How Gerhard Richter's Lines Connect Damien Hirst's Dots, Bob Dylan's Sexy New Album Art, and More Art News

- THE BIG STORY -

When Gerhard Richter comes to town it's news, as the throngs of Europeans who mobbed his traveling retrospective overseas can tell you, and his impact was certainly felt when he opened his fascinating-and, in the estimation of Peter Schjeldahl, "important"-new show at Marian Goodman Gallery this week. Heck, even the dresses going down the catwalk for Proenza Schouler, with motifs inspired by his paintings, seemed to register his presence. So: how does his new show measure on the Richter scale? It's an unusual outing, to say the least, for the world's most celebrated living painter, because the works aren't paintings per se but rather painting-esque things: what he did was take a digital image of a single one of his 1990 abstract canvases and then run it through a mathematical process to isolate its chromatic DNA as a series of eye-boggling, colored "STRIPS." Larger editions, when stared at for a while, disorient and pulsate with a Rothko-y foreground-backround switcheroo, while smaller prints displayed in frames seem more delicate and inky and are easier to take in. It's an exceedingly cool show, with Richter's decision to use his own painting as the Henrietta Lacks-like source of his material-instead of, say, a tree or a cathedral-giving the experiment an crisply omphalocentric edge. In an interesting way, these lines could be seen as a way to connect Damien Hirst's dots: both are variations on a cerebrally antiseptic geometric theme that solely arise from and reflect back to the artist's own intellection.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -

"I was always asking myself, what is the actual goal of art, the actual subject of art? What justifies its high standing? We're building these cathedrals to art today, really almost to the level of absurdity, so you ask yourself, what does it contribute? I'm of the opinion that we are constantly discovering the world and that the point of art is that act." - Fabled Los Angeles Light and Space artist Robert Irwin on his philosophy of art, which can be gleaned in his new shows at Pace Gallery.

- MUST READ -

Medvedev Calls for Release of Pussy Riot - The Russian prime minister has played his role as the cuddly Westernizing foil to Vladimir Putin by saying that the dissident art collective should be freed from jail, a good sign for when their case comes up for appeal on October 1. (Associated Press)

Is That Bernini's Teresa on Bob Dylan's New Album Cover? - Nope, it is a different woman in sensual ecstasy taken from Carl Kundmann's 1902 river fountain outside of Vienna's Parliament. (Gallerist NY)

Chuck Close Does Obama a Solid - The very, very famous artist tells Calvin Tomkins how he finally persuaded the Obama campaign to let him sell a series of portraits of the president to fund their reelection drive, and how Close and Obama bonded during the sitting. (New Yorker)

Venice Architectural Biennale Panned - Venice veteran Michael Kimmelman returns to the scene of his many art biennale reports to brutally dispatch the current architectural show with a first-sentence appraisal of its quality: "the less said, the better." (NYT)

Occupy Wall Street Library Limps On - The protest movement's library, a real-life political-art readymade of the sort that makes artists like Thomas Hirshhorn and Mark Wallinger drool, has been recovered after being seized by police, but only 1,000 of the 3,600 donated volumes survive. (NYT)

New Picasso Discovered, Heads to Market - In one of those classic check-your-attic tales, the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science found a layered glass mosaic by Picasso (titled Seated Woman With Red Hat) in an old mislabeled shipping crate and is now hoping to sell it at Guernsey's auction house for as much as $40 million, which would multiply the museums endowment ninefold. (NYT)

Read This Profile of Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe - The art duo who just opened their latest immersive art installation extravaganza at Marlborough Chelsea made the cover of Modern Painters in a story by Michael Slenske. (Modern Painters)

- ART MARKET -

Paul Morris DepartsArmory Show - The man who cofounded New York's marquee art fair with dealing legends Colin de Land, Pat Hearn, and Matthew Marks is leaving the now-Merchandise-Mart-owned organization, saying he "felt it was time for me to move on." (Gallerist NY)

The Existence of Art Fairs Debated in General - In other Armory Show news, the fair's smart director Noah Horowitz moderated a panel discussion on Thursday in which dealers Sean Kelly and Miguel Abreu pointed out the way fairs threaten brick-and-mortar gallery operations, while advisor Thea Westreich and critic Christian Viveros-Faune-who notable come to fairs as visitors, not exhibitors-were more positive about the emporiums. (Artinfo)

Big New Gagosian Lawsuit - Revlon magnate Ron Perelman has sued megadealer Larry Gagosian partly over a granite Jeff Koons Popeye sculpture, including the fascinating allegation that the gallerist failed to tell him that Gagosian had a contract with Koons that entitled the artist to "70 percent of any amount over the original sale price of $4 million if the gallery resold the work -- and 80 percent of any sale if Gagosian bought the sculpture back before it was finished, delivered and fully paid for." (Bloomberg)

L&M GalleryDivorces - The luxe New York art emporium run by Robert Mnuchin and Dominique Lévy is breaking up, with the former retaining their 78th Street space under the name the Mnuchin Gallery and the latter opening the Dominique Lévy Gallery at another location, though they will remain partners when it comes to running their Los Angeles branch because "L.A. is different." (NYT)

Brazi's ArtRio Fair Off to a Strong Start - The sophomore edition of the the South American art fair kicked off yesterday and is already reporting multimillion-dollar sales and the booths of Gagosian (who rarely divulge these numbers), White Cube, and other big guns. (Artinfo)

- IN & OUT -

The artist Spencer Finch, who is repped by Rhona Hoffman in Chicago, has now joined the roster of James Cohan Gallery in New York. (Artinfo)

Kalup Linzy has hooked up with Elizabeth Dee Gallery, where he will find good company in the person of fellow performance artist Ryan McNamara. (Gallerist NY)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made art journalists and insiders nervous with the news that it might make Mondays at the institution, long a day for quiet VIP visits by the elect few, open to the public. (NYT)

The Metropolitan Opera has tapped David Salle to create new artworks for a show opening at the end of this month inspired by The Tempest, an opera by Thomas Adès that Robert Lepage is directing at the venue. (NYT)

MoMA has announced that it will screen its hottest new acquisition, Christian Marclay's blockbuster (strangely, that's the right word) art film The Clock, from December 21 through January 21, with the museum staying open around the clock on three weekends to show the whole 24-hour shebang. (Press Release)

The Guggenheim will also offer late hours to accommodate crowds during its highly anticipated upcoming "Picasso Black and White" show. (Gallerist NY)

James Franco, who dressed up as a girl for Interview magazine, will teach a course on cinema and storytelling at the ultra-brainy artist training ground CalArts. (Gallerist NY)