– Obama Art for Sale: How much does a fine work of Barack Obama-inspired art go for these days? Tea Party painter Jon McNaughton, now (in)famous for his image of an evil Obama burning the Constitution, is asking $300,000 for his latest works, emboldened by support from well-known aesthete Sean Hannity (who has purchased a McNaughton canvass and even offered to "loan" the image to the Brooklyn Museum). Meanwhile, the Atlantic takes a look at what different pro- and anti-Obama works are selling for these days, from a collectable Obama gargoyle ($4.95) to a totally weird image of Obama laughing at a topless Sarah Palin ($50 on Etsy.) [Buzzfeed, Atlantic]

– Arts Plummeting at Public Schools: A National Endowment for the Arts study published last week found that children, especially those from low-income families, get better grades and have more ambitious aspirations when the arts are part of their education. This news was rapidly followed by a heartbreaking U.S. Department of Education report that arts education in public elementary schools has been in decline in the last decade. In the 2009-10 school year, 83 percent of schools offered visual arts classes (compared to 87 percent 10 years ago) and just 4 percent offered drama classes (down 16 percent from 2000). [AP] 

– Dealer Arrested for Selling Fake Picassos: Connecticut dealer David Crespo was arrested by FBI agents on Tuesday on suspicion of knowingly selling phony Picassos to clients. According to court documents, Crespo bought the fraudulent paintings on the Internet from a seller calling himself "Collectart4less." [Hartford Courant]

– Titian's First Masterpiece Leaves Russia for England: Following 12 years of intensive restoration work, Titian's "The Flight into Egypt" (1507) — which hasn't been seen outside Russia since Catherine the Great bought it in 1768 — will be presented at London's National Gallery alongside works that inspired it. [Guardian]

– Surrealism Resurgent: Works by Surrealists are reaching new highs this season — Salvador Dalí's "Portrait of Paul Eluard" fetched $21.7 million in February at Sotheby's — and in May, the auction house will bring more paintings from the psychologically charged movement to the auction block. Its Impressionist and Modern art sale in New York will include pieces by Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, and more. [WSJ]

– Pompidou's Sleeper Hit Steps Softly: An exhibition exploring the influence of dance on art since 1900 at France's national museum of contemporary art turned into a surprise blockbuster, bringing in nearly 400,000 visitors over its almost four-month run. "Dance Through Life," which included some 450 works by figures ranging from Matisse to Olafur Eliasson, saw an average daily attendance of 3,392 visitors. [Liberation]

– Turkey Tackles Midwest Museum: In its ongoing quest to recover allegedly stolen antiquities — which already had it knocking on the doors of the Getty and Metropolitan Museum — the Turkish government has requested the return of 22 artifacts from the Cleveland Museum of Art, including a 5,000-year-old stone-carved female figure known affectionately as the "Stargazer." [Plain Dealer]

– Archaeology is Greece's Achilles Heel: As Greece moves into a fifth year of recession, licensed archaeology digs are finding it difficult to obtain public funds, while antiquity smuggling is on the rise. At a recent summit, some archeologists said it would be wiser to rebury valuable discoveries than fail to protect them above ground. "Greece's historic remains have become our curse," one said. [AFP] 

– New Director for Michener Art Museum: Lisa Tremper Hanover has been named director of the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She was previously the director of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College. [Philadelphia Inquirer] 

ALSO ON ARTINFO:

Elizabeth Catlett, African-American Printmaker and Sculptor, Dead at 96

Google Art Project Launches Phase 2, With Highlights Including a 7-Billion-Pixel Rembrandt From the Getty

The Damien Hirst You Didn't Know: 8 Unconventional Works From the Artist's Tate Retrospective, Explained

Seven, the Lovable Dealer-Run Miami Mini-Fair, Will Come to Williamsburg During Frieze New York

Sotheby's Hong Kong's Contemporary Asian Sale Soars to $27 Million, Boosted by a Big-Spending Indonesian Tycoon

Exeunt Exit Art: Director Papo Colo and Curator Rachel Gugelberger on 5 Works From the Space’s Storied History

NEW YORK — The very continued existence of the Guerrilla Girls is a reminder that the art world still has some growing to do. Last Thursday night, the feminist art activists and self-proclaimed masked avengers continued their 27-year call to action at the Brooklyn Museum. Over the course of the evening, the Girls refreshed the audience’s memory about their career as advocates for women and people of color, and offered a guided tour of the paltry representation of women in American art museums with their revised and updated “Guerrilla Girls Art Museum Activity Book.”

After nearly three decades of organizing as an anonymous group of women bringing attention to discrimination in the art world, it’s unsettling to hear that the results of their updated research are not so different from the original figures they made public in 1989, with an aggressive street poster campaign touting the single digit percentages of women’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Guerrilla Girls may not be straying far from their roots, but maybe that’s the point. Things haven’t changed that much.

