Tag: The Hollywood Reporter

BY KATE SUTTON, The Hollywood Reporter

One of the highlights of New York’s Auction Week is actually set just over state lines, at the Greenwich, Conn., estate of publishing magnate Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour. A playground for Jeff Koons’ Puppy (basically a 40-foot-tall, terrier-shaped topiary), the property is also home to the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, a nonprofit that mounts two major exhibitions every year. Building from works in Brant’s collection, recent solo shows have covered Andy Warhol, Urs Fischer and Nate Lowman.

On Nov. 10, guests like Debbie Harry, Christopher Walken, Benicio Del Toro, Andre Balazs, Calvin Klein, William and Maria Bell, Michael Ovitz and Jane Holzer flocked to Greenwich to celebrate the latest exhibition, a retrospective of Julian Schnabel. The artist and film director emerged as one of the stars of New York’s early 1980s Soho scene, and then went on to direct such acclaimed films as Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). While he’s now attached to Johnny Depp’s film adaptation of Nick Tosches’ In the Hand of Dante, Schnabel has been upping his game in the studio as well. The Brant Foundation survey encompassed everything from the artist’s drawings from the late 1970s to more experimental recent sculpture, as well as a spate of new portraits (with foundation director Allison Brant among the subjects.)

The brilliant blue skies were cause enough to leave the city, though they were quickly swallowed by a storm. “I was wondering how it is that the Brants always get the most glorious weather on these openings. A bit suspicious, really,” tastemaker/curator Clarissa Dalrymple laughed, as partygoers dashed out of the rain and into the elaborate buffet tent on the polo field. Despite the downpour, hostess Seymour stayed radiant, in a snugly fitted, flared Alaia ensemble. “I always wear Alaia,” she purred, prompting Jeffrey Deitch to admire: “And no one else wears it quite like her.”

Schnabel also was cutting quite the figure, having put aside the pajamas in favor of jeans and a blazer. He strolled the grounds with former model, gallerina and recent Playboy cover girl May Andersen, who was pushing a carriage with the latest in the Schnabel dynasty, the couple’s four-month-old son, Shooter Sandhed Julian Schnabel, Jr. (Andersen’s first child, Schnabel’s sixth.) Inside, the artist’s paintings were turning almost as many heads as the new family, with the side-by-side installation of the two, near-identical, 13-foot paintings Large Girl With No Eyes (both 2001), causing more than one passerby to do a double take. The paintings are shown together in a way that not only begs comparison, but also necessitates it. Complementing the wall works were pieces of furniture Schnabel had fashioned, including his own bed and a table he had made for artist Francesco Clemente’s studio.

While the crowd was thick with glitzy fellow collectors (Jean Pigozzi, Argentinean developer Alan Faena and Manila maverick Robbie Antonio among them), artists like Elizabeth Peyton, Josh Smith and Alex Israel seemed quite at ease (Peyton even brought her dog along.) Larry Gagosian paused mid-tent to trade some kind words with artists Rob Pruitt and Jonathan Horowitz, whose dealer, Gavin Brown, was jokingly using his infant to cut through the line at the bar at the other side of the tent. As the rain-stranded went back for seconds, dealer Helly Nahmad put in an appearance, though not for long, as his companion, younger brother Joseph, was due back in New York to celebrate an opening of Richard Prince‘s joke paintings at his own fledgling gallery, Nahmad Contemporary. MoMA PS1’s Klaus Biesenbach (who came on the arm of Diana Widmaier-Picasso) also had places to be; that night, the Auction Week crowds would hit the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where Koons would be helping Lady Gaga launch her latest album, ArtPop (which features the artist’s work on its cover). 

 

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by The Hollywood Reporter

The rapper holds an impromptu listening event for his upcoming sixth studio album, jokingly introducing himself as a “celebrity boyfriend.”

“KANYE?!!!” The flood of near-identical texts came pouring in last night at around 10 p.m., when Kanye West announced that he would hold an impromptu preview of his album Yeezus at midnight at the Design Miami/Basel Fair. (By the performer’s account, he had been on the prowl for Rick Owens furniture earlier in the day when the idea hit him to use the fair as a venue.) Hundreds of dealers, artists and otherwise – among them Art Basel director Marc Spiegler, Christie’s Loic Gouzer, and new-media collectors Pamela and Richard Kramlach – dropped all other arrangements (including what was supposed to be the highlight of the evening, a surprise concert by Solange at the Absolut Art Bar) and flocked to the Messeplatz hall, where they would mill around an open bar until West could pull together the last-minute prep work necessary to transform the empty first floor of the expo space into a concert hall. (He left a single Owens chair on stage for good measure.)

