How was he able to navigate under that pressure?
He was an extraordinary egomaniac who had tremendous enthusiasm for the work, knowing powerful people, and exercising his influence. He lived to inhabit and charm that world very aware of his ability not just to discuss policy but  to effect it. We discovered a recording [from the Lyndon Johnson presidential tapes] in which Alsop is on the phone with Johnson just after the Kennedy assassination. They are talking about what would eventually become the Warren Commission Report. And Johnson can’t get a word in edgewise! Alsop keeps interrupting the President of the United States — “No, no, Lyndon, you don’t understand …” He had that kind of power.

Was Alsop blinded by it?
I think it’s important to say that he had real integrity both as a reporter and a very fine writer. He was a very serious, gifted, and thoughtful man but at some point became a very compromised one.  

What was the turning point?
The Kennedy assassination. He had been at the zenith of his power, his golden period. He had backed this horse and the horse had come in. And then this incredible loss pushed him in a direction that was more and more inflexible and more and more intolerant of other opinions. The tragedy is that someone so smart and knowledgeable, who had so much access and wielded such influence,  could become so wedded to a disastrous idea [the Vietnam War]. The idea of writing about someone whose political opinions are so different from mine appealed to me but I didn’t want to write about someone who I just despised or found uncongenial.  Many aspects of him were courageous and admirable.

Why was his rivalry with Halberstam so bitter?
Part of it was Alsop’s idea of “earned authority.” That only people with a certain age, experience and background were allowed to speak about the world, an older elitist vision of America. What was so impossible for him about the Vietnam era was that suddenly you had this younger generation, who he saw as having no credentials, challenging him … He was caricatured and mocked fairly widely.  There was an Art Buchwald Broadway farce in 1970 [“Sheep on the Runway”] which had crazily hawkish character, a journalist,  called “Joe Mayflower.” It infuriated Alsop.

To what extent  is your play a cautionary tale about being “inside the citadel,” as you put it?
Well, if you look at the run up to the Iraq War, the people who got it right, who came out looking good,  were the mid-level journalists, the Knight-Ridder journalists and editors, who were interviewing the mid-level CIA analysts and people closer to the ground. The people who were getting their information from top sources ended up looking very foolish. Joe only identified and worked with generals and cabinet heads and that warped his perspective. I could gas off but the play doesn’t have a polemical intent.

Is there someone of his power and stature out there today?
No. That’s one of the interesting thing about Alsop’s period. You really had a handful of newspaper columnists who spoke with real authority and with the object of influencing not just opinion but policy. That’s simply not true anymore and that’s a good thing. Opinion has become so atomized and democratized by the web and the decline of newspapers.

And is there a downside?
Yeah. Absolutely. I think the good side of that old elite gate keeping was that in Alsop’s era something like the “death panels” could never have made it into the public discourse; they wouldn’t have let a lie like that stand. And we don’t have that anymore and so this stuff can now circulate more easily.

Given Alsop’s enormous power at the time — and his lust for it — what made him so reckless when it came to his sexual life?  A pick-up in a Moscow hotel bar? In 1954?
That’s a good question and I’m not sure I have an answer for it. I don’t know to be honest. Maybe that’s something we’ll figure out in the construction of the play. He was certainly constrained by the times but still wanted to have a sex life which would have entailed that kind of recklessness. He had an enormous arrogance and that made him pretty fearless. It seems incredible that he wouldn’t have been aware of the risk but it must’ve seemed irresistible in the moment. 

NEW YORK — Just in time to capitalize on the art-fair frenzy of Armory Show week in New York — or to steal some of its thunder, depending on how you look at it — Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO-IL) has released images of the snake-like pavilion they've designed for Randall's Island to house Frieze's inaugural New York fair later this year. SO-IL is probably best known for "Pole Dance," the installation of delightful workout balls suspended above MoMA PS1’s 2010 Warm-Up program.

The young firm, founded in 2008 by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, said in a press release that the pavilion's meandering shape is owed to "a slightly mutated pie-shaped tent section" that they developed to add a twist to an otherwise simple structure — inserting triangular wedges into the length of the tent gave it bit of sway to snake along the island's shore. Circular white seating arrangements dot the interior. Floor-to-ceiling windows give fair-goers a view of the riverfront throughout.

Frieze, long-known for incorporating bespoke, pop-up architecture into its annual behemoth art fair, enlisted the young 10-piece Brooklyn-based outfit based on its previous projects, which have "shown an inventive approach that we instantly found appealing," said Frieze co-founders Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover in a statement. "Having worked with a series of architects in London we have a reputation for commissioning forward-thinking design and we wanted to bring a similar approach to our first New York fair."

Frieze's presentation of 170 contemporary art galleries in the space will take place from May 4 through 7.

New York’s Armory Show is set to return this Thursday, with much fanfare and a few notable changes, making for a long week of top-notch art viewing for lovers of art everywhere (to see a schedule of all of Armory Week’s events, click here). The fair’s organizers have made a notable effort this year to streamline the event and improve the vibe, including such niceties as a restaurant from “farm-to-table specialists” Great Performances and a rethought VIP lounge, which should make the big-spenders happy. (The changes are outlined in Julia Halperin’s conversation with director Noah Horowitz.)

