“Synergy,” a word commonly used by Internet start-ups and merging finance companies (we assume), will be part of the wallpaper that welcomes visitors to SFMOMA’s upcoming Buckminster Fuller exhibition. Like his Dymaxion car and Geodesic dome, the buzzy portmanteau is an example of Bucky's unique, highly imaginative perspective on the world, which the museum will explore in its exhibition “The Utopian Experience” opening at the end of this month.

“To be clear, it’s not so much a show just about Fuller,” curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher told ARTINFO. In addition to an entire wall of index cards with words the late visionary dreamed up, it also includes low-cost laptops from Yves Behar and Nicholas Negroponte’s "One Laptop per Child" initiative; the North Face’s Oval Intention, the first dome-shaped tent to best the sheet-thrown-over-a-rod design (demonstrating Fuller’s notion “tensegrity,” or tensional integrity, if you will); David de Rothschild’s Plastiki sailboat, the recycled catamaran of 12,500 plastic water bottles that sailed from San Francisco to Australia; and Stewart Brand's comprehensive "Whole Earth Catalog."

What do they all have in common? An outlook on the way we live that is not only unique to the Bay Area but also to Fuller, who never actually lived there: a Utopian vision of a future shaped through socially- and ecologically-conscious design. The impetus for putting the show together, Dunlop Fletcher said, was to show a portfolio featuring 13 of Fuller’s most radical designs that never gained traction, and seeing the ways that projects since the '70s have cited them as a source of inspiration. The juxtaposition of designers' products alongside Fuller's never-realized inventions frame him as a visionary and an inspiration. His emphasis on the importance of ecology in tandem with technology have made a visible, lasting impact on the Bay Area.

"We're really positioning him as this source of big, grandiose ideas, rather than a failed designer," said Dunlop Fletcher. The exhibition includes his visions for a 4D house, the Undersea Island-Submarisle, and a video he created later in his life, called "48 Hours of Everything I Know" — two days of him looking into the camera and delivering what is, essentially, a brain purge. His strength, as this show emphasizes, was his language and presentation. During his life, he spoke to everyone in the Bay Area, from students at tech-savvy Stanford and the hippie-minded University of California in Berkeley, to prisoners at St. Quentin, politicians, and regular people.

"They really like his status as an outsider, and someone committed to technology who saw design as having a social impact or revolution," said Dunlop Fletcher. "I want to set the stage with that, to look at his performance and his way of talking, and then show his portfolio holistically." Because only looking at his unrealized blimp-shaped, three-wheeled car wouldn't convey the type of person he was — a visionary who sought solutions in transportation, housing, efficiency, and beyond, always looking for better ways to keep this large spaceship Earth moving forward. 

"The Utopian Impulse" is on view at SFMOMA March 31 through July 29. To see Buckminster Fuller's dynamic designs, plus a few others from contemporary visionaries, click the slide show. 

1. Ice Cube is searching for someone to direct the N.W.A. biopic he plans to produce. [MTV]

2. The band Los Tigres del Norte has been barred from playing Ciudad Juárez after violating an ordinance that prohibits perfomances of narcocorridos. [ArtsBeat/NYT]

3. Jonah Hill originally thought that the forthcoming “21 Jump Street” remake sounded like a “corporate cash grab.” Instead, it just looks terrible. [The Reel Bits via NME]

4. Stream a new Gossip song, the disco-slick “Perfect World.” [Gossip Youth via Pitchfork]

5. A famous sequence from the movie “Office Space” may have inspired the opening scene of the last episode of “The Walking Dead.” [Uproxx]

Previously: Radiohead, Seth MacFarlane, Atari Teenage Riot, TV pilots, and Limp Bizkit

LOS ANGELES — Michael Heizer’s "Levitated Mass" was not conceived of as performance art. Once installed on the grassy north side of the Los Angeles County Museum’s 20-acre campus, this 340-ton boulder suspended over a 456-foot long, concrete-lined slot cut into the ground will fall squarely in line with the tradition of Earthworks: big, heavy, monumental, immovable. Creeping through Los Angeles on its 196-wheel transporter, however, flanked by a block-long convoy of trucks and an army of support staff over the course of 11 slow nights, the boulder caused a scene on a scale rarely witnessed even here, in a city that’s known its share of spectacle. Crowds appeared at nearly every juncture of the 105 mile journey — as many as 20,000 at one stop — and hundreds awaited its arrival at the museum at 4am on Saturday morning.         

The brilliance of the event, when viewed as performance, had little to do with the rock itself and even less to do with Heizer, who was absent throughout. What drew onlookers to this odd parade at every hour of the day and night was its clear demonstration of human ingenuity, the palpable sense of the cumulative efforts of hundreds of anonymous individuals — quarry workers, truckers, engineers, electricians, city planners, transportation officials, police officers — directed toward a seemingly impossible end. In reality, such spectacles of labor are fairely common: think of the building of skyscrapers, freeway interchanges, hydroelectric plants. But, then again, such structures, however monumental, don't get drawn through the streets to a breathless stream of L.A. Times reportage, and "Levitated Mass" refracted all this human effort through a particularly iconic form — a big, mysterious, plastic-wrapped object suspended by chains three feet over the street.

And the particular street that it passed through was important too. What has been scarcely discussed in coverage of the journey is the nature of the neighborhoods the rock was treversing: suburban and semi-industrial regions in the east and south of Los Angeles County with names that few outsiders would recognize and most LACMA patrons would know only from traffic reports (Diamond Bar, Roland Heights, Buena Park, Carson). Primarily black and Latino and most of a low-income bracket, these are neighborhoods that don’t tend to receive much attention, except when something bad happens. Contemporary art, at least in this institutionally sanctioned form, is rarely seen in these parts of L.A.

