James Benning
neugerriemschneider, Berlin
February 10–March 24

What makes society herald one cabin-bound hermit as a genius and cast out another as demonic scum? A nearly 20-year-long string of pipe bombings seems to do the trick. But James Benning halts such reductionist thinking in Two Cabins, 2011, pitting the aforementioned duo—Henry David Thoreau and Theodore Kaczynski (better known as the Unabomber)—against each other. The installation includes a two-channel video documenting the views from the windows of models of those cabins and a couple of ready-mades—an antique desk with a pencil and a Corona typewriter—placed on spotlit pedestals.

From 2007 to ’08, Benning endeavored to build replicas of the two men’s refuges in the woods near his home in California. The videos on view consist merely of stationary shots looking out of the cabins’ windows. One window is a portrait-oriented glass of American hardware-store variety, whereas the other is a square wooden cutout, more medieval than modern. A meditative quality pervades the work, tying it squarely to Benning’s other films. Yet the work is saturated with ambiguity. Modern noises (never mind modern fixtures) emanate from Thoreau’s cabin, while Kaczynski’s view and soundscape suggest a Walden-like calm.

The two essays Benning chose for the publication accompanying Two Cabins meld nearly seamlessly in their examinations of vaguely Marxist questions of freedom and alienation. Over time, God and heaven have been replaced by the panoptic police state, and the reality of this new society strengthens the exhibition’s premise. In one political-historical epoch, seclusion and civil disobedience are lauded as a nation’s manifest destiny, while in another they are grounds for insanity. 

This article will appear in the May issue of Modern Painters magazine.

The earliest graffiti writers, when they started inscribing their names on city walls in the late 1960s, were just kids, late teenagers at the oldest. Imagine their surprise when what started as a simple tagging game evolved into the heady, celebrity-driven street art world of Banksy and Shepard Fairey that exists today. Roger Gastman, producer of the Banksy-directed “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” has now turned his camera to street art's predecessors with “Wall Writers,” a documentary charting the rise of early graffiti culture between 1967 and 1972, as it went from walls to trains to canvases hanging in New York City galleries.

ARTINFO recently spoke to Gastman about how wall writing started, the difficulty of finding those first writers, and the moment when graffiti experienced a “loss of innocence” in the early ‘70s. 

How did you come to be interested in early graffiti, and how did the idea for the movie develop?

Since writing my book with Caleb Neelon, “The History of American Graffiti,” I was always really interested in cities’ histories, and with who really was the first tagger. It’s really rudimentary, it often looks like kids' scribbles, but I was always really curious who the first people doing graffiti in their cities were. Different cities have different histories, and the first of one city might be 20 years later than the first in another city. A lot of times those first people never saw what anyone else was doing even two miles away, because they were a little kid in a little area.

In doing research for my book, I was lucky enough to come into contact with a lot of people who I really do believe were some of the first innovators of wall writing. Luckily I got through to a few of them and they realized what I was doing, and realized their scribbles were important. These people didn’t think they were making art; they were just scribbling their name somewhere. Then the second generation saw that, and scribbled their name, and their name was a little more creative.

How do those early writers feel about their relationship to what’s going on now, and the hype surrounding street art?

A lot of them are so unconnected to what’s going on now. They see the press here and there. It’s about 50-50 between ones who relate what they did to what’s going on now, and those who don’t. There are a few... Snake 1, who’s in the film, is still actively painting. He has a job and a family but he grew up with the culture and he never stopped painting. There are other artists who are in the film who are still painting and still participating in things, but it wasn’t their career.

Do they have any reaction to the monetizing of graffiti and street art and the celebrity of artists like Banksy and Shepard Fairey?

Some of them do and some of them don’t. The ones who have continued making art feel like “Crap, I want to get paid, I never got paid.” But some of them are just happy, like, “I’ve been making art my whole life, I was lucky enough to have shown it in some galleries in the early ‘70s, and now it’s coming back around where people are recognizing me as an innovator of this culture again.” And the others are like, “I was just having fun writing on walls, it’s crazy that it’s a business for people.” Mixed feelings, but overall they’re pretty happy and pretty cool with it, and happy to be able to play a part in the culture again.

Did you feel like you were pioneering the documentation of this early history of graffiti while making the film?

I’ve told a lot of graffiti stories and graffiti stories are awesome to tell because the people disappear. They’re oral histories, and they’re dying. I feel like in “Wall Writers” we helped tell the story that wasn’t out there, and I’m sure there are some writers who were overlooked, but in the end you have to draw the line somewhere. I definitely feel like we helped to tell the true story. We could have talked about gang graffiti in Los Angeles or Chicago, or other cities, but we really wanted to focus on traditional graffiti writing that became what you look at today as graffiti, and that really came out of New York and out of Philadelphia.

Who were some of the people you couldn’t find?

The main person that everyone talks about who I would have loved to find is Julio 204 from upper Manhattan, and the years he supposedly wrote graffiti were 1967 to early 1969. We found a few people who knew him, one person who was his writing partner we actually got in the film, Jag. They went to high school together, they skipped school together. But Jag doesn’t remember Julio’s last name, they didn’t see each other after that.

