Princeton Architectural Press is set to release a new book on November 1st titled Finding Frida Kahlo.  In fact, it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon.com.  This is all well and good, except that half of the art world believes the featured collection of works to be fakes.  Read about the controversy here.

While the author of the article clearly blames the publisher for a lack of due diligence, it’s hard to get angry at anyone who prints a book titled Hand Job: A Catalog of Type.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz, who acknowledged mishandling plans to close a school art museum, will resign after the current academic year, university officials said Friday.

Reinharz, 65, president since 1994, agreed to continue serving through the end of the 2009-10 academic year, according to an e-mailed statement from the school in Waltham, Mass.

Reinharz said in an e-mail to students and faculty that he expects “to be the president of a significant foundation, where I can address issues facing the Jewish community at the national and international level.”

Brandeis said Jan. 26 that it would close the Rose Art Museum and intended to sell works by artists including Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning after the school suffered investment losses and some donors were hurt by Bernard Madoff’s fraud. Days later, students called for a sit-in protest, and the chairman of the Brandeis fine arts department said the school would lose an “irreplaceable” teaching tool.

Reinharz said in February that he mishandled some aspects of the decision and apologized for a lack of openness about the trustees’ deliberations. On Sept. 18, a school committee recommended that the museum remain open and that Brandeis take steps to “better integrate” it into the school’s mission.

From The New York Times:

Dan Flavin, the minimalist sculptor who died in 1996, spent his life producing graceful light sculptures. But what happens when a bulb breaks? And how easy are they for collectors to install?

The Chelsea dealer David Zwirner has just begun to represent the artist’s estate. On Friday he is starting a website (davidzwirner.com/danflavin) that is intended as a practical resource for Flavin aficionados, covering issues of conservation and installation as well as the artist’s exhibition history and examples of his work.

In November his gallery will present “Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions,” a show that includes work from Flavin’s four-decade career, including his earliest pieces from 1964, “Nominal III,” and a series that was originally shown in the 1970s at the German art dealer Heiner Friedrich’s gallery in Munich.

A new “art virgin” executive at Phillips de Pury is adding 18 themed contemporary art sales to its auction calendar over the next year and a half, despite the downturn in the art market.  Learn more about this questionable strategy in this Wall Street Journal article by Kelly Crow.

This fantastic image by Korean artist JeongMee Yoon is Lot 72 in Phillips’ September 26th sale in London (somewhat obviously) entitled: “Now: Art of the 21st Century”.

Richard Weisman once observed that “Andy [Warhol] didn’t know the difference between a football and a golf ball.”  Hardly a sports buff myself, I surprisingly transform into an avid tennis fan each year during the U.S. Open.  Something about the volley rhythm is deeply soothing to me.  Well, tonight was the men’s final and I thought I’d honor the sport by posting Andy Warhol’s Chris Evert, which was stolen this week along with nine other Warhol silkscreens from Weisman’s Los Angeles home.  Art market experts, including A.A.C.-favorite Tobias Meyer, are “scratching their heads” because the resale of the pieces is virtually impossible due to the insular market for Warhol works.

A.A.C. fave Daniel Traub currently has a solo exhibition (three large-format images) at the Art Institute of Philadelphia’s 1622 Chestnut Street Gallery through October 16th.   An artist’s reception is scheduled from 4:30-7:30 pm on Thursday, September 17th– no RSVP required.

Enticed by my affection for Paula Deen and John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I spent the long weekend in Savannah, Georgia, and it was simply charming.  Besides eating grits (delicious when served with fish, who knew?), drinking mint juleps and chatting with strangers, I checked out some of the the lovely ladies in the city:

Felix de Weldon captured the Savannah legend, Florence Martus, who for forty years welcomed ships entering the port.  It’s said she was waiting for a sailor with whom she’d fallen in love, but who never returned.  Sculpted in 1972, the piece sits on River Street, allowing Florence to still greet ships entering the harbor.  Pictured above.

The haunting Bird Girl sculpture created by Sylvia Shaw Judson in 1936 was made infamous by the Midnight book cover (photograph by Jack Leigh) and film adaptation directed by Clint Eastwood.  So many tourists flocked to Bonaventure Cemetery to see the piece that the constant traffic became a concern for the family on whose burial plot the sculpture stood; it was subsequently moved to the Telfair Academy at the Telfair Museum of Art.  No photography is allowed in the Museum, unfortunately.

I miss cornbread.

Kudos to NPR for covering the recently completed Art of Photography competition in San Diego, judged by Charlotte Cotton, head of the photo department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  In a highbrow huff you might role your eyes and think to yourself: “San Diego?  Hardly a cultural hub.”  Well, I agree– but fear not; submissions were accepted from all corners of the globe.  Many of this year’s deservedly lauded images are by artists I’ve not heard of before, which is good thing in my book.

I’m off to Savannah this evening for a Labor Day get-away…any suggestions?

A diverse crowd met at trendy Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village last Thursday evening to drink, dance, and watch four painters face off for a solo exhibition in Brooklyn.  The painters’ real-time creations were judged by the enthusiastic response of the attendees and were offered for sale via silent auction– if you could find the elusive bid taker.

Check out this iPhone video from the event (be forewarned, the bass is a bit obnoxious) that I posted to a friend’s YouTube account; here’s the Art Battles website, where you can see the winning piece by Ben Angotti (and my personal preference of the four, the work by Kevin Ragnott).

I once went on a first date with a guy who told me an adorable story from his childhood.  From an early age, his mother sat him in front of the television to watch Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on PBS.  As soon as he could put pen to paper, he began writing Mister Rogers about his favorite books, his reactions to particular episodes, and so on.  Apparently Mister Rogers took very seriously his responsibility to his young fans and tried hard to return all the hundreds of letters he received.  One sad day, this boy opened his 4th or 5th letter back from Mister Rogers and, holding back tears, read something like this: “I love reading your letters and getting to know you better, but I must spend time writing to all the other boys and girls that get in touch.”  And Mister Rogers kept his word, as always, and didn’t write back again.   What a great story, right?

I digress from the purpose of this blog.  There’s a new website called KickStarter that allows artists, musicians, writers and others with creative or otherwise adventurous aspirations to create a campaign that raises money for a specific project.  If a goal is reached within a given timeframe, all contributors get some sort of momento or gift from the organizer; if the goal is not reached, everyone who already contributed gets their money back.  I’ve seen variants on this idea, but it seems to be taking off– a few currently on the website have raised as much as $10,000.  I bring up Mister Rogers because there’s a pair working on an independent documentary film about literally being his neighbor in Nantucket, Massachusetts, that seems worthwhile and interesting and still needs a little help, check it out here.

My entrepreneurial spirit flared up– is there an orchestrated way that amateur art collectors could utilize this critical mass idea to support specific projects of visual artists, and then timeshare the artwork created?  I realize there’s some legal ownership issues, and it would surely lead to arguments over who gets the painting over certain weekends, but seeing that $20,000 is a pretty substantial investment to most people (and a lot of money to an emerging artist), breaking it up into ten patrons of $2,000 seems intuitive.  Those patrons also have an economic incentive to promote and support the artist in the future, too.  Clearly someone must have thoughts of this and it’s failed (or, if not, it’s my idea and possibly for sale).