LONDON—At the end of our conversation on Monday, German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann gave me a small black-and-white photograph of the girl who would become Queen Elizabeth II, aged eight or nine. The cute child has the quiet confidence of those born into the ruling classes; her pose is uncannily grown up. In an outburst of romanticism surprising for a hardened conceptualist of his kind, Feldmann told me how everybody was in love with the royal princess. "Romy Schneider" — the enduringly popular German film actrses — "was nothing compared to her."

This cheap picture, an "unlimited edition" print made especially for Feldmann's solo show which opened Tuesday at the Serpentine Gallery, is the artist's work in a nutshell — and not simply because of his staunch refusal to give into the art market's reliance on rarity. "It's only ink and paper," he said. "[The image] happens in your head." Feldmann is best known for his collections of found images and seemingly random photographs assembled in picture books or pinned to the wall. But his interest lies beyond the seen, in between the frames, in what photography cannot capture: here, the future queen's devoted following. The cluster of images "Car Radios While Good Music is Playing" is another case in point, a doomed-to-fail attempt to picture what escapes the visual, purposefully open to subjective interpretation.

The Serpentine Gallery exhibition is concise but dense, taking visitors through his 40-year career, from his first handmade publications to his latest composition: a series of 15 seascape paintings, their textured waves echoed frame after frame. "You see freedom in these paintings," he explained, gently mocking the idea that a seaside view somewhat broadens one's horizon. Each picture was made by a different painter between 1850 and 1950, but they are all saturated with the same delusional yearning for escape, a saturation rendered suffocating by the simple process of repetition.

Although art history from Michelangelo to Man Ray is a constant reference point for Feldmann, the artist relishes schoolboy-style pranks. In the show, his version of Courbet's "L'Origine du Monde" sports bikini tan lines; 19th-century portraits are professionally altered to be cross-eyed or red-nosed; classical sculptures are painted in Technicolor hues. Feldmann talks about art as a "joke," a "kick in the side" aimed at the overbearing presence of his forebears. "Humour is something with a very serious background," he once told Hans Ulrich Obrist. "It's an easy way of approaching a problem and an attempt not to despair of doing something about it."

To see images of work from the Hans-Peter Feldman retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery, click on the slide show.

A version of this article originally appeared on ARTINFO UK.

Curvilinear tables by Zaha Hadid. A violent (and humbly-named) chandelier by Daniel Libeskind. A modernist lamp by Richard Neutra. Architects frequently transfer the language of their buildings and their skills at the drafting table into the world of industrial design, but one of the most prolific may be American Postmodernist Michael Graves, a member of the New York Five whose hundreds of tea kettles, dog houses, spatulas, and the like have graced the high-end shelves of Alessi, along with the more accessible ones at Target. In light of the 2012 Driehaus Prize winner's current, very cleverly titled retrospective of his product designs (currently on view at Anne Reid '72 Art Gallery), and the end of his 13-year-long collaboration with the big box department store, Graves talked to ARTINFO about the differences between designing buildings and tea kettles, his Etruscan influences, and why the New York skyline doesn't do anything for him. 

There's a lot of crossover between architecture and design, at least, from architect to designer. When it comes to designing a tea kettle rather than a building, how does your approach differ?

It's really the same. It's not different. When I design a building, I'm making sure you and I can get to the front door, there's enough of a threshold for entry, and that the rooms are in a logical sequence. The same kind of thing that happens in product design. When we did the Alessi tea kettle, Alessi said he wanted two things: for the kettle to boil faster than any other kettle on the market, which was easy to figure out because that’s just physics and the shape of the kettle over the flame, and then he said something ineffable — "I want an American kettle." I said I don't know what that is. Anyway, because it has a little bird that chirps, for him it was something with wit, and there were no changes. It's finding those things in buildings, finding those elements in product design that we're always after. Good design to me is both appearance and functionality together. It’s the experience that makes it good design.

Did that little bird make it American for them?

It did for them, but if it worked for any of us, I'm not sure. But it was at least witty. I grew up in Indiana and spent summers on the farm. I would wake up with the water boiling away and the rooster crowing, and that meant morning to me.

It's funny actually how many postmodern kettle designs there are. When Philippe Starck did the Hot Bertaa kettle for Alessi, it turned out to be a real flop. Have you found that some of your designs were better received than others?

