— FRIEZE WEEK —
Big Sales at Frieze — Commerce has been thrumming since the fair's VIP opening, with Luhring Augustine selling out its show of Tom Friedman within an hour and a half of the starting gun, sexy Thomas Ruffs flying off the walls at David Zwirner, and more art getting snapped up by the international crowd. (Bloomberg)
Sightings Galore in the Big Tent — Fair vet Guy Trebay spotted John McInroe, singer Patty Smythe, actor Andrew Garfield, Moda Operandi's Lauren Santo Domingo, and many other boldface names. (NYT)
Are You a NYC Art-World Insider? Take This Quiz — Answer these hilarious questions from Alexandra Peers to see where you sit on the totem pole. (Artspace)
NYC's Gallery Scene Gets Electrified — Irreplaceable art critic and social encyclopedia Linda Yablonsky does one of her signature scene reports from the events surrounding Frieze's vernissage, from the opening of Tracey Emin's shows at Lehmann Maupin to Philip Taaffe at Luhring Augustine. (Artforum)
Behind the Scenes at the Fair —Roslyn Sulcas takes a probing look at the strategy behind the New York offshoot of the London fair, finding out that last year's first edition lost money (organizers hope to be profitable in 2014) and digging into how Frieze aims to carve out a sustainable niche between March's crowd-pleasing Armory Show and the year's other compelling fair offerings, including its own fall show on home turf. (NYT)
Union Protests Frieze — No, that inflatable rat you saw driving up to the fair was not a Bruce High Quality Sculpture (which funnily enough Frieze Projects curator Cecilia Alemani had shown at her previous X Initiative space) but instead a token of the wrath of the Teamsters Union, which is protesting the fair's use of all non-union labor. (Gallerist)
Get a Glimpse of the Fair — Here are a few slide shows revealing what the big tent on Randall's Island has on offer. (Artinfo and Gallerist and Gothamist)
Inside Frieze's Secret Bar — As if the art fair wasn't exclusive enough, the artist Liz Glynn has created The Vault, a flapper-era-style speakeasy hidden behind an unmarked door at the fair where every day 200 randomly selected fairgoers are sent to imbibe surprisingly strong cocktails served by bartenders who tell stories inspired by Kafka and Borges. (Art Newspaper)
Tino Sehgal Makes Art Like a Little Girl —The brilliant Turner Prize-nominated artist has stolen the show at Frieze with his piece at Marian Goodman's booth involving a little girl who pretends to be a manga artwork come to quizzical life. (Gallerist)
Gavin Brown Talks Fashion — The dealer gives one of his signature interviews, both vatic and obfuscating, to Style.com about the much-discussed intersection of fashion and art. (Style)
And, Yes, the Food — No visit to the island of art is complete without waiting in the surprisingly short lines for the locavore gourmet splendor offered by Mission Chinese, Roberta's, Frankie's Sputino, Sant Ambroeus, and the other luxe eateries with satellites at the fair. (Gallerist)
— MUST READ —
Folk Art Museum Building Gets Stay of Execution — Though the Museum of Modern Art was strongly considering demolishing its neighbor and recent acquisition, director Glenn Lowry has granted the architectural team charged with designing the museum's expansion, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, additional time to consider every other possible option, despite the two adjacent museums having major structural and aesthetic differences. (Artinfo)
Children in San Francisco Allowed to Be Six Years Older — In a heartening move that aims to start encouraging more teenagers to attend art museums, SFMOMA announced that it will be seeking additional money during its current fundraising campaign to let all visitors under 18 into the museum for free (the previous policy stopped at 12). (Artinfo)
U.S.-Mongolia Relations Improved by Dinosaur Skeleton — After noticing that a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus skeleton up for auction in the Unites States could only have come from a specific rock formation in Mongolia—apparently Mongolian fossils are illegal to export—the Mongolian government worked with the United States to track down and arrest a black-market prehistoric fossil dealer and return the bones to their land before time. (Time)
House Painter Pilfers Paintings From House —Joselito Vega, a house painter hired to repair flood damage in the Long Island home of art collectors Hannelore and Rudolf Schulof, was charged with stealing over $100,000 worth of artworks from the family's collection, including works by Frank Stella and Jean Dubuffet, after allegedly being caught on tape during a sting operation. (WSJ)
Art Gives Back in a Great (and Surprisingly Green) Way — Though many would argue that art doesn't need to justify itself in economical terms, it turns out that it does have a leg to stand on in that department, as a recent report from the U.K.'s Arts Council found that the culture industry generated a seven-fold return on invested funds, echoing the findings of a report done last year around the time of the Detroit Institute of Arts potential closing on art institutions' positive impact on local economies. (Telegraph)
See a Video of Orly Genger's Madison Square Park Installation — It's quite beautiful. (Artinfo)
The Federal Reserve Wants Your Art — It turns out that the Federal Reserve Board has been amassing a collection of over 1,400 artworks—entirely through donated art or explicitly donated monies—since 1975, operating as something close to a miniature, governmentally funded museum. (The Economist)
Contemporary Art Goes Postal — The art critic David Rimanelli curated a show produced by Vito Schnabel in surprisingly nice and cavernous space in the detested Penn Station building (which is about to shut down for renovations) and it included work by Julian Schnabel, Betty Tompkins, Picasso, and lots of other famous names. (Gallerist)
An Octogenarian Artist Keeps Firing — As her new exhibition opens up through June at Salon 94's East Village gallery space, Betty Woodman gave an interview with the Wall Street Journal, discussing her evolution as a ceramist, where she finds inspiration, and how a family of practicing artists gets along. (WSJ)
— ART MARKET —
Impressive Impressionism —Sotheby's scored with a $230 million Impressionist and Modern art sale this week, led by a $42 million Cezanne apple still-life, while Christie's, meanwhile, brought in a somewhat less resounding $158.8 million at its version of the sale, where an $18 million Soutine portrait of a chef stole the show and set a new record for the artist. (Artinfo)
"Free Store" Returns to the Delight of Any Shopper Ever — In an effort to spoof the art fair's discreet efforts to hide their monetary transactions, Jonathan Horowitz will again be reviving his "Free Store" installation at this year's Art Basel fair in June, where visitors are encouraged to take and trade objects in stock on the shelves. (AiA)
The hot young artist Sam Falls is the latest to sign up with Metro Pictures in what seems to be a period of exciting growth for the gallery. (Gallerist)
— IN & OUT —
The Venice Biennale has named 93-year-old painter Maria Lassnig and multimedia artist Marisa Merz as the recipients of this edition's Golden Lion awards for lifetime achievement. (Gallerist)
This week's Artadia NADA Prize has been awarded to artist Meg Cranston for her work at the satellite fair's Fitzroy and Newman Popiashvili galleries. (Gallerist)
Taylor Mead, the Warhol superstar who became a beloved rumpled fixture of the East Village, has passed away at 88. (Artinfo)
SculptureCenter is now taking open-call submissions for its influential "In Practice" commissions, which provide select young artists with funds to experiment with the sculptural medium and show the results at the Long Island City museum. (Gallerist)
Busy curator Jens Hoffmann has added the role of senior adjunct curator at Detroit's Museum of Contemporary Art to his other new job as director of exhibitions and public programs at New York's Jewish Museum. (Artforum)
The Brooklyn Museum's Sackler Center for Feminist Art will honor "Spiderman" director Julie Taymor in its coming First Awards in June. (Gallerist)
