The ever-popular question, "What if you made furniture out of..." has been answered yet again, and in a new way, by Johnny Swing. For years, Swing has made a medium out of United States currency, using coins to create tables, chairs, bowls, and benches, as well as creating pillows and teddy bears out of dollar bills. His work has attracted a broad range of collectors and fans with a penchant for the quirky, and he has just opened "Murmuration," a new show of his creations at Chelsea's Sebastian + Barquet. Earlier this week, ARTINFO managed to catch the Vermont-based coin-welder between gigs and ask him some questions in the hope of gaining insight into his highly unusal practice. 

Are there any stories behind the pieces in your current show, "Murmuration." Why make furniture with money?

There are countless stories as with any designer or artist; the works, which are by definition stories, are a result of process and experience. Do you want to hear about the collision with a Grand Torino in Eagle Creek that left me in a coma then a cast and crutches for two years? I looked such a mess strangers kept offering me money on the subway. The first piece of metal I dragged to a vacant lot to create a sculpture park that ended up being an art movement "The Rivington School"; the gangrene and being in a non-payment ward in a hospital in Harlem for 22 days; the workshop in the East Village 2B — the neighbors threw bottles at me when I welded at night; the time a hundred NYPD officers rained down on us because we had thrown bags of railroad spikes off the Manhattan Bridge and they thought that they were drugs; meeting my wife while walking my dog; the junkie roommates; being one of the first three artists to test the federal Visual Artists Rights Act law. Lots of stories.

Why money? I learned to weld as a kid and started making furniture in the early '80s using whatever materials I could find, from steel I-beams to subway strap handles. Part of the reason I started using coins was that for found objects they were easy to find, and I’d begun welding flat round objects into forms in 1987 with the Tack chair.

By using money as medium, do you think that you make money feel banal or even disposable? Has making the furniture changed the way you look at money as an object?

No, quite the opposite. I always liked money. As objects and a form of social definition, money is honest, and while I love what I do and what I make, it is one of my life's goals not to be precious. Working with money has elevated that challenge. I’m a cheap Yankee and coming into work after a big push the previous day and seeing the floor strewn with coins is a challenge.

You've been making your art out of bills and coins for quite a while, but to many people, it couldn't be more timely, with so much talk about the weakness of the dollar, and so on. How do these kinds of economic concerns play into what you do?

I often think of the cliché "the almighty dollar"; it relieves all my concerns.

Given the vogue for sustainable development and sustainable design, another aspect of your art and furniture that seems really timely is the notion of reuse. Is this something you think about in relation to your work?

I like using familiar objects as materials in my work; it makes the work more accessible. This may sound like cheap tricks, but really my motivation comes from a belief that design is a sharing process. Aside from being comfortable, the more accessible the work is the more people might have access to the experience.

The people who buy your furniture, what are they actually like? Do they use it in their homes, or do they treat it more as a sculptural object?

I’ve always considered my collectors as almost collaborators. Originally I was an installation artist, surrounding the viewer with the work; the clear next step for me was furniture. With furniture, I can literally share the environment with the viewer.

What are you working on next?

Taking the winter tires off my wife’s car.

Nearly 35 years after its premiere at the Avignon Festival in France, Philip Glass’s “Einstein on the Beach” will finally be performed in the country to the north when the curtain rises tonight at London’s Barbican Theatre. Though the opera toured extensively in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the 2012 revival is the first to bring the 20th century masterwork to the U.K.

The current tour premiered in March at the Opera Berlioz Le Corum In Montpelier, France, and will continue on after London to other venues around the world, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California. These will be the first performances in two decades.

Glass conceived and developed the opera with director Robert Wilson in 1975. It was Glass’s first opera, and it premiered at Avignon in July of 1976. The original production featured performances by Sheryl Sutton and Lucinda Childs, who later choreographed the 1984 revival. Childs will return in that capacity for this tour, though these performances will be the first without her dancing on stage.

The reasons for the new staging are discussed in a trailer for the production.

“I think most of my work should never be revived,” Wilson says. “’Einstein’ is a bit different. These kinds of pieces appeal to a younger audience because the language is fresh.”

“The question is,” Glass says, “why is the language still fresh?”

“I think that people have heard about it.” Childs says. “Certainly the reflection on Einstein is conceivably of interest to almost anyone in this particular day and age.”

In an article published last month in the Guardian, Glass and Wilson go into further details about how the opera was conceived and originally performed. For instance, the premiere in Avignon was the first time they had ever played the thing all the way through. Glass is also featured on the cover of this month’s issue of The Fader, a culture and fashion magazine.

The shows at the Barbican run from tonight through May 13. For the Glass-loving Londoners stuck on Randall’s Island for Frieze New York, try to catch one of the performances next week. Or else you’ll have to visit again in September, when “Einstein” comes to Brooklyn. 

In Clip Art, ARTINFO video editor Tom Chen, photo editor Micah Schmidt, and performing arts editor Nick Catucci choose five of the most visually engaging music videos from the previous week or so, and present highlights from each in a video supercut, plus a slideshow of stills. Today ...

Classically-trained dancers animate Little Boots' "Every Night I Say a Prayer."

ASAP Rocky trades shine for glow in "Goldie."

"How Do I Know" shows Here We Go Magic finding the best use for an unwanted android.

Beenie Man's "Rock the World" fully saturates a green screen.