Philippe Starck and I go at it very, very differently. He's always trying for that edginess. He would rather the kettle not work sometimes, I think, and just be collected by kettle collectors or object collectors. Frank Gehry made a kettle that didn’t work either. It was very expensive and they didn't sell any of them. It looked interesting, but we always start by saying it's going to work. That's never a question. Maybe some work better than others. Someone once told told me they didn't like taking the lid off the kettle because they'd just lose it in the kitchen, so we made a kettle with an attached lid that you slide. It was in response to that that we made one that did something different. A woman in a wheel chair told me that both she and her husband just needed a coffee maker that's top filling because of their situation. Those kinds of things are kind of touching, so you go after them. You find a way. We were working on making these objects easier for people with disabilities.

Has being in a wheelchair influenced you in that direction?

We've taken on health care in a big way in our office, ever since nine years ago when I was paralyzed. I was in eight different hospitals, three different rehab centers, and all the rooms were dreadful. As an architect, designer, and patient, I can do something to help.

You frequently cite Rome as a source of inspiration for your color palettes, and they’re quite visible in your first design. What is it about the city that provides you with so much inspiration?

I lived there for two years. The idea is that Rome is this city that starts with life before Christ. Everything from the Etruscans a thousand years before Christ, up through the ancient monuments and things like the Pantheon, to the Romanesque, and finally to the Rennaissance and the Baroque. Even the modern there is interesting. They're just terrific in the way the Romans had no problem tearing something down and building something new because they have a faith that the new will be as good as the old. We don’t have that faith here. We want to keep the old because we don't have very much of it. And oftentimes we've been disappointed with what we've replaced it with. 

Speaking of the new, we've had a lot of additions to the New York City skyline in recent years. Do you have a favorite new building?

No. None.

Really?

Really.

Not a single one?

Not a single one. I'm a kind of an anti-modernist in that I don't like glass boxes, and I don’t like inhuman buildings, and those are the ones being built now. There isn't much for me to look at in New York skyline, or any other skyline.

Is there a point in history where you just lose interest?

About 1940.

Your 13-year design collaboration with Target comes to an end this year. Are you looking elsewhere for collaborators now?

I’m going to miss the sort of glory days when we first started with Target. We were working in various areas of the store and that was truly, truly gratifying. Then things started to change. They started to add groceries. Target can't do everything, so they decided on groceries rather than continue with people like me.  So we're looking to fill the void that’s left by Target. We're looking for somebody now, and it looks like we have a great opportunity to work with another retailer. That's not in the contract stage yet, so I can't say anything about it. Target changed over the years, and it's quite understandable what they're doing. When we started we were the only outside designer, and then they started to add people in fashion. Target started to design things in-house, and they went from zero to now 500 designers that are working for Target in their own building. They don’t need outside designers like me.

I can't wait to see who your next collaborator will be. 

It’s not hard to figure out.

You're a celebrated architect, a well-known designer, and, as it turns out, a little-known painter. Did you not have enough creative outlets as it was?

I've always painted. I've always been influenced by painters like Le Corbusier who are architects who painted murals in their buildings. I started that way in my first buildings in the '60s, painting whole walls for people and just giving them away because I wanted them there. I didn't ever work for collectors and people with lots of dough. I did do what I could do in that regard, and then people started to ask for them. That was even better, to get paid for it. When I was paralyzed my activities changed. I used to play basketball and golf, and now I can't do that anymore in a wheelchair. I've spent all that time painting now, and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. Its just the most marvelous thing.

Which artists have had the greatest influence on you?

We all love Picasso. I look at Morandi, Pontormo, Caravaggio. Really, the Renaissance painters are favorites of mine, so that list goes on and on. There's also Matisse, as a modern painter. I just did a lecture at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and showed the paitnings at the end. People had no idea that I was doing that and loved them, so I'm really pleased with the way they're being accepted. I need a gallery.

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has done everything but stay quiet since the Chinese government told him not to speak publicly following his release from detention last summer. The artist jumped back onto his ever-active Twitter account, has given numerous interviews to international press, and even set up a live-streamed surveillance system that broadcast his Beijing studio to an Internet audience, mocking China’s ongoing monitoring of his activities. Ironically enough, the Chinese government recently forced Ai to turn off his cameras, but Ai has gone public in yet another way.