But, of course, the success of the experience will rise or fall based on the quality of the art on offer. ARTINFO has rounded up a few of the notable artworks to look for in the aisles in the coming days. See you there!

To see our selection of 30 artworks to look out for at the 2012 Armory Show, click on the slide show.

NEW YORK — New York’s art week kicked off last night as hundreds of collectors, gallerists, artists, and more filled the Park Avenue Armory for the Art Dealers Association of America Art Show 2012 Gala Benefit Preview to Benefit Henry Street Settlement. The high-profile crowd included street artist KAWS; artist Sarah Sze, who was recently named the U.S. representative for the 2013 Venice Biennale; philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad; “Dexter” actress Jennifer Carpenter; dealer Amalia Dayan; and event chair and collector Agnes Gund.



Near the entrance, attendees stopped to check out Donald Baechler’s special edition rose print and commence silent bidding on pieces by artists including Scott Mead, Kit Keith, and Spencer Gregory, before walking through the expansive space to admire works from 72 galleries, like Cindy Sherman’s 1976 “Murder Mystery” photo collages at Metro Pictures, Elliott Hundley’s sparkling abstracts at Regen Projects, and Sze’s 2012 sculpture “Disappearing Act” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Waiters served wine and partygoers munched on small bites like macaroni-and-cheese squares and dumplings at hors d’oeuvre stations throughout the fair’s 24th edition. 



At the Pace Gallery booth, Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara presented a selection of drawings that sold out in two hours for his premiere showing with the blue-chip establishment. “They’re very separate for me,” Nara told ARTINFO through a translator when asked about the differences between drawing, painting, and sculpting. “I never make a drawing as a base for a painting. I never do a painting for a sculpture. For me, drawing is the one I love the most and it’s very distinct.” And why drawings for his Pace debut? “I really want to bring out the best works later,” said Nara, who is gearing up for a summer solo show of new works (including his first bronze sculpture) at Japan’s Yokohama Museum of Art.

Overall, a good beginning for the busy art-filled week ahead.

Click on the slide show to see guests at the ADAA Art Show 2012 Gala Benefit Preview to Benefit Henry Street Settlement.

Manhattan can’t have all the fun during Armory Week. Whether you’re a restless collector looking for the next big thing or an artist whose home base actually makes the location more convenient, Brooklyn has plenty to offer fairgoers this weekend. Here’s ARTINFO’s list of where and when to go see the other borough’s answer to the big players.

1. Art’s Not Fair — Friday, March 9

Marisa Sage’s Like the Spice gallery in Williamsburg is hosting its own version of an art fair, miniaturized to fit within a single space. “Art’s Not Fair,” launching with a VIP party on Friday, March 9, and continuing through Saturday and Sunday, is a non-commercial event. Participating artists will “be able to create something because they really wanted to do it and not worry about whether it’s going to be sold,” Sage told ARTINFO.

The gallery will be sub-divided into a series of booths housing projects like a Web site created by Brian Larossa and the first-ever video created by painter Jenny Morgan. The basement will be occupied by Chino Amobe’s VIP Lounge, a take on the art-fair standard that replaces the traditional leather chairs with gallons of green slime and black lights (a much-needed improvement). “Have you ever heard of Family Double Dare?” Sage asked. “It’ll be like that. And a techno-rave.”

Advantages: All the trappings of a real fair, from badges to catering to swag bags, without the yucky feeling of lots of money changing hands.

Location: Like the Spice gallery, 224 Roebling Street in Williamsburg.

2. Brooklyn Armory Night — Saturday, March 10

If you’re looking for convenience, Saturday night is the time to go to Brooklyn and see art. For Brooklyn Armory Night, Williamsburg galleries will all be celebrating new shows and keeping their doors open late. Count on an epic gallery crawl, punctuated by copious glasses of wine and cans of PBR.

Alongside Sage’s Like the Spice faux-fair, Pierogi gallery’s the Boiler will be showing a “videophoric” night of screenings; Front Room has Melissa Pokorny’s farcical, architectural sculptures; and Parker’s Box showcases Stefan Sehler’s reverse glass paintings. Thankfully, a helpful guide to the shows and the bars you should go to afterward is available in the form of Pernod’s Art & Absinthe Guide to Brooklyn app.

Advantages: Every gallery in the neighborhood is open until 10 p.m., plus lots of cheap beer.

Location: Various Williamsburg galleries (map here).

3. Beat Nite — Saturday, March 10

Every six months the many, many alternative art spaces sprinkled throughout Bushwick ­– the neighborhood where a vast number of New York’s artists actually live – stay open late, unveiling new shows, hosting performances, and generally having a great time. This year, organizer and Norte Maar gallery director Jason Andrew had the foresight to time the event for Armory Week. “Great art can and does exist far from the glamor and commercialism of the greater art world,” Andrew told ARTINFO. “And the awesome bar scene doesn’t hurt either.”

In addition to exhibitions at veteran neighborhood art spaces like English Kills gallery and Factory Fresh, newer and less traditional venues like the apartment gallery Cojo Art Space and basement space Airplane gallery will be making their Beat Nite debuts. And don’t worry if you can’t find the door into one of the basement galleries — just follow the crowds of intrepid art explorers.