"Rodriguez" by Black Dice: This is your found footage on drugs.

Previously: Nas, Phonte, Flaming Lips, Of Montreal, and Blood Orange

Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Fashion, and Performing Arts, April 30-May 4, 2012:

ART

— The first Frieze New York art fair opened Thursday on Randall's Island. Shane Ferro and Julia Halperin reported strong sales during the VIP preview, Ben Davis called it "well designed and pleasantly appointed," while Benjamin Genocchio predicted that "this fair isn’t going to last here." Frieze co-director Matthew Slotover told Tom Chen that the fair "is actually very easy to get to," as Benjamin Sutton found while exploring various transportation options for reaching it. Meanwhile sculptor John Ahearn told Kyle Chayka about the challenges of making casts of collectors during the fair, and MoMA PS1 hosted a raucous Frieze kick-off party where Martha Wainwright sang and Kim Cattrall danced. Plenty more parties and events were planned for the weekend.

— Satellite fairs timed to coincide with Frieze opened this week, including PULSE — which featured a dynamic mix of proven names, and emerging artists and galleries; the scrappy, artist-driven Verge Art Fair; and the rewarding off-the-beaten track mini-fair seven @ SEVEN.

— The last version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" still in private hands sold at Sotheby's on Wednesday for a whopping $120 million, setting a new record for an artwork sold at auction.

— We looked at the art collecting habits of the rich and famous, from power couples like Brangelina and Victoria and David Beckham, to surprisingly discerning celebrity collectors like Harrison Ford and Madonna.

— Julia Halperin looked at the ripple effect that the sprawling Pacific Standard Time exhibition program has had on the market for California minimalist artists like John McCracken, Fred Sandback, and Larry Bell.

DESIGN & FASHION

— Coline Milliard spoke to legendary shoe designer Christian Louboutin on the occasion of his just-opened retrospective at London’s Design Museum.

— Nate Freeman looked at HBO costume designer Jenn Rogein's stylings for "Girls," Lena Dunham's finger-on-the-pulse new show.

— Dutch artist-designer Joris Laarman explained how he incorporates cutting-edge science and complex mathematics to create his distinctive and unpredictable objects.

— A year after taking a job as the fashion director at New York luxury department store Barneys, Amanda Brooks stepped down, moved to England, and revived her beloved blog I Love Your Style.

— A proposed zoning change in Washington, D.C. could mean a dramatic spike in the capital's skyline, paving the way for high-rise construction.

PERFORMING ARTS

— The first new poster for “Lovelace,” the biopic of "Deep Throat" star Linda Lovelace with Amanda Seyfried in the lead, was worrisome and thoroughly underwhelming.

— The futuristic dystopian blockbuster "Children of Men" was re-cut to play like a surreal arthouse sitcom.

— Philip Glass's revered modernist opera "Einstein on the Beach" was poised to finally make its U.K. debut at the Barbican Theatre some 36 years after its first performance.

— Author Rick Elice discussed bringing the "Peter Pan" prequel "Peter and the Starcatcher" to Broadway, where it was nominated for nine Tony Awards.

— TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek remixed Norah Jones's touching new single "She's 22," heightening its emotional power.

VIDEO

— Tom Chen perused some of Frieze New York's highlights during Thursday's preview:

In the very early ’80s, dancer and choreographer Karole Armitage started going up to Harlem to judge vogue balls, the ecstatic underground dance competitions held by different “houses.” As she began to incorporate the styles she witnessed into her own works, the culture of voguing was trickling into the mainstream. In 1990, Madonna asked Armitage to choreograph a music video. “Vogue” was a hit, and the now-infamous moves emerged on dance floors and television screens around the world.

Since then, Armitage has been busy establishing herself as one of the world’s premiere choreographers, collaborating with — among other luminaries of all mediums — Mikhail Baryshnikov, Lukas Ligeti, Jeff Koons, Michael Jackson, and Merchant Ivory. But she returned to her background in voguing for her 2001 work “Rave,” which was inspired by the tragedy of September, 11, 2001. Far from somber, it’s an exuberant but respectful celebration of New York City (Armitage was living in France at the time). It premiered in 2001, but was never preformed in the United States. This weekend, Armitage is giving New Yorkers their first chance to see “Rave,” 10 years after the towers fell. You can see the work at the Abrons Arts Center, located at 466 Grand Street, tonight and Saturday. 

We recently spoke with Armitage on the phone while she was in Chicago, performing at the Museum of Contemporary Art. She ended up there by way of Toronto, where she is working on a Cirque du Soleil show called “Amaluna,” about an island under the rule of goddesses and at the mercy of the cycles of the moon.

ARTINFO: What took “Rave” so long to get here?

ARMITAGE: First time in the U.S.! Well, it has 26 dancers and that implies a huge amount of government funding. I came back to New York in 2004 and formed my company — it has seven members. But the dance world has been so down in the doldrums because funding has been so down since the economic crash. I realized that “Rave” is so exuberant and so much fun and it looks like nothing else on the face of the earth and it plays with fashion and Kung Fu and vogueing, and it has a great spirit that feels right for the times. It’s kind of a carnival – everybody plays the role of celebrities. It’s fun for dancers in these hard times to take on the roles of these kinds of characters. These people have power and money, while in dance people have neither! So it has a kind of political twist in a very lighthearted way.