For me, it was visiting the rock in a handful of these locations en route that was the highlight of the entire civic spectacle: finding it in Carson one balmy afternoon, sitting in the center lane of a wide residential boulevard, with picture-snapping drivers passing by on either side; following it on foot through south L.A. at midnight on Friday and watching it pass safely across the 10 freeway overpass, a point widely perceived as a symbolic divide between the wealthy, generally white region of central Los Angeles and the poorer south. Everywhere I stopped, the sidewalks were crowded with people — not a frequent occurrence anywhere in L.A. — of every conceivable demographic, some in from elsewhere, some from down the block, some shuffling out of doorways in slippers and pajamas. The police presence was surprisingly minimal and hearteningly unnecessary: when the men in hard hats waved their hands, the people simply gave them room. A climate of respect and friendly admiration predominated.

There were several hundred people at LACMA through the night, milling about Chris Burden’s blazing "Urban Light," the installation of vintage light poles at the museum’s front entrance. In a makeshift VIP lounge on a terrace above, well-dressed waiters served coffee, champagne, and thin crust pizza to a crowd notably older and more racially homogenous (which is to say, white) than any the procession would have encountered hitherto. I will admit to accepting a glass of champagne when the opportunity presented itself, but was glad to soon descend again — it was a far duller scene up there than below, where young parents carried on their shoulders children who’d probably never been out so late, a man inexplicably dressed like Jesus floated around snapping pictures, and nameless clusters of ordinary people, few of whom I recognized as art-world regulars, chatted and laughed and enjoyed the novelty of coming together on the streets of L.A. at 3:00 in the morning. No doubt "Levitated Mass" will be quite stunning when completed, but this is the image that I will remember.

To see images from the journey of Michael Heizer's "Levitated Mass" to LACMA, click on the slide show.

Delivering a trilogy whose third installment actually exceeds the first and second (unlike "Star Wars" and more like "Indiana Jones"), the City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation, along with Friends of the High Line, finally unveiled plans for the highly-anticipated last phase of the celebrated, elevated park in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

The initial design concepts for the final stretch of the former industrial railroad line take off where the second phase ended at West 30th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, running west toward Twelfth Avenue and wrapping around Hudson Yards up to West 34th Street. Like previous phases, the design dream team of James Corner Field Operations and  DS+R are replacing the overgrown weeds with lush landscaping, but with a few innovative touches. The third phase includes the 10th Avenue Spur, an extension that formerly connected with the US Postal Service's Morgan Processing and Distribution Center so that freight trains could transport parcels from the upper-floor loading docks fo the post office building. It remains the widest part of the High Line, affording the designers a world of possibilities. The current proposed concepts include amphitheater-like seating, or an open gathering space bordered by beds of wildflowers.

They’re taking those distinctive benches of which we’ve already grown fond and transforming them with brand new variations: planting beds, workspaces, seesaws, and picnic tables with the charming and streamlined frame rising out of the walkway. A new, irregularly-spiraling staircase trumps those clunky metal predecessors. The most eye-catching feature planned for the park third phase is the children’s play area, where the support beams have been stripped and coated with bright yellow safety rubber, perfect to climb around on. The not-yet-constructed residential and office complex Hudson Yards has also been taken into account in the design, providing a 70-foot-tall passageway complete with planting beds and balconies directly incorporated into one of the towers. 

Of course, as with any good ending, there are kinks to work out before we reach the conclusion. During Hudson Yards construction, the path to the West of the Rail Yards will feature a temporary design, with a simple path cutting through the existing “self-sown grasses and wildflowers.” The city is also pursuing an amendment to current zoning laws to secure the Eastern Rail Yards as a public open space, as well as a framework that would require Related Companies, the developer of Hudson Yards, to provide funding for the High Line. The total cost of the third phase is an estimated $90 million. 

Meanwhile, DS+R have their hands full with projects in the surrounding area, including a building in the Hudson Yards complex that also happens to be their first skyscraper, as well as an arts center to the east of the park. "For us it represents and opportunity to do an ensemble urban project," Elizabeth Diller told the Wall Street Journal. "We're very conscious of the adjacency to the High Line."

Friends of the High Line and the City of New York hope to complete most of the construction by the end of 2013, with a full public opening in spring 2014. 

To see renderings of the last installment of the High Line, click the slide show. 

Back in 1926, Wharton School of Business economist George Taylor made a striking observation: when the economy was good, women raised their hemlines so they could show off their silk stockings. When times got rough, women would lower the length of their skirts to hide that they could no longer afford new hosiery. And thus came the birth of the Hemline Index.

While the theory is still up for debate 86 years later — some argue that this line of thinking no longer holds true, but a 2010 study says it’s accurate though there’s a lag time — we decided to take a look at 20 fall 2012 collections (including Erdem, Donna Karan, Louis Vuitton, Mary Katrantzou, and Giorgio Armani) to see what these hemlines might say about the state of the economy in upcoming months. According to our informal survey, fall’s hemlines indicate, not surprisingly, that the global economy is hurting: only 1.5 percent of the 874 ensembles we looked at were super short (we’re talking Daisy Duke length), while 1.5 percent of the hemlines were at miniskirt level. About 42 percent of the outfits’ hemlines fell right around the knee, whereas 45.7 percent fell just below the knee. So if Taylor’s theory holds true, the outlook for the economy is grim.

But that might not be the case, with recent news showing signs of hope. A March 13 Reuters report reads, “The S&P 500 hit a four-year high on Tuesday and the dollar touched an 11-month peak versus the yen.” The AP says that unemployment fell in 45 states last January. “European shares hit a seven-and-a-half-month high,” reports another Reuters article.   