With their new “Activity Book,” a parody of the participatory pamphlets many institutions provide to children as educational guides, the group takes jabs at offensive museum practices through satirical quizzes and games. As always, it wouldn’t be a Guerrilla Girls event if the women didn’t put the host museum itself in the hot seat, making an example of the fact that the group was selected to participate in the museum’s lecture series, rather than being offered an exhibition, and proposing a “sex change operation” for the solely male names inscribed on the building. Before starting their presentation — during which they declared “Give us the Brooklyn Museum façade!” — founding members Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz spoke with ARTINFO about the additions to their book, how the issues they confront have changed, and where their mode of activism fits in the age of Occupy Wall Street.

When did your work shift from being aimed at museums to working with museums? Has it become easier to say what you want in a museum-sanctioned program?

Kathe Kollwitz: In the past five to ten years we’ve been busier than ever, but we’ve been faced with this real dilemma, which is: What do you do when the system you’ve spent your lives criticizing embraces you? We’ve been doing things at museums all over the world, and the question for us as a group was always, “Oh god, what do we do now?” We try very hard not to let the fact that we’re inside a museum co-opt our edge. It’s also been important for us to get our work out to as large an audience as possible. It’s irresistible to be in museums and criticize them on their own walls and in their own auditoriums.

Frida Kahlo: Our anonymity really helps us. It really enables us to say whatever we want about museums. But, in terms of museums themselves, they are becoming more corporate. They appear to be more democratic, more populist, but the fact is that they are run by art collectors who become trustees. Art collectors – let’s face it – they are art investors. People who are interested in making art they purchase and invest in appreciate in value – and then the museums, of course, help that. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize it’s a pretty corrupt system. It would not be tolerated in any other form of commerce. The idea that art collectors (mostly white males) are deciding what museums collect, and what becomes part of our art history, is not populist at all. It’s really letting power determine what our history is.

What inspired a revision to the “Art Museum Activity Book” now? What current events have inspired the revision of your research? What trends and statistics did you notice in your revised research?

KK: One thing we’ve been doing over the years is going back and redoing statistics. In the last bunch of years we’ve done a lot of new projects about the system, art, and artists. We also go back every once in a while and recount at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of our most well known posters is “Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get Into the Metropolitan Museum?” When we did it first in 1989 there were five percent women artists on display. We did it again in 2004, in the first edition of the “Art Activity” book, and then there were three percent women artists. And now, we did it again, just a few months ago, and five percent. Museums are still lagging behind.

Were there any museum shows that have come up in the past couple years that have inspired you to tackle the book again, to go back and revise?

KK: Well one thing that’s happened in the last few years are feminist shows in spades, which again made people feel like, “Oh, I guess everything’s O.K. now!” The way you’ll talk to a lot of people and they’ll say, “Oh yeah, feminism, that’s all over. That’s all done, right?” As soon as the feminist shows ended, things are probably better than they’ve ever been at the entry level for women and people of color — but there’s still a long way to go. It’s irresistible to go back and look at it, particularly in terms of the 1 percent and the 99 percent. Museums are run by the one percent, but the viewers probably count in the 99 percent, or the 90 percent. We always try to deepen our critique of the system and say more and more about it.

FK: One thing that made it important to go back and look at the material in this book was the recession. In 2008 there were hard times, unemployment, and the economy was in the toilet, but the art market was not in the toilet. The art market was really robust. Something is going on that makes art museums different, and it’s that they really are run by billionaires. Art becomes a great place to park some money, to launder money, and to make gigantic donations to museums and get big tax write offs – all under the guise of being non-profit and dealing with a greater good. We would like to strip away the veil, take a look at that, and examine art museums. Are they really serving the public, and are they really preserving everyone’s history?

Have the issues that you confront changed? If so, how?

FK: When we first started, it was an atmosphere of disbelief; no one wanted to admit that there was conscious and unconscious discrimination against women and artists of color. We weren’t even sure, we didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle together at the time. Our early posters were just asking questions, and when we started putting things together we realized there was institutional discrimination – that women were being educated by art schools and then professional opportunities would somehow disappear for them.

But now after 27 years of complaining, it’s a no brainer. I don’t think anyone could say that you could write the history of our culture without all the voices of the culture included in the history. That wasn’t the case 27 years ago. There was this idea that art had its own trajectory, its own history, and that the art world and museums were a meritocracy, and that whatever they wrote history as had to be what was most significant. I don’t think that’s accepted anymore. But, in the meantime, other things have come up: issues of multiculturalism, and the tokenism that multiculturalism often produces.

KK: We’ve talked a lot about the negative, negative, negative. I mean, we are complainers.

FK: Professional complainers!

KK: Can we have one second just to say a few positive things? We think we’ve helped make this happen, but we’re not the only ones. There are lots of other people, including people who work in these institutions, who believe the way we do. There are initiatives at some museums in the world to collect more work by women. They realize that they’ve done them wrong and they are trying to address the situation by upping the percentages of their collections.