You’ve said that “Rave” was in part a reaction to 9/11. This is the first time it’s playing in New York. Do you think that it can be looked at in the same way now — 10 years out — as it was seen in 2001?

The fact that we’re in these economic hard times and the future feels so uncertain — that has a similar, though not extremely similar, psychological effect as those times [after 9/11]. The dance world, we are just struggling so hard to survive. So there’s a sense that it feels like a response to the cultural context we’re in. “Rave” is about when things go topsy-turvy, how do you understand what life is? It’s about the fact that, truly, life goes on; embrace it and survive.

You had been in Europe when you wrote and premiered the work. Does it feel emotional to bring it to New York, where these events took place?

I live eight blocks away from the World Trade Center, so it was very personal. But this piece is not about 9/11 — it is about little people taking on these other kinds of rules, it is about joy, it is about life. Everybody is painted from head to toe in bright colors. They’re wearing these dazzling costumes by a fashion designer who does all of Donna Karan’s haute couture lines. It’s got a fantastic sense of style. It uses voguing and Kung Fu and runway walking and ballet and modern dance. It’s about having all these world cultures come together in an organic way. It’s about life being something to be grateful for.

The incorporation of voguing really grounds it to New York City, too. Was that a conscious thing?

Voguing was really the fundamental part of this piece. Willi Ninja came with me to Europe and to Italy where we taught voguing workshops to ballet dancers. One of my dancers grew up in a voguing house. It’s so refined and it’s so fierce, just like ballet. It’s interesting to me that voguers use extreme leg positions, incredible rhythmic complexity to fight battles for who’s the best — instead of using knives to kill each other. Ballet does the same thing. Well, they’re the same thing but opposite sides of the coin. Ballet and voguing are so much alike physically and they’re both kind of marginal things in culture, and there was this way of the street coming together with high art. The voguers loved that and they were so glad that I was bringing this into the art world and the dance world.

Being on the voguing scene in the early '80s, that must have been incredible exciting.

So vibrant! And it has such a deep psychological and interesting role in relation to consumer culture. These were poor kids who didn’t have great clothes or eyeglasses or purses — and most of them were gay. They had no way to participate in mainstream culture, so they invented their own form. You can have it in your own way, and it makes you feel at peace.

Opening the series is going to be a series of short works from prominent artists. I don’t think you’ve ever done something like this before.

No, I haven’t. It really is like a performance art variety show. What I think is so funny about it is it’s got an animal act, it’s got film, it’s got theater, it’s got song, it’s got tap. It’s just gonna be an incredible, fun and unique evening. Bill Wegman is loaning his dog, it’s just fantastic.

And Will Cotton is doing his Katy Perry cotton candy routine…

That’s correct.

Have you seen it before?

I’ve seen a little bit on video, but never live.

So you’ve been up in Canada working on "Cirque du Soleil."

It premiered yesterday! It’s gotten great reviews and it seems to be a hit.

It’s your first time doing this, right? What’s different?

It’s a big corporation. I’ve never worked for a corporation, and there are a lot of rules I wasn’t used to. Working with the acrobats was very natural, though, because dancers and acrobats are very similar. They both use their bodies to do extreme things.

What do you have next?

We go to San Francisco with a completely different program. After that, we do something completely different again, in Italy. And I’m working on a very theatrical piece about global warming that’s taking animal fables from around the world — American Indian fables, Aesop’s fables, Chinese fables, African fables — because all of them talk about animals and their relationship to nature. If you read them with a modern eye, they’re totally about global warming. And we’re using a lot of puppets. I want it to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

“Rave” is currently in the middle of its first run in New York City. You can see it at the Abrons Arts Center, at 466 Grand Street, tonight and Saturday. There is a 7:30pm show and a 10:00pm show each night. Tickets are $30.

In case you hadn't noticed, Frieze New York kicked off this week, marking the well-known British fair's U.S. debut. While the furor does not quite yet match that of Armory Week, at least in terms of sheer volume, the import from across the Pond brought an amazing array of attractions to town, including a classy pop-up sculpture park, while a good number of satellites have already piled on to join it in its May spot. ARTINFO has been all over Randall's Island all week, while also checking out the other fairs in the city, from NADA's first fair in New York, to PULSE, migrating from its slot opposite the Armory, to smaller affairs like seven @ SEVEN and Verge. Here's some of what we saw.

To see images from the fairs of the inaugural Frieze Week New York, click on the slide show.

With the cloistered mega-fair Frieze New York looming to the north, buyers at the more modest Pulse New York were less impulsive, pun intended. Perhaps collectors were waiting to check out the goods on Randall's Island before making any major acquisitions. Small scale, affordable works are selling like hotcakes, while big statement pieces are accruing plenty of interest, but few final sales. Friday morning was a subdued epitaph to the frenetic bustle of Thursday, but a steady flow of modest sales kept Pulse’s heart beating. Many gallerists were optimistic about the weekend, while maintaining “don’t count your eggs” pokerface.

What may turn out to be the fair’s biggest sale is still the stuff of speculation. “City Surface,” Led Pencil Studios’ commissioned installation for Pulse Projects, is being seriously considered by an unnamed major New York museum, though the sale is not yet final. The work, priced at $165,000, depicts a narrow alleyway filled with plywood reconstructions of urban debris including an air conditioning unit, a dumpster, a traffic cone, and scores of other artifacts of city life.

