from Gallerist

Bacon Triptych Makes $142.4 M. at Christie’s, Record for Art at Auction

By Gallerist

(Courtesy Christie’s)

The art market entered uncharted territory tonight at Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters, where auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen sold Francis Bacon’s 1969 triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud for $142.4 million, an all-time record for a work of art at auction, easily beating the $119.9 million paid for a pastel of Edvard Munch’s The Scream at Sotheby’s New York in May 2012. (Accounting for inflation, you can argue that figure, but in raw dollars, Bacon’s now the record holder.)

“Let’s start this at, oh, eight—ty million,” Mr. Pylkkänen said wryly from his podium, announcing the lot. And then they were off to the races. Bidding in the room climbed up to $100 million before it turned to a battle of telephone bidders, one eventually grabbing it for a $127 million hammer price. (The remaining $15 million and change is the buyer’s premium.) It took only six minutes.

[ click to continue reading at GalleristNY.com ]

from The Guardian

Picasso, Matisse and Dix among works found in Munich’s Nazi art stash

Art historian describes ‘incredible joy’ at seeing previously unknown works among 1,406 found at home of Cornelius Gurlitt

by Philip Oltermann in Berlin

A combination of two formerly unknown paintings by German artist Otto Dix found among the trove of modern art seized by the Nazis Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

An art haul confiscated from a Munich flat includes previously unknown works by Marc Chagall and Otto Dix, and original pieces by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, Bavarian authorities have revealed.

The art historian who has been studying the collection since its discovery gave a first glimpse of the treasure trove, which includes modernist works as well as older pieces dating back as far as the 16th century, at a press conference in Augsburg, southern Germany.

Treasures discovered during a raid on Cornelius Gurlitt’s flat in Schwabing include a total of 1,406 works – 121 of them framed – by Franz Marc; Oskar Kokoschka; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; Max Liebermann; Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; Max Beckmann; Albrecht Dürer; a Canaletto sketch of Padua; a Carl Spitzweg etching of a couple playing music; a Gustave Courbet painting of a girl with a goat; and drawings and prints by Pablo Picasso.

Art historian Meike Hoffmann, of the Free University of Berlin, said the art world would be particularly excited about the discovery of a valuable Matisse painting from around 1920 and works that were previously unknown or unseen: an Otto Dix self-portrait dated around 1919, and a Chagall gouache painting of an “allegorical scene” with a man kissing a woman wearing a sheep’s head.

[ click to continue reading at The Guardian ]

from The Chicago Tribune

Charlie Trotter, famed Chicago chef, found dead in home

By Rosemary Regina Sobol, Jeremy Gorner, Phil Vettel and Mark Caro |Tribune reporters

Charlie Trotter, whose eponymous Chicago restaurant was considered one of the finest in the world, has died.

The 54-year-old chef was found unconscious and not breathing in his Lincoln Park home this morning and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“My baby’s gone,” Trotter’s wife Rochelle told the friend, Carrie Nahabedian.

“Charlie was a trailblazer and introduced people to a new way of dining when he opened Charlie Trotter’s.  His impact upon American cuisine and the culinary world at large will always be remembered.”

Trotter burst on the scene in 1987, when the self-taught chef opened Charlie Trotter’s restaurant on Armitage Avenue. In short order, the chef’s intense creativity and never-repeat-a-dish dictum made Trotter’s the most talked-about restaurant in Chicago, and his fame quickly spread throughout the country and beyond.

He was named the country’s Outstanding Chef by James Beard Foundation in 1999; in 2000, Wine Spectator magazine called Trotter’s the best restaurant in the nation. More awards and accolades followed, including a 2002 Beard Award for Outstanding Service; at the time, Trotter called it the award he was most proud to receive, as it represented “a team award.”

The mercurial chef was a stern taskmaster who demanded the absolute best from everyone who worked for him. He was also a man of uncommon generosity, creating the Charlie Trotter Education Foundation to provide scholarships for culinary students. He received the James Beard Foundation’s Humanitarian of the Year award in 2012.

