— THE BIG STORY —
The first full-time American architecture critic as well as the first winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Ada Louise Huxtable was an indispensable force for constructing the public's view of buildings as not only brick-and-mortar structures but social spaces that express and cultivate civic values, writing for half a century until her death last week at age 91. In memory of the woman universally known as "the dean of architecture critics," a battery of admirers paid tribute to her legacy.
The New York Times's splendid public editor, Margaret Sullivan, for instance, observes how Huxtable—who worked at the paper until joining the Wall Street Journal in 1997—continues to exert an enormous influence on the Times's architecture coverage as now written by Michael Kimmelman. The Journal, meanwhile, has tastefully chosen to honor her with her own words, excerpting reviews she wrote for the paper as wide-ranging as a rave of Snohetta's Oslo Opera House and the observation that "what Louis Kahn lacked in looks, he made up in charisma."
In a surprise twist that has puzzled some followers of the New York native, however, the Los Angeles Times reports that all of Huxtable's papers plus her entire estate and the archive of her late architect husband, L. Garth Huxtable, had been bequeathed to Los Angeles's Getty museum—taking her work far from the New England architecture she spent her lifetime protecting and defending.
— QUOTE OF THE WEEK —
"I never look at art as an investment. We're very fortunate to have bought things in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, and there's no question that they have gone up in value tremendously. I can't predict what the market is going to do. All I know is that when values go up our insurance costs go up, so we don't see it as an investment." — Billionaire Los Angeles art collector Eli "Mo Money Mo Problems" Broad on his massive blue-chip holdings, which overflow from the two museums he has founded and other institutional collections where they are on loan.
— MUST READ —
Kate Middleton Portrait Is a Royal Catastrophe — A new official painting of the Duchess of Cambridge by artist Paul Emsley that makes the lovely noblewoman look like a smirking vampyr version of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi has drawn a scorching response from the British art press, with one wag calling it "perfectly adequate for the boardroom of a supermarket but entirely inadequate for a national collection." (NYT)
Hear the Story Behind Daniel Buren's Stripes — Andrew Russeth has an absorbing profile of the French conceptual artist that provides helpful background for appreciating Buren's new two-gallery show at Bortolami and Petzel. (Gallerist NY)
Yoko Ono Takes On Fracking — The Fluxus artist went to the Albany statehouse to petition lawmakers to ban fracking, which has been threatening the environment surrounding the Catskills farm she bought with John Lennon. (NYT)
Jasper Johns Gives Rare Interview — The man often described as America's greatest living painter spoke to dane critic Alastair Macaulay about his famous collaborations with avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham, some of which are on view in the Duchamp-homage "Dancing Around the Bride" show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (NYT)
See Nine New Works Acquired by LACMA — The museum's Unframed blog shows off a group of works by Omer Fast, Theaster Gates, Sergej Jensen, Erin Shirreff, and others that was purchased for the collection by LACMA's new Contemporary Friends group, which includes funnyman-cum-art-patron Will Ferrell. (LACMA)
Lost Titian Found "Buried in the Bowels" — Jonathan Jones recounts the strange story of how a portrait by the Venetian master of the doctor who coined the term "syphilis" somehow managed to go unnoticed for decades until being spotted in a "remote lower room" of London's National Gallery. (Guardian)
The Importance of Agnes Denes — To mark the artist's new show, Ben Davis writes an appreciation of the environmentally conscious work of the woman considered to be the first Land artists as well as a seminal conceptual artist. (Artinfo)
Matthew Barney Designs a Skateboard — And it's a cool one too, with graphite fittings that let the skateboarder draw on the ground while riding, all to benefit Detroit's Ride It Sculpture Park. (Juxtapoz, via Artinfo)
Guggenheim Reveals Artists for Buzzy Southeast Asian Show — The museum will debut work by 22 artists from the hot emerging region—including Shilpa Gupta, the Otolith Group, and many others you may not have previously encountered—that comprises the first tranche acquired through its new UBS MAP Purchase Fund, intended to expand the museum's global reach without necessitating new satellites abroad. (Guggenheim)
Want to Know What Jonathan Jones Really Thinks? — The pugilistic art critic complains that his fellow pundits have grown soft in their brutal task of separating the contemporary-art wheat from the mediocre chaff, and he takes the opportunity to unload a few zingers with say-hello-to-my-little-friend glee. (Guardian)
See Artists Party with Stella McCartney — Rob Pruitt and several other famed artists showed up for the debut of the fashion designer's new collection in a swanky showing that involved a collaboration with Grey Area. (Artinfo)
— ART MARKET —
James Turrell Builds a Los Angeles Gallery — The famed artist is building a new 10,000-square-foot space on La Brea Avenue for Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery, which will include one of his skyspaces and open with a survey of 40 years' worth of work related to his ongoing mammoth Roden Crater undertaking. (NYT)
Luc Tuymans Explains How He Manages His Market — The Belgian painter provides an illuminating gloss to his new show at David Zwirner Gallery, and also some "uncharacteristically frank" commentary on how he works with his dealer to manage his market, for instance buying back work at auction "in order not to get into the speculative wave that's been going on the past 15 years." (WSJ)
See How the Old Masters Market Stacks Up Against Contemporary — In a cheeky and productive piece, Rachel Corbett does head-to-head price comparisons of works slated for the upcoming Old Masters auctions versus recent works that have sold in the same range. (Artinfo)
Will Kusama Head to Zwirner, Too? — The Japanese artist is reportedly in talks with the gallery, where her fellow longtime Gagosian artist Jeff Koons is planning to do a show. (Gallerist NY)
— CRIME BLOTTER —
Picasso Vandal Caught at Mexican Border — Uriel Landeros, 22, who was filmed in a cell-phone video spray-painting Woman in a Red Armchair at the Menil Collection in June, surrendered at the urging of his family but said, "I don't regret anything that I've done." (AP)
Stockholm Museum Reclaims Stolen Matisse — The return of Matisse's Le Jardin to the city's Museum of Modern Art, where it was stolen in a brazen 1987 smash-and-grab, was negotiated by the Art Loss Register nonprofit. (NYT)
— IN & OUT —
Alexandre Singh has been signed by Metro Pictures Gallery, giving the rising star a powerful New York venue. (GalleristNY)
Artist Valeska Soares is now represented in London by Max Wigram Gallery, giving her an across-the-pond complement to her perch at New York's Eleven Rivington. (Artinfo)
Damien Hirst has unveiled the new statuette he designed for the 2013 BRIT Awards, and they're covered in his signature colored spots. (BRIT Awards)
Julie Jones, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's two-decade head of African, Oceanic, and American (as in the Americas) art department, is retiring, to be succeeded by her colleague Alisa LaGamma. (Press Release)
MoMA PS1 has gotten a Tumblr! (Artinfo)
The Rema Hort Mann Foundation has bestowed this year's emerging-artist grants to Njideka Akunyili, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Ian Cheng, Van Hanos, Bea Parsons, Jory Rabinovitz, Reka Reisinger, and Naama Tsabar. (Gallerist NY)
New York arts patron Celeste Bartos, who endowed MoMA's chief film curator position and its $11.2 million Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center in addition to donating works by artists like Jasper Johns to the museum, has passed away at age 99. (NYT)
Check out the somewhat lovely, somewhat freaky artwork that Michael Neff created by stringing up discarded Christmas trees under the BQE. (Animal NY, via Gallerist NY)