When looking at the actual designs for fall 2012, themes revealed a mixed bag. In the United States, Steven Alan’s Depression-era collection and Cynthia Rowley’s blue-collar homage pointed to the recent Great Recession. Milan was a different story, with Dolce & Gabbana going to the decadent baroque era and to short lengths, despite Italy’s current recession. Rich girls played muses all around, from Marc Jacobs’s lavish take on the 19th-century bourgeoisie for Louis Vuitton, to Erdem’s interpretation of the late heiress Peggy Guggenheim.

Hemlines may not be high for fall, but the markets are rising. If the economy continues to recover, then Taylor’s theory isn’t an exact indicator of the times.

Perhaps the true sign of fall 2012’s reflection of the economy will come later this year, when the designs hit store racks. Will retail spending increase with consumers flocking to shops to buy new items for the season? And even more tellingly, which hemlines will be most popular? 

Most labels release albums on Tuesdays, and while this seems to support that day’s banality relative to the rest of the week (albums are for old people!), it provides a nice excuse to round up new music. We took that exact opportunity just last week. But today, looking over the fairly dismal assortment of official new discs — and watching the excellent new video for Danny Brown’s attack on the industry, “Radio Song,” which you can watch below — we thought we’d leave the rundown of boring new rock to the New Yorker, and instead focus on where the action (often) happens to be: in hip hop. Here’s a ranking of the key rap-related links to click right now.

1. Action Bronson, “Blue Chips”
This isn’t just the mixtape of the week, it’s the album of week, and we’d maybe venture album of the month, if it weren’t for that Big K.R.I.T. mixtape and the forthcoming Odd Future disc.  (That Shins album, streaming now, sounds pretty great, too.) Sean Fennessey, a guy we follow on Twitter (who knows his hip hop), said today that he is “slowly realizing that Action Bronson is the rapper I’ve been waiting most of my life for.” [Download]

2. Cam’ron, “Fuck You”
And this is the single long-suffering Cam fans always seem to be waiting for: Wicked, unruffled, and hard-hitting. His Tebow reference might even surprise you. [Stream]

3. Chief Keef
Who exactly is this 16-year-old web phenom? David Drake has the story, and it’s a good one. (Download Keef's mesmerizing new mixtape here.) [Gawker]

4. El-P, “The Full Retard”
The title has it: This song draws you so far in, you’ll feel like you’re never coming back. [Download]

5. Exile, “Knight Rider” video
“Oh shit, watch out! I think you’re being too weird, man!” [Prefix]

6. Ludacris
The long-planned “Ludaversal” has a release date: September 11 — a Tuesday to look forward to. [Rap Radar]

7. Justin Bieber
Mike Posner, who produced Bieber’s forthcoming single “Boyfriend,” promises something “super hip-hop.” People doubted Justin Timberlake, too. [MTV]

8. N.W.A. biopic
Ice Cube is on it.

9. Mike D
Will curate a show at L.A. MOCA. [Art in America]

10. Flavor Flav
To open House of Flavor, a restaurant. [All Hip Hop]

Bonus: Danny Brown’s “Radio Song”:

“There’s a strong visual heritage in Russian, this is no secret,” comments FotoFest co-founder and co-curator Wendy Watriss, referring to the country’s Modern art history legacy stretching from pioneering abstraction to Socialist Realism, “But very little is known about the period from 1955 to the present.” This year’s FotoFest biennial, taking place in Houston, Texas, from March 16 through April 3, will remedy that post-war blind spot with its focus on the history of Russian photography, from the height of the Soviet era to Perestroika and the present day.

Watriss, along with co-curator and founder Fred Baldwin, and the help of Russian art magnate Dasha Zhukova, will continue the festival's goal of bringing underexposed eras of photography to light in a series of chronological exhibitions around the city. Past FotoFest biennials have mounted exhibitions in Houston as well as meetings, shows, and portfolio reviews all around the world, taking on themes as diverse as water, U.S. photography, contemporary Korean photography, and digital media.

In this AI Interview video, ARTINFO speaks to Watriss and Baldwin about the upcoming biennial and gets a short lesson in Russian photography, from the punchy, graphic images of Sergey Petruhin to young guns like Nikita Pirogov.

FotoFest 2012 runs March 16 through April 3 in Houston, Texas 

This is the third of a four-part series from Art+Auction magazine in which key art-market players weigh in on the future of the field. 

PRIMARY STRENGTHS

The primary market is strong and it actually never suffered as much as other segments. It’s broader than it ever was, it’s got more depth than it had, and there is a wider collector base.

That’s why the art fairs are so well attended. Fairs have become a very convenient way for collectors—individuals and groups like museum trustees—to come and get an up-to-date education. The trick of doing the art fairs as a dealer is choosing the right one. What works for you personally and for your gallery program might be different from what works for the gallery across the street; it might require different involvement and commitments. Fairs can be expensive and definitely put a strain on the system. It’s really like doubling one’s job; the gallery still functions, and artists still value the importance of a gallery show. The system might actually favor smaller operations, allowing some gallerists to have a relatively small space in their home city and have a very high profile on the fair circuit.

The resulting international presence does mean we have to work more closely with the other dealers handling our artists. It is crucial to understand that and take advantage of it. It is important as a gallerist to work in a global way on projects and exhibitions. We need to all get in on the exchange of ideas so the galleries work collectively for the artist rather than individually.

My own feeling is that it is a mistake for gallerists to try to embrace all markets. That is when a gallery can end up looking like a supermarket. This has to be about selling taste and aesthetic and ideas—that is what gallerists do, whether we are doing it in the primary or the secondary market. I do believe there is a place in the world for small dealers who do things well, who really know their field, their area of expertise. You have to choose judiciously and stick to what you believe in even when it seems everyone else is doing something different. You have to believe in what you are doing.

—Lucy Mitchell-Innes is a director of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, in New York. Prior to becoming a gallerist she worked for more than a decade at Sotheby’s, where she became worldwide director of contemporary art. In 1996 she opened her gallery on Madison Avenue with her husband and business partner, David Nash, later adding a second location, in Chelsea.