The artist gave a crowd-sourced interview to Al-Jazeera in a video recorded at his home studio in Beijing’s Caochangdi neighborhood. Responding to questions from fans around the world, the artist talked about his politics and the power of art to enact change. “I use my art to... find a new way of communication and express myself,” he said. “The only way I can still express myself is through the Internet.” After noting that when Ai was arrested he felt that “All Chinese Harry Potters had lost their Dumbledores,” another commenter asked, “What is the power of art in creating public awareness?” Ai responded, “Art really shows the people our consciousness and awareness about our surroundings — it’s a way for us to express ourselves to an audience.”

In honor of Ai’s ongoing outspokenness and his latest triumphs over censorship, we collected 20 of the artist’s greatest quotes, from musings on freedom of speech to the radical anarchy of the Internet.

Click on the slide show to see the quotes, along with images from Ai's life and work.

CHRISTIAN Borle knows what people think about “Smash,” his popular if picked-apart NBC drama about the making of a Broadway musical. Not because he goes online to see what they are saying about his performance — he learned to stop doing that long ago — b

— $108 Million Stolen Cézanne Saved in Serbia: Last night police in Belgrade rescued "The Boy in the Red Waistcoat" (1888-89), a painting by Paul Cézanne that was stolen at gunpoint from Zurich's Emil Georg Bührle gallery in 2008, along with classic works by Claude Monet, Edgard Degas, and Vincent van Gogh, in what was the biggest art heist in Switzerland's history. The Cézanne work alone is estimated to be worth a staggering £68 million ($108 million). While the Monet and van Gogh were recovered shortly therafter, the Degas remains missing; three suspects are being held in connection with the just-recovered Cézanne, while Swiss experts are en route to confirm its authenticity. [Guardian, Libération]

— Magritte for the Kids: Does your little one have a taste for the odd puzzle-paintings of Rene Magritte? If so, then you are in luck! D.B. Johnson's new children's picture book "Magritte's Marvelous Hat," aims to make Belgian Surrealist's unique sensibility accessible to the average preschooler. Johnson — who published the M.C. Escher-themed kids' book "Palazzo Inverso" two years ago — cast the Swiss Surrealist as a dog whose bowler hat floats mysteriously over his head. [Wired]

— A Very Sweet 30 for Prince William: The Finnish candy company Panda Liquorice has commissioned the most scrumtious royal portrait ever to mark Prince William's 30th birthday, which happens to coincide with the company's three-decade anniversary. The 20-foot mural, currently on view at Spinningfields in Manchester, took four artists five hours and 3,000 pieces of liquorice to build. Panda Liquorice spokesperson Lisa Gawthorne said: "We're delighted to be sharing our 30th with him and hope this tribute brings a smile to the faces of both Wills and Kate." [HuffPoUK]

— Guggenheim and UBS Team Up to Tap the Developing World's Art Treasures: Today the Guggenheim Foundation and UBS will announce a five-year program, the awkwardly named "Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative," to work with artists and curators from South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America while acquiring works from those regions for the Guggenheim's permanent collection, to be the focus of major traveling exhibitions. Curators from each global region will be granted overlapping two-year residencies at the New York museum as part of the program. [NYT]

— British Police Mistakenly Release Art Thief: One of five suspects in an organized crime ring arrested last weekend for stealing Chinese artifacts worth £2 million ($3.2 million) from Durham's Oriental Museum was accidentally let go on Tuesday, and has disappeared, prompting a nationwide manhunt. Lee Wildman, 35, was granted bail Monday night, but before the police could re-arrest him for questioning he'd vanished. Four other prime suspects remain in custody. [NorthernEcho]

— Aussies Outgrow Venice Annex: After exhibiting in Philip Cox's temporary building for a quarter-century, Australia will build a new pavilion designed by Denton Corker Marshall for the 2015 Venice Biennale. The new AUS$6 million (US$ 6.2 million), to be built in the Giardini, will take the place of Cox's structure, and will be a solemn box of black granite — in high contrast to the conventional white cube. [BrisbaneTimes]

— Irish Artist Builds Billion-Euro House: Entitled "Expressions of Recession," Franck Buckley's Dublin House has been mostly constructed from shredded decommissioned bank notes given to him by the national mint under strict conditions, and formerly worth some €1.4 billion ($1.8 billion). The artist is now welcoming visitors into the three-room house and gallery, in which he's been living since last December. Some of his paintings are on sale within, but at significantly more affordable prices. [Artlyst]