That includes the Tate Modern, Pompidou, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, which has long had this initiative but is just trying to reinvigorate it. And it also includes places like the entire country of Spain, which has a law for equal funding of women, after all these years of it being really hard for women. The Museum of Modern Art has an initiative as well. So while there is still a long way to go, some institutions are trying.

“Interview Magazine” recently framed your work within the context of Occupy Wall Street. Do you agree? How have the events of OWS over the past months impacted your work? Do you identify with their causes? Has your work changed as a result?

FK: We’d like to be doing more. We are involved with it, and we’d like to be doing a lot more stuff, so we definitely support it in every way.

KK: What I think is fascinating is that the idea of the 1 percent and the 99 percent is probably the most brilliant creative idea of framing what’s going on in the country right now that I have ever heard. It was amazing. That has changed the dialogue in this country totally. That was thought up by a person. That just shows you how a creative idea can transform the dialogue about something, and that’s our goal.

FK: And we’ve been complaining about the hierarchy of the art world and corruption in the art world for a long time, and to see the Occupy people analyze the political system the same way makes us feel really powerful. I personally have taken part in a number of Occupy protests, but I have not gotten arrested yet. I am looking for the right day and the right moment.

What’s next on the horizon for the Guerrilla Girls?

KK: Our next couple of projects, we definitely want to do more stuff about politics, we’re working on it, but we definitely don’t put stuff out there unless we feel they really add to the dialogue. We just don’t do it just to do it. So we’re not quite there yet. But in the next couple of months we’re going to be doing a project in Krakow, Poland, and we’re going to be in Melbourne doing gigs and workshops, and we’re in a whole bunch of exhibitions. We just opened this big exhibition at Columbia College in Chicago, which has a lot of our work over the past 10 years. That was pretty interesting to see all in one place. More of the same and hopefully better than the same!

SALE: Titanic Memorabilia in New York

LOCATION: Guernsey's and Bonhams, New York

DATE: April 11-15

ABOUT: There are two very different auctions this week having to do with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. At Guernsey's you can buy the whole of the memorabilia salvaged from the wreck site, as well as future salvaging rights to the wreck itself — but only if you have around $180 million to buy it as a single lot, as mandated by a court in Virginia. If you do have that much cash laying around, you should consider spending it on the 5,500 objects collected by the previous salvaging company, Premier Exhibitions, including clothing, fine china, binoculars, watches, and a piece of the hull (although many expect someone to buy it as a museum donation). Note that this is a closed auction, and serious bidders should contact the auction house.

Bonhams, on the other hand, is hosting a more traditional affair on the anniversary of the ship's sinking, April 15. The sale is rather small — only 87 lots — and includes a "Carpethia medal," given to the crew of the ship that rescued Titanic survivors (est. $8,000-12,000), collections of newspapers relating to the disaster (est. $1,000-1,500), and the original rescue captain's hand-written report of the disaster, which could fetch $90,000-120,000.

Also on offer, less authentic but no less integral for the true Titanic fan, is a reproduction of Rose's "Heart of the Ocean" necklace from the James Cameron movie "Titanic" (est. $400-600).

OTHER INTERNATIONAL SALES:

Sale: Important Books, Atlases, and Manuscripts: The Private Library of Kenneth Nebenzahl
Location: Christie's New York
Date: April 10, 6pm

Sale: Fine Books
Location: Swann New York
Date: April 12, 10:30am

Sale: Wine
Location: Christie's New York
Date: April 13, 10am

To see pieces from next week's Titanic sales click the slide show.

"22% of the private banks surveyed currently offer advice to their clients on using their art as collateral for loans. 33% of the private banks said it was very likely or likely that they would offer art lending as part of their private banking service platform in the next two to three years. 78% of the wealth managers said that the problem of valuation and difficulties assessing the downside risks were the biggest hurdles against offering these types of loans."

— 2011 Deloitte Luxembourg Report on the Art Market

Credit is tight, but money still courses through the art market. No wonder, then, that the art-rich and cash-poor might think about posting a Carvaggio as collateral for a loan. The art lending market currently stands at about $7 billion, estimates Michael Plummer of ArtVest Partners — but just because you own a masterpiece (or even a mediocre work), doesn't mean that you can waltz into your local bank branch and take out a loan. It is going to be a very difficult or a very expensive process, depending on how many other assets you have to fall back on, and there are all kinds of pitfalls that come into play when the loan sharks meet Damien Hirst's "$12-million stuffed shark." 

If you type "art-backed lending" into Google, the first (sponsored) hit that comes up will likely be for a London-based company called borro (pronounced "borrow"), which has just opened a branch in New York. If you click the link you will find a lively website that offers short-term loans backed by a variety of SWAG-type assets: art, jewelry, gold, wine, watches, etc. There are happy testimonials from those who have secured a loan from borro, and lots of photos of smiling people.