SHAKY FOUNDATIONS

During the second half of 2011, we finally saw some super-heated sectors of the Chinese auction market begin to cool off—“cool” being a relative term, of course, for houses that have claimed annual totals in excess of $500 million. But does this cooling represent a fundamental correction? I’m not sure.

Auction results exert a disproportionate influence on perceptions of the Chinese art market at home and abroad, and this narrow focus can obscure the lack of development in other parts of the industry. Doing art business in China is still more difficult than it should be: You have the government regulations and the local inexperience, but also deeper and more troubling problems with the system. These have frustrated international transactions and longer-term cooperative relationships, as well as hindered the kind of noncommercial events that help establish an art culture. The mushrooming of unregulated art “exchanges” throughout China last year is a noteworthy trend that embodies many of the less healthy forces in the art market—one that I believe will meet with substantial problems, and probably multiple failures.

China is approaching a tipping point. An increase in connoisseurship and professionalism could strengthen the art market’s shaky foundation. The country urgently needs professional support systems to foster the healthy maturation of an industry that has been growing on money alone. Appraisals, attention to the issue of fakes, the need for reliable disclosure from auction houses—these are just a few issues that must be addressed. The unethical and questionable practices that pervade so many sectors in China are a particular threat to the growth of a great art industry, where a lack of trust and honesty is more likely to undermine it than is the case with, say, electronics manufacturing. Ideally the slowdown of late 2011 will usher in a quieter but more fruitful period where the connective tissue of professional support systems begins to grow.

—Nancy Murphy is a partner at the law firm of Jincheng Tongda & Neal, in Beijing, where she has practiced law for over 10 years. She is the author of ChinaArtLaw.com, a founder of CenterPiece, a diversified art services firm in Hong Kong, and a member of the EU Chamber of Commerce Creative Industries Working Group.

GULF PERSPECTIVES

Cultural development is occurring most rapidly in countries where governments have declared their interest in the cause. Because Dubai started the Dubai art fair, the first important regional art event, in 2007, it had a head start, in a way, and many galleries opened there. At present Dubai has more than 64 galleries. Tehran has approximately 40. For the moment, Western dealers express their presence mainly through art fairs rather than permanent spaces. A number of fairs have sprung up in the region—in Lebanon and North Africa, for example—and have found quite a lot of trade, though not as high as in the West.

Looking ahead, there is a great deal of interest in buying regional contemporary art as a means to nurture local artistic expression. There will be more acquisitions of calligraphy and other locally produced contemporary regional art. Increasingly, we’re noticing a migration of collector interest to international contemporary art as well. The Qatar Museum Authority (QMA) is mounting a show of Takashi Murakami. Collectors, particularly those in Doha, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, are very interested in taking a global perspective.

The freedom of political expression brought about by the Arab Spring has also generated a great deal of artistic expression. New types of work, such as video installations and films, have recorded aspects of this movement, and the QMA is archiving some of this material in an effort to preserve the artistic activity that is going on.

The challenges that lie ahead are to continue to develop the art market at a healthy pace—the major houses have been active, and we will hold more sales in Doha this year—and to educate.

—Roxane Zand is director, Middle East and Gulf region, at Sotheby’s. She began her career in 1978 as part of the group planning the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art but left Iran in 1980. After resettling in London, she worked with a number of cultural and educational institutions and currently serves as an arts editor for Encyclopedia Islamica.

VIRTUAL GATEWAYS

The use of digital technology as a means of access in the art world has never been more relevant. I think the next step is to use technology to support how galleries do business. I find that the start-ups that have met with success look to complement galleries’ outreach efforts to attract new clients, rather than replace or reconfigure those relationships.

The art world has been relatively slow to embrace online means of sales and distribution, especially when it comes to prime inventory. However, with the demographics of the art community tilting toward younger, more international collectors, the benefits of a digital approach are coming to the fore. Start-ups have made great strides in offering an improved experience via super-high-resolution images, an editorialized viewing platform, and, in our case, a streamlined transaction system.

The strategy has paid off particularly well in prints and multiples, which have been a great launching point for online art sales. At Paddle8 we’ve noticed buyers crossing into photography for the first time, making the shift from large editions to smaller runs, and younger collectors acquiring unique works.

In 2012 several online art ventures will seek to cement their status in the art community. We’re looking to form partnerships not only with galleries, but also with established brick-and-mortar organizations from all corners of the art world—from institutions like Performa and LACMA to art fairs like NADA to publishers like Phaidon—so we can sup-port their initiatives globally through unique, collaborative projects.

—Aditya Julka is cofounder, with Alexander Gilkes, of Paddle8, the online marketplace. A serial entrepreneur, he is a Harvard Business School Baker Scholar, a veteran of McKinsey & Company, and an art enthusiast and collector.

This is not an article about Paddle8's well-designed Web site (nor its office style), but rather a story about what's behind what you see online and what the much-talked-about company is really up to. On the surface, it seems like one of those other sites that have a goal of educating the broader public into becoming collectors or taking art commerce online. But if you look at the roster of the site's management — a former LVMH executive and Phillips de Pury auctioneer, a McKinsey alum, a few Harvard MBAs — not to mention the $4 million in first-round funding it has received from esteemed venture capital firms Founder Collective and Mousse Partners, there has got to be something else going on.

And there is. It's just not as fun to talk about as the endeavors that have grabbed headlines for the site so far, which have included promoting an online exhibition curated by Marina Abramovic and sponsoring a performance featuring James Franco during Performa.

"My whole career has been watching how the Internet disrupts more and more businesses," Founder Collective managing partner David Frankel told ARTINFO recently in a conversation about his bet on Paddle8. "When it comes to the art world I think the Internet will augment it."