[ click to read full obit at The Chicago Tribune ]

from The LA Times

David Cronenberg exhibition puts body horror in the flesh

By Steven Zeitchik

Filmmaker David Cronenberg. (Frank Gunn / The Canadian Press)

What happens when a surreal on-screen world takes a museum form? Sometimes it can get stodgy. Other times it can bring to life what had previously existed only on the screen or in our minds.

from MediaBistro

#StealBanksyNY Site Promotes Theft, Artistic Freedom, Awkward Hashtags

By Jordan Teicher

Stealbanksyny.com does not exactly have a ring to it, but the new site created by two NYC digital ad folks – Derek Evan Harms & Damjan Pita of Razorfish and AKQA, respectively by day – is an interesting bit of content to check out as Banksy’s unofficial October art tour comes to an end. Users can find a map of New York that shows where FREE Banksy art is all over the city. Each FREE bubble links to an image of the art. People have already stolen some of the work, whether it be traffic cones, car doors, or wall art. On the site, in big block letters reads the rallying cry, “Better Ours Than Theirs.”

[ click to continue reading at MediaBistro.com ]

from Rolling Stone

Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71

New York legend, who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, underwent a liver transplant in May

By JON DOLAN

Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

With the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties, Reed fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry. As a restlessly inventive solo artist, from the Seventies into the 2010s, he was chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable, challenging his fans at every turn. Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. “One chord is fine,” he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. “Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”

Lewis Allan “Lou” Reed was born in Brooklyn, in 1942. A fan of doo-wop and early rock & roll (he movingly inducted Dion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989), Reed also took formative inspiration during his studies at Syracuse University with the poet Delmore Schwartz. After college, he worked as a staff songwriter for the novelty label Pickwick Records (where he had a minor hit in 1964 with a dance-song parody called “The Ostrich”). In the mid-Sixties, Reed befriended Welsh musician John Cale, a classically trained violist who had performed with groundbreaking minimalist composer La Monte Young. Reed and Cale formed a band called the Primitives, then changed their name to the Warlocks. After meeting guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker, they became the Velvet Underground. With a stark sound and ominous look, the band caught the attention of Andy Warhol, who incorporated the Velvets into his Exploding Plastic Inevitable. “Andy would show his movies on us,” Reed said. “We wore black so you could see the movie. But we were all wearing black anyway.”

“Produced” by Warhol and met with total commercial indifference when it was released in early 1967, VU’s debut The Velvet Underground & Nico stands as a landmark on par with the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde. Reed’s matter-of-fact descriptions of New York’s bohemian demimonde, rife with allusions to drugs and S&M, pushed beyond even the Rolling Stones’ darkest moments, while the heavy doses of distortion and noise for its own sake revolutionized rock guitar. The band’s three subsequent albums – 1968’s even more corrosive sounding White Light/White Heat, 1969’s fragile, folk-toned The Velvet Underground and 1970’s Loaded, which despite being recorded while he was leaving the group, contained two Reed standards, “Rock & Roll” and “Sweet Jane,” were similarly ignored. But they’d be embraced by future generations, cementing the Velvet Underground’s status as the most influential American rock band of all time.

[ click to continue reading at Rolling Stone ]

from The LA Times

Hal Needham, veteran Hollywood stuntman and director, dies at 82

By Steve Chawkins

Hal Needham, a highly regarded Hollywood stuntman and director of frothy, adrenaline-pumped films like “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Cannonball Run,” has died. He was 82.

Needham died Friday in Los Angeles, according to his business managers at Laura Lizer and Associates. No other details were immediately available.

Born in Memphis, Tenn., Needham spoke with a down-home twang.

He was a fixture in the movie business for most of his working life. In a stunt career that spanned hundreds of TV episodes and feature films, he tumbled down cliffs, leaped off boulders, jumped from planes, tottered off balconies and plunged from towers. He was rattled in blasts and blistered in fires. He broke 56 bones, including, twice, his back. He punctured a lung, damaged his hearing, lost a few teeth and was knocked out countless times but maintained a sunny outlook even after swooping into the unknown territory of directing.