If you dig a little deeper you will find that the loan term is approximately six months, and that a loan through borro carries a 2.99-4.99 percent interest per month. Company CEO Paul Aitken clarified for ARTINFO that while these are the rates for many luxury assets that the company lends against (including baseball memorabilia), fine art loan interest rates are as low as 2.49 percent per month. Still, since loan rates for things like houses and cars are generally given on annual terms, 2.5-5 percent works out to 30-60 percent annually. Compare that, for example, to hedge-fund manager and collector Michael Steinhardt's sub-3 percent annual rate on an art loan from J.P. Morgan last year, which he used to finance a lucrative real estate development. 

NAVIGATING THE WATERS

Like most things in the art (and finance) world, you have to have money to make money, and for those without significant capital to back up their art holdings, not all loans are created equal. Unless you have a collection worth $200 million, a balance sheet that goes significantly beyond that, and a good relationship with one of the private banks that are increasingly offering art loans as part of their service packages, you are unlikely to secure the kind of rate Steinhardt took advantage of. You are more likely to end up paying 44 percent to Art Capital Group, as photographer Annie Leibovitz notoriously did after using her own photographs as collateral. But in the right circumstances, are art loans worth it, anyway? Only if you do your homework.

"There are one or two asset backed lenders [with lower rates] … but it's kind of tough finding them," Plummer told ARTINFO. The rest, he said, are either charging usurious interest rates upward of 20 percent on a short-term loan while holding on to your assets — like a luxury pawn shop — or are pursuing what is known in the biz as a "loan-to-own" strategy, betting that the borrower will default and that they can take the art and sell it at auction. For the shrewd businessman, this could be a particularly attractive strategy. Because of the volatility of art market prices, most lenders will only loan 50 percent of what an auction house low estimate for the value of the work would be (what is known as a 50 percent loan-to-value ratio). Consequently, if the lender sells the work at auction after a default, they are likely to make a hefty profit.

Aitken, however, argues that borro is a step above the average "luxury pawnshop," fitting rather into the more respectable "personal asset lender" category. Even though the company's fees are high, Aitken noted that only 10 to 15 percent of clients default on their loans, and when they do, the company usually waits a few months before selling the assets in case the client comes through with the cash. Once the assets are sold, borro takes what it is owed and gives any profit above that back to the client. "As with any business, it is easier to keep a customer than find a new one," he said. The other upside of short-term lending, he pointed out, is that a customer that manages to pay off a loan in three months only has to pay three months of interest.

A GROWING BUSINESS

In art economist Clare McAndrew's book "High Art and High Finance," the head of Citi's art advisory service, Suzanne Gyorgy (interviewed by Art+Auction's Judd Tully on this very subject in 2009) contributes a chapter on art loans. In it, she lists several reasons that her private banking clients might want a loan. They include "'cashing in' on the increased value of a work without selling it," gaining liquidity without paying the capital gains tax of an artwork sale, using loans backed by art to acquire other artworks (therefore keeping their collecting separate from their other business activities), and using art loans to secure real estate for development (as Michael Steinhardt did).

There has been a real uptick in these kinds of high-end bank loans. In addition to the Deloitte report quoted above, art lawyer Stephen Brodie at Herrick Feinstein told ARTINFO that his firm was currently working on six different art loans, and consulting with many banks on how to get into the art lending game. The most serious problems that banks come up against is securing rock-solid provenance and authentication for a work before making a loan, which is part of the reason why they require other forms of collateral (other assets you might have. But even with this problem, art loans have been on the rise since after the financial crisis, as many people feel that art has held value better than equities and real estate. Still, when taking out an art loan through an average bank, a borrower will be required to have impeccable credit and post other forms of collateral — the banks lend against a customer's entire balance sheet, including equities and real estate — rather than just pledging a few Picassos.

But high-net-worth individuals aren't the only ones that are increasingly trying to secure art loans. According to Aitken, borro counts many small business owners as clients. "We had a customer who borrowed $250,000 secured by high-end fancy yellow diamond jewelry to put into her business. She had just received a big order from China and needed working capital to complete it," he said. Of course, on the more desperate end of the art loan spectrum, there are the three famous "D"s: death, divorce, or debt. In that situation, it may be better to go the more traditional route and head to auction.

"When you are at that level of need that you are willing to pay that much [30-60 percent] in interest, you are now eating into your principle, so you might as well sell the work of art. You are better off taking it to auction and selling it," noted Plummer. Auction houses are in the business of helping people unload their precious works, and they are competitive(ish), so they offer various forms of financial help if you know what to ask for.

NEW YORK — THE ART LOAN HUB

New York has emerged as the hub for art loans, not all that surprising considering it is a hub for both the art and finance worlds. But there is a more bureaucratic reason that so many loans get finalized in the Big Apple: It's called a Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filing, and it allows borrowers to keep the art securing their loan on their walls. A UCC filing is a legal document that allows the bank to ensure that they will be allowed to seize the artwork if the loan isn't paid back. Essentially, once a UCC has been filed, the borrower cannot sell or move the assets being used as collateral without permission from the lender. As a result, the borrower can keep the art, provided it stays in the same place with the same owner. In contrast, in the UK, Europe, and Hong Kong, there is no version of the UCC filing, which means that any artworks securing loans must be transfered to the possession of the lender — basically, for the term of the loan the art heads to a warehouse (this is how it works with many personal asset lenders, even in New York).