— Pinta Returns to London: After a successful second edition in 2011, Pinta, the art fair dedicated to art from Latin America, has announced it will hold a third edition and introduce artists from Portugal and Spain for the first time. Three sections will be presented in 2012: Galleries, Solo Exhibitions, and Art Projects curated by Pablo Leon de la Barra. [Artdaily]

— New Director for Barcelona's Picasso Museum: Bernardo Laniado-Romero, who was formerly director of the Picasso Museum in Malaga, has been appointed the director of the much larger Barcelona institution of the same name. He also worked for the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's European Painting department. [Connaissance des Arts]

— Chinese Art Collection Breaks Auction Records: Paintings, sculptures, and objets d’art belonging to an unnamed Milwaukee family went under the hammer at a Kaminski auction in Beverly, Massachusetts, late last month. Among the prized works were five paintings by the 20th century artist Qi Bashi, which sold for a record $2.3 million. [Auction Central News]

— Turkey Demands Artifact's Return, Mid-Exhibition: An increasingly assertive Turkish government is demanding the return of a statue brought to the British Museum in the 1920s, and that is a highlight of the current exhibition “Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam.” The demand, first articulated by Ankara's government in in 2005, is one of many works Turkey has requested from U.S. and British institutions — it's also the second ongoing high-profile case involving the British Museum, which is under pressure from Greece to return the Elgin marbles. [NYT]

NEW YORK—This morning's classified new Guggenheim initiative turned out to be not such a big secret after all — the details of the new partnership between the Gugg and UBS were already spelled out in the New York Times last night. Still, the official unveiling this morning went ahead in a slickly corporate, highly polished press conference held in the museum’s circular lobby. The New York museum is partnering with the Swiss bank on the terrible named Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative, an international contemporary art project that will see the museum working with three curators from three different areas of the globe to create exhibitions documenting diverse artistic communities and demonstrating that the “geography of the art world extends to the geographical world’s horizons,” as Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong grandiosely put it.

The three MAP exhibitions (the name is “both a noun and a verb,” according to Armstrong) will focus on South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa, and run consecutively over a five-year period. The shows will open at the Guggenheim and then travel to two other locations, with at least one in the area that they originated in. The museum hopes to acquire every work showcased in the MAP exhibitions for its permanent collection with the support of the reportedly $40 million-plus support of UBS, a museum representative told ARTINFO.

The first MAP exhibition is to be curated by Singaporean June Yap, 38, who has worked at the Asian city-state's Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Singapore Art Museum, as well as organizing an exhibition of Singaporean video artist Ho Tzu Nyen for the 2011 Venice Biennale’s Singapore Pavilion. After this morning's conference, ARTINFO spoke to Yap about how her participation in the project developed, her plans for the upcoming exhibition, and how she will work to communicate to both New York and Asian audiences. 

Your Guggenheim MAP exhibition will cover South and Southeast Asia. Are there any particular artists or institutions you’re hoping to work with there?

The project’s just begun so in terms of the artists, we haven't really identified them yet. But it is something that I will be working on together with the Guggenheim museum and with the curatorial team here as well as the education team. As far as our selection process is concerned, we are looking at not just the artworks, but also the context they come from, the issues that they’re dealing with, and how these can be presented to different levels of audiences through the various programs.

The region itself is very diverse, it constitutes many different countries, it’s very heterogeneous, and that’s the challenge. But that’s also what makes it interesting. It will probably be impossible to have some kind of unified perspective on the region — I don’t quite foresee that happening. What we are hoping for is to create dialogue and exchange so that the diversity can be captured through that. I’m from Singapore, so I will be in the region meeting with artists and seeing how we can bring their works, and perhaps themselves, to New York.

Is the exhibition going to be collaborative with local institutions in the region or is it more about the Guggenheim choosing a selection of artists?

It’s essentially a selection of artists and artworks, but the selection is traveling. In that sense, there is collaboration between the venues the exhibition is traveling to.

How will the curatorial selection work on these different levels, communicating both to a New York audience and to an audience in Singapore, for example?