Does the film cover the whole sweep of early graffiti, from wall writing to trains, and the work that was shown in galleries early on?

Absolutely. The film starts with the very beginning of these kids in different neighborhoods doing their thing. The Greek kids to people out in Brooklyn who had no clue about each other — it’s not like they were going on Facebook to see what the others were doing. We deal with all of their rise, and how then some of them end up connecting, and then we deal with [graffiti collective] United Graffiti Artists, which brought a lot of them together in the early ‘70s. And that was the end of this purity of graffiti and graffiti’s innocence. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing. Someone was going to take this work and put it on canvas and put it in galleries and sell it and monetize it. The film goes up really to when the first things happen and that’s UGA, and then wall writing is done. Of course, graffiti is still reckless, and it always will be, but that’s the moment I want to take this film up to.

You were the producer of Banksy’s film “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” How did making “Wall Writers” compare with that? Was it different dealing with the roots of graffiti instead of the contemporary side?

It was very different. For the most part, we’re not talking to people in this film about what they do now. Even if they still participate and are an artist, that’s not their life. It’s asking people to revisit things that are older than I’ve been alive. There’s always that challenge when you’re interviewing people about anything going that far back in their history. There was a lot of jogging their memories. “Wall Writers” is more of a History Channel documentary.

Watch the trailer for "Wall Writers" below, and to see images from the documentary click the slide show. The film is currently in its final stages of production. 

This morning MoMA released the new catalogue that will accompany its one-week, sold-out Kraftwerk residency-retrospective. The eight-CD, $159.95 volume — that's just $143.95 for members, plus $20 shipping and handling — is available for purchase from Artbook@MoMA PS1 immediately, but only by telephone and email (artbook_ps1@moma.org, 718-433-1088). If the frenzy that accompanied the online ticket release for the upcoming concert series is any measure, the very limited supplies won't last long.

So what does $160 get you? Each of the individually numbered box set, produced in an edition of 2,000, includes the Kling Klang digital masters of the German electro-pop outfit's entire discography — "Autobahn" (1974), "Radio-Activity" (1975), "Trans-Europe Express" (1977), "The Man-Machine" (1978), "Computer World" (1981), "Techno Pop" (1986), "The Mix" (1991), and "Tour de France" (2003) — plus "a large format booklet complimenting each CD featuring expanded artwork and each CD is packaged to resemble a mini LP record" (in the words of the press release). Snazzy!

Our bet is that all 2,000 copies of "Kraftwerk: The Catalogue" will be snarfed up long before this weekend's "Kraftwerk Music Festival" at MoMA PS1 — and probably even before the group's MoMA residency begins tomorrow with the first of the eight sold-out shows in the Modern's atrium.

This month Art Cologne returns to the Rhineland’s cultural capital, home to more than
 30 museums, dozens of galleries, and the city’s landmark Gothic cathedral.

GO

ART COLOGNE
WHEN: April 18−22
WHERE: Hall 11
 of the Cologne Exhibition Center
HIGHLIGHTS: Around 200 galleries — including the local Hammelehle und Ahrens, Beijing’s White Space, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, of Chicago — will show their works this year. A special exhibition dedicated to the German artist Dieter Roth will be installed at the south entrance, and several museums located along the Rhine will put on mini-exhibitions at the fair. Among them, the Art and Exhibition Hall Bonn
will have works by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Francesco Clemente, while the Museum DKM in Duisburg will feature Ai Weiwei. Additionally, the New Art Dealers Alliance will hold its first fair in Cologne, bringing 33 galleries, such as Lisa Cooley, of New York; Vienna’s Emanuel Layr; and Neue Alte Bruecke, of Frankfurt.
artcologne.com

STAY
EXCELSIOR HOTEL ERNST

This stately landmark, just across the square from Cologne Cathedral, has played host to some of Germany’s most prominent figures for almost 150 years.
TRANKGASSE 1−5
49-221-2701
RATES: From $260
excelsiorhotelernst.de

HOTEL
CRISTALL KOLN

From the purple egg chairs in the lobby to the custom-designed furniture in the rooms, this centrally located 97-room hotel links style and comfort through design.
URSULAPLATZ 9−11
49-221-16300

RATES: From $112
hotelcristall.de

HOTEL IM WASSERTURM

Built more than a century ago, this circular structure, which once served as one of the largest water towers in Europe, opened in 1990 as a luxury hotel. Be
 sure to savor the fare 
at its award-winning restaurant, La Vision, and enjoy regional wines and beers at Harry’s Lounge. KAYGASSE 2
49-221-20080

RATES: From $177
hotel-im-wasserturm.de

ART’OTEL COLOGNE
Situated at the edge
of the Rhine, the Art’otel provides sleek accommodations with a thoroughly modern feel. A special treat for the eye: the large-scale works by the Korean artist Seo, created specifically for the hotel.
HOLZMARKT 4
49-221-801030
RATES: FROM $121
artotels.com