"As you might imagine, it makes for an entirely different economic principle. So, a version of Michael Steinhardt in the U.S. can live with their collection, but in the UK or Europe has to give it up and have it put into storage. That makes for an entirely different dynamic and value equation in terms of borrowing against your collection," said Plummer.

At the end of the day, an art loan can be a big risk, and you have to ask yourself, is your prized Picasso worth it?

“To Rome With Love” has to be better than “Anything Else,” the terrible 2003 Woody Allen romcom about … relationships … because Jesse Eisenberg, “Rome” star, beats Jason Biggs, “Anything” guy — although barely. They’re both lovable lunks who work just fine as young, anodyne Allen neurotics. Although you can’t be sure with Eisenberg, who stars with Penelope Cruz (playing a prostitute, it seems) and Ellen Page (who, interestingly, is said to have a “sexual vibe”), judging only by this trailer, which is mostly dominated by Cruz’s crude and sultry gag lines. We don’t expect this to be “Midnight in Paris.” We can say that if there’s a high noon in this Rome, Eisenberg will likely sulk away.

The Salzburg Easter Festival kicked off with dramatic flair on Saturday evening with the opening of Georges Bizet’s beloved 1875 opera, “Carmen.” The production stars Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena, who makes her debut in the title role, and German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who performs opposite Kozena as opera’s most famous spurned lover, Don José. The Berlin Philharmonic continues its long tradition of performing at the festival, now in its 46th year, and presents the work under the baton of festival artistic director Sir Simon Rattle.

“It’s not often that the words ‘the most popular’ and ‘the greatest’ ever appear together in classical music,” said Rattle in a video introduction on the event’s Web site. “But this is one of those cases where Bizet did something that nobody had done before and nobody else has done anything like – let alone better – since.” 

The opera, which will be performed again on April 9, was directed and staged by renowned British choreographer Aletta Collins, who has choreographed pieces for such institutions as the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, Opera North, and the Berlin Philharmonic. 

“Carmen” is known for its Spanish-inflected dance scenes, and Rattle described the festival’s interpretation of Bizet’s work as a “really beautiful, colorful, dance-oriented production by Collins.” He noted that the choreographer brings a unique perspective to the opera, as she is highly skilled at “moving people around stages and making very brilliant and direct visual statements, and also simply the fact of being a woman and giving another kind of view on this great, well known masterpiece.”

The festival runs through April 9 and, in addition to “Carmen,” features three concert programs with the Berlin Philharmonic. The first, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, will be performed under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Shumann’s Piano Concerto, with soloist Murray Perahia, will be presented next, along with Luciano Berio’s “O King,” and Fauré’s Requiem. The final line-up includes Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, with soloist Emanuel Ax, and Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde,” featuring mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and tenor Jonas Kaufmann.    

Along with these offerings, the 10-day event includes a chamber music series featuring members of the Berlin Philharmonic performing works by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Ferruccio Busconi, and Manuel de Falla – a perfect accompaniment to the Easter holiday and the spring season. 

The tasting room at Coppermine Winery in Vallecito, where the cabernet sauvignon is a surprise, given the paucity of the grape in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Coppermine's 2008 cab stands up well with the varietal from better-known regions...

Until recently, a huge, colorful Keith Haring mural featuring his loose-limbed, dancing figures was in danger of being cut into pieces or sold off. Now a major fundraising effort is underway to ensure that Haring's only outdoor artwork in France will remain at Paris's Necker Children's Hospital. Gallerist Jérôme de Noirmont, who represents Keith Haring's estate in France, recently mounted an exhibition of celebrity photos by Alexandra Golovanoff, with the proceeds going to the mural restoration project. ARTINFO France spoke to Noirmont about the decision to integrate the mural into the hospital's new design, the need for private fundraising in France today, and what the mural meant to him when he took his kids to the emergency room.

Why is the Necker Hospital's Keith Haring mural in such urgent need of restoration?

In 1999, I curated the exhibition "Keith Haring: Made in France" at the Musée Maillol, which covered all the artist's shows in France (in Bordeaux, Paris, Marseille, and Le Mans). That was the first time that many people realized that there was a huge mural by Keith Haring at Necker Hospital. A few years later, Necker Hospital called me to tell me about the plans for a total renovation of the hospital, and to bring up the possibility of moving, cutting up, reinstalling, or selling this "tower" supporting the mural, which didn't fit into the architectural design.

Given the importance of the work, and after speaking with me and with the hospital, the architect finally decided to integrate the tower into his design — something that is quite rare for an architect to do. He integrated it into the garden, which will be a green space in the middle of the hospital. The tower, which currently encloses a staircase, will become a kind of totem pole, and will be open to the public.