If your view of Paddle8 is somewhat fuzzy, you probably aren't the only one. In our unscientific survey of people in the art world, most have heard of the site (and its elegant design), but few could put their finger on what its purpose was. Plenty of Web sites are trying to make a go of selling art online, and while Paddle8's site serves as an intersection for art buyers and sellers, online commerce isn't its real game. In reality, it is trying to capitalize on streamlining the less romantic services that make selling art difficult and expensive — shipping, handling, invoicing, billing, and insurance. It hopes to profit by offering reduced rates on these services to the many galleries that use its platform, thereby taking advantage of bulk discounts and making it cheaper for the art world to conduct the back end of its business. The company, in turn, takes a four percent commission on deals done through the site.

The site maintains a veneer of exclusivity — its contents are viewable by members only. If you want to take a peek, you can either be invited by a dealer or request membership from the Paddle8 "committee." However, make no mistake, the Web site is betting on signing up large numbers of users. Very few applicants are turned away. "Because you have so many galleries signed on, I am able to offer an en masse 15 to 20 percent discount on top of the ability to process that shipping so much faster," noted the site's managing director, Osman Khan. "Those are the types of economies of scale you are starting to see working with Paddle8, rather than every gallery trying to do it on their own." 

Here's how it works: If, say, a gallery in New York sells a work to a collector in Los Angeles using the Paddle8 site, there are a number of discounts it can ring up. The gallery can bill the collector through the site, saving 60 basis points on the average American Express transaction (the normal rate is 3.5 percent — the site has it down to 2.9); save 15-20 percent on shipping with a quote automatically, rather than having to spend a day waiting for quotes from different companies; and it can offer the buyer Paddle8's $149 flat-rate art insurance policy, which covers $25,000 worth of art in-transit and in-home. And they can do all of that in a couple of clicks.

As both Frankel and Khan explained, the site isn't seeking to change art world mores, but rather attempting to complement established precedents. "Buying art is very different to buying a commodity like a phone or a camera online. In some ways it is like buying a house. If you know the artist and know the gallery owner people are open to buying art online," said Frankel. "Trust is still incredibly important." 

So on Paddle8, as in a gallery, collectors browse for free but there are certain advantages to being acquainted with the actual dealer. Galleries can list prices as "upon request," and commerce isn't a one-click affair: a variety of options are available to reserve, inquire about, and offer a price on a work before actually closing a deal. The gallery can likewise refuse business. The collector and the dealer even have the option of taking the transaction offline (though, of course, this means leaving Paddle8's shipping-and-handling discounts online as well).

Though originally Paddle8's business plan seemed to rely on promoting itself via online exhibitions curated by celebrities, the site has started migrating toward big partnerships with art fairs to attract members. Last weekend's Armory Show was the third fair the company took online, after NADA Miami Beach in December and Art Los Angeles Contemporary in January. During the online preview week for the Armory, Paddle8 had "just shy of 200 offers, inquiries, and reserves" for art posted on the site's online version of the fair, Khan said, adding, "I think the best part of it was the reserve feature. We launched that earlier this year, but the overwhelming use of it by collectors [during the Armory Show] was fascinating."

Paddle8 won't disclose how many collectors are on the site, but it launched last June, and the founders have stated that about 2,000 join every month, with spikes during the three art fairs the site has partnered with, so it's possibly in the 10,000 to 15,000 members range (if their claims are correct). During Armory Week, about 100 galleries participated in the site's online version of the fair. Half of them received inquiries or offers, and the site had almost half a million pageviews from over 100 countries, according to a press release.

So, what does all this mean? If Paddle8 succeeds in its mission — and it is still much too early to comment on that — there is one way in which it could indeed be disruptive of business as usual in the art world: fledgling art professionals can say goodbye to back office gallery jobs writing invoices and searching for the lowest shipping quotes.

After months of speculation, it's finally official: the blue-chip New York gallery David Zwirner is opening in London. And they are thinking big. Led by director Angela Choon, the new gallery, to be inaugurated next October and will stretch to 10,000 square feet, spread over the five floors of a Georgian townhouse on 24 Grafton Street redesigned by art world darling Annabelle Selldorf.

Zwirner's arrival in London confirms the vibrancy of the art trade in the British capital, and the city's attractive geographical position in relation to the Asian and Middle Eastern markets. But competition will be tough. Behemoth galleries are mushrooming everywhere in London. Launched in October 2010, Hauser & Wirth's 15,000-square-foot venue on Savile Row was soon dwarfed by White Cube's gigantic 58,000-square-foot space, which opened the following year in Bermondsey. The next few months will also see the opening of Pace's London gallery (their current and generously proportioned outpost in the city's Soho neighborhood is now to be considered a "viewing room"). Milan's Massimo di Carlo is also said to be planning a large venue.

As she prepares to leap the Pond, Choon spoke with ARTINFO UK about the reasons behind Zwirner's incursion into London.

Why London now?

Over the past few years we have expanded in New York. In Chelsea, we started with one space on West 19th Street, then later added two major additional adjacent spaces. Just one block away on West 20th Street, we are currently building a major 30,000-square-foot gallery from the ground up, due to open at the end of this year. We have been considering a European outpost for some time now, and we began looking for a space in earnest in London about a year and a half ago. We continue to work closely with so many museums throughout Europe, as we have for many, many years. And of course we have collectors in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East — so London seemed like the next logical step.

What can London offer that New York can't?

Both London and New York have a lot to offer to both artists and collectors, and we see the locations working in tandem to each other in terms of the gallery’s programming. That said, to have a physical space now in London will be an ideal location for the collectors and curators from Europe, but also, as I mentioned, to those from the Middle East and Asia. There has been a warm and positive reception already to our news about London, which seems to have been an open secret in the art world, and our own expansion along with other recent international arrivals in London re-enforces the city as a major cultural center, certainly the center of the European art world.