British gallery Man & Eve's prime real estate at the very front of the fair paid off, garnering a great first day with a number of sales. Lisa Nowiki, winner of last year’s Pulse Prize in Miami, got a lot of attention and some of her intricate weavings were sold. Lain Andrews's surreal, semi-figurative acrylic on canvas painting “Progressive” sold for $8,000, and several of Alex Virji’s baroque video game-inspired ovular paintings went for $1,460 each.

At the other end of Pulse’s sales spectrum was Brooklyn's Causey Contemporary, which sold only one of Jordan Eagles’ blood, copper, and resin paintings for $1,000, one of his smallest and most inexpensive works. Perhaps collectors will come around — Eagles’ work was among the most refined and visually explosive at the fair, as ARTINFO noted in our top picks from Pulse. Torch Gallery had yet to sell Tinkebell’s controversial “Horse, My Little Pony,” but had put Terry Rogers’s debaucherous oil painting “The Calculus of Existence,” priced at $150,000, on reserve.

Lawrie Shabibi, the only gallery representing the United Arab Emirates at Pulse — and, in fact, the only Middle Eastern gallery at the fair — shined on Friday morning with strong chatter circulating around the work of Tunisian artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke, whose work has previously been acquired by MoMA. Many potential buyers were interested in her phallic, Cy Twombly-esque painting, “These Goddamned Boys All Stealing,” priced at $14,500. Perhaps it’s the work’s interesting backstory that’s causing a stir: Kaabi-Link found the wall fragment in the basement of a Berlin building that, she later found out, used to house Cosy Corner, a Weimar-era gay cabaret bar. Or perhaps the attraction is the piece's subject matter. “Obviously there are a plethora of pensises in this work,” Shabibi conceded. A hypnotizing embedded video work with nods to Renaissance painting by Palestinian-Iraqi artist Sama Alshaibi sold, unsurprisingly, for $9,000.

Shortly after arriving on Friday, gallerist Daniel Weinberg said there had been“great energy yesterday morning, especially since it was so early.” He stressed that he tried to bring a little bit of everything, from Lee Bontecou’s minimalist paintings to works by current Whitney Biennial artist Andrew Masullo.  Loren Munk’s loquaciously-titled “Graphic Representation of the Dialectical Aesthetics of Modernism 1900-2000” sold for $16,000. One of Massullo’s pieces sold for $6,000. Larger works were still available for $18,000.

“It’s good to have a themed booth,” said Noel Estrada of Galerie Stefan Ropke. “It’s nice to have a real conversation with collectors about ideas... it gets them excited.” The booth's theme — the intersection of art and science — seems to be generating chemisty with buyers. The gallery reported a nice mix of regular collectors and first-time buyers; selling works that investigate the science of optical perception. An abstract photograph by Sharon Harper sold for $15,000, as did two abstract paintings of undulating neon lines by Julie Opperman, priced at $2,800 and $3,000.  

Davidson Contemporary had good news to report on Friday, having sold two painstakingly rendered white ink graphs by Pulse alum and rising star Sam Messenger, priced at $4,000 and $5,000. The gallery also mentioned “a ton of interest” in his large piece, priced at $25,000. Also reaping the benefits of the trend towards meticulous abstract work on paper was Philadelphia’s Gallery Joe, which sold a Mia Rosenthal drawing for $5,600 and a subtly elegant Lynne Woods Turner for $8,000. Frosh & Portmann reported a lot of interest in Paul Paddock’s spooky watercolors, and sold his cautionary “Don’t Mess With Alexis” for $3,800.

Mike Weiss Gallery had to rehang its booth, replacing Jan de Vliegher Fragonard-esque “Happy Lovers” (which sold yesterday for $20,000) with a similar Rococo style piece by the artist. Gallerist Anna Ortt happily mentioned that the fair was raising excitement for de Vliegher’s gallery show, which opened Friday night. Meanwhile, at least three collectors are seriously considering buying Will Kurtz’s “Brighton Beach Bench” installation. “Everybody is mad for it!” Ortt said. Whoever buys is going to need a big living room. Mike Weiss's 24th Street neighbor, Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard, sold six of Beverly Fishman’s druggy-cool glass pill sculptures, priced between $2,000 and $4,000 each. They also sold two Paul Henry Ramirez paintings for $4,000 each.

However, Hosfelt Gallery’s “Creature II” was hands-down the star of the fair, drumming up a lot of talk about Alan Rath’s interactive digital sculptures. Christopher Adams’s delicate ceramic calamari sold for $1,200, and the entire set of Ruth Marten’s piece were generating interest — and priced at $16,000.

Carrie Secrist Gallery of Chicago sold its most subdued and least color field-rich drawings by Anne Lindberg. Despite a number of inquiries about the large, site-specific thread installation “Call and Response,” the gallery was still waiting on a real commitment to the work, which will likely make for a complicated installation in a collector’s home.

Cologne's Galerie Kundlek Van Der Grinten had already sold work from nearly all of their artists, including pieces by Alexander Gorlizki, Eyal Danieli, and Jonathan Callan.

Freight + Volume sold David Kramer’s ink-on-paper piece “Simple Life,” and gained a possible commission for Michael Scoggins (known for his enlarged loose-leaf doodles and portraits) stemming from interest in his piece on view, “All American Family.”