So it's not just a restoration, it's a total rethinking of the work.

Yes, and that's why the budget for the restoration is so large. First the tower must be made independent, since it is connected to another building that will be destroyed in March 2013. The tower's foundation must be totally redone, the staircase entrances need to be closed up, and the roof must be redone. Plus, the exterior layer of concrete has suffered a lot. These tasks represent 80 percent of the restoration costs, and the rest is dedicated to the restoration of the painting itself.

This is Keith Haring's only outdoor work in France, which he gave to Necker Hospital in 1987. He came and painted the mural on a cherry-picker. In addition to its cultural significance, it's also a work that gives a lot of joy, because of its pop appearance and its child-like artistic vocabulary. I've sometimes taken my children to the ER at Necker Hospital, and I think that this mural gives a lot of joy to both children and parents, who are feeling a certain amount of anxiety in that situation.

What is the total cost of the restoration?

A little over €700,000 ($934,000). For this project, Artcurial organized a sale of mailboxes painted by street artists, and €80,000 ($107,000) was raised that night for the mural. Donations are another important source of financing. Florence Mahé Dombis [head of charitable giving at Necker Hospital] is looking for individuals and companies, who can be anonymous or not, to raise this huge sum. We can't count on the state or the city of Paris. But we hope that they will soon come on board with the project.

Soon we'll have another source of funding: another auction will take place at Sotheby's during FIAC, and will bring together several artist donations. The Haring Foundation will offer an original sculpture by the artist, as well as important silkscreens, along with works by other artists from Haring's personal collection. And other artists will be asked to donate works: those who knew Haring, those who are very concerned with issues of childhood, and those who create outdoor artworks. In 30 years, they will also be happy that someone is trying to preserve their works! Sotheby's won't take any commission on the sale, and they will finance the printing of the catalogue and exhibit the works in their offices before the sale.

Is this the first time that your gallery has been involved in such a large-scale project?

I don't want to emphasize my own role in this project. I'm touched by the exceptional job that Necker Hospital has done, because I represent Keith Haring's estate. I also have a grand idea of France's cultural heritage, and I find that our institutions don't always have the means or the will to do what is necessary. This is a collective project for a work that is also socially conscious.

The story behind the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac runs like this: China's Jade Emperor called a meeting in heaven, and asked all the animals to attend. The 12 that arrived fastest would have a year in the 12-year cycle named after them. As things shook out, the rat pulled some dirty tricks on the ox and the cat during a river crossing to come in first place. But Duke Riley — a Brooklyn artist known for his nautical spectacles, staging dramatic naval battles and piloting guerrilla submarines — may well rewrite mythology when he restages a version of the legendary race in Shanghai on April 15.

For “The Rematch,” the sculptor and performance-planner is working with local artists in the suburbs of Shanghai to create a series of decorated gondolas which will carry real live Zodiac animals sourced from the countryside down the Caogang River, starting from the city’s Ming dynasty old town past newly built condominiums. Thus, once more, sheep, cats, roosters, and the rest will square off in a battle for supremacy. May the best beast win.

Of course, one of the Zodiac animals is thoroughly confined to the misty regions of folklore. That, however, didn't stop the intrepid Riley: “Who says we didn’t get a dragon?” he wrote in an email from Shanghai. “We got a scary komodo dragon that looks like it would kill you pretty quick.”

The quirky performance is the product of smARTpower, a pilot collaboration between the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Bronx Museum of the Arts that is sending 15 U.S. artists abroad to create community art projects, serving "people who have limited access to cultural opportunity," said Elizabeth Grady, the program's manager at the museum. Riley's race engages the local populace in more than just its mythology. Local rowers will pilot the animal crafts, Chinese opera singers will ride along and sing songs of praise for their host animal, and students from the Zhujiajiao region created drawings of the Zodiac creatures that were turned into embroidered pennants for the boats.

“I was originally concerned that my idea would not be well received, as an outsider altering a local tradition,” Riley wrote to ARTINFO. “But people have been really excited.” Davide Quadrio (Zodiac sign: dog), who produced the project for Arthub Asia, added that as the project came together, “we realized that the fact that this myth is so well known in China helped the project to be rooted in the community.”

As for which animal will win, the artist isn’t sure. “One might assume some boats have a greater advantage due to the size of the load that they are carrying… but it’s impossible to make an educated guess like you would with a horse race,” he explained. Nevertheless, New York audiences have a chance to place their bets when the event is broadcasted to the MagnanMetz gallery in Chelsea at 6 pm on April 15. Suggested donation to the event is $10, with a portion going to animal charities and the possibility of posing a gentlemanly wager on the Zodiac creature of your choice. 

ARTINFO has reason to believe that the rat, once again, has the edge: That happens to be Riley's symbol.

Things are looking up for New Yorkers used to trudging through Times Square with their eyes on the ground to avoid the non-stop stream of ads on the screens overhead. This month the Times Square Alliance (TSA) and Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) have teams up to launch "Times Square Moment," a program that, for a few minutes before midnight every night, turns off the advertisements and broadcasts video art to thousands of passersby.