EAT
ALFREDO
Since 1999, Roberto and Susanne Carturan have been serving up fresh pasta and other fare at their Michelin- starred restaurant—including Mediterranean fish dishes and delicate antipasti—in a spare but sophisticated dining room. And on Fridays, after dinner service, chef Roberto, who took the helm from his namesake father, sings while accompanied by the in-house pianist.
TUNISSTRASSE 3
49-221-2577380
ristorante-alfredo.com

WEIN AM RHEIN
Head to this eatery for one of the best wine lists in Cologne—its name translates as “Wine on the Rhine.” The cellar fortifies a modern take on Mediterranean cuisine, with such items as braised ox jaw with cauliflower, beans,
 and celeriac puree.
JOHANNISSTRASSE 64
49-221-91248885
weinamrhein.eu

ZUR TANT
Admire gorgeous views of the Rhine while dining on dishes such as venison and rabbit roulade in a trumpet mushroom sauce with vegetables and polenta, or roast beef and shallots with potatoes au gratin and mixed vegetables.
RHEINBERGSTRASSE
49 49-220-381883
zurtant.de

BRAUHAUS SUNNER IM WALFISCH
Situated in a building with a façade that dates back to 1626, this restaurant is famous
 for its traditional German fare. Don’t forget to order a beer to go with the sizzling pork and tangy sauerkraut or
 one of the chef’s popular schnitzel dishes.
SALZGASSE 13
49-221-2577879
walfisch.net

SEE
GALERIE KARSTEN GREVE

French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel will show a suite of new glass sculptures through May 1 at this local mainstay, which has also held exhibitions with works by Gotthard Graubner, Jean Dubuffet, and Brassaï.
DRUSUSGASSE 1-5
49-221-2571012
galerie-karsten-greve.de

MUSEUM OF EAST ASIAN ART

Since 1909, this venerable institution has displayed Buddhist paintings, woodcuts, ceramics, sculptures, and other art from Japan, China, and Korea. The museum also shows contemporary works, such as a recent exhibition of photographs from Nobuyoshi Araki’s “Private Photography” series juxtaposed
 with ceramics by Shiro Tsujimura.
UNIVERSITATSSTRASSE 100

49-221-221-28608
museenkoeln.de

MUSEUM OF APPLIED ART

The Museum für Angewandte Kunst is a must-see for any design aficionado. Check out “From Aalto to Zumthor: Architects’ Furniture,”
a show that features chairs, lighting fixtures, and other works by Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and more, on display until April 22.
AN DER RECHTSCHULE
49-221-221-23860
museenkoeln.de

MUSEUM LUDWIG
Conveniently located next to the Cologne Cathedral, this museum is home to a vast trove of contemporary art along with the country’s largest holding of pieces by Picasso. Don’t miss “Before the Law: Post-War Sculpture and Spaces of Contemporary Art,” an exhibition of works by Alberto Giacometti, Gerhard Marcks, Germaine Richier, 
and others, on view through April 22.
BISCHOFSGARTEN- STRASSE 1
49-221-221-26165
museum-ludwig.de

SHOP
APROPOS
Seek out this eclectic boutique for a tempting selection of coffee-table books on fashion, a wide assortment of beauty products, and the latest men’s and women’s clothing and accessories by Jil Sander, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Louboutin, and others.
MITTELSTRASSE 3, 12
49-221-2725190
apropos-store.com

HAUS 4711
A neo-Gothic building houses the headquarters and flagship retail 
outlet for 4711—the brand that made the phrase eau de cologne famous.
GLOCKENGASSE
49-221-27099910
4711.com

BOUTIQUE BELGIQUE

This concept store offers a variety of quirky gifts, such as notebooks from Archie Grand’s “I Met and Liked” series and Game Boy and iPhone cases, along with Maison Scotch clothing and accessories by Tokyo Jane.
BRABANTERSTRASSE 29
49-163-8455585
boutiquebelgique.blogspot.com

This article appeared in the April issues of Art+Auction and Modern Painters magazines.

John Sughrue isn't usually the target of criticism in the Dallas cultural community. In addition to co-founding Dallas's Fashion Industry Gallery and the Dallas Art Fair, the fourth edition of which opens this week, he has been a tireless promoter of the city's arts community. His company, Brook Partners, also happens to be one of the primary benefactors of the city's so-called Museum Tower, set to be among the tallest and most impressive skyscrapers in the city when it is completed in late 2012 or early 2013. It will also be among the shiniest — a quality that is raising the hackles of its neighbor, the renowned Nasher Sculpture Center. 

What's the problem? Now that fixtures of highly reflective glass are being installed on the Museum Tower's exterior, many Texans believe that the light from the Museum Tower will either blind visitors to the nearby sculpture park or, alternatively, envelop the institution in its imposing shadow due to its sheer hugeness.

"It’s one of the great buildings by Renzo Piano, and it’s celebrated for the quality of its light," director Jeremy Strick told ARTINFO of the Nasher building. "There was an understanding from the earliest date that reflected sunlight could be an enormous problem for the Nasher." Expressing particular disquiet for the state of the museum's outdoor garden, Strick said that the Museum Tower "fundamentally compromises Piano’s design," and "interferes with the basic business of the museum, which is to show art."