Advantages: More cheap beer, plus being privy to some of the most underground, exciting, and fiercely independent pockets of the New York art world.

Location: Various Bushwick galleries (map here). 

NEW YORK — “Some of my best friends in architecture are Japanese,” OMA mastermind Rem Koolhaas said last night, addressing an audience largely composed of Japanese architecture students. “Actually, all my best friends in architecture are Japanese.” The giggling, reverent crowd filled the auditorium of New York’s Japan Society, which Koolhaas visited last night to discuss the process of writing last year’s landmark tome, “Project Japan: Metabolism Talks.”

The sprawling, dynamic encyclopedia is the fruit of seven years of labor during which he and Swiss architecture critic Hans-Ulrich Obrist tracked down and interviewed the surviving members of the Metabolists, the Japanese, postwar-era pioneers of the non-western avant-garde. He expressed his admiration and love for them as innovators of a bygone era: the purity of their celebrity, long before the word “starchitect” took a negative turn; the simplicity of their models in an age of limited technology; and above all the closeness of the group, the constant communication and contact they shared in sharp contrast to the isolating climate that exists among architects today. These are the highlights ARTINFO gleaned from his talk, including details of the rise of the Asian avant-garde, and secrets about Koolhaas himself.

WHY THE METABOLISTS; WHY NOW

“I was friends already with some of them and therefore there was an issue of accessibility,” Koolhaas said. “I was particularly interested to look at the first non-western avant-garde. We are currently living in a situation where a lot of initiatives are no longer ours... I’ve written on Singapore and found that there, a city that we as Westerners can only see as mediocre, can also be interpreted as a city generated under the influence of Metabolist aesthetics. I was particularly interested in Metabolism because it represents the first time in which an avant-garde which isn’t ours is in charge of an aesthetic and an ideology.”

ON THE CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE AESTHETIC

“One of the questions we pose ourselves is why does it still mean something to say someone is a Japanese architect, while it’s become completely meaningless to say someone is a Dutch architect, or an American architect or a French architect?” he said. “Maybe the Japanese are a group of modernists that entirely cut connections with the past. That is probably still something one intuitively senses when they look at Japanese architecture.”

"EXTREME BEAUTY AND EXTREME VULGARITY": A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT TOKYO

“Maybe it’s particularly a phenomenon of Tokyo, but I find if you work in Japan, part of your day is spent in interminable meetings with unusually large amounts of partners that are all extremely serious and kind of focused on minutiae of building,” Koolhaas said, “but the nights are spent in the most drunken, radical entertainment you could possibly imagine. Basically those two worlds, you really get a sense that they are really close and really necessary — the extreme sobriety of one and the intensity of surrender to its opposite... the proximity of extreme beauty and extreme vulgarity, and sometimes the collapse of the two in a single image, in my view, is uniquely Japanese. It’s a nostalgic way of looking at it.”

HIS RETICENCE TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS FOR DISASTER

When asked what we could glean from the Metabolists in response to the toll last year’s earthquake and tsunami took on the nation’s infrastructure, Koolhaas responded, “I don’t want to go there. In a way, it’s slightly abusive to now use this history for the future, and I think that everyone should draw their own conclusion from the work we did. The only thing that we note is that the book kind of has a new resonance in Japan. There are, in the work itself, prototypes that can be recycled where the main inspiration is drawn from the importance of organizing certain things collectively. Of course the current state of the state in Japan compared to then is not particularly inspiring in itself, so I think it's really more the awareness of the difference in governance of its people rather than an eagerness to use things from their history.”

THE MODERN ARCHITECT, THE LONE WOLF

“Of course, any architecture is going to be a totally collaborative process,” Koolhaas said. “We collaborate in the office constantly between many different cultures, many different sensibilities. We also have a culture in the office of working with other disciplines... What is completely lacking at this moment is the technical adjustment of different architectural careers and different architectural ideas in order to achieve a more comprehensive or more coherent plan. I think that’s largely driven by the state. The state has become so weak that it cannot take coordinated initiatives anymore, and it’s really the private sector that initiates, typically, what happens now in city building. In the private sector, there is an automatic and inevitable element of competition that is introduced and imposed on the architects that simply erodes, in many cases, the basis of sympathy and friendship that could exist. I’m talking from experience.”

Spring Break is finally here. Capitalizing on the phrase we all couldn’t wait to say in our school days, newcomer SPRING/BREAK Art Show, less fair and more collaged exhibition, previewed last night to a line of people around the block. Overwhelming enthusiasm and fresh DIY energy abounded in the hallways of the Old School, a landmarked, repurposed former school building in Nolita, whose owners gave fair organizers Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly of the They Co. nearly carte blanche to do what they wanted for the Armory Week event. In what felt like an open house school night for adults, it was hard not to trip over the artwork lining the narrow hallways, hanging on the bulletin boards, and tucked inside the cramped closets and cubbies of creaky classrooms. The event’s theme, “Apocalist: A Brief History of The End,” was the linchpin of many of the curatorial collaborations.