The son of sharecroppers, Needham spent most of his childhood so deep in the Ozarks, as he liked to joke, that “you had to pump the sunshine in.” Dropping out of school after eighth grade, he worked as a tree trimmer in St. Louis before joining the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in 1951. Three years and many jumps later, he left the service and headed west with three pairs of jeans, six T-shirts, a buddy and no particular plan.

[ click to read full obit at LATimes.com ]

from Paste

Famous Artists Reinvent Stormtrooper Helmets for London Underground Exhibit

BY CARLA SCHWARTZ

Today, London’s Regent’s Park Underground Station is set to unveil a creative ode to the Star Warsstormtrooper. The traveling exhibit Art Wars features stormtrooper helmets re-imagined in the styles of well-known artists. Presented by London organization Art Below in collaboration with original stormtrooper creator Andrew Ainsworth, Art Wars includes creations from Damien Hirst, David Bailey, Mr. Brainwash, Paul Fryer and Joana Vasconcelos.

Through exhibitions in Underground stations, Art Below’s mission is to promote the creative community while enhancing the general public’s commuting experience. Billboards throughout the Regent’s Park platform feature the stormtrooper helmet designs,

[ click to continue reading at PasteMagazine.com ]

from The New York Times

Ronald Shannon Jackson, Composer and Avant-Garde Drummer, Dies at 73

By STEVE SMITH

Ronald Shannon Jackson, an avant-garde drummer and composer who led an influential electric band and performed with many of the greatest names in jazz, died on Saturday at his home in Fort Worth. He was 73.

His death, from leukemia, was confirmed by his son Talkeye.

Mr. Jackson, whose distinctive look included long hair that he once braided with rivets and subway tokens, had a muscular style that set him apart from his fellow avant-garde jazz drummers, providing for a thunderous yet economical rumble infused with funk, marching-band patterns and African styles. His band, the Decoding Society, showed his knack for writing rigorous yet approachable music.

He performed over the years with Charles Mingus, Betty Carter, Jackie McLean and Joe Henderson. But his name was most closely linked with three free-jazz pioneers: the saxophonist Albert Ayler, the pianist Cecil Taylor and, foremost, the saxophonist Ornette Coleman, who also hailed from Fort Worth.

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com ]

from The Telegraph

Rihanna ordered out of UAE mosque complex over photo shoot

Singer asked to leave Abu Dhabi’s sacred Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque complex after posing for “inappropriate” pictures

from The Hollywood Reporter

Larry Flynt: Don’t Execute the Man Who Paralyzed Me (Guest Column)

by Larry Flynt

Joseph Paul Franklin, who has confessed to shooting Flynt in 1978 and been convicted in a series of racially motivated murders, is set for execution in Missouri in November. Flynt writes for THR, “I have every reason to be overjoyed with that decision, but I am anything but.”

On March 6, 1978, as I stood on the steps of the Georgia courthouse where I was fighting obscenity charges, a series of gunshots rang out. I remember nothing that happened after that until I woke up in the intensive care unit. The damage to my central nervous system was severe, and it took several weeks before doctors could stabilize me. From then on, I was paralyzed from the waist down, and have been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

Years later, a white supremacist named Joseph Paul Franklin was arrested for shooting and killing an interracial couple. He soon began confessing to other crimes, and that’s when he admitted to having shot me. He said he’d targeted me because of a photo spread I ran in Hustler magazine featuring a black man and a white woman. He had bombed several synagogues. He had shot Vernon Jordan Jr., the civil rights activist. He hated blacks, he hated Jews, he hated all minorities. He went around the country committing all these crimes. I think somebody had to have been financing him, but nothing ever turned up on who that somebody may have been.

As far as the severity of punishment is concerned, to me, a life spent in a 3-by-6-foot cell is far harsher than the quick release of a lethal injection. And costs to the taxpayer? Execution has been proven to be far more expensive for the state than a conviction of life without parole, due to the long and complex judicial process required for capital cases.

Franklin has been sentenced by the Missouri Supreme Court to death by legal injection on Nov. 20. I have every reason to be overjoyed with this decision, but I am not. I have had many years in this wheelchair to think about this very topic. As I see it, the sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.

[ click to read full piece at THR ]