You've chosen Mayfair, when other areas such as Fitzrovia or Bermondsey are fast becoming new art hubs in London. Why is it important to be at the epicenter of the city's historic fine art district?

Historically Mayfair is a gallery area and its centralized location makes it easy for collectors, especially those who travel a lot. The building itself was also a major draw for us, as it is substantial in size and the main exhibition floors have very high ceilings and good natural light.

In such a globalized art world, does location still matter?

David Zwirner is a global operation, and most especially over the past few years, as in addition to Frieze and Art Basel we have participated in art fairs in Hong Kong, Dubai, and elsewhere. We also have a new salesperson, Charlie Spalding, based in Hong Kong who is on the ground for us throughout Asia.

Isn't there a concern that the Eurozone crisis might affect the art market in the UK and in the region at large?

London has traditionally been a safe haven for foreign investment and therefore many nationalities either have homes there or pass through the city on a regular basis. Like in any global business, we are always mindful of any economic or political crisis and how to adjust during those difficult times. We are putting our full confidence in London.

What was the brief to Annabelle Selldorf? What was the top priority in redesigning 24 Grafton Street?

Since Annabelle has worked on all the gallery spaces, she understands the overall Zwirner aesthetic, how art needs to be viewed and protected, and how natural light plays an important part. Given that the original building in Mayfair is a townhouse, we knew that we would be dealing with very different galleries from the large loft-like spaces we have here in New York. The London spaces will be spacious, but more intimate. And with the sidelight, rather than skylights, they will have a somewhat domestic feel to them. We think this will allow for a unique viewing opportunity for the works we want to show. Much of the original interior architectural detail in the building was altered long ago, so Annabelle is able to provide very clean, clear details for the spaces that will showcase the art while still maintaining the character of the building in the grand entry staircase and other places.

How will this new venue affect the programming?

It’s exciting to know that we have new spaces for our artists, and having Luc Tuymans have the first exhibition in the Mayfair space is exciting. He is titling it "Allo!" and it will be all new paintings. This will be his first show in London since his 2004 retrospective at Tate Modern. I have been with Zwirner since the very beginning — and Luc had his very first U.S. exhibition at our space in SoHo [in New York] — so I have worked with Luc for all these years. It’s great to come full circle with him in London.

Could you envisage shows simultaneously held at all the galleries?

Anything is possible.

A version of this story originally appeared on ARTINFO UK.

Launched by Russia’s Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography and Moscow’s National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) in 2006, the Art Innovation Prize celebrates achievement in Russian art. The awards go to projects completed in the past year in five categories: work of art; theory, criticism, or art history; curatorial project; regional project; and the New Generation prize for emerging artists.

The NCCA recently announced the nominees for the prize's seventh outing, Innovation 2011, but contenders will have a hard time matching the controversy caused when the 2010 award for best work of art went to the anarchist art collective Voina’s piece “A Dick Captured By the FSB,” the now-iconic giant penis painted on a St. Petersburg drawbridge in a guerrilla stunt. The crew received $14,000 for the award, which they said would go toward helping political prisoners.

Nominees for best art work made in 2011 include projects by performance artist Andrei Kuzkin — who was featured in Performa 11’s exhibition “33 Fragments of Russian Performance” — the collective MishMash Group, and Russian architect and sculptor Alexander Brodsky. Selections for best curatorial project include “Impossible Community,” a public-minded retrospective of the Escape collective by curator Victor Misiano, and Andrei Smirnov’s “Generation Z”, which explores the sound experiments of the 1910-1930′s, according to Baibakov Art Projects.

For the New Generation prize, the Innovation panel has chosen Alexey Buldakov and Anastasya Ryabova for “ATTENTIONWHORES,” a short video that turns mundane objects into dramatic events with a horror-movie soundtrack, as well as Valery Chtak, a painting, collage, and installation artist. Also nominated are Roman Mokrov, Alexander Gronsky, and Taus Makhacheva. (The full list of nominees is available here.)

The nominees will be shown in an exhibition at the NCCA in Moscow from March 29 through May 5. On April 2, the members of the prize jury, including Palais de Tokyo director Marc Olivier Wahler, Berlin Transmediale festival director Kristoffer Gansing, and Moscow Museum of Modern Art director Vassily Tsereteli, will choose a winner from each category. The awards will be presented in a ceremony on April 3. The political furor and attempted arrests that followed Voina’s previous victory, however, ensure that the results will likely be tamer.

The coast of Chelsea may just become a new public art destination. An exhibition of monumental sculpture by George Rickey and Kenneth Snelson is expected to be approved by the Hudson River Trust, the organization that maintains the five-mile park hugging the west coast of Manhattan, and then installed this summer (exact dates have not yet been finalized). The trust is also considering a number of other proposals from galleries and art funds to organize installations, events, and performances in the park. “It’s not a new idea to put art there, but it is a matter of the right exhibition and the ability of a group to execute a project,” trust president Madelyn Wils told ARTINFO. “This area in Chelsea is perfect for an art installation.” Nevertheless, as is the case with most public art projects, the exhibition is not without its opponents.

The show, which would occupy a plot of park between 24th and 22nd Streets on the water, was proposed and will be produced and funded by Marlborough Gallery, which represents geometric sculptor Snelson and the estate of cube-loving sculptor Rickey. The plan is for the gallery to revisit a 2006 exhibition at the Palais Royal in Paris titled “Two Americans in Paris: Sculptures by George Rickey and Kenneth Snelson.” The short-term show would present eight sculptures by the two artists, both of whom work with stainless steel and explore geometric forms and movement in their work. (“They may weigh a ton, but they appear to float, allowing themselves to be penetrated by the surrounding space, which they manage to distill but not overpower,” wrote critic Béatrice Comte in Le Figaro after the sculptors’s Paris debut.) “The Hudson River Trust has approved a proposal in concept, and now we’re entering into a technical phase,” said Dale Lanzone, Marlborough’s president of international public art, explaining that the gallery must complete the necessary engineering studies to ensure that the sculptures can safely withstand the elements along the river.