On the first floor, Panamanian artist Miky Fabrega’s fair-length participatory draw-a-thon was curated by Artlog’s Manish Vora. A perfect example of the collaborative spirit of the event, Fabrega, at the encouragement of the directors, embraced the schoolhouse setting and built the piece into an immersive experience that complimented both the venue and his practice. Inviting participants to draw him while he in turn created their likeness on a scrolling paper on the floor, Fabrega used a variety of media that were available in the cubbies at the far end of the room. “I think these guys are doing something that hasn’t been seen in Soho for a long time,” said Vora, referring to the efforts of Gori and Kelly. “It felt like something that we wanted to support – it almost feels like there is a revitalization of this neighborhood. I think these guys have the ability to play a major role in that revitalization and making Soho an art venue again,” he told ARTINFO. 



Upstairs, inventor and artist Jamie O’Shea, curated by Gori and Kelly, presented “Immaculate Telegraphy” (2011), which included the documentation of his project to reinvent existing electronic communication technology from raw materials found in the wilderness, along with the resultant creation.

On the same floor, Desi Santiago’s “Desi Monster” (2010) – a larger-than-life inflatable standoff between a giant head and a monster – was presented in a red-carpeted classroom. The artist was curated by Jamie Sterns of Envoy Enterprises, who also brought Brad Troemel and David Alexander Flinn’s hanging punk homage ­– a large silver cloud of drift wood that visitors precariously walked under as they entered the school.

Sterns, who worked with the They Co. at the New Museum’s “Festival of Ideas” last May, said yes to the fair and brought artists whose work she felt fit the theme. While elaborating on how this year’s Armory Week will be interesting due to the imminent Frieze Art Fair shake up, Sterns said that “SPRING/BREAK definitely has a niche, for the people that are kind of off the beaten path a little bit. It’s experimental; you can do crazy strange things. This is obviously not for sales only. If there are sales, that’s great, but it’s definitely more for art and experiencing the space. I think it being in this old school lends a whole other thing to it. ”



Other highlights of the night included Joe Jagos and Chris Puidokas’s spacey room, curated by Tom Weinrich, alongside the installation of a time-out gone wrong by Real Quick For Fun & PPP, curated by Sean Kinney and PJ Monte – if students took over the school in a post-apocalyptic world, this is what it would look like. Anne-Lise Coste’s poetic mural, curated by Helen Toomer-Labzda, was read aloud during the preview. Hypnotic projections by Aurora Pellizzi vibrated on the wall because of the many feet hitting the wood floors, making the piece dizzyingly vivacious. A memorable film by Sirra Sigurdardottir, curated by Angela Conant, attempts to replicate the feeling of Iceland’s 2008 6.7 magnitude earthquake.

The fair’s success lies in its ability to create a compelling and rounded exhibition experience. While you can surely do some high-end shopping at the Armory Show uptown, you won’t get the authentically engaging scene that SPRING/BREAK has created downtown.

Click on the slide show for a tour of SPRING/BREAK. 

While the video for “Rella” could have taken its inspiration from lucid dreaming — with Odd Future members crashing through walls, slapping people, and transmogrifying into centaurs without consequences — “NY (Ned Flander),” which Tyler, the Creator (as “Wolf Haley”) also directed, feels like a nightmare: Claustrophobic, extremely dark, and quite possibly recurrent.

It centers around a character that we glimpse at the beginning of “Rella,” a man with a mustache, recliner, and a filthy little house. (This is Hodgy Beats.) But where “Rella” quickly turns surreal, with the man trading his mustache for a space warrior’s armor and enduring the quaking created by a large stripper’s gyrations, “NY (Ned Flander)” maintains a certain realism, with that same stripper consigned to a rap video inside of the man’s TV. Things do take a strange turn when we discover that the man’s toddler has Tyler, the Creator’s head, but he remains a baby in a fucked-up family — and the video ends with the promise of another doomed Odd Futurist to come, as daddy rolls over onto mama. This cycle of promotional clips (“OF Tape Vol. 2” is out March 20!) is starting to feel suspiciously like an allegory.

Last night David Zwirner gallery sold all the works in its booth at the ADAA’s Art Show — a series of paintings by Suzan Frecon — before the opening reception and gala was even over, and today the Chelsea gallery has had similar success at its Armory Show booth, which IN THE AIR learned had sold all three of the Michael Riedel posters it had on display within half an hour of the fair opening.

The site-specific installation Riedel created for the Zwirner booth featured three large “honeycomb” panels silk-screened with posters repeating in abstract patterns. Thirty minutes after the fair opened its doors this morning, each of the three panels had been sold to a different collector, each for $50,000.

An additional component of Riedel’s solo show at the booth, a wallpaper installation based on a photograph of the three panels, was not for sale.

NEW YORK — Somewhat of an older stepchild of the buzzier Armory Show Contemporary taking place simultaneously in the Passenger Ship Terminal Complex on the Hudson River, the Armory Show Modern on Pier 92 is duller and smaller this year. During the VIP preview earlier today, the generously scaled and comfortably carpeted corridors of the 71 gallery strong Modern section were hospital-zone quiet and it was impossible to miss the few passing luminaries, such as MoMA chief Glenn Lowry and his deputy director Kathy Halbreicht, as they power-walked to the Contemporary section. Still, if you took the time to look, there were a number of first-rate works on display, at least in this viewer's opinion.