In 1998, the previous owner of the building's site agreed to certain restrictions that would limit its impact on the museum next-door. Specifically, the building would be no more than 20 stories tall, and clad in a mix of materials that would limit its reflectivity. But when architect Scott Johnson was hired for the project in 2007, designs for the building soared to 42-stories — all concealed behind a façade of highly reflective glass.

Though he promoted the building's construction and approved final design plans, Sughrue himself was contrite when he spoke to the Dallas Morning News this weekend, saying, "There’s an element about this that’s heartbreaking." The pressure to find a solution will sit heavily on Sughrue's shoulders with the number of visitors coming into town this week to attend the art fair. "In essence, the Nasher was the inspiration for doing something extraordinary on the Museum Tower site," the developer said. "Maybe I’m an eternal optimist, but I believe that Museum Tower is also an important architectural work."

For their part, the Nasher's directors believe a brise soleil or sunscreen over the surface of the museum tower is in order. "We’ve consulted with some of the best engineers and architects in the world. They’ve all indicated the same thing," Strick told ARTINFO. "Because of the design of the tower building, there’s really only one solution that can save the Nasher."

The artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen is close to completing a deal to direct his third feature, “Twelve Years a Slave,” based on the 1853 autobiography of Solomon Northup.

As reported by Deadline yesterday, Arnon Milchan’s New Regency Productions is likely to join with Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Bill Pohlad’s River Road to finance the $20 million movie, with New Regency distributing through 20th Century Fox.

Chiwetel Ejiofor has been cast as Northup and Pitt as a lawyer who helped free him. Michael Fassbender, feted for his outstanding performances in McQueen’s “Hunger” and “Shame,” will play a plantation owner, though it’s not clear whether he will play one of the men who mistreated Northup or the sole planter who treated him humanely. A June start in Louisiana has been targeted.

Northup was born the son of the African-American freedman Minton Northup and his wife, who was of African, European, and Native American ancestry, in Essex County, New York State in 1808. Minton had his two sons educated and Solomon became an accomplished violinist. He married Anne Hampton, of mixed race, in 1829 and they had two daughters and a son. For a while they lived prosperously on their farm, which they sold in 1834 before moving to Saratoga Springs.

In 1841, Northup fell in with two men who offered him work as a violinist in Washington, D.C., then still a slave state. There he was kidnapped by a slave trader, robbed of his freedom documents, beaten, and sold into slavery in New Orleans. He was eventually acquired by a northern Louisiana planter and Baptist preacher called William Ford, of whom Northup wrote favorably in his memoir. He was treated cruelly by his two subsequent owners, the second of whom kept him for 10 years and frequently had him whipped.

Eventually, Samuel Bass, a Canadian carpenter friend of Northup, risked his life to alert Northup’s wife of his whereabouts. The New York governor intervened to have Northup freed in 1853 after his long, brutal ordeal. He subsequently sued his persecutors and defended himself in a countersuit, but neither case came to anything.

Capitalizing on the success of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” published in 1852, Northup’s “Twelve Years a Slave,” co-written by a sympathizer, sold 30,000 copies.

Having rejoined his family, Northup became an abolitionist and lectured on slavery in the Northeast in the 1850s, possibly earning his living as a carpenter. He disappeared from local records after 1863 and no details of his death are known.

In 1984, Avery Brooks played Northup in Gordon Parks’s PBS movie “Solomon Northup’s Odyssey.” Solomon Northup Day is celebrated annually in Saratoga Springs on the third Saturday in July. McQueen’s high-profile movie should have the benefit of bringing Northup’s appalling experience more fully into the national consciousness.

After painter Thomas Kinkade died suddenly on Friday, sales of the artist-businessman's works have surged — surely in no small part because (as our own Ben Davis wrote) they "made Warholian aesthetics palatable to an evangelical set that generally thinks contemporary art is a Commie plot." Now, even Kinkade's most serialized signed works are fetching quasi-Warholian prices.

“Phones are just ringing nonstop. We have five lines and they’re constantly lit up. People are waiting in line to buy paintings,” Nathan Ross, who runs a Kinkade franchise gallery in the late artist's California hometown of Placerville, told the Associated Press. “It’s just been a real juggling match to make sure everyone gets taken care of.”

Prices have shot up accordingly. "Sunday Outing," a large Kinkade original that Ross had been trying to sell on consignment for years at the seemingly high price of $110,000, sold just hours after its owner called following the artist's death and asked the gallerist to raise the price to $150,000. On a typical day, Ross's gallery sells between one and five Kinkade pieces on its Web site, but between Saturday and Monday he received over 300 online orders. Another Kinkade franchise owner, John Vassallo, also told the AP that sales were surging, adding that any work with his signature now fetches a minimum of between $8,000 and $15,000.

So, should art investors hop on the Thomas Kinkade bandwagon? The Washington Post's style blog cautions eager would-be collectors: "Art can be an investment, but investing in works from Thomas Kinkade is not known to pay off." And indeed, back in 2010 Lou Kahn, head of the appraisal and consignment company Bakerstowne Collectibles, offered the following, withering assessment to The Street: "They sell beautiful Kinkade prints in galleries and on cruise ships, but the frames are worth more than the prints."

