Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Fashion, and Performing Arts, March 19-23, 2012:
ART
— With the Armory Show in the past, Julia Halperin dug up the cost of participating in the week's fairs for four galleries, from booth prices and insurance to taxis and food — which one gallery ate to the tune of $2,000.
—The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht ends on Sunday, and Paul Laster reports that sales have been very strong, thanks in part to major works by the likes of Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Peter Paul Rubens, and more.
— Steven Henry Madoff reviews the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of photographer Cindy Sherman, rhapsodizing: "Each She that Sherman makes is a playful jolt of other-life, floating off like a bubble from her factory of selves."
— Researchers have begun drilling holes into a Giorgio Vasari fresco in Florence because they believe that Leonardo Da Vinci's presumed-destroyed painting "Battle of Anghiari" may be concealed behind it, but their theory may be similarly full of holes.
— Art Dubai opened this week, with Madeleine O'Dea reporting strong sales that confirm the fair's standing as the foremost in the region. It concludes tomorrow.
DESIGN & FASHION
— Ann Binlot previews the Denver Art Museum's "Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective" — which opens on Sunday — the first posthumous exhibition on the impeccable French designer, who died in 2008.
— Like Cindy Sherman before him, Andy Warhol will lend his name and aesthetic to a new line of costmetics, "Nars Andy Warhol," a limited-edition collaboration between makeup giant NARS and the Andy Warhol Foundation.
— Speaking of art and style cross-over products, Terence Koh has collaborated with Italian fashion house Peutery to produce a jacket with a milk-like texture, while industrial designer Karim Rashid opted for a more painterly effect.
— Ann Binlot reports that the Victoria & Albert Museum is planning an exhibition of film costumes for the fall that will include outfits worn by Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz," Kate Winslet in "Titanic," and more.
— After speaking to its lead designer last month, Janelle Zara reported that the underground park planned for New York's Lower East Side, the Low Line, will be the subject of a new exhibition at the Mark Miller Gallery opening April 1.
PERFORMING ARTS
— ARTINFO film correspondent J. Hoberman looks at three excellent films hitting theaters this weekend — including Abel Ferrara's apocalyptic "4:44 Last Day on Earth" — and concludes that it's OK to miss the week's most anticipated release, "The Hunger Games."
— Patrick Pacheco parses veteran of screen and stage Frank Langella's new memoir, "Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them," for its juiciest name-drops.
— Nick Catucci listens to Unsane's new album — their first since 2007 — "Wreck," which, he says, "out-bludgeons any other disc released so far this year."
— J. Hoberman assesses the offerings on this year's roster for the Museum of Modern Art and Film Society of Lincoln Center's "New Directors/New Films" series, including SXSW favorite "Gimme the Loot" and Cannes best first film winner "Las Acacias."
— The first official from phenomenally buzzy Los Angeles-based horrorcore rap collective Odd Future, "The OF Tape, Vol. 2," is only sporadically deranged.
OTHER
— Following last week's list of the best artist retreats in the U.S., Alanna Martinez and Chloe Wyma compiled a collection of the oddest artist residencies in the world, from an artificial island to the Large Hadron Collider.