The highlight parade began at Bologna's Galleria d'Arte Maggiore with a late and luscious Paul Delvaux oil, "L'Echafaudage" (1977), featuring a single female nude figure standing underneath an open structure and crescent moon, set against a classic architectural backdrop. The delightful painting was on offer for $750,000, reasonable in light of the recent surge in Delvaux's fortunes at auction. The stand also included works by the gallery's hometown hero Giorgio Morandi and some late de Chiricos.

Some of the booths at the Armory Show Modern resembled mini-pastiches of Part II auctions in Impressionist and Modern Art — this is arguably a difficult terrain to find great work of any stripe or price. Meanwhile, for seemingly no particular reason, apart from their soaring secondary market status, a number of works scattered about the Modern aisles were decidedly Post-War/Contemporary material, as evidenced by the double-whammy wall of Joseph Beuys at Munich's Galerie Thomas. Beuys's fantastic photo-object, "Kunst = Kapital (Art = Capital)" (1984), featuring an encapsulated blow-up photo of the famed artist in his traditional felt hat and fishing vest, posing in front of a giant-tusked mastodon skeleton in an unnamed natural history museum. It was on offer for $485,000. It included a pot of red paint and the brush that Beuys presumably used to paint the captivating title. It was adjacent to a unique work, "Untitled" (1977), comprised of a felt board with a notch and two brown crosses on a metal clip, priced at $245,000. It is quite the exquisite clipboard. 

New York's Chowaiki Gallery had a fun-filled, girlcrazy stand, which helped erase the somewhat geriatric feel of the section. Francis Picabia's stunning "Portrait de Femme" (ca. 1941) was priced at $350,000, while a large-scaled Vik Muniz, “Weeping Woman after Pablo Picasso (Pictures of Pigment)” (2007), actually sold for something in the vicinity of its $110,000 asking price. The digital C-print Muniz hails from an edition of six plus four artist proofs. The gallery's Ezra Chowaiki hinted the Muniz sold to a young American collector, a good sign considering how so much monetized attention is being paid to the decidedly hipper Pier 94 Contemporary section. 

Getting back to true blue Modern, New York-based Forum Gallery's first-rate John Graham, "Angel in Dodecahedron" (1959), a 30-by-24-inch oil on canvas, captured the mesmerizing likeness of a young woman with whom Graham was obsessed. The painting, priced at $850,000, has a rich provenance and impressive museum exhibition history. As in Graham's quirky style, the painting is inscribed in Latin and English, including the imposing phase "Ioannus Sangermanus (John of Saint Germain, Paris)."

In another example of 'is this really modern?,' a rare Andy Warhol silkscreen ink on paper, "Race Riot" (1963), was priced at $1.3 million at New York's Armand Bartos's stand. The iconic image, purloined from Life Magazine photographer Charles Moore of a Black man being attacked by a Police dog during the raging Civil Rights demonstrations in Birmingham Alabama carries all the Warhol authentication rights' bells and whistles. Bartos was overheard telling a visitor that "I feel sorry for the people who don't have them," referring to the recent demise of the Andy Warhol authentication committee.

On a more idyllic note, Chicago's Carl Hammer Gallery had a splendid work by Outsider artist Bill Traylor, "Untitled Red Dog" (ca. 1939-42) executed in pencil and poster paint on found desk blotter paper from, priced at $350,000. With his bare teeth and red tongue, the dog resembled a ferocious animal from some prehistoric cave painting. Another Outsider artist star, William Hawkins, was represented with his Bible Belt-themed masterpiece, "Christ Giving the Key to St. Peter" (1989), an enamel and collage on masonite work and bearing the artist's birth date as a signature painted along the border, 'KY July 27, 1895.' It sold to a European museum for $65,000.

Jumping forward in time again, New York's Gary Snyder Gallery showcased a terrific and modestly priced George Sugarman sculpture, "Untitled" (1966), a jet-black laminated cardboard relief that appeared in the 1969 Whitney Annual Exhibition of Sculpture and Prints, priced at $65,000. It was a real stand-out.

Overall, you definitely got a sense that the fair was making a pitch for collectors to do business in lesser-known arenas. London's Browse & Darby featured Walter Greaves's "Portrait of James McNeill Whistler, Battersea Bridge" (1872), which was priced at $78,000. Greaves was the artist's personal boatman, ferrying Whistler around the Thames. This is believed to be one of perhaps four portraits of the great painter. He sure looks happy with himself, outfitted in a top hat, pince-nez, long coat, and walking stick. The composition fairly screams with swagger.

Finally, New York's D.C. Moore gallery's stand stood out with a spectacular and rare Charles Burchfield, "Orion and the Moon" (1917). Executed in watercolor, charcoal, colored pencil and gouache, it was on offer for a price somewhere in the upper six figures. The remarkably romantic yet forboding image, akin (in part) to van Gogh's "Starry Night," was the feverish memory of a precocious child taking in the darkness of his backyard in Salem Ohio. Even with the uneven and seemingly outdated landscape of the Armory's Modern section, there were isolated moments of the sublime.

