The gallery was “bought by Christie’s in February as part of a move to increase private sales of art outside the auction rooms, which can be more profitable than public sales. The loss of the gallery’s stand at Frieze, the U.K.’s largest art fair, may be a setback for that plan.”
Tag: 10.03.07
Nureyev’s Quest
“From adolescence on, Nureyev demonstrated an insatiable hunger for the arts — dance, of course, which he pursued with a future saint’s sense of vocation — but also music, painting, theater, books and architecture. He was equally curious about people from foreign milieus, forging acquaintances the Soviet system would strictly forbid.”
Author Krakauer Sues Publishers
Jon Krakauer is suing Houghton Mifflin, publisher of books and software, and R.R. Donnelley, the largest North American printer, saying that they “made more than 1.2 million unauthorized and impermissible reproductions of Into Thin Air in a textbook.”
Architecture Ciritc Herbert Muschamp, 59
As the architecture critic for The Times from 1992 to 2004, Mr. Muschamp seized on a moment when the repetitive battles between Modernists and Post-Modernists had given way to a surge of exuberance that put architecture back in the public spotlight.
Artists Busted For Setting Up House In Mall
“The leader of an artists’ cooperative has been sentenced to probation for setting up a secret apartment inside a shopping mall’s parking garage as part of a project on mall life. Michael Townsend, 36, said he and seven other artists built the 750-square-foot apartment beginning in 2003 and lived there for up to three weeks at a time. The artists built a cinderblock wall and nondescript utility door to keep the loft hidden from the outside world.”
Keenan Wins Satire Prize
“Joe Keenan, an Emmy-winning writer for the comedy Frasier, has won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He earned the $5,000 award for his novel My Lucky Star, a satire about Hollywood involving two luckless screenwriters, an aging glamour actress and a leading man with a secret.”
Of Beats, Bureaucrats, And Irony
“Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg’s Beat-era poem ‘Howl’ was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.”
Revival Revival
Last summer’s New York revival of Gypsy, starring Patti LuPone, was an extremely limited run. But plans are underway to revive the show again, on Broadway this time, at a cost of $9 million. “But a $9 million Gypsy is no slam-dunk at the box office. Potential backers of the show are worried about the cool reception two Times critics gave LuPone’s performance.”
Scorsese Flick On Hold As Hollywood Bickers
“With Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. scrabbling over a suitable co-production arrangement, director Martin Scorsese’s next potential project, The Wolf of Wall Street, remains stuck in its cage.” At the heart of the dispute is a series of insider arguments over the proper way to share production costs and revenues, and there may not be an easy way out.
Canadian Portrait Gallery Caught Up In Political Mess
The Canadian government is floating a plan to convert an Ottawa building into a private center for functions hosted by the prime minister. One problem – it’s the same building scheduled to become the home of the National Portrait Gallery. “It is thought the chief strike against locating the portrait gallery at 100 Wellington is that originally the project was a Liberal initiative,” and the government currently in power is Conservative. Still, many are asking why the gallery couldn’t also be used for official functions.