The proposal has ruffled some feathers, however, among those who believe a commercial gallery should not be allowed to produce a public art exhibition, a move that provides its artists substantial free advertising and exposure. (Similar squabbles have arisen over the Park Avenue sculpture commissions.) Last week, about a dozen people appeared at a community board meeting to oppose the installation, according to a report on DNAInfo. Among the opposition was Deley Gazinelli, the founder and executive director of a group called “Chelsea Sculpture Park,” which he established several years ago with the intention to build an “New York City’s first museum without walls” in the same location where Marlborough is planning its own exhibition. "Marlborough is not being a good neighbor," he said. "Chelsea Sculpture Park, a non-profit organization, is committed to help raise funds to maintain and preserve the Chelsea Cove site for future generations," he noted, adding that the vast majority of public art projects are conducted through non-profit organizations in order to "prevent a commercial business usage of a public space for its own financial self-interest."

The trust, for its part, emphasized that it welcomes proposals from all parties and carefully weighs potential conflicts of interest when making a decision. (A spokesperson for the trust also confirmed Chelsea Sculpture Park is not an organization that was established by the trust and does not act as an agent on behalf of it.) “The project has to be something that, in our opinion, the public would benefit from,” said Wils, noting that whatever organization is behind the exhibition is expected to fully finance the project, regardless of whether it is commercial or non-profit. The trust, she explained, distinguishes between those who seek to use the park for commercial purposes (to whom it charges a fee), and those who suggest projects that will serve a broader public. “That’s up to our discretion,” she said, “but in this case, we’re talking about a museum-quality exhibit. It’s exactly the type of art that would work well with the Chelsea site, both in scope and scale, and we would be thrilled to have it in the park.” 

I can’t remember the last time a reality fashion show excited me. The originator of the genre, Bravo’s “Project Runway,” did in its first few seasons, but it no longer carries the allure it once had. Other attempts, like the network’s “The Fashion Show” or Lifetime’s “24 Hour Catwalk,” never captured that same magic. Last night NBC debuted its new fashion designer competition reality show, “Fashion Star,” a search for what the network says is the “the next big brand.” I think I might be hooked.

Hosted and executive produced by supermodel Elle Macpherson, the show seeks to reinvent fashion reality TV the way NBC’s “The Voice” reinvented reality singing competitions. In many ways it did. Here’s the premise: 14 designers present mini-collections showcasing a signature piece to three mentors: celebrity designers Jessica Simpson and Nicole Richie, and designer John Varvatos. The mentors critique the collections, which are then placed in the hands of three buyers: Caprice Willard from Macy’s, Terron E. Schaefer from Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nicole Christie from H&M. The buyers have the opportunity to purchase the piece or pass. Best of all for the designers, the clothes go on sale online immediately after the show airs. Those who don’t attract any buyers face elimination.

The program pulled out all the bells and whistles: the opening sequence featured motorcycles and fireworks, and models strutting around in lingerie from Elle Macpherson’s Intimates Collection. As each designer showed, pop anthems like Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory” and La Roux’s “Bulletproof” played while flashy lights blinked and back-up dancers swayed. The cheese factor was over-the-top, but it certainly added to the spectacle.

“Fashion Star” isn’t seeking to impress elitist fashion enthusiasts – it’s meant to appeal to a wider audience. Sure, NBC could have recruited bigger designer names like Ralph Lauren, Diane von Furstenberg, or Karl Lagerfeld (maybe it tried and was declined), but reality veterans Richie and Simpson both have successful fashion companies and likeable personalities. The two also know what they’re talking about. Varvatos adds actual designer cred to the show. As for the buyers, the network went for well-known, mainstream outlets. It couldn’t have picked more influential retailers than Saks, H&M, and Macy’s.

The designers competing come from diverse backgrounds: there’s a mother of two with no design education or professional experience, and another contestant who has had items sold in stores and featured in major magazines. Talent also runs the gamut. Pieces ranged from tacky Forever 21 copies to well-thought-out garments. A butterfly dress made by the flamboyant Oscar Fierro got no takers, while an asymmetrical jersey tunic by former Microsoft employee Lizzie Parker resulted in bids from Macy’s and Saks. (Macy’s won.) The arrogant former model Nicholas Bowes, who got ousted, deserved it – his motorcycle jacket was a snooze and he suggested that the female mentors didn’t know what they were talking about.

With the social media (mentors tweet on iPads during the show) and e-commerce audience engagement, “Fashion Star” is full of possibilities. At press time, three of the six items that went on sale last night were sold out – certainly an indication that people are paying attention. A revered fashion icon might not be produced, but a hit television show and a commercially successful designer may be on the way.  

It looks as if director Errol Morris — who based his Oscar-winning 2003 documentary “The Fog of War” on interviews with Vietnan-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara — has already scored his inside man for the Iraq war: Vulture reports that Morris made time with Donald Rumsfeld, the architect (in the parlance) of that conflict, just last month. The don’t have any details beyond that — no title or word on a distributor — but the story’s got plenty of nice context, including this:

Rumsfeld famously posited in 2002, when asked about Operation Iraqi Freedom, that “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.” This clearly intrigued Morris, who in a June 2010 opinion blog for the New York Times wrote, “I kept wondering if Rumsfeld’s real problem was with the unknown unknowns; or was it instead some variant of self-deception, thinking that you know something that you don’t know.  A problem of hubris, not epistemology.”