"Artists should never be at an art fair," Chuck Close told ARTINFO on the afternoon of the VIP preview for the 14th annual Armory Show. "It's like taking the cow on a guided tour of the slaughterhouse. You know this sort of thing goes on, but you don't want to see it." Yesterday, however, this particular slaughterhouse seemed to be one that many people — artists included — wanted to see. Terence Koh, Marilyn Minter, and Jayson Musson (better known as his alter ego Hennessy Youngman) were among those wandering the aisles, while collectors included Mera and Don Rubell, Anita Zabludowicz, and David Mugrabi. Museum directors were in full force too — Studio Museum director Thelma Golden was spotted deep in conversation with official Armory artist Theaster Gates, while Whitney director Adam Weinberg stepped in and out of booths well into the evening.

There was much chatter about the Armory's recent attempts to revive its image. Indeed, in an effort to stave off competition from new arrival Frieze in May (whose director, Amanda Sharp, was caught walking the aisles, but politely declined to discuss what she thought of the fair, noting that she'd only just arrived), the Armory attempted to undergo a full-fledged makeover. It decreased the number of exhibitors and entirely redesigned its longtime home at Piers 92 & 94. In addition to luring back galleries that had defected in previous years, like Greene Naftali and David Zwirner, the show managed to lure some old attendees as well. "It's the first Armory Show I've been to in five years," said Minter.

The changes made a positive impression on most fairgoers. "It's a bit easier to navigate," said Zabludowicz of the new design. "This year I'm actually hoping to see the whole thing. Last year I didn't finish." Whether the much-touted makeover translates into overwhelming sales remains to be seen, at least in the contemporary section, but it was clear that some substantial business was being done. Most galleries reported a sale or two by the end of preview day, the majority of which stayed squarely in the $25,000 to $80,000 range. Foot traffic was brisk right from the opening at noon.

New York's Leila Heller Gallery sold a mesmerizing video piece by Farideh Lashai, "Rabbit in Wonderland," which projected bunnies onto a painting of a woodland scene, for $80,000. Rhona Hoffman Gallery, of Chicago, sold a small latex painting of a brick wall by artist Robert Overby for $35,000 and a bright dot-filled wall piece made of hanging disks by Yasuhiro Ishimoto for $60,000.

Hyundai Gallery, from Seoul, brought works from classic Korean artists — Lee Ufan and Nam June Paik — and Ai Weiwei, as well as works by a set of cool new names. Among these was U-Ram Choe's mechanized bird-like statue which mesmerizingly flapped its metal wings — a hit as a photo op for fairgoers which was on offer for $45,000 — and Joonho Jeon's sly animation which depicted a note of the North Korean currency as the landscape on it caught fire. Jeon's video was sold in the first few yours for $35,000. 

Some galleries had extreme success. Zwirner’s booth of silkscreen posters by German artist Michael Reidel sold out within the first 30 minutes for $50,000 a pop. Berlin gallery Spruth Magers also had a brisk day of business, selling a bright red wool Rosmarine Trockel wall piece for 175,000 euros and a Picasso-like, bright George Condo chalk and pen portrait for $120,000, both to American collectors. By late afternoon, the gallery had also sold a large 1978 Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still, though it declined to say for exactly how much. ("A lot of money" was the only answer ARTINFO was able to get.)

"The idea was to recreate the domestic environment of an '80s collector," said Philomene Magers of the booth, which presented works from around that decade. The gallery had returned to the Armory after five years away, during which time it began participating in the Independent fair, a move that would have been unthinkable even five years ago, when there were far fewer high-end satellite fairs, not to mention a smaller percentage of total gallery business being conducted at these events. "The additional cost is limited to do two fairs at the same time, but the potential to gain is huge," said gallery director Andreas Gegner.

Sean Kelly Gallery also had one of the more successful booths at the fair, selling works by many, if not most, of the artists he presented there. A large painting by Kehinde Wiley, who currently has a solo exhibition at the Jewish Museum, depicting two men in jeans posing in front of the artist's trademark baroque background sold for $135,000, while a mesmerizing vitrine by Leandro Earlich that appeared to capture tiny clouds floating in a wooden cabinet sold for $65,000. Asked whether he thought the Armory was having a resurgence after a string of years struggling to attract top collectors, Kelly shook his head. "That's rubbish," he said. "Everyone is talking about Frieze coming in, but there is a lot of business being done here. If galleries don't want to come, we're happy to take their business. And we do."

A surprising number of galleries presented work that had been made specially for the fair. Los Angeles's Cherry and Martin sold four surreal videos by artist Brian Bress within the first few hours. The artist made them for specifically the Armory after his solo show at the gallery sold out, leaving his dealers with the happy conundrum of not having enough work to bring. (In one film, a figure wears a grotesque mask and builds totemic sculptures on a tabletop for 45 minutes; another features a rotating mushroom.) Mary Ryan gallery brought newly made neo-surrealist graphite works by Josh Dorman, several of which were sold early for $1,500. Another gallery, Loevenbruck from Paris, had artist Børre Sæthre create an installation that transformed the booth into a kind of desolate space-age video arcade. The artist, who the dealer described as "Norwegian Matthew Barney," constructed a suite of wood sculptures that resembled ghost-like 1980s arcade games without any buttons or screens. They are available as a set for $45,000.  