Creative Capital, the generous grant-giving foundation, had surprising success at their upstairs location in the Impulse section — the part of the fair typically reserved for younger galleries with solo booths — even though the organization's main purpose was to preview pieces from their upcoming May benefit auction. They sold ten editions at $500 each (plus an auction ticket) from former grantee Eve Sussman’s stereoscopic “Elevated Train” series, and immediately found a buyer for Beverly McIver’s “Watermelon VII” at the estimated price of $850.

Perhaps the fair’s biggest success story also came from upstairs at Impulse. Williamsburg’s Black and White Project Space and Gallery reported selling out half their booth, wrapping up 13 works by Peter Brock priced between $2,500 and $5,000. Major collectors wrote out checks alongside first-timers in one of the biggest booth successes so far. Director Tatyana Okshteyn told ARTINFO, “big collectors from Minneapolis came, people who would never go to Williamsburg to see the gallery show.”   

NEW YORK — If Frieze New York’s greatest challenge is to transform the foreign-seeming Randall’s Island into a hospitable place for an art fair, the inaugural edition of NADA New York has the opposite conundrum. How do you take a familiar space that for years has hosted a well-loved and successful art fair and make it your own?

“It does feel like I was just here,” said Untitled’s Joel Mesler, who set up shop inside the former Dia Center for the Arts on the same floor less than two months ago for Independent, the Armory Week fair that prefers to think of itself as a “temporary exhibition forum.” Still, there were palpable differences between the two events: NADA’s architecture firm Common Room built solid booths, which contrasted sharply with Independent’s open layout and gave the affair a business-like air. “We wanted to make sure what we did looked different from Independent, and also what we’ve done in the past,” said New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) founder Heather Hubbs.

One element wasn’t different from NADA’s well-known art fair in Miami, however: brisk sales. “This is the best opening day for a fair we’ve ever had,” said Risa Needleman of Invisible-Exports, noting that she had sold at least one piece from every artist in the booth. Untitled, Lisa Cooley, and Eleven Rivington all saw their booths sell out, or very nearly sell out, on the first day. Untitled featured a solo presentation of totemic, wooden sculptures by David Adamo, ranging in price from $12,000 to $22,000, while Eleven Rivington brought small paintings (some even smaller than a post-it note) by Spanish artist Jeronimo Elespe, ranging in price from $1,500 to $12,000, and a large and colorful wooden wall piece by Michael DeLucia for $10,000.

Asked about the difference between NADA New York and Independent, Eleven Rivington’s Augusto Arbizo said, “This is definitely a fair. I don’t think anyone is going to not acknowledge that. I mean, there are walls, there are booths." This walled-in design also allowed NADA to feature more galleries than the former Dia building has seen before, 67 in all. And though the alleyways sometimes had the unintended effect of making this visitor feel like a rat in a maze, they also seem to have encouraged galleries to mount more paintings than we often see at NADA Miami, or even at Independent. Indeed, it was a bit surprising — though not in a bad way — to see more sound art and video at Frieze than at NADA.

Among the highlights were petite, surreal, luminous paintings of boys by the sea from the 25-year-old British rising star Seth Pick, on sale for $3,500 to $4,900 from the London gallery Clerence Mews. Martos Gallery mounted a solo presentation of the fictional artist Henry Codax, half of which sold within the first hour and a half for between $6,000 and $10,000. (The true artists behind Codax’s piercing monochrome paintings is subject to much speculation.)

Franklin Parrasch Gallery mounted an impressive suite of Rita Ackermann paintings from 2008, all depicting dreamy, creepy nurses, two of which had sold by mid-afternoon for $17,000. The gallery paired Ackermann’s paintings with six delicate grid drawings by Agnes Martin, ranging in price from $135,000-200,000, one of which had sold by 3pm. Leo Koenig sold several textured canvases by Tony Matelli for between $12,500 and $25,000, created by the artist’s rubbing of his studio walls. (Meanwhile, a small Carl Andre six-sided floor piece, though unsold, seemed like a bargain — at least if you are a deep-pocketed collector — for $50,000.)

Works on paper were also in high demand. Within the first hour, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery sold a wall full of Ruby Sky Stiler’s petite woven paper pieces for $1,500 each, created by slicing and weaving together pages from different art history textbooks on Greek and Roman sculpture. Also sold was a large, meditative drawing atop antique ledger book paper by Louise Despont for $12,000. A number of small, geometric works on paper by Sadie Benning also sold from Vogt Gallery for $3,500 each. 

With affordable booth prices — booths come in two sizes, large for around $11,500 and small for $4,500 — most dealers seemed to have turned a profit on the first day. (Not bad for the first year of a fair.) These days, several dealers said, the challenge isn’t always selling the work, but having enough work to sell at the radically ballooning number of art fairs while still maintaining a cohesive program at their storefront spaces.

“It’s taking a little more work pushing artists to have pieces that you can exhibit at the fairs,” said Arbizo. But make no mistake, noted dealer Lisa Cooley: artists will always prefer showing at galleries over art fairs, despite the chance to make quick money. “As one of my artists said to me recently,” she recalled, "‘History will be written on what gets shown at the gallery, not what gets shown at an art fair.’”

