Our most-talked-about stories in Visual Art, Design & Architecture, Fashion & Style, and Performing Arts, January 7- 11, 2013:
ART
— Shane Ferro was highly critical of the New York Times’s recent dialogue on the contemporary art market, arguing that the discussion missed one of the most important figures: the dealer. Rachel Corbett dug further into the crazy prices being paid for art, offering a side-by-side comparison of the contemporary with the classic, along with what was being paid for both.
— Prominent Thai photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom opened his latest exhibition, “Obscene,” at H Gallery, and Max Crosbie-Jones of ARTINFO Southeast Asia examined his provocative take on Thai politics.
— Artists Roger White and Christopher K. Hodiscussed privileged white people, the Bushwick scene, and “Dawson’s Creek” for Modern Painters.
— Continuing ARTINFO’s series on alternative art spaces, Sara Roffino visited the new collaborative art gallery Auxiliary Projects in Bushwick, which is seeking to forge a more communal art market.
— Ben Davis reviewed the retrospective on Agnes Denes at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, and found her art's approach to humanity's disjointed relationship to the environment more relevant today than when it was produced.
DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE
— Ada Louise Huxtable, one of the most legendary architecture critics of the 20th century, died this week, and Kelly Chan looked back on her incredible contributions to the field.
— The Richard Neutra-designed Cyclorama in Gettysburg, a modernist concrete structure built in 1962, will be razed to restore a Civil War battlefield.
— Janelle Zara thought French designer Philippe Starck’s futuristic “Blade Runner” for LaCie was heavier on the concept side that a hard drive needs to be.
— 3-D printing’s potential continues to emerge in design fabrication, with the first rapid prototyped records printed from digital audio files, and a newly launched service from Barcelona called CrayonCreaturesthat immortalizes children’s drawings in three dimensions.
— In unnecessary innovation news, the “iPotty,” which includes an iPad stand on a children’s plastic toilet, was unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
FASHION & STYLE
— As part of Fern Mallis’s “Fashion Icons” series at the 92nd Street Y, Marc Jacobstalked about growing up in New York City, his career’s lows and highs, and his personal physical transformation.
— Stella McCartneylaunched her pre-fall collection in an Upper East Side townhouse, where a party organized with Grey Area attracted icons from the art world.
— Anyone who’s been gallery hoping in Chelsea on a Thursday night knows the art world takes its fashion seriously, and ARTINFO ranked 20 of the best dressed.
— Nicholas Remsen looked at the fashion twist to a Shepard Fairey street art sticker appearing in the streets of Kuwait’s Shuwaikh Industrial Area.
— Heather Corcoran assessed the recent upheavals of designer line-ups at some of fashion’s biggest labels.
PERFORMING ARTS
— After a 30 year absence from Broadway, the spring return of Bette Midler was announced in a one-woman play called “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers.”
— J. Hoberman wrote on the recent release “Gangster Squad,” which stars a Sean Penn“as grotesque as a Dick Tracy villain” in his portrayal of the real-life mobster Mickey Cohen.
— Lawrence Wright’s new book continues his intense research on Scientology, and Craig Hubert previewed its exposes of two of the cult religion’s most famous devotees: Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
— The tumultuous Lindsay Lohan stars in Paul Scharder and Bret Easton Ellis’s recently wrapped “The Canyon.” Bryan Hood recapped Stephan Rodrick’s enthralling story on what it was like to work on the Kickstarter-funded film.
— Craig Hubert spoke with director Thom Andersen on his recent investigations of the unfinished and unrealized work of Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura.
VIDEO
— ARTINFO interviewed three of Richard Artschwager’s former assistants who have reunited for a group exhibition called “Under the Influence” at Topaz Arts in Woodside, New York.