For the moment, however, it is indesputable that the death of the "Painter of Light" has dramatically increased the number and value of sales since his death. “It’s been a tragic cost unfortunately,” Vassallo told the AP, “but I know that Thom is looking down and bringing the people.”

Click here to see a slide show of Thomas Kinkade's paintings.

Three hours into last night's New York Law School double panel on appropriation art in the digital age, Sergio Sarmiento, an artist and lawyer who serves as the associate director for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in New York City, said the one thing that no one else had thought to bring up after endless circling through the pros and cons of current copyright law: Why do we care so much?

Sarmiento's contrarian position (and short-winded speech) was a breath of fresh air in the windowless room. For some reason, the question of copyright, while an arguably minor part of the U.S. legal system, gets people excited. This is perhaps because copyright exposes a tension between some of this country's most prized values — it pits personal liberty against private property within the context of the one thing that Americans care about most deeply, our entertainment (or, in the art world more specifically, our livelihood). The nexus of the three was enough to get people yelling around 7pm in a drab corner of Tribeca.

The "Right to Remix: Appropriation Art in the Digital Age" was actually two different panels — the first discussed more broadly the ways in which artists come up against copyright law, and the second mostly focused on the disputed Prince v. Cariou appropriation art case currently winding its way through the courts. To be somewhat reductive about it, they both tackled the tension between the right to freedom (to share) vs. the right to property (to control sharing). But at the end of the day, what we learned is that the one thing that is really important to both sides is money. What follows are the key points that I took away from the presentation:

1) THE 21ST CENTURY IS A REMIX CULTURE

In the first panel, there were good arguments to be had on either side. On the one hand, Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) pointed out that we live in a remix culture, and copyright law is still working on a 19th- and 20th-century (that is to say, analog) model, which doesn't work for the digital age. "Remix is about found memories," he said. We share things to splice old memories together to make new ones, and artists should have the freedom to do that as long as they are making something new. However, Miller also admitted that he runs his finished work past his lawyer, and has never been sued.

2) THE FOUNDING FATHERS WERE NOT PRINCE FANS

On the other side, intellectual property lawyer Britton Payne, who is an associate at Foley & Lardner LLP and an adjunct professor of IP law at Fordham Law, pointed out to me after the panel that copyright, at its heart, is a reflection of the American obsession with property and is written into the Constitution (Article I, Section 8). It has existed since at least 1789 — though its roots go further back than that, and it's not a portion of U.S. law that is just going to fade away. Americans profess to love freedom, but we really love property.

3) MONEY — WITHOUT IT THERE'S NO PROBLEM

Of course, if you are going to post some random copyrighted image of your favorite band on your personal blog that only your aunt and your grandmother read, the record company that owns the image is probably not going to come after you. Copyright claims are generally confined to those places where wealth is concentrated — on both sides. You (probably) won't get sued unless you are making money off of your creation, and you are unlikely to sue unless you can afford a lawyer. "The way you stop people from doing things is by having money," said Payne.

4) WHEN IS APPROPRIATION UNFAIR USE?

That, it turns out, was the perfect segue into the second panel, which discussed more specifically the Prince v. Cariou copyright case. Appropriation artist Richard Prince was sued by photographer Patrick Cariou after the former took images from the latter without permission for the now infamous "Canal Zone" series of works shown at Gagosian Gallery in New York. After a judge found in favor of Prince, Cariou appealed and got the ruling overturned on the basis that Prince's use of Cariou's copyrighted works was not considered "fair use."

Daniel Brooks, Cariou's lawyer, was present last night to make his case, albeit one that was unpopular with the three panelists who followed him. He noted that there is "no reason that art galleries shouldn't be held to the same standard as book publishers" in making sure that a work is vetted for copyright infringement before being displayed, and also added that there is insurance available to guard against these sorts of things. In the end, he insinuated that photographers would be put onto a lower rung in an art world "caste system" if they could not sue to protect their work from being appropriated.

5) SHOULD MORE SUCCESS MEAN LESS FREEDOM?

When it comes to artists, people are used to cheering for the underdog. Former Whitney Museum director and current art practice department chair at the School of Visual Arts pointed out that Prince "is being treated unfairly because he is successful." Indeed, many of the arguments that Brooks made hinged on the fact that Gagosian has the money to do things like hire lawyers to vet appropriation artwork, and buy insurance against possible copyright lawsuits.

But Gago is a particular case and is not representative of the art world — or even Chelsea — as a whole. Most galleries do not have the funds to fight off lawsuits while putting on another appropriation art show in the Hamptons, as Gagosian did last summer. Other galleries, instead, will shun appropriation art, to the dismay of the art world (called a "chilling effect"). It's the future precedent that the art professionals on the panel seemed worried about, not the particular facts of this case (they are, unfortunately, on the opposite side of the law on that one).