The first featured artist is London-based Israeli Ori Gersht, whose short "Big Bang 01" (2006) — in which a bouquet of flowers filmed in the style of a classical still-life explodes in slow motion — is screening nightly until April 30. Preparing the lush, single-channel video to play on enormous screens for thousands of distracted viewers was no easy feat. "We had to reconfigure the film at the studio and reassemble it," Gersht told ARTINFO in an email. "There were many screens and therefore a lot of preparation and technical challenges."

"We asked Ori to preview this program to coincide with the birth of spring in New York,  as well as the birth of this project," Sherry Dobbin, the TSA's director of public art, told ARTINFO, "and also to show that an iconic reference such as a still life can be re-contextualized for a contemporary, general public audience."

The second artist in the "Times Square Moment" program — Gersht's presentation is technically a preview — also tackles a storied art historical genre. "We will officially launch the program on May 1 with the Robert Wilson Video Portraits," says Dobbin. "We have also partnered with Chashama/ArtistsWanted and Electronic Art Intermix as upcoming curators."

Selecting video art that could translate successfully in such an unconventional venue isn't the only major challenge the TSA faced. "Logistically, every sign is separately managed and has different technical specifications," TSA president Tim Tompkins explained. "Many players and approvals are involved, and of course the advertisers are donating valuable time."

This isn't the first time the square's giant screens have taken a break from advertising to diffuse video art to unsuspecting tourists. Beginning in 2008 the non-profit arts organization Creative Time used the MTV screen between 44th and 45th streets for its "44 1/2" screening series, which showed short art videos by the likes of Gilbert & George, Marilyn Minter, and Maya Lin. That program ended in 2010, though MTV's newfound interest in video art hasn't gone away: it has now relaunched its popular "Art Breaks" series of bite-sized video art clips. The idea of putting art between the ads seems to be hot.

Watch Ori Gersht's short video "Big Bang 01" (2006), which plays in Times Square every night at 11:57pm until April 30:

Given that “Damsels in Distress” is the first Whit Stillman feature in the 14 years since “The Last Days of Disco” reveled in Studio 54 nostalgia, it’s almost impossible not to wish this essentially amiable project well. Intermittently witty and never exactly tiresome, the tale of four female undergraduates at a onetime women’s school, pledged to prevent campus suicide and improve the hygiene of their brutish male classmates, is genteel lowbrow farce, with musical comedy aspirations.

The movie’s classy, old school credits scream “Woody” even as the presence of Greta Gerwig as the quartet’s ideological leader Violet mutters “mumblecore.” Violet’s posse — Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke), Heather (Carrie MacLemore), and Lily (Analeigh Tipton) — are exceedingly well-bred and hilariously self-important young people. Given their cute floral bouquet of names and acute, exaggerated lady-like sensitivity (Rose in particular is prone to experience “nasal shock syndrome” when a sweaty frat boy passes by), it sometimes seems as though Stillman’s intentions might be a weirdly retro version of Andy Warhol’s 1971 anti-feminist travesty “Women in Revolt,” notable as a vehicle for three comic drag queens. Would that “Damsels” were half so offensive! The requisite toga party is more of a doily soiree; the handsome Greek Revival campus (Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island) could be out of a “Harold Teen”-era Hollywood college comedy.

That’s the point, I guess, and “Damsels” is not without a certain donnish humor. (One student is writing a paper on “the decline of decadence,” another purports to be an adherent of Catharism and hence bound by religion to the practice of “non-procreative” sex.) Pedantic as well as logorrheic, Violet is a proponent of fighting depression with “tap dance therapy” (evidently the scent of cheap soap is also helpful); her great ambition is to create an international dance craze.

Late in the movie, the recurring Fred and Ginger references reach critical mass with an al fresco ensemble version of the Gershwin Brothers’ “Things Are Looking Up.” This shameless homage to the dreadful Woody Allen musical “Everyone Says I Love You” is actually pretty funny in that, more than any hoofer since Ruby Keeler, Gerwig is prone to look down. Klutziness has its charm but the sound of air escaping from Stillman’s balloon drowns out the Gershwin.

Admired for the naturalism of her non-acting (see A.O. Scott’s “No Method to Her Method”), Gerwig delivers her lines as though playing one of the more dicty characters in an Oscar Micheaux talkie. Still, her often ungainly, impossibly mannered Violet is the most authentic element in “Damsel.” Based on first-hand knowledge, Stillman’s first two features — the exotic prep-and-deb fest “Metropolitan” (1990), and his wry account of yuppie expats “Barcelona” (1994) — had a certain ethnographic interest. Even “The Last Days of Disco” appeared to draw on the filmmaker’s familiarity of haute bourgeois clique formation. But the 60-year-old Harvard man hasn’t a clue when it comes to even imaginary college juniors. If you’re wondering what a 1930s college musical might look like today, check out Damien Chazelle’s “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,” an insouciant low-budget black-and-white pop bop and tap musical made by a bunch of under or recent grads from Stillman’s alma mater.