The arduous hike to Randall’s Island by ferry, bus, or subway wasn’t exactly accommodating for those concerned with style, but the atmosphere in the tent that holds Frieze New York’s inaugural edition was decidedly high class. We wandered around the vernissage to find Frieze’s most stylish visitors. While the majority of the fairgoers opted for conservative suits or prim skirts and tops on Thursday afternoon, we came across a few standouts. Jil Sander popped up a few times, as did H&M’s minimalist, higher-end and only-available-in-Europe counterpart, Cos. The fair’s European roots certainly seemed to play a part in its fashions, but we have a feeling things will get more edgy as the days progress.

Click on the slide show to see the sartorial highlights of Frieze New York.

Just before the opening of the glamorous new fair, ARTINFO spoke with curator Cecelia Alemani about her selections for the inaugural New York edition of Frieze Projects, and how participants in this year's Frieze Talks have reflected on art's ability to represent and map the world:

By consensus, the very best thing at Frieze New York was the way the tent allowed in natural light. But the art on view, glimpsed via the sightlines afforded by the capacious venue, was outstanding — not an easy thing to pull off in a scene far too overcrowded with fairs. Below, Modern Painters offers a number of bests, a few insights, and a couple of pans. (To see the list in illustrated slide show form, click here.)

1. Best old-school collage: Astrid Klein at Spruth Magers and Robert Heinecken at Friederich Petzel.

2. Talk about laying a golden egg: “Sky slipped gold decorated stone-burst egg” by Takuro Kuwata, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo.

3. Most surprising work: Judith Scott’s yarn sculptures at White Columns, New York.

4. Thinking beyond the support: Laura Owens at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York.

5. Try packing this one up: Karla Black cellophane and nail-polish sculpture, “Become Useful” at Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne

6. Best video installations that could fit in a living room: Mika Rottenberg and John Kessler’s cabinet at Nicole Klagsbrun, New York and Nathaniel Mellors at Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam.

7. We like: Tatiana Trouve at Galerie Perrotin, Paris.

8. Best conceptual room at a booth: Katie Paterson at James Cohan, New York.

9. Best installation: Samara Golden at Night Gallery, Los Angeles. 

10. Doing more with less: Heroic sculpture made with cheap concrete and walkers at Bureau of New York. Artist Justin Matherly is slowly coming to own a very specific, very cool niche.

11. Best photo op: Anish Kapoor’s fiberglass sculpture at Lisson Gallery.

12. Saddest-looking booth: Gagosian’s oversized stand. We imagine this guy in our photo has just bought out the full array of Rudolf Stingels and is now on his cell trying to flip them at a profit.

13. Best wakeup call for tired fairgoers: Judging by the amount of work at James Fuentes’s booth, Josh Abelow must make a painting every 3.5 minutes. These playfully obscene, text-heavy canvases were hung in an overstuffed salon style that was a real blast for the senses.

14. Material for nightmares: Nicole Eisenman’s "Saggy Titties," a foam and oil on wood painting from 2007, on display at Berlin’s Galerie Barbara Weiss. It’ll be haunting us for the next month, but we love it.

15. Viscerally thrilling: Collage-influenced, brilliantly hyperactive photos by Michele Abeles at New York’s 47 Canal.

16. The perfect gift for a collector who has everything (except taste):  Massimo De Carlo of Milan and London showed this three panel piece by Aaron Young

17. Gets your heart pumping: Since no one in the art world has ever seen cocaine before, you should stop by Galerie Lelong to check out Helio Oiticica’s photograph that incorporates the drug.

18. Best trompe l'oeil: A painting by Kees Goudzwaard at Zeno X of Antwerp. As we’re always saying around the Modern Painters office, “Ain’t nobody out there painting trompe l'oeil depictions of tape like Goudzwaard.”

19. The clock is ticking if you want to buy this one: Sanya Kantarovsky’s whimsical painting at Marc Foxx had us checking our watch. (And our wallets — yup, still too broke to actually purchase anything at Frieze.)

20. The meme that won't quit: We wrote about the cats-in-art trend a few issues back. And why should it? Here’s Michael St John’s piece at Andrea Rosen. Kurt Cobain + kittens + weird pom-pom = a certain breed of brilliant. (Full disclosure: The Modern Painters editorial team is slightly divided on the whole ‘cat art’ thing.)

21. The best damn giant dragon-fly sculpture balanced on a pedestal at the whole fair: Matt Golden at London’s Limoncello Gallery.

22. Best deal: Cans of Bud Light on the ferry to Frieze cost $6. That means if you buy this sculpture by Lutz Bacher from Cabinet in London, you’re probably still getting a bargain even if you drink the whole thing.

23. Grossest work: Sarah Lucas’s awesomely gross "Bike" at London’s Sadie Coles. We never want to ride it.

24. Most ingenious: At L.A.’s Overduin and Kite there were three large-scale sculptures made of charcoal and aqua-resin that resembled crumpled up sheets of construction paper by Kaari Upson, whose bare-bones ingenuity we heartily applaud.

25. Best floor: Magazine cut-outs of mountains, part of a project by Marcello Maloberti at Gallerie Raffaella Cortese of Milan.

To see Modern Painters Magazine's Top Picks From Frieze New York, click the slideshow above

WHAT: “Dana Schutz: Piano in the Rain”

WHEN: May 2-June 16, Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6 pm

WHERE: Friedrich Petzel Gallery, 537 West 22nd Street, New York

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: Since the late 1990s, viewers have depended on the work of Dana Schutz for cryptic renderings of unstable scenes with a nightmarish bent. Like the Romantic era, the current age favors painters who approach figurative portraiture with a healthy dose of expressive and personal content, even when that content is dark or troubling. It is a mode that has suited this Brooklyn-based artist quite well, and it is exactly the sort of thing viewers can expect from “Piano in the Rain,” now on view at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery through June 16.