I think that will be the challenge. In New York, the New York City audience is not so familiar with Southeast Asia and a level of historical background and context would be useful for the audiences here. But that same background will be something that’s taken for granted when the exhibition travels to somewhere like Singapore. It’s not as if the artists in South and Southeast Asia have been comprehensively contextualized or represented. So I think there still will be aspects that will be of interest. I guess what might be different would be the types of dialogue it would generate. The different types of dialogue might involve different approaches or different questions. In Asia it might be more internal, more dialogue about what’s happening in Asia.

How will you contextualize this work in New York? Will it be through the education programs or in the exhibition itself?

At the start, the artworks themselves will speak of the region already. The programs create other access points and create means to interact with the artists or to interact with various media or practices or issues of the practices. There will be a varied range of programs for the different venues.

Will you be commissioning new projects for the exhibition?

That is not determined yet.

How did the Guggenheim approach you about this massive project?

I got a phone call. [laughs] A lot of late night and early morning phone calls. An initiative like this has so much potential and so much possibility that it was… these discussions were very private, prior to this launch.

You’ll be working out of New York for two years, at the same time that you are traveling around to prepare for the exhibition?

I definitely have to be in New York for a period of time because I’m working with the teams here and also trying to understand the audiences here, because this is not just an exhibition but also an acquisition process. I'm looking at how these works will become part of the collection as well. There will definitely be a portion of time where I will be in the region to speak with the artists. 

What will Daphne Guinness offer at her June 27 Christie’s South Kensington sale to benefit the Isabella Blow Foundation? An enviable list of coveted designers: Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Gareth Pugh, Lanvin, Prada, Gucci, and more. Expected to raise more than £100,000 ($159,590) for the charity dedicated to Guinness's late friend, the auction’s lots are estimated to start at £300 ($478) and most items are up for £3,000 ($4,787) or less. The star of the sale is a custom-made 2008 Alexander McQueen sculptural mini dress created especially for Guinness. The contents of the auction will be on view to the public June 23-27 in London. After all, it’s not everyday that a fashion icon puts part of her drool-worthy wardrobe up for sale.

Click on the slide show to see items from Christie’s “Daphne Guinness Sale to Benefit the Isabella Blow Foundation.”

NEW YORK—When Marcia Tucker founded the New Museum 35 years ago, it didn’t even have a real place to show art, just an office in Tribeca used to organize exhibitions off site. It’s come a long way. Last might, the institution celebrated its Coral Anniversary in a style that was very far away from its roots indeed — though one that definitely showcased the vast good will that it has among an extraordinary array of art-world denizens. Famous guests packed into the tony Cipriani Wall Street venue, basking in the glow of animated murals by the likes of Will Cotton and Takeshi Murata projected high onto the walls, before sitting down to a lavish dinner and tribute to abject art legend Paul McCarthy. 

The large number of top-tier art stars who turned up for event included everyone from Jeff Koons and Chuck Close to Marilyn Minter and Elizabeth Peyton, as well as George Condo — who was auctioning off a portrait commission to benefit the New Museum — and the man of the hour, McCarthy. Perpetual it-girl Chloë Sevigny — who served as honorary chair of the event, alongside crystal queen Nadja Swarovski — looked particularly sharp in a white men’s suit. After all the schmoozing and some heartfelt words from McCarthy, the evening was capped by a sprightly set from the contemporary Brooklyn funk-pop outfit known as the Pimps of Joytime.

All in all, the lavish event raised $1.6 million for the Bowery museum and drew a bevy of A-listers — not bad for an institution that started with nothing and was dedicated to promoting unknowns.

From the Stonewall Riots of 1969 to the recent legalization of same-sex marriage across the United States, considerable strides have been made in the fight for LGBT rights. The visual arts have captured their share of this energy, so it sounds crazy to say that there are no instutions catering to work on LGBT themes. Yet New York's Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art — which goes by the unfortunate acronym MoGLA — claims in a press release to be the “first and only museum of gay and lesbian art in the world.” A quick Google search failed to turn up any others, so we'll assume that they're right.

MoGLA, which inhabits in a tony space on Wooster Street in SoHo, became official recently when it received museum accreditation from the State of New York, thereby becomming the newest serious addition to the city's art infrastructure. But it is not exactly a new arrival, either. Founded 20 years ago by Charles Leslie and his late partner, Fritz Lohman, the museum is now run by a board of directors. Curator Jonathan D. Katz, who co-organized the National Portrait Gallery's contested "Hide/Seek" show on gay identity in art history, sits as president.