NEW YORK — In our digital age, being permanently plugged in — in more ways than one — is essential, as was made abundantly clear by the well-connected new vehicles unveiled at this year's New York International Auto Show, opening tomorrow and continuing through April 15. The resonating theme at the fair was design for the future. There were definite standouts: the MIT-designed Terrafugia Transition “flying car,” which gave hourly demonstrations of its wings unfolding; and Nissan’s very sensible and quasi-futuristic Taxi of Tomorrow. Overall, though, two major trends became apparent in the new models: engagement with social media, especially interfaces featuring embedded music; and very stylish new approaches to plug-in technology.

Plug-in concepts abounded both in the higher-end luxury vehicles and more affordable ones. While BMW’s big presentation was the new 640i Gran Coupe — the first four-door coupe in the brand’s history — it was the sleek i8 and the dowdier i3 concept cars that drew our attention. Evoking the streamlined silhouette of a sports car, the luxury of BMW, and the futurism of “Tron,” the concepts signified sustainability without sacrificing presentation. Both cars feature electric-blue accents and flashy butterfly wings, with charging stations that featured matching neon blue.

Toyota and Ford were both showcasing their plug-in technology as well, with car-charging devices that could be hooked up at home as one would a washing machine. Fisker, the relatively new California-based automaker, debuted the sinuous Atlantic, an extended-range luxury sedan. The latest model of the solar panel-outfitted roof of the Fisker Karma, which put the brand on the map in 2008 as one of the world’s first production-ready plug-in vehicles, was probably the most impressive vehicle of the entire show. At Volvo’s very Swedish-looking booth (Arne Jacobsen’s Grand Prix chair furnished its lounge) the Volvo XC60 Plug-in Hybrid concept, introduced earlier this year in Detroit, was literally center stage. Its exhaust pipes, square white grates as opposed to the traditional black metal pipes, seemed to indicate that they emit something cleaner.

Meanwhile the digital entertainment system has suddenly become this generation of car-buyers' must-have accessory, like built-in DVD players for the soccer moms of yesteryear. Brands made major selling points of their “infotainment” capabilities, highlighting their associations with other major brands in the fields of technology, media, and social media. At Hyundai’s unveiling of their new Sante Fe, a crossover meant to appeal to young families, one of the most prominent amenities was a Pandora interface, a trend we saw throughout the show. Ford touted its collaboration with Sirius XM, which includes traffic monitoring in addition to music, and was promoted with the slogan: “Let me entertain (and inform) you.” Acura’s new RLX concept car featured touchscreen accessibility to Facebook.

For its part, Mini promoted its Mini Connected, a dashboard amenity that links to your iPhone’s music files and GPS capabilities, as well as Pandora and the standard social media apps — Twitter, MOG, and the like. The diminutive car company promoted the feature by claiming that “you are always online, even when motoring.” God forbid you’d miss a status update just because your hands are on the wheel. We nevertheless ogled Mini’s Yachtsman — an amphibious boat vehicle that boasted its ability to withstand shark attacks — until we realized it was a cruel April Fool’s joke. 

The rest of the of show was furnished with the glitz and glamour you’d expect from the world’s leading automakers, from flashy presentations, to tarps dramatically flying off, as if by magic, to uncover dazzling new vehicles, all to a never-ending dubstep soundtrack.

To see the rest of our highlights from the New York International Auto Show 2012, click the slide show. 

A sexy pout, bare breasts, nude buttocks — those are the signature marks of models in American Apparel advertisements meant to sell hoodies, underwear, and thigh-high socks. Provocative to some and sleazy to others, a series of eight American Apparel ads from last year are under fire from the United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority for being exploitative and pornographic.

“We considered that in the particular context of images which featured nudity and sexually provocative poses, there was a voyeuristic and ‘amateurish’ quality to the images which served to heighten the impression that the ads were exploitative of women and inappropriately sexualized young women,” said the ASA, according to the Daily Telegraph.

American Apparel fought back, telling the ASA that it was “important to judge what was and was not offensive by reference to the current times and the views of the majority of decent and reasonable people, not a small and puritanically-minded minority.”

The company defended its choice to use images of real people in their ads, rather than professional models, asserting that consumers can relate to these types of photographs and that they are similar to pictures shared between friends on social networks. It said that the women in the ads were “happy, relaxed, and confident in expression and pose,” and the photos were not exploitative or negative.

The ASA ruled that seven out of the eight advertisements must not run again, arguing that they were meant to show off the nude body parts rather than the undergarments they were meant to sell. “We told American Apparel not to use similar images which were exploitative of women or that inappropriately sexualized young women in future,” said the ASA.

The ads in question don’t seem to have been too effective in the past. With the company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy over the past few years, maybe it’s simply time for American Apparel to find a new marketing strategy.