NYC Art Fairs Gird for 2013 Editions

— THE BIG STORY —

It may still be January, but already New York is bracing for this year's lineup of art fairs—and in the continuing battle to woo collectors, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Marking the 100th anniversary of the original Armory Show exhibition, the Armory Show art fair (which may not change ownership after all, despite reports to the contrary) has released its list of more than 200 exhibitors that will be coming to its twin piers on the Hudson, and Warhol Museum director Eric Shiner will be organizing its special focus section on the state of American art.

Then, in May, Friezewill return for its second New York edition on Randall's Island with 180 galleries (some from last year's debut have defected back to the Armory Show), a new mix of elite, foodie-mecca restaurants, and even an homage to Gordon Matta-Clark's legendary SoHo artist-run eatery Food, organized by Frieze NYC Projects curator Cecilia Alemani. The New York outpost of the edgy NADA fair, meanwhile, will come back for a second year in May too, but not in the old Dia building this time. Instead, it will take place in the sprawling parquet-floored Basketball City court space at Pier 36.

— QUOTE OF THE WEEK —

"There are emerging economies in parts of the world where there should be collectors. We don't do much right now in India, but I'm assuming at some point that will change. We do a lot of business in China-we have a gallery in Hong Kong. Latin America has also become more present in my business. Russia went through a little bit of a slump, but over the last 18 months they've come back. So I'm optimistic about art dealing in general. There are probably more interesting young artists around today than there have been since the 1960s."

— Larry Gagosian, who is the subject of a massive and fairly redundant article in New York magazine, speaking about the art market with collector Peter Brant in a riveting Interview Q&A that touches on the dealer's rise, his relationship with Leo Castelli, his plans for his upcoming Upper East Side restaurant ("I love chili, so we'll have a good chili"), and the time he once almost bought an anaconda.

— MUST READ —

Remembering Aaron Swartz's Art Project — Providing another strand to the reaction over the Internet-freedom activist's suicide, Ben Davis pays tribute to the ambitious and empathic online artwork Swartz created with the artist Taryn Simon as part of Rhizome's "Seven on Seven" conference. (Artinfo)

"20 Things You Didn't Know About Basquiat" — Complex magazine has an enlightening list of fun facts from the artist's famously wild life, from the time he "threw a pie at his high school principal and never graduated" to the several months he lived with Madonna in Larry Gagosian's Los Angeles home. (Complex)

Met Breaks Ground on Koch Plaza — The august museum has inaugurated construction of a new $65 million overhaul of the plaza and twin fountains at its front, meaning that all visitors to the institution will enter through the new "David H. Koch Plaza," named in gratitude for the Met trustee and Republican political patron who funded it. (NYT)

See a History of the Met's Plaza — Allison Meier has an eye-opening retrospective of the museum's architecture over the years, from Calvert Vaux's original 1880 design (which looks like a strange combo of a church, a schoolhouse, and a Dickensian factory) to today's gloriously classicizing chunk. (Artinfo)

Brooklyn Museum Acquires Black Arts Movement Collection — The institution has purchased a group of 44 works by 26 African-American artists from the '60s and '70s in anticipation for a planned exhibition coinciding with next year's 50-year anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. (NYT)

The Potemkin Architecture of Manhattan — A journalist recalls the late critic Ada Louise Huxtable's revulsion toward parvenu buildings on Fifth Avenue that towered above their distinguished neighbors with false fronts of "unconvincing" prewar details cladding undistinguished architecture "like a smarmy tip of the hat" to authenticity. (NYT)

Brooklyn Museum Hopes to Unload Rotten Gift — The institution has asked a court for permission to deaccession 229 fake or otherwise unusable works that were donated in 1932 by Colonel Michael Friedsam, whose El Grecos and other Old Masters were not what they were cracked up to be. (DNA Info)

Greetings From Counter-Reformation Naples — In the latest of his periodic "Postcards," art critic-turned-architecture critic Michael Kimmelman has a rich meditation on Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera's portraits of church fathers nestled bookishly into the nooks of the Certosa di San Martino, "exalted by virtue of their humility." (NYT)

Meet the Narcissiter — The New York Times's Style Section has a profile of a performance artist of that name whose show of mannequin-like self-portraits has opened at Envoy Enterprises, and which might remind you of another profile the Style Section published about artist Andrea Mary Marshall two weeks ago. (NYT)

— ART MARKET —

David Zwirner Continues to Bulk Up — In the latest sign that 2013 will be the year that the gallery takes over the world, D'Amelio Terras dealer (and before that Paula Cooper director) Christopher D'Amelio has joined the Zwirner team as a partner, closing down his gallery to help manage the powerhouse's leading roster of Minimalist artists (and presumably help with the influx of other world-famous artists clamoring at the gallery's doors). (NYT)

Zwirner Also Debuts Experimental London Space — The gallery has opened a site called the Upper Room at its London outpost that will "function as a testing ground for new ideas, showcasing artists ranging from emerging to historical figures." (Artinfo)

Where Does the Middle Class Fit in the Art Market? — Ben Davis has an enlightening essay on the art boom that explores how the traditional blue-chip art market is largely driven by one-percenters, and why middle-class collectors like Herb and Dorothy Vogel have been edged out. (Artinfo)

Studio 54 Artworks Head to Auction — The collection of the late club owner Steve Rubell (brother of collector Don Rubell) are heading to the block in Palm Beach, with works that testify to the legendary New York hotspot's wild nights with works by Peter Beard, Warhol, and others. (NYT)

Looking at Tracey Emin's Market —Colin Gleadell considers the state of the YBA artist's pricing, which to date "does not match the extent of public interest" in her work, in advance of her first U.S. solo museum show at MOCA North Miami this December. (Modern Painters)

— IN & OUT —

Holly Hotchner, the hard-charging director of the often-overlooked Museum of Arts and Design for the past 16 years, has announced that she will leave her post on April 30 to allow the institution to "move forward into the future with new leadership." (GalleristNY)

MoMA PS1 has named the winner of this year's Young Architects Program, commissioning CODA to design the outdoor environment for its summer Warm Up music and dance program on the strength of the Ithaca firm's proposal, which calls for building a towering, mist-spewing wall from scraps of wood left over in the skateboard-making process. (Architectural Digest)

Indonesia will have its first official pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, showing magic-themed work by Albert Yohan Setiawan, Sri Astari, Eko Nugroho, Entang Witarso, and Titarubi. (GalleristNY)

Iraq will return to the Venice Biennale for its second pavilion there, to be curated by Ikon Gallery director Jonathan Watkins. (GalleristNY)

Hank Willis Thomas has debuted images from his new collaborative series with Sanford Biggers, Wayfarer, as the latest installment of the International Center of Photography's Picture Window project. (Hank Willis Thomas)

Peter Blum Gallery is moving from Chelsea to a new second-floor space at 20 West 57th Street. (GalleristNY)

The Inuit artist Kenojuak, creator of one of Canada's most famous artworks (a fanciful, graphically potent print of an owl) and a founder of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-Operative, has passed away at age 85. (NYT)

High Line Art has announced that its next billboard project for the elevated Manhattan park will be a commission from the language-oriented conceptual artist Allen Ruppersberg. (Press Release)

in the very messy and unsavory Parisian corner of Modigliani scholarship, specialist Christian Parisot—the author of one of the two dueling catalogues raisonnés on the artist (the other by Marc Restellini)—has been arrested on suspicion of authenticating 59 fake Modiglianis among other gross abuses of trust. (FT)