One thing that the Armory Show certainly got right was the Nordic Focus section. While perhaps not the hub of the commercial action on the opening day — "a lot of interest" was the refrain repeated by several dealers, which generally means "no sales yet" — the area clearly had the best vibe. Down the center aisle were piles of posters and free multiples by various participating Nordic artists that guests could grab (many did), giving the space an undeniable social atmosphere, while interesting work like Leander Djonde's "Disappearance of a summit #2" at Oslo's Dortmund Bodega's — a shattered pickaxe, which had actually once been used to dig New York's subways, mounted on a board and standing as a symbol of antique labor in a post-industrial society — could be had for reasonable price (in this case, $5,600). The artists from the cold north of Europe managed to bring a little energy back to unseasonably warm New York.

— With reporting by Ben Davis

After the Art Dealers Association of America's 50th annual Art Show kicked off Tuesday night with a bang, as collectors packed into the Park Avenue Armory for a gala to benefit the Henry Street Settlement. The action on the first official day of the fair Wednesday was steady, but certainly quite a bit more demure. As usual, the boutique Art Show is the week's classiest fair.

By the end of Wednesday, at least three booths reported being sold out. Most other dealers reported slow-but-steady sales. A slower economy means that those with the money have the luxury of time, and some dealers reported fielding interest from collectors who intended to take a look, head over to the Armory Show across town to compare, before coming back to finalize purchases at the boutique fair on the Upper East Side. Even with foot-traffic siphoned off by the Armory's VIP preview Wednesday, gallery staff were mostly upbeat (though also occaisonally bored-looking). Almost everyone had a few sales or reserves to report, even if they weren't keen on listing them.

News broke early that the solo show of Suzan Frecon's colorful abstractions at David Zwirner sold out within an hour at Tuesday evening's gala benefit, and the Pace Gallery's show of Yoshitomo Nara works on paper went almost as quickly, as collectors elbowed through the throngs of onlookers to get in on the action. Some of the biggest sales were of John Baldessari at L&M: Two of the four works on display, both from the early '70s, had been sold by late Wednesday. Although sales numbers were not released, the list prices for the works were $575,000 and $375,000.

Los Angeles-based gallery Blum & Poe was also doing brisk business on Tuesday evening, and when returning Wednesday, the gallery reported being sold out of the work of Los Angeles artist Henry Taylor. Taylor currently has a show of his work at MoMA P.S.1, and a second show of his work at Lower East Side gallery Untitled opened Sunday. "People were particularly excited about this show because Henry is under the radar for many collectors," noted gallery representative Liz Hull. But it seems that he was visible enough for some. All of the available paintings were sold — the smallest works went for $15,000 and the largest for $60,000, with a few priced in-between — and the gallery even began fielding inquiries about what might be left in the artist's studio.

Dealer Leslie Tonkonow stared blankly at ARTINFO for a disquieting amount of time after we asked her about the theme her booth. "Sex and death," she noted abruptly, without elaboration. Indeed, her booth would receive ARTINFO's "most sadomasochistic art" award. Early in the day, she had not had any sales, but two of her works were on reserve.

Over at Cheim & Read, sales associate Daniel Lechner noted there were quite a few collectors interested in Adam Fuss's large, psychadelic squiggle photos. But many had to either decline or go home and measure their walls, as the seven-plus-foot photographs "aren't the average Park Avenue size." Fuss reportedly doesn't work well with Upper East Side crown moldings. Despite the spacial setback, the gallery still sold two Fuss photos and had another on reserve, each priced at $65,000. An early Lynda Benglis foam sculpture went for $60,000. "I think collectors are making more educated choices," Lechner said of the overall fair atmosphere. "There is less emotional buying, which from a gallery perspective I really enjoy. Emotional buying leads to more resale." He prefers to sell to collectors with a deep connection to the work, who wants to let it hang on the wall for a long time.

Michael Kohn Gallery, from Los Angeles, had made one sale by midday: Joe Goode's "Sky Painting II" (1971-72) went for $90,000. Two other works, including a red prism sculpture by John McCracken that was priced at $160,000, were on reserve.

One of the most industrious galleries at work during the fair was Lehmann Maupin, which seemed to be closing a sale every time ARTINFO walked by. The work of Billy Childish, Klara Kristalova, and Mickalene Thomas was displayed in such a way as to focus on each artist's approach to narrative. By Wednesday afternoon, at least one work by each had been sold (in the "under $50,000" range), and there was particular interest in Thomas's series of small interior collages (which were going for around $10,000 each, depending on the size).

Finally, fueled by interest in her recently-opened MoMA retrospective, Cindy Sherman's "Murder Mystery" film stills seemed to be selling well at Metro Pictures. The gallery's sales could also have been given a boost by its prime spot, directly in front as you walk in the door. Sherman's staged photographs were selling in groups of three and six. Eight groups have already been sold. You better hurry if you think you still have a chance at getting one at this point — for $250,000 (three) and $350,000 (six) per group.

Over the span of 150 years, two men with a shared ambition turned one French fashion company into a global luxury behemoth. Paris’s Les Arts Décoratifs pays homage to the pair — Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs — with an exhibition that journeys through Vuitton’s founding of the company to Jacobs’s current run as creative director.