The exhibition takes its name from the title of Schutz’s particularly Romantic painting in which a longhaired pianist sorrowfully avoids the viewer’s gaze as he (or she?) plays. An even more introspective timbre is taken in “Small Apartment” (2012), in which a spillage of Kandinsky-like ciphers spell out feelings of guilt and despair between two figures sitting across a breakfast table. The mix between abstraction and figuration reaches a nearly-maniacal level in the varied shapes and scribbles born out of a trench coat in “Flasher” (2012), where a hand saw, watches, and pair of scissors almost drown out the darkly upturned face of an urban street crawler. In “Building the Boat While Sailing,” there are moments when figures gleefully grin or spout jets of water from their lips. But “Piano in the Rain” is mostly a show of howls and grimaces, with a series of the artist’s “Yawn” paintings thrown in.

In these pieces, both Schutz and her subjects are aptly being themselves. As in the work of contemporaries Ashley Bickerton or Kristin Baker (or earlier and more famously, George Condo), Schutz’s paintings insist that something mischievous and cruel is going on, but they refuse to tell you what it is. The faces of Schutz’s characters suggest a deep and convoluted emotional pull. It’s frustrating that the stories behind them remain unexplained, but it may very well be why her work is so intriguing.

Click on the slide show to see images from Dana Schutz's "Piano in the Rain," on view at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery.

One of the most controversial topics about Californian wine—and thus, one of the most widely discussed by wine lovers—is how much Napa Cab has changed over the years, or whether it has truly been altered. Every time I go to Napa and Sonoma with a group o

Brant Ward / SFC The grounds feature picnic areas along with lavish Japanese gardens and Asian-inspired architecture. "Feel free to ask questions, we're here to explain," said the Arista tasting host cheerfully, pouring wine for a guest. Then he went on

Socialist party candidate François Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday to become the new French president — the first time France has had a Socialist in its highest office since François Mitterrand ended his second term in 1995. During his campaign, Hollande emphasized the importance of culture, suggesting several initiatives on topics as varied as arts education and illegal downloads. Here's a look at what is likely to change in the cultural landscape — and what will likely stay the same — over the next five years.

Citing the ambitious cultural projects of previous presidents — such as Georges Pompidou's creation of the Pompidou Center and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's establishment of the Musée d'Orsay — Hollande wants to create a national plan for arts education. His spokesperson Aurélie Filippetti told L'Humanité last month that the idea is to establish "coherent curricula which, from kindergarten through college, allow new generations to develop their own sensibility, in collaboration with outside institutions." In a campaign speech, Hollande stated his intention to do this by establishing an interministerial office that will have its own budget and report to the prime minister. Education is notoriously difficult to tamper with in France, but the president can employ a great deal of discretionary authority. Especially if these proposals enjoy student support, this could be the signature cultural contribution of Hollande's presidency.

Hollande also wants to repeal the controversial Hadopi law on digital downloads. The law, which was passed in the National Assembly three years ago with only one Socialist vote in its favor, criminalizes illegal downloads of cultural content, and Hollande accused it of creating "a gap between creators and their public." Le Monde reports that when the French Dramatic Authors and Composers Society, which represents playwrights, screenwriters, and filmmakers, expressed concern and asked the candidate to clarify his policy, Hollande confirmed his belief in "the absolute necessity to defend authors' rights," adding that he wants to "strengthen the legal offerings online" by designating funds to aid in the development of legal downloading platforms. According to his Web site, Hollande foresees replacing Hadopi with a new law that would "guarantee the financing of creativity as well as the widest broadcasting of creative works to all publics" — which sounds easier said than done.

In terms of general government support for the arts, it's not clear that Hollande will bring about any major changes. He talked about the culture ministry in a speech at the International Drama Biennial in Nantes in January, emphasizing that public financing of culture is part of French history and promising that the culture budget would be "completely enshrined." While many European countries have seen cutbacks in cultural funding, under Sarkozy France actually saw a slight increase (.9 percent) in its culture budget for 2012, bringing it to a total of €7.4 billion ($9.7 billion). It's noticeable, then, that, with the European debt crisis still unresolved, Hollande did not promise to increase cultural funding, but to "enshrine" it.

Last Thursday, 362 academics, writers, and artists, including Christian Boltanski, Annette Messager, and Jean-Jacques Sempé, posted a letter in support of Hollande on the blog of the magazine Les Inrockuptibles. But, more than anything, it was a letter against Sarkozy. "During five years in power, the right has openly scorned knowledge and culture to the detriment of the general interest," they wrote, accusing Sarkozy of "drastic cutbacks in budgets, the deregulation of public policies, and the abandonment of the liberating ambition of knowledge" and declaring the culture ministry to be "only the shadow of its former self." During his campaign, Hollande invoked the notions of inclusion and equality that critics of Sarkozy have found to be sorely lacking during his term. He gave himself the goal of making culture more accessible to all, "irrigating all the forgotten territories, the abandoned parts of our regions, the neglected neighborhoods of our big cities." Now it only remains to be seen when this softer tone will be accompanied by concrete actions.

