Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Fashion, and Performing Arts, April 9-13, 2012:
ART
— Julia Halperin looked into a lawsuit brought against William Eggleston by one of his most devoted collectors to prevent the celebrated photographer from making new editions of his works.
— Kyle Chayka compiled a list of 20 terrific Tumblr blogs belonging to museums, galleries, and non-profits, from the New Museum and LACMA to Gavin Brown and Creative Time.
— Following the untimely death of Thomas Kinkade last week at age 54, Ben Davis reflected on the significance of his accidentally avant-garde practice — perhaps further boosting the rapidly increasing market for his kitschy paintings and prints.
— ARTINFO Brazil's Fernanda Lopes asked curators, artists, and critics from that country why they thought the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil's M.C. Escher exhibition, "The Magical World of Escher," took the prize as the most-attended exhibition in the world last year.
— Shane Ferro asked gallerists — including Jane Cohan, Lucy Mitchell-Innes, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery's Ethan Sklar — what chance Frieze New York had of supplanting the Armory Show as the Big Apple's top art fair when it debuts next month.
DESIGN & FASHION
— William L. Hamilton asked the experts — from staffers at Sotheby’s and Los Angeles Modern Auctions to the curator of one of North America's richest 20th century design collections — which names are emerging as collectors' favorites in the maturing market for Modern design.
— Janelle Zara surveyed the highlights from Japan Society's new exhibition, "Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945," which chronicles Japanese artists' attempts to fuse traditional iconography with Western modernist influences.
— Ann Binlot spoke to Bruno Pieters, a former creative director at Hugo by Hugo Boss, about his new label, Honest by, which aims to break fashion world trends by striving for "100 percent transparency."
— Postmodern architect and designer Michael Graves discussed his just-ended partnership with Target, how he accidentally designed an "American tea kettle," and why he's indifferent to the New York City skyline.
— Janelle Zara picked over the proposals by 12 world-renowned architects vying to redesign Washington D.C.'s National Mall.
PERFORMING ARTS
— New York is in the grips of Kraftwerk hysteria, and Ann Binlot was front row center when the German electro-pop group launched its MoMA residency this week — while the rest of us lusted after the accompanying limited-edition catalogue.
— J. Hoberman reviewed Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín's "Post Mortem," which opened this week at New York's Film Forum, deeming it "a new and original vision of political terror."
— Artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen annouced that his next feature “Twelve Years a Slave” will be based on the 1853 autobiography of Solomon Northup (to be played by Chiwetel Ejiofor opposite Fassbender as a plantation owner), the son of a freed slave.
— Graham Fuller speculated what the film adaptation of Bob Dylan's classic album "Blood on the Tracks" — just announced by the Brazilian company that recently bought the rights to it — might be like.
— Actress Greta Gerwig spoke to ARTINFO about her neurotic character in Whit Stillman's new campus comedy "Damsels in Distress," working with Woody Allen, and her super-secret new project.