Winner of the Week: Yoko Ono, who seems to be on a campaign to be the hipster set's Betty White, is everywhere. Her works are on view at MoMA, on the Las Vegas strip, and Lady Gaga joined her onstage in L.A. last weekend at a sold-out concert of the Plastic Ono... MORE >
Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea. In recent years, New York¹s midtown gallery scene has found itself fighting for attention with its younger, hipper West 20s sibling. The epicenter of the art world two decades ago, the radius around 57th street is still the home to nearly 70 art galleries. Several of these are headquartered in the historic Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and even more of them were pioneers in the art and antiques business in... MORE >
In 2005, actress Ellen Barkin wore a vivid orange dress to the Academy Awards, topped by large hanging topaz earrings encircled with diamonds and ruby clusters. But unlike most celebrities, Ms. Barkin didn't borrow the gems for the evening; she owned them. They were a gift from her then husband, Revlon founder and billionaire Ronald Perelman. The earrings, from the small Swiss jewelry house JAR, are on the block at Christie's Oct. 20, carrying... MORE >
A report released by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies analyzed a series of lobbying, advertising and grass-roots "arts advocacy" campaigns of the past decade to see what strategies worked--and which backfired. The Federation's researchers and members looked at campaigns by the National Endowment for the Arts and Americans for the Arts, among other entities, that sought to boost awareness, contributions, attendance or media coverage of arts around the... MORE >
When it comes to the gay-taunting students of Rutgers University, Southern chef Paula Deen, thinks they should throw the book at them. Deen, who is simultaneously something of an unlikely gay icon and a heroine to Bible-Belt housewives, tackled the issue at her 'Down Home Cookin' Gospel Brunch yesterday in New York. The densely crowded event at the Plaza Hotel featured inspirational talk, spiritual songs and an elaborate church-supper-like... MORE >
One of New York's more keenly fought food contests - the New York Wine & Food Festival's Burger Bash - sizzled Friday night at a giant Tobacco Warehouse in a far-flung corner of Dumbo ("It's near the F! It's near the F!" a pr woman told us, helpfully.) The annual event features "More than 20 chefs serving 2,300 people about 50,000 burgers," chef Bobby Flay boasted, grinning grill-side, then resumed doling out his unusual... MORE >
There were art works by Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon, Auguste Rodin and Jeff Koons, but everyone was watching Padma Lakshmi's pants. The Top Chef co-host, in impossibly tight coral-colored capris covered in a gold lamé print, smiled and swanned at Sotheby's, poising at the front of a book-signing line to schmooze with author James... MORE >
Sometimes, the insular art world is like a village, but sometimes, it's a townhouse. A very short list of collectors, dealers and art-lovers swanned into the Luxembourg & Dayan townhouse Gallery last night on New York's Upper East Side for the opening of Jeff Koons' "Made in... MORE >
A handful of artists and dealers known for working with Jeffrey Deitch, now the director of the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art, have reunited for a large art show taking place Oct. 9-11 to benefit education. Works by artists Brad Kahlhamer, Shepard Fairey and Chris Johanson, among others, will be for sale at an abandoned school at 233 Mott Street. The "Re:Form School" event was put together by The Hole, the new Soho gallery... MORE >
Game-Changers: Well-connected gallerist David Zwirner won the right to represent the Donald Judd Foundation, hard on the heels of Pace's win of the Willem de Kooning estate. Winner of the Week: Chinese contemporary artist Zhang Xiaogang, whose 1993 painting Chapter of a New Century--Birth of the People's Republic of China II sold for $5.9 million in Hong Kong on Monday after a bidding... MORE >
John Baldessari has outlasted critics and art-world fads. The California painter has been around long enough to be hot, in, out, rediscovered, forgotten and, now, all but canonized. A retrospective of Mr. Baldessari's work opens Oct. 20 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its name: "Pure Beauty." Born on June 17, 1931, in National City, Calif., Mr. Baldessari is best known for paintings that block out people's faces with brightly colored dots and for teaching... MORE >
Christie's International PLC, founded in 1766, announced late last month the hiring of Steven Murphy, a chief executive who, uncharacteristically, had not gone to Eton. Even more shocking, for the first time in its history, the company will be led by an... MORE >
And a chill goes through the town. Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group just announced that Tabla, a 12-year veteran of the Madison Square neighborhood, will close at year-end. The restaurant, in the same building as Meyer's Eleven Madison, led the "upscale Indian" trend way... MORE >
Hyper-Hyped "Abstract Expressionist New York," the Museum of Modern Art, opens Oct. 3 Who knew, or wanted to, that there were once more than 60 Ab-Ex painters in New York? Curator Ann Temkin, apparently, who pulls from MoMA's substantial 20th-century collection to make a case that the movement was deeper than Janson's and the like would have you believe. About 300 artworks, in various mediums, are on view in a show that practically shouts (in a... MORE >
Winner of the Week: Frick Collection director Anne L. Poulet, who announced she'll retire in Sept. 2011 after eight years there, and much success fund-raising. Let the search for a replacement begin! Loser: Damien Hirst collectors, who are seeing the (near-term) resale value of their art sink in the wake of the Lehman Brothers auction. (Hint: hold on. You may be vindicated... MORE >
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