6) WHAT IS VS. WHAT SHOULD BE

The last word — before an extraordinarily bungled attempt to distinguish appropriation art from plagiarism that I don't care to expound upon — came once again from Sarmiento. He took a step back, as one of the three people on the panel who serves as a teacher of artists in some capacity or another, and asked the question — whether or not we believe the current copyright law is wrong, "when you are teaching artists, what are your ethical obligations?" Shouldn't you teach them what the law is and how to follow it, rather than what you would like it to be?

After the panel was over, I ran into Karen Sandler, the executive director of the free software organization known as the GNOME Foundation. She expressed disappointment that so many people on the panels advocated appropriation, sharing, and free culture while taking us through presentations on their DRM-equipped Apple products that generally prohibit sharing. But digital rights/restrictions management and the art world is a different conversation for a different day.

If nothing else comes from dealer Marc Jancou's ongoing legal battle with legendarily reclusive artist Cady Noland, it at least has offered a bit of window into how difficult it is to get ahold of her. In fresh court documents filed in the last few days, a representative says he had to visit her New York apartment no less than four times in an attempt to serve her legal papers. The first time, he wrote in an affidavit, the artist "refused to come down or let me in the building to serve the papers." Finally, after three further unsuccessful attempts, he was let in by another tenant, sliding the papers under Noland's door.

The hapless paper-server is but a bit player in a developing case that may have larger implications in determining an important question: What authority does an artist have over his or her artwork after it leaves the studio? The lawsuit, which pits artist Noland and auction house Sotheby's against Jancou, concerns a work of art disavowed by Noland and subsequently pulled from a Sotheby's sale. In February, Jancou, who had consigned the work to Sotheby's, sued both the artist and the auction house for $26 million in damages. Now, he's upping the ante: Jancou is suing Sotheby’s for another $20 million on a new charge ("breach of fiduciary duty"), bringing the total suit to a whopping $46 million — all over a work of art that was estimated to sell for just $250,000 to $350,000.

Though the original circumstances surrounding Sotheby's decision to pull the silkscreen print on aluminum, "Cowboys Milking" (1990), from the sale were murky, the new papers lay out a clearer sequence of events. In an interesting twist, they note that "Cowboys Milking" was previously offered to Christie's, which declined to sell it after hearing complaints from Noland about its condition. (A condition report included in the suit indicates the aluminum was bent on three of the work’s four corners.) This bolsters Sotheby's claims that the work was unfit to sell — though it also raises questions about why the house agreed to sell it in the first place.

Both Sotheby's and Noland believe withdrawing the work from auction was well within the artist's rights under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and New York’s Artists’ Authorship Rights Act (AARA). It was damaged, they allege, and therefore notably different from the work she created in her studio. “All artists have a reputational interest, and that's what these statutes are designed to safeguard,” Dan Brooks, Noland’s attorney, told ARTINFO, adding that if the artist believes her work has been “defaced,” she has the right to remove it from the marketplace. “The artist’s right supercedes the collector’s,” he said. (Sotheby’s, meanwhile, has called the suit “meritless.”)

Jancou disagrees. His lawyer suggests that the auction house blindly acceded to Noland's requests without doing its own due diligence. Court papers note that it was Sotheby's itself that first induced the dealer to offer the work, calling it "rare," "fresh," and "A+ amazing!" (By contrast, when the work finally arrived at Sotheby's later that month, the staff noted there were several "condition issues," according to internal e-mails.)

“VARA and AARA doesn’t give her [Noland] an unbridled right to object,” Jancou’s lawyer, Paul Hanly, told ARTINFO. “She has the right to demand that her work not be displayed in the event of a substantial alteration. Our position is that this work was not mutilated or defaced…to give her the right to do what she did.”

Would consumers buy the clothes they wear if they knew exactly where they came from? Sweatshop labor, use of toxic materials, animal cruelty, and startling carbon footprints are just a few of the unethical practices taking place within the fashion industry. Following a stint as creative director of Hugo by Hugo Boss, Belgian designer Bruno Pieters took a two-year sabbatical and travelled to India. There, he saw a sign with the Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

The words inspired Pieters to start a revolution in the fashion world with Honest by, what he considers to be the world’s first 100 percent transparent fashion company. The products are currently only available at honestby.com, and each item description offers a precise breakdown of exactly where the garment comes from. Prospective buyers can see just how many people worked on each piece from conception to production, the time spent creating it, its carbon footprint, its cost, and the provenance and sustainability of all materials used.

Each garment is produced in limited editions, and the brand doesn’t adhere to the regular spring/summer and fall/winter production schedules of the fashion industry. In addition to Pieters, Honest by will have rotating designers. Calla, whose collection debuted on April 5, was the first to join the fold.

Rather than following the unwritten rules of the fashion world, the company seeks to make consumers aware of the choices they are making. ARTINFO interviewed Pieters by email to learn more about Honest by, sustainable clothing production, and why he got tired of making cocktail dresses and high heels.

What practices frustrated you in the fashion industry before you started Honest by?

There was nothing that frustrated me. I love fashion, I believe there is no right or wrong in the world, only choices made. Of course every one of those choices has consequences. It’s up to each and everyone one of us to decide if we want to be responsible for those consequences.