— Christie's Exec Woos January Jones: At a special screening of a new film about Yves Klein in New York last week, Loic Gouzer, a "darkly handsome Frenchman" who is also a postwar and contemporary specialist at Christie's (where a show-stopping work by Klein hits the auction block tomorrow), was more than sold on "Mad Men" actress January Jones. "I promised myself I wouldn’t propose tonight," Gouzer said by way of an introduction before the screening. Later that evening — and after some encouragement from the Daily News's supportive nightlife reporter — Jones was seen sharing a cigarette with the "Gallic Galihad," and Gouzer may, or may not, have gotten her number. [NYDN]

— Sotheby's Art Handlers Head to Shareholders Meeting: Tomorrow Sotheby's will hold its annual shareholders meeting in New York, and art handlers who own shares in the company will attend in hopes of finally being heard by their bosses, who have locked them out of their jobs since August of 2011. "Management’s decision to lock out the workers during negotiations," said Carin Zelenko of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, "was an effort to starve them into submission." The shareholders are already facing pressure from a union-affiliated investment group to shake up its board. Should be interesting. [Bloomberg]

— More Woes for Knoedler: Add the family of California master Richard Diebenkorn to those piling onto the now-shuttered Knoedler & Company for selling fakes. Family members are now accusing the gallery of selling works as part of Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park" series even after the family met with the gallery and expressed doubts: “They didn’t look quite right, and we said, ‘The provenance is wacky and the story behind the provenance makes no sense,’” explained Richard Grant, Diebenkorn's son-in-law and director of his namesake foundation. Knoedler's representatives dispute the account, and say they have proof that the family assented to the attribution. Former MoMA curator John Elderfield, who accompanied the Diebenkorns at the long-ago powwow, is supporting their side of the story. [NYT]

— The Secret History of "The Scream": The famous Edvard Munch pastel, which sold last week for a record $119.9 million, has a hitherto undisclosed back story. For 17 years, until 2006, the masterpiece quietly rested in the vaults of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., on loan from owner Petter Olsen, and shown almost exclusively to visiting scholars and students. The museum may have hoped to acquire the piece, either through donation or purchase. It appears they were priced out. [TAN]

— Matthew Day Jackson Becomes Racecar Driver: Rising art star Matthew Day Jackson is taking his studio on the road — or, more specifically, the race track. The Brooklyn-based sculptor, whose work is on view in Hauser & Wirth's Frieze New York booth at Frieze New York and who curated a new exhibition at its Upper East Side gallery — is embarking on an unconventional sculpture-performance hybrid project. "I’m going to be drag racing for the next year or two," the artist revealed, racing in a car he built himself that will become a sculpture at the end of his racing career. Collectors can sponsor his team for as little as $500 or, for $60,000, can name the car, choose its colors, and have their name on it. [TAN]

— Stolen Masterpieces Recovered in Corsican Parking Lot: Four paintings that were stolen last year from the Palais Fesch-Musée des Beaux-Arts in the Corsican city of Ajaccio — including Bellini's "Virgin and Child" and Poussin's "Midas at the Source of the River Pactole" — were found in perfect condition in a parking lot on the outskirt of town after the case's lead investigator received an anonymous tip on Friday night. Last February a guard at the museum — which houses France's second-largest collection of Italian paintings after the Louvre — turned himself in, but when he led police to the car where he had stashed the stolen paintings its windows had been smashed and the loot was gone. [Libération, Le Monde]

— Monaco Collector Has No LOVE for Robert Indiana: Joao Tovar, an art collector based in Monaco who has spent the last four years buying Robert Indiana sculptures in the style of his ubiquitous "LOVE" sculptures — though they read "PREM," the Hindu word for love translated into English — is suing the artist in his home state of Maine after losing a similar federal case in New York last year. Tovar alleges that he received a signed certificate of authenticity for the works, but that Indiana subsequently renounced authorship of the sculptures, reducing their value from an estimated $1.5 million in 2009 to, according to the lawsuit, "little more than the materials from which they were made." [Bangor Daily News]

— How Much is Too Much to Pay for Airport Art?: That's the question raised by Steven Waldeck's "Flight Paths," an installation that would supposedly create a "virtual forest" at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. The project's budget has swelled to $4 million, more than triple what it was supposed to cost when it was originally proposed a decade ago. If the city council OKs the pricey work, it will be paid for with funds set aside from airport fees. [AP]

— Setback for Harvard Museums: Those anticipating the reopening of the Harvard Art Museums will have to wait a little longer, as the $350-million project won't be completed until a year later then planned. The delay until late 2014 is due to the complex nature of the renovation and expansion. “This is in many ways our one chance to get it right, so we don’t want to rush things,” said Tom Lentz, director of the museums. [Boston Globe]

— ICP Gets a New Director: Manhattan's International Center of Photography has appointed Mark Robbins, dean of the School of Architecture at Syracuse University, as its new director. Robbins, who is also a photographer himself, will replace Willis E. Hartshorn, who stepped down last summer. [NYT]

ALSO ON ARTINFO

Modern Painters Magazine's Top Picks From Frieze New York

Tent Style: Sartorial Standouts From Frieze New York

The Romantic Era Lives on in Dana Schutz's Paintings

Sales Report: Pulse New York Keeps on Ticking With Affordable Work and Adventurous First-Time Collectors

Sales Report: NADA Debuts in New York, Luring Buyers Into a Packed Maze of Dealers