West dropped a fascinating monologue on the impetus for his album before unveiling the first two tracks, which he played straight from a laptop computer, bobbing over it as the songs played. Before West could release a third, he was interrupted by chants demanding that he sing live. West hesitated, then yielded, delivering an aggressive, a capella performance of “New Slaves,” a potent song that climaxed with an anti-Montauk mantra: “I’d rather be in the Factory than the Maybach” and “F— the Hamptons House!” While he seemed to be biting the hand that feeds him – West casually mentioned that he had been dining with the Kramlachs an hour earlier – the singer concluded the performance by standing at the door, and shaking hands with everyone as they exited.

What should be shocking is that this all took place as mere accompaniments to Art Basel. What began in 1970 as a local trade fair has evolved into a week-long nexus of international culture and extravagant parties, where it is no stranger to spot Kanye than it is to rub elbows with the Princess Eugenie of York. The increasingly stratified system of VIP previews and openings now stretches over the entire week, with the first glimpse of Art Statements and Art Unlimited – sections of the fair dedicated to emerging artists and oversized work, respectively – starting already on Monday afternoon. (This for a trade show that used to open on Friday.)

The extra days leave dealers scrambling for places to dine — Basel isn’t exactly a metropolis, after all. Chez Donati is usually a go-to, but this year David Zwirner stealthily booked it for the entire week. Larry Gagosian preferred to party in a former train station, while 303 Gallery, David Kordansky, Regen Projects and Eva Presenhuber were among the eight galleries who bonded together to host a barbecue at a hilltop dairy (where compliments on the beef muted as the cows starting trudging into the barn behind the guests.) Another option this year was Pret-a-diner, an itinerant “restaurant experience” that brings Michelin-starred chefs (in this case Tim Raue and Oliver “Ollysan” Lange) to pop-up venues around Europe. In Basel they chose an Elizabethan church, whose Gothic architecture and stained glass windows struck a moody setting when, at the stroke of 11 p.m., the space converted into the temporary site of Silencio, the Paris-based club still trading on its (mostly titular) ties to David Lynch. Silencio had to go head-to-head with nightly rowdiness at the Kunsthalle’s Campari Bar, as well as Emmanuel Perrotin’s annual party with Parisian nightlife staple Le Baron on Das Schiff, a multidecked boat docked on the Rhine. Predictably sweaty, smoky and just the right amount of slutty, the Francophile guests gave it their all on the dance floor (with some help from The Gramme), periodically retiring to the top deck for fresh air.

STORY: Kanye West Reveals ‘Yeezus’ Collaborators

Speaking of fresh air, returning this year was the Absolut Art Bar, who followed up last year’s installment – designed by Jeremy Deller – with a tripped-out, ’70s-style lounge, courtesy of Mickalene Thomas. (“It’s like having a party in Mickalene’s brain,” as Lehmann Maupin director Courtney Plummer described it, though apparently the artist had been angling to recreate her mother’s old house.) Wednesday night, a covert operation brought Solange to the club to play for a room of less than a hundred lucky listeners, who were all sworn to secrecy.

Hands-down one of the glitziest affairs was also held Wednesday, at the stately Kunstmuseum, where Tina Brown, Daphne Guinness and Dasha Zhukova hosted an “intimate dinner” preceded by a conversation between Brown and artist Theaster Gates, whose homegrown, Chicago-based activism (“I prefer to think of it as neighborliness”) has rocketed him into the spotlight. The evening drew art world royalty like Eli Broad, Peter Brant, Gagosian, Jay Jopling and Alberto Mugrabi, as well as some actual royalty – the Princess Alia Al-Senussi and Prince Abdullah Al Turki – and a younger crowd of scenesters: Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, Olympia Scarry, Vito Schnabel, Adam Weymouth and PC Valmorbida. Architect Fernando Romero and Soumaya Slim sipped champagne on the stairs, while Naomi Campbell’s ex, the dreamy Russian Vlad Doronin chatted away in his seat next to Stephanie Seymour (who thankfully need not worry about her contracts getting mysteriously canceled overnight). When the news about West’s surprise performance hit, Manila-based collector Robbie Antonio (whose pride rests in an ever-growing collection of portraits of himself from jaw-droppingly diverse artists like Damien Hirst, David LaChapelle and Marina Abramovic) had this to add: “I tried to commission Kanye once, but he was going to cost me even more than Anselm Kiefer.”

Perhaps the most shocking twist of all, however, is that the week isn’t even halfway through. The next few days still hold plenty in store, with the annual nocturne at the Beyeler and a Black Woods getaway dinner, hosted by Maria Baibakova and Alexandra Chemla. Now the only question is, who has time to see the art?