Why did you feel the need to create Honest by?

Honest by is something I wanted as a customer. I love life and respect it, and when I shop I want to be sure that I don’t buy anything that caused harm to anyone or anything. And to have that certainty, I think one needs 100 percent transparency. At the same time I think transparency has always been essential to luxury. Because we don’t just buy a product, we buy the story and the know-how. It’s a guarantee of quality. Heritage and reputation are synonyms for the word “past” to me. I like to know what the brand I’m buying is doing now.

How did you discover the eco-friendly, sustainable materials you use?

We did one year of research to find sustainable luxury fabrics. It wasn’t always easy because the suppliers we used to work with didn’t work with organic materials. Also there are a lot of fabrics and supplies out there that are labeled “organic” but they aren’t – the laws vary from country to country. In the end we decided to work with certified fabrics. The best we found is called GOTS. Suppliers with a GOTS certificate work, in our opinion, in the most sustainable way.

Tell me about the clothes.

The collection I designed for Honest by is both for men and women, winter and summer. I describe them as “Neo-classic hybrids.” I think I was tired of doing cocktail dresses with high heels. I think it’s a very old idea of luxury. The look I wanted to show now is more casual and spontaneous.

Why do you think it is important that consumers know where their clothes are coming from?

I don't know if it’s important, I just wanted to give everyone the opportunity to be aware of what they are buying. If you don’t want to think about these things, that’s fine with me, but in case you do, all the information is available on our Web site. We want to give our customers the best service possible.

You are the founder, curator, designer, and CEO. How do you balance wearing so many hats?

I have never worked so hard in my entire life, but somehow it’s more fun than ever before.

Is it a lot more time consuming to break down every aspect and cost of production for the consumer?

Yes, it demands a lot of preparation and research. I’m creating a world I want to live in, so it’s worth the effort. I love John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” when he says, “You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...” I truly believe that I’m not the only one who wants to live in that world.

What are the challenges in producing garments that are transparent and sustainable?

Producing a garment is always challenging. To do it in a transparent and sustainable way is just much more rewarding to me and maybe even easier because we have nothing to hide. What takes more time is the research, that’s all.

Can you give us a hint about upcoming designers who are going to create for Honest by?

We have a new guest designer every three months planned for 2012. In between, we’ll also do other collaborations. We’ve just launched Honest by Calla this month. I love Calla because her work is so fresh and innovative – I think she was the perfect choice to launch our collaborations.

Click on the slide show to see clothing from the Honest by Bruno Pieters campaign.

Uncle Sam wants you… to help him pick the winning architect of the National Mall Design Competition. Since last September, several dozen architectural firms have been vying for the opportunity to give the capital’s front lawn an overhaul. After hewing the choices down to four finalists for each of the three sites — Constitution Gardens, Union Square, and the Washington Monument Grounds — the Trust for the National Mall has made the proposals public, and is now seeking public feedback to aid the decision-making process, which is scheduled to end in May.

Commenters have a dozen highly imaginative schemes to peruse and weigh in on. OLIN, paired with Weiss/Manfredi, proposed turning Constitution Gardens into an eco version of the classic McDonald's PlayPlace, creating a space for the kiddies to interact with the landscape: thinly wooded trails for exploring, wooden walkways over the reflecting pool, and shallow, ankle-deep pools for splashing and wading. High Line darlings Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, who've teamed with Hood Design, want to "peel up" the edge of the land surrounding the Washington Monument — that is, raising the lawn onto an undulating, elevated green roof with spaces for markets, performances, and other programming underneath. (The design is not unlike the sloping DS+R lawn at Lincoln Center that serves as a vaulted ceiling to the restaurant below.) Michael Maltzan Architecture and Tom Leader Studio's plans abound with circles. The team wants to build an underground commercial center full of dining options, retail outlets, and event spaces crowned by a circular skylight. Above ground, they plan to trace the lawn with circular walkways to break the monotony of the current rectangular paths, and build an amphitheater above ground that would feature a circular stage sitting at the axis of the city's monuments.

The mission of the design competition is to revitalize the highly trafficked mall, which is in “desperate need of restoration and repairs,” according to Trust for the National Mall director Barbralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel’s column in the Huffington Post. As the lawn becomes less lush and the more sidewalks crumble with every passing year, she hopes to see an improvement not only in maintenance, but to rectify the Mall’s lack of tourist essentials: restrooms, water, food, and information.

The Trust plans to raise $350 million for the restoration project and complete either Constitution Gardens or the Monument grounds by 2016. Union Square’s proximity to the Capitol Building raises some security obstacles, so its overhauling will be delayed.

Renderings of the 12 schemes are on view through April 15 at the Smithsonian Castle Museum. To see them now, click the slide show. 