What to expect from a visit to the newly legal museum? The institution's current exhibition, “The Piers: Art and Sex Along the New York Waterfront,” runs through July 7, and examines the uses of the Hudson River docks by artists and gay subculture, focusing specifically on the ways in which the gay rights movement and Stonewall transformed New York City’s cultural landscape. Upcoming shows include “The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History” (August 14-September 2) and “Del Grace Volcano: A Mid-Career Retrospective” (September 18-November 11).

Click on the slide show to see images from recent exhibitions at MoGLA.

The buzz emanating from the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where “Ghost, the Musical” is previewing, is that the special effects are pretty amazing. But the one effect inspiring even more chatter is Da’Vine Joy Randolph, the 25-year-old actor who blazes across the stage as Oda Mae Brown, the conning psychic who becomes a linchpin in this romance between a young artist and her dead lover. It’s the role that won Whoopi Goldberg an Oscar in the 1990 film weepie that starred Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, and which may catapult Randolph to fame when the show bows on Broadway on April 23.  She’s also likely to be a strong contender for a Tony Award. Not bad for someone who just a year ago was finishing up a masters program at the Yale School of Drama, when she got a call to audition for the musical. 

Randolph first performed the role for a short time during the musical’s previous engagement in London and then moved on with the production for the Broadway transfer. Director Matthew Warchus’s belief in her ability to pull off such an iconic role certainly seemed justified at a recent preview. Within minutes of her flamboyant, hopped-up entrance as the scheming storefront psychic, one could hear the rustle of programs as people looked to find out who this force of nature was.  

For the record, Randolph grew up in a religious household and was raised by educator parents, first in Philadelphia and then in the suburbs of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Though her first ambition was to pursue a career in pop music, a series of serendipitous encounters with teachers led her to classical training at the prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts, then to a bachelors at Temple University and finally to Yale. Despite the limited resume, she’s played a range of characters, from Tituba in a community theater production of  “The Crucible” when she was 15, to the Carlo Goldoni farce “Servant of Two Masters” at Yale Rep, to “Hair” at the Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia. “Ghost” marks her Broadway debut.

Has playing this role made you feel different when you pass a storefront psychic in New York?

Oh, definitely. When I got the part, I knew I had to check them out. I don’t believe in that stuff but I don’t blame people who do. Everybody has to believe in something even if your belief is not to believe. It was funny because I went to a psychic and she told me, “Oh, you’re going to make tons of money.” And I said, “Hmmm.” And she said, “And something really wonderful is going to happen for you in March and April.” And I said, “Hmmm.” And she said, “Many people will see you and you’ll get great exposure.” And I thought, “Alright!” Do I think some of it’s real? Now I do. And, Lord knows, I do a more exaggerated version of it. But I love giving these ladies a shout-out.

But acting is a con anyway on some level, isn’t it?

Absolutely. It doesn’t seem any different to me. As an actor, your process is no different. You’re pretending to be someone who you are not. And here I’m pretending to be a psychic. But what’s great about this role, about the writing, is that within moments of the con, Oda Mae is vulnerable. God plays a trick on her. “Okay, you want to hear the spirit world? Well, here it is.” And she gets to play on so many vulnerable levels throughout the show, dealing with total strangers because they’re all in this together. I don’t want to get too deep, but I think this aspect of her, for New Yorkers especially, is really a big concept of the show. When stuff goes wrong, who’s there to help you?  You reach out to strangers and strangers reach back. 

Did the film mean a lot to you growing up?

I thought it was a good movie but it wasn’t one that I watched over and over again. Not like the Disney movies I grew up with or the old movies I’d watch with my grandmother. That Hollywood glamour, wearing long gowns and breaking out into song and dancing with Fred Astaire. That was so magical. I was obsessed with Shirley Temple! I thought she was the coolest. That movie where her father goes off to fight in India and comes back and he’s blind and she says, “Oh, Daddy, Daddy, please remember…” Breaks my heart every time!

As someone who was one of the few African Americans in your suburban high school, did you feel that you would be constricted in your choices of parts?

I had talent so either I got a good part or I didn’t get it at all. I was never in the ensemble. So I learned early on it was all or nothing.  Kind of hard to cast me in Rodgers and Hammerstein shows. So it was very humbling and it really prepared me for the industry now. I take nothing for granted. I always acknowledge the blessings given to me. But back then I just kept myself really busy with activities, lots and lots of sports until my voice teacher told me, “You can’t be yelling on the court and then come in here.” Maybe all that activity and being funny, the class clown, that was a way for me not to make it about color.

