The most-talked-about stories on ARTINFO December 12-16, 2011:
– Janelle Zara told the tale of a pair of skyscrapers designed by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV in Seoul that look remarkably like the Twin Towers in the midst of exploding — a similarity that has shocked many.
– Damien Hirst released the first details about his globe-spanning dot paintings retrospective, planned for Gagosian galleries worldwide in January.
– Ben Davis explored the state of the contemporary art biennale in our current time of global austerity, traveling through sprawling exhibitions in Yokohama, Dublin, and New Orleans.
– Kyle Chayka spoke to Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz about the diplomatic brouhaha that has arisin surround his use of Saddam Hussein’s plates in his “Spoils” project for Creative Time.
– The art auction market hit a high this week with the marathon Christie’s sale of Liz Taylor’s estate. The auction house took in $115.9 million from the late actress's collected jewelry.
– We unveiled the seductive photos of the secretive, highly coveted 2011 Pirelli Calendar, which includes work by photographers like Terry Richardson, Richard Avedon, and Herb Ritts.
– Graham Fuller looked past Michael Fassbender’s starring role in psycho-sex drama “Shame” to check out the work of actress Lucy Walters, who plays an anonymous subway rider cruised by Fassbender's character.
– Architect Steven Holl won 2012’s AIA gold medal. We gathered together some of his major works for a slide show tour.
– Modern Painters interviewed star painter Dana Schutz about her recent work, canvases that she calls “scuzzy” and “contagious.”
– We toured Jeff Wall’s latest large-scale photography in his new solo show at Marian Goodman gallery.
– Works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Pierre Soulages lifted Sotheby’s contemporary art sale in France to a hefty $206 million take.
– TIME magazine picked “the protester” as their Person of the Year, and chose Shepard Fairey to create a made-to-order iconic cover.
– On the official ending of the war in Iraq, we looked back at 10 important works that took on the conflict, including projects by Jeremy Deller and Nina Berman.