NEW YORK—As May approaches, it's the question on the tip of everyone's tongue in Chelsea: Could the new Frieze New York freeze out the city's current behemoth art fair, the Armory Show? With the first edition of Frieze nearly upon us, anticipation has been building about how it might stack up against the Merchandise Mart-run Armory. There are also questions. Will travel to remote Randall's Island be more unpleasant than the trek to Piers 92 and 94 on the far-western part of Manhattan? Will New Yorkers suck it up and cross the RFK Bridge for the promise of fresh art paired with Sant Ambroeus's informal fare, pizza from ultra-hip Bushwick hangout Roberta's, and a pop-up version of the Standard Biergartden? It's hard to set the bar lower than Great Performances's refrigerated-to-oblivion $10 sandwiches at the Armory.

Despite its culinary stumbles, the latter fair brought in many thousands of visitors when it celebrated its 14th anniversary in March. But the heretofore London-based Frieze is more focused on hot emerging artists and exotic international galleries, not to mention perfectly situated between two of the biggest weeks of the year on the New York auction calendar. If Frieze lives up to the hype, will it supplant Armory? Can two mega-fairs coexist in the vast New York art-market ecosystem? To try to make some predictions, ARTINFO talked to some of the participating galleries to find out how they were approaching the newest addition to the Big Apple's art calendar.

TIMING

It's no accident that Frieze falls during the spring auction season — before it are the Impressionist and modern sales at Christie's and Sotheby's, while after are the usually blockbuster contemporary auctions. But will the collectors who come to New York for those marquee events also be attracted to the wet-paint works that Frieze has to offer?

Not everyone is certain of the synergy. "I think that there probably are going to be extra people in town," said Lucy Mitchell-Innes, who runs Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery as well as being the president of the Art Dealers Association of America. But, she added, "my understanding is that it is for art being made in the studio, so to what extent there is a valid overlap remains to be seen." 

But there is another, perhaps more important, timing issue to consider about May, and that's the chatter that Hong Kong's increasingly important Art HK fair may be moving to February. If that happens, according to Lisson Gallery's Alex Logsdail, galleries may choose not to participate in Armory because of timing issues. That said, Art HK is currently in mid-May, which poses a similar problem for Frieze NY. Several important galleries — among them James Cohan, Sean Kelly, Yvon Lambert, and Lisson itself — are listed as exhibitors for both May fairs. Once again, time will tell if that schedule is sustainable.

But will galleries even feel the need to choose? Jane Cohan of James Cohan Gallery told ARTINFO, "I think we are all aware that the contemporary art market is increasingly event driven." For that reason, she noted, she didn't think that New York was going to have a problem sustaining two major fairs. More fairs might simply coincide with more demand for fairs.

QUALITY

Many of the gallerists that ARTINFO talked to expressed some sort of brand loyalty to Frieze, which has a reputation for professionalism and general intelligence. Many said they have come to expect high-quality booths and well-curated exhibitions from organizers Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, which is one reason anticipation is so high for the New York version. Ethan Sklar, director of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, noted that Frieze is more ambitious and targeted than Armory, and his gallery is particularly looking forward to the dedicated sculpture park, always a standout in London.

With a diplomatically positive attitude, Sharp told ARTINFO UK's Coline Milliard last October that Frieze aims to be "different" than Armory, and that there consequently won't be much overlap in gallery participation between the two fairs:

"Historically, the Armory has been a really wonderful fair. But I think that you'll see that the kind of galleries participating in the Frieze New York fair have a very different profile from the kind of galleries that have been participating in the Armory in recent years. There is not much overlap. We are doing a different fair.

How would define it?

Again, Frieze New York will be an international contemporary art fair, showing the best quality galleries from around the world. That is the core activity."

SATELLITES

There are a few satellite fairs that traditionally fall during other fair weeks that have this year changed their schedules to May — NADA, which has previously been confined to Miami in December, and Pulse, which previously did a New York edition opposite Armory, being the most prominent. That said, Armory still has a handful or more fairs in its orbit. ADAA's tony Art Show, for one, is unlikely to move. Mitchell-Innes commented that the Art Show is well established in its current date and location. "Next year is the 25th year of the ADAA so it is fairly unlikely that we would want to move even if we could," she said.

At the end of the day, while there is much anticipation for Frieze, no one is quite ready yet to bet on how it is going to play out — but rest assured that the entire New York art community will be watching to see.

CITY SUPPORT

Finally, one of the major things that Armory Week has going for it is that it is a New York City-sponsored cultural event week. Since 2009 the city has formally recognized Armory Arts Week and has worked to help program events as well as print and distribute maps through its official marketing and tourism firm, NYC & Company. Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference at the Art Show before this year's opening to welcome the fairs, acknowledging the extra revenue brought in by the flood of arts tourists in town for the week. Will the city lend similar support to Frieze?

ARTINFO contacted both the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Mayor's office to ask the question, but got no official response. Informally, we were told that May was too far away to know the Mayor's schedule. But like the gallerists, Bloomberg and the City may be waiting to see the result of the first year before jumping in to support the May fairs.

Additional reporting by Julia Halperin.

"Top Chef" friends Nyesha Arrington, who almost made it back on "Last Chance Kitchen," and Chris "Malibu" Crary are teaming up to roast a pig for charity. Proceeds from their backyard pig roast at Arrington's Wilshire Restaurant on April 22 will go...