What makes you laugh?

Oh, silly, ridiculous physical comedy. Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy and all their brilliant characters always make me laugh. I’d love to write a sitcom that could use me in that way, let me be free with my body. And New York street life. I was going into the grocery store and this guy came out singing “do-re-mi” so intently over and over again. I think he was trying to figure out what came next. “Do-re-mi. Do-re-mi.” Everybody ignored him but he cracked me up.

Do you find “Ghost” to be the classic weepie everybody else does?

It’s got some great writing. But what really makes me emotional is “Extreme Makeover.” When they give away those houses? Forget it! And little kids who can sing amazingly on YouTube. I can’t deal with it.  Maybe because I see myself in them. Or because they have so much talent I think of what could be set for them in the future. That joy? It messes me up every single time.

Daniel Arsham and Alex Mustonsen, better known as the Brooklyn-based artist-architect hybrid Snarkitecture, have quite a few artistic accomplishments under their belt. There's their performance art, which includes a human-sized tunnel system that Arsham carved and chiseled out of a mammoth block of architectural foam at the Storefront for Art and Architecture over the course of three weeks last spring; set design, like the pixelated cloud mise-en-scène for last year's Merce Cunningham Dance Company farewell tour; and public installations like the scattering of giant concrete versions of the letters in "Miami Orange Bowl" across the grounds of the new Miami Marlins Stadium. It's surprising that hyperactive duo is only now having its first solo exhibition. "Furniture" opens at Chicago's Volume Gallery this month, and will shed light on the pair’s endeavors in industrial design.

As with all Arsham and Mustonsen's endeavors, the pieces are postmodern and irreverent (some might even say snarky) takes on classic living room staples. They feature signature craggy surfaces that give the impression they were each clumsily chiseled from the same white block of Styrofoam — not unlike the one Arsham dug his way through in “DIG” — but they’ve been crafted from far sturdier materials like cast marble and lacquered wood. Sturdiness does not a functional object make, however. Their visible fractures and simulated states of disrepair imply a sense of instability. Break, a cabinet, is completely cracked down the middle, sinking towards its center on squashed feet. There’s also Lean, a floor lamp that seems to be falling into another, the light fixture of which appears to be melting towards the floor. Pour, a wood table, is “suspended in collapse”; its permanent slant suggests that any liquids placed on it would quickly find themselves on the floor.

These basic pieces of furniture have been altered to disrupt their functionality. Snarkitecture's lacquered wood and fiberglass shelves work just fine, however. We spotted them in use at the Grey Area showroom.

“Furniture” is on view at the Volume Gallery from April 20 through June 13. To see pieces of this functionless furniture, click the slide show. 

In what has to be one of the stranger artist/fashion pairings, shoemaker Jimmy Choo has announced that artist Rob Pruitt will collaborate with the brand on a spring/summer 2012 capsule cruise collection.

“We were captivated by Pruitt’s energy, his computer screen use of color and the festive exuberance of his prints and materials; there were elements in his work that reminded us in subtle ways of the Jimmy Choo design iconography,” said Jimmy Choo creative directors Sandra Choi and Simon Holloway, according to British Vogue. “We sensed that Rob’s twist on Jimmy Choo glamour would yield something very collectible and uniquely beautiful.”

The artist has had a rollercoaster career, falling from stardom in 1992 when he, along with then-artistic-partner Jack Early, created a distasteful installation paying tribute to African-American culture by shrink-wrapping posters of black celebrities and creating their own hip-hop soundtrack. Pruitt was virtually dismissed from the art world until his comeback peace offering installation, the 1998 “Cocaine Buffet.” Known for his glittery panda paintings, which debuted in the early aughts, the Gavin Brown’s Enterprise artist also founded the bizarre Rob Pruitt Awards in 2010, a seriously-taken satirical ceremony for the art world. In 2011 he unveiled his silver, seven-foot-tall Andy Warhol statue in New York’s Union Square.

Pruitt’s fashion-related work includes a 2006 sculptural installation featuring blue jeans, and a staged flea market at Opening Ceremony’s Ace Hotel location, where visitors could browse through Pruitt's old clothes and knickknacks. 