While it’s easy (and exciting) enough to imagine the “Fog of War” fast-forwarded to the aughts, Rumsfeld’s influence in American government stretches back to McNamara’s time. Rumsfeld, like McNamara, is a key to many doors. Or maybe a book one pulls the reveal doorways hidden behind shelves. In any case, there’s a delightful bit of poetry in Rumsfeld subjecting himself to Morris’s famous Interrotron.

This is the fourth of a four-part series from Art+Auction magazine in which key art-market players weigh in on the future of the field. 

L.A.'S STORY

Over the past few years, the attention L.A. receives has been steadily increasing. But in the last three to five months we’ve seen a lot more people. Groups on Pacific Standard Time tours aren’t just visiting museums; they’re seeing the galleries, too. Pacific Standard Time was a vital thing to have happen because it was so content-oriented as opposed to personality-based. It presents a massive, instant postwar history that you can pick up in one fell swoop, and I know people are collecting based on what has been included.

People take notice of the big New York galleries opening branches here—Matthew Marks just launched with an Ellsworth Kelly show. But younger galleries are doing well too: David Kordansky has opened another location, and other dealers in Hollywood, like Overduin and Kite, have intimate but strong programs.

Not every city needs an art fair, however. The new art fairs this year were in September—who wants to leave their summer holiday and run off to L.A. before doing Frieze, FIAC, Artissima, and Miami?

—Tim Blum is co-owner of Blum&Poe, a gallery that, with its 2003 move, helped pioneer the Culver City Art District on L.A.’s Westside, an area that it still anchors.

A SAFE HAVEN

With the world around us full of doubt, it seems the art market in general, and the contemporary art market in particular, are stronger than anybody would imagine. It appears that the fear in other markets and world economies makes art feel like a safe tangible asset. The confidence is still there.

I tell my clients, “You will have to compete to get the best works,” and the success of the top pieces at last November’s contemporary sales proved that. At the same time, you have to be cautious, which means being more selective than ever.

The key in our business is access to the work. Once you have a great object, finding a buyer is not the most difficult part. Also you need to assure potential sellers you can get the best possible price for their property. We don’t keep inventory; we’re just looking for works for our clients.

After the financial crises, at the end of 2008 and through 2009, private dealers were preferable to auctions. A lot of works came to us or to other private dealers, especially after the auction houses dropped the idea of guaranteeing them. Consignors, for understandable reasons, started to be very careful about bringing works to auction. That lasted for 18 months or so, until Giacometti’s Walking Man sold for $100 million at Sotheby’s London in February 2010. That sent out a signal that auctions could produce very strong prices again.

—Philippe Ségalot is a partner in the private art dealership Giraud Pissarro Ségalot.

FAIR SHAKE-UP

At the major fairs, the top of the line in anything is still selling because the people with money still have money. It’s easier to sell a $2 million picture than a $15,000 picture. That’s why the model now is to bring in the right people—collectors who will buy big-ticket items—and not worry if you don’t make any money in the gate.

I think there’s an oversaturation of fairs around the country. But dealers are optimists. They will try a new event and will keep it going for two years, maybe three. They figure, “Oh, we saw great people. We didn’t make any money, but we’ll get ’em next year.” So most fairs make it to two or three years before falling apart. But there’s no question there are too many regional ones.

The events that are still succeeding tend to be the association fairs. As for independent shows, major dealers have the money to participate in any fair; everybody else doesn’t. For my Outsider Art Fair, I’ve had to make concessions to dealers. And the antiques business is hurting still, especially the brown-furniture end of it.

In New York in particular, things are shifting quickly. Frieze is siphoning off many of the European dealers from the Armory Show. The Park Avenue Armory space just hired its first artistic director, and eventually it will be doing 80 percent theatrical and music productions. Right now the venue hosts more than 10 art shows each year, but I expect that by 2017 fewer than half a dozen will be left. With all the changes, organizers need to come up with fresh ideas. I need to do things I’ve never done before to make sure the right people come in.

—Sanford L. Smith has managed art and antiques shows for 32 years. This November he will launch the Salon of Art and Design, focused on contemporary and 20th-century work, at the Park Avenue Armory, in New York.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Although this remains a time of great uncertainty, recent experience shows that economic volatility doesn’t mean the art market slows down. Everyone predicted, for example, that the satellite fairs around the big art fairs would disappear as soon as the economy contracted. What’s been striking is the extent to which that prediction did not come true.

In a way, the last couple of years served as a "stress test" for the whole model of big international shows such as Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach. Because we work with such long lead times, the economic volatility doesn’t change what we do; but it makes us focus on our tasks with greater urgency. People clearly understand what a critical role we can play in the success or failure of our galleries in reaching beyond their core collectors. That is a major reason why galleries come to shows like Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach—to activate existing relationships with collectors and to meet new collectors.

As a gallery in these shows, the only way to stand out is by bringing great material and presenting it to maximum impact—that forces people, even in a difficult economic moment, to make the jump. So, while it’s hard to predict sales at this year's Art Basel shows—because that's tied to the economic environment—we do know that our galleries will pay attention to the lesson of recent times and combine great works to create strong stands.

In the next five or ten years, we will see a lot of important collections, built especially by younger Latin Americans and North Americans, filled with artworks that were bought either at Art Basel Miami Beach or through contacts first made at our show. Today’s newer collectors, who are terribly stretched for time, often first come into the art world through the art-fair space, not the gallery space. It allows them to access the major galleries of the world without doing all of the legwork. But in the long run, those stronger collectors start making time to see galleries and museum shows.

So for us a great show is not just about the sales made that week, it’s about building a market for galleries that allows them to sustain their program over time. It’s not just about those four or five days, it’s about the long-term relationships between galleries, collectors and institutions that keep their artists moving forward.

—Marc Spiegler is co-director, with Annette Schönholzer, of Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, whose parent company, MCH Group, recently acquired Art HK, the contemporary fair based in Hong Kong.