Titled “Marc Jacobs — Louis Vuitton,” the show, which runs March 9-September 16, begins with a floor dedicated to Louis Vuitton and its humble beginnings in 1854, when Vuitton founded the company to provide trunks to genteel ladies making long journeys. A zoetrope — an open cylinder that animates a sequence of drawings on its interior as it spins — shows 19th-century dresses floating out of trunks, which were Vuitton’s signature item. Doll clothes and dresses with enormous petticoats underneath depict the fashion of the time. An 1896 trunk with the first iconic Louis Vuitton monogram – created by Vuitton’s son to honor his late father — is on display, as are a foldout cot that comes from a trunk and old catalogues.

Venture upstairs and travel a century-and-a-half forward in time to see how New Yorker Marc Jacobs brought stylish ready-to-wear collections to the luxury leather goods company after he came on board as creative director in 1997. Handbags serve as sweets in a chocolate box display while a rotating wheel of legs shows off shoes. Jacobs’s many artist collaborations, including pieces with Takashi Murakami’s smiling flowers and Stephen Sprouse’s gritty graffiti, are on display. Rounding out the show is a group of Richard Prince-inspired nurse ensembles on mannequins with red siren-light heads, along with the artist’s Louis Vuitton-collaboration handbags.

Want to see the exhibition but don’t have plans to travel to Paris in the next few months? Rizzoli is publishing an accompanying coffee table book, due out next month.

Click on the slide show to see highlights from “Marc Jacobs – Louis Vuitton,” on display at Paris’s Les Arts Décoratifs March 9-September 16.

Poised to plunge into distribution tomorrow, Disney’s elaborately retro space opera “John Carter” is the movie that dares to ask, “Would a Princess of Mars ever consider marriage to a wayward Virginia cavalryman?” It’s a proposal worthy of Newt Gingrich. Still, this quarter-billion dollar, retrofitted 3D production is hardly the “Waterworld”-scale debacle that many feared (or hoped).

Far from it. For the most part, the first “live action” feature by Andrew Stanton (director of the CGI animations “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E”), adapted from a century-old Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp novel with a script polished by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon (who is doubtless responsible for the relatively dignified, not entirely cringe-inspiring, dialogue), is graphically splendiferous and enjoyably nonsensical.

An unreconciled Confederate turned Indian-fighter and all-around hothead, John Carter (Canadian hunk Taylor Kitsch) is mysteriously teleported to planet Barsoom (that’s Mars to us). This desert world is in environmental and political crisis, populated by several mutually hostile species, including the four-armed green giant Tharks (the most personable one played by Willem Dafoe) and monstrous white apes as well as a lissome Pocahontas named Dejah Thoris (classically-trained hottie Lynn Collins).

The action is involving for about an hour (picking up again for a spectacular climax), but the graphics, some inspired by the original illustrator Frank Schoonover, seldom flag. Like “Avatar,” “John Carter” is something of a crypto Western, albeit with even less subtext. (If you’re looking for that, “Gunfighter Nation,” Richard Slotkin’s magisterial study of the American frontier myth, devotes 16 pages to unpacking the racial and imperial fantasies found in Burroughs’ Barsoom novels.) In any case, America rules. Once on the red planet Carter discovers that he has super-strength, able to defeat entire armies and leap canyons in a single bound; as his initials suggest, he’s some sort of savior. (The theology seems to be a bit jumbled — the most simpatico of the multi-digited green things insists on referring to JC as “Virginia.”)

John Carter redeems Barsoom from its eco disaster (or should in the sequel). But can “John Carter” pump new life into the dying planet Hollywood? The movie looks to get Loraxed at the box office. I saw it in a curiously depopulated morning screening less than a week after an early tracking report had, per Nikki Finke, put the industry in “a tizzy.”  (“Women of all ages have flat out rejected the film,” she was told by an anonymous executive.) Dejah Thoris’s sword-skill notwithstanding, it’s boy’s stuff — as made clear by the thunderous mid-Superbowl ad. The John Carter stories have inspired any number of comic strips and comic books over the past decades; “Princess of Mars” is even scheduled for republication by the Library of America, raising the question of whether there is anything that cannot be so canonized. (I’m looking forward to the inclusion of Ayn Rand, Milt Gross, and the novels of Oscar Micheaux.) The real question for Disney: Is there space for its ancillary items on the toy shelf between the “Star Wars” and “Avatar” merch?

Gotta say, though, that two other Barsoomptive projects are more fun to imagine than the Stanton-Chabon opus. In the mid ‘30s, Bob Clampett, the wackiest of Looney Tunes directors, shot test footage for a never-realized feature animation that, had it been completed might have beaten Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” into the record books. Some 20 years later, stop-motion genius Ray Harryhausen similarly floated the idea of a John Carter adaptation. Teleported to the planet of unmade mash-ups, I’d consider paying $18 to see Porky Pig battle the Skeleton Swordsman of Soukarah on the reds sands of Mars.

Hey kids, why not create your own? Find Clampett’s 1938 “Porky in Wackyland” here and the trailer for the Harryhausen-enriched “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad” here. 

Read more J. Hoberman in Movie Journal