The capsule collection, which will arrive in Jimmy Choo boutiques and online in November, will consist of shoes, handbags, and small leather accessories that reference Pruitt’s style.

Pruitt is the latest in a line of several artists who have collaborated with Jimmy Choo. Richard Phillips emblazoned his glamorous paintings on clutches in 2007, while Marilyn Minter and Nan Goldin have photographed campaigns for the brand. We wonder if the pandas or coke lines will appear on Pruitt’s collection.

DALLAS—A few weeks before the Dallas Art Fair, Joel Mesler, founder of the Lower East Side gallery Untitled, told ARTINFO he was more eager to go to Dallas than Cologne, where he was headed next on the art fair circuit, because Dallas “just seems so much more exotic.”

Indeed, there were some strange local customs on view at last night’s vernissage: collectors bounding into booths and roundly embracing dealers; prices outrightly displayed on wall labels; dealers gamely asking this reporter if she had any questions about the work on view. Such displays of unpretentiousness and downright friendliness are foreign to the cavernous halls of most art fairs in New York and Miami. Carrie Secrist, owner of an eponymous gallery in Chicago, called Dallas “the Miss Congeniality of art fairs.” Now in its fourth year, the Dallas Art Fair is hosting 78 galleries from across the United States and Europe, 32 of which are new to the event. “It’s family style,” said artist Sarah Braman, co-owner of New York’s CANADA gallery. “In New York, people are always running for the art. But here, they all stop and ask each other, ‘Oh, what are you buying?’”

Most dealers cited the tight-knit community of collectors in Dallas, as well as the low booth price and facility of the organizers, as what attracted them to the fair. (Though the organizers do not disclose booth prices, one dealer estimated an average booth cost around $8,000.) “Once the secret gets out, there will be a wait list,” said gallerist Zach Feuer. The collector community, which includes heavy-hitters like Howard Rachofsky and Deedie Rose, was out in force last night, though it seemed they may have been too busy socializing to buy much.  

A number of galleries did report substantial sales, however. William Shearburn Gallery, of St. Louis, sold a multicolored text painting by Mel Bochner within the first few hours of the fair for $42,000, while Cernuda Arte, of Coral Gables, sold two paintings by Cuban-born expressionist painter Gina Pellón for $26,000 and $18,000. Leo Koenig, Inc. of New York, sold several small, life-like weed sculptures by Tony Matelli and a mesmerizing charcoal drawing of a wave by Robert Longo. New York’s Meulensteen sold two photo collages by Tim Hyde listed at $8,000 to $10,000, while Greg Haberny's explosive multimedia work "B-b-b...Wait," featuring Mickey Mouse in a tornado of debris, sold from Lyons Wier Gallery, also of New York, for $22,000. (Haberny made over 30 multimedia collage works especially for the fair, some of which quite acerbically targeted the Conservative south.) 

Though the quality was uneven at times — there was the requisite of cowboy and gun imagery, as well as some mediocre photorealism — the fair offered an opportunity to get beyond some of the usual suspects, and see familiar galleries in a new context. In addition to a strong presence of galleries from Southern and Midwest states — Green Gallery of Milwaukee, which presented a variety of material-distorting works by José Lerma, and Carrie Secrist, which showed eye-crossingly intricate linear pencil drawings by Anne Lindberg, were among the standouts — there was a surprisingly large contingent of Lower East Side and, to a lesser extent, Chelsea galleries. “The decision to do the fair at first was sort of a curious one at first,” said Chris D’Amelio, of D’Amelio Gallery. “But if you go out of your way to show this community of really great collectors that you care and take them seriously, they give back.”

In some cases, the community gives back in quite a tangible way. CANADA’s Phil Grauer credits Dallas for single-handedly invigorating of the market for painter Mike Williams. He sold a painting by Williams for the first time at the Dallas Art Fair last year. “Mike was a painter that was way too garish for New York, but here, they dug it,” he said. When Grauer mounted a solo show of Williams at CANADA in New York last summer, the Dallas collectors followed, purchasing many of those pieces as well. Now, one of Williams’s paintings is in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art, and Williams himself is gearing up for a solo show at VeneKlasen Werner in Berlin. “Collectors here have a kind of laissez-faire nonchalance that allows them to go to experimental places New Yorkers might not,” Grauer said. “And that can make a big difference for some of these artists.” 

To view highlights of the Dallas Art Fair 2012, click on the slide show.