1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol dominated the holiday box office for the second week running, pulling in an estimated $31.3 million. It was followed by Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which made an estimated $22.1 million, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which made $18.3 million. [via Moviefone]

2. Rupert Murdoch, the 80-year old chairman and CEO of News Corp, decided to join Twitter on New Year’s Eve; so far his @rupertmurdoch account, which has been verified, has amassed more than 50,000 followers. [via The Hollywood Reporter]

3. MTV has announced that a new season of Punk’d will premiere on March 19, with a rotating series of celebrity guest hosts that includes Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Kellan Lutz, Bam Margera, and Dax Shepard. [via Deadline]

4. Queen Elizabeth has appointed famed British painter David Hockney — who recently turned down a request to paint her portrait, and previously refused knighthood — to the Order of Merit, a “select group of individuals who have achieved distinction in the arts, learning, science and public service.” [via Guardian]

5. Fans of Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning headscratcher The Tree of Life might be interested in these revealing storyboards which feature sequences that were not included in the final film. [via The Playlist]

Bonus Buzz: Filipino Prisoners Inspire a Musical

HIDE/SEEK, the stand-out exhibit that provoked controversy when it opened at the National Portrait Gallery in October 2010, has found a new home at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The show, the first major museum exhibition to focus on themes of gender and sexuality in modern American portraiture, presents over 100 works by 67 artists, with almost all of the works from the original exhibit on display.

HIDE/SEEK opens with Thomas Eakins’ 1892 photograph of a geriatric Walt Whitman (whose relationship with Peter Doyle is well known) and closes with several versions of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly, the film that ignited the controversy with the Smithsonian Institute due to its depiction of a crucifix covered in ants. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Nan Goldin, Glenn Ligon, Georgia O’Keefe, and Marsden Hartley are some of the artists in this high-caliber exhibition that asserts the significance of the work of gay artists to contemporary art, and presents a new paradigm for understanding the complex and tense relationship between sexuality and portraiture. Click through for a slide show of some of our favorite work on display. Read More »

From subway ads to blog posts to TV shows, the average American must see hundreds of celebrity photos a week. But just when we think we can’t stomach even one more, Booooooom points us to the captivating work of Antony Crook, whose low-key photographs tend to find their artist subjects in introspective moments and poses that reveal much about their personalities. David Byrne, for example, seems almost angelic, wearing all white and posing against high, white-trimmed city windows, with a multicolored array of effects pedals at his feet. Click through for a gallery of our favorite Crook photos, including portraits of Marina Abramović, Malcolm McLaren, Rufus Wainwright, Tim Burton, and more. Then be sure to visit his website, where you should also check out his otherworldly landscapes.

Read More »

While knee-jerk Senator Jesse Helms did his unlevel best to ensure that America at-large most remembered the more pornographic work of Robert Mapplethorpe, we of sounder mind know that the lensman contained many multitudes. In addition to shooting kittens and children and mountains and coconuts and all sorts of floral exotica, Mapplethorpe shot portraits, largely of the most influential people of his time. What’s cool about the collection culled in Mapplethorpe X7, a magnificent recent release from teNeues, is that it’s curated by seven of the keenest eyes of all time. There’s David Hockney, who errs on the side of visualists (Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Warhol, et al), and Cindy Sherman, who digs things up close and very personal, whether wardrobed or disrobed. Robert Wilson seems to want to stir up some controversy all over again, or perhaps the playwright simply wishes that everyone see the real cause for hot fuss was Mapplethorpe’s grasp of exquisite beauty. And only a fool would want to legislate against that.

Read More »

The Scissor Sisters, who opened for Lady Gaga in New York last night, are infatuated with Robert Mapplethorpe — so much so that the band featured his photography on its Night Work album and related single covers and interpreted his imagery in a recent video. An iconic artist, who both shocked and wooed art lovers with his powerful pictures of sensual nudity, unsettling sadomasochism, and obscure objects of desire, Mapplethorpe followed his own creative path, while always maintaining a magical sense of mystery.

Read More »

From David Hockney’s iPad drawings of freshly cut flowers to Szabolcs Veres’ nightmarish canvases of grotesque characters, 2010 saw established and emerging artists utilizing new technologies and ancient means to express their inner realms and comment on the ever-changing world around them. Takashi Murakami transformed the Château of Versailles into a manga-inspired fantasyland; Ryan McGinley shot thousands of pictures of youthful nudes on seamless paper; and Edward Burtynsky documented the BP oil spill from an aerial point of view to reveal both the horror and beauty of manmade disasters. After the jump, click through to learn more about these exhibitions, as well as shows by Catherine Opie, Erik Parker, Pieter Hugo, and others that complete our top ten art picks of the year.

Read More »

Pop artist David Hockney’s use of the iPhone and iPad to make drawings of flowers and sunrises that he shares with his pals has been widely publicized over the past two years, but our friends at ARTINFO.com recently reported that Hockney’s whimsical works can now be seen in a Paris exhibition, titled Fleurs Fraîches (Fresh Flowers). “The British artist achieves stunning effects of texture and light on the iPad,” writes AI’s Grégory Picard about the show. “The iPhone images, while less detailed and more stylized, also present intriguing explorations of color and line.”

Read More »

In one of the stranger op-eds we’ve read of late, art critic Martin Gayford writes for Bloomberg News about British painter David Hockney and his huge crush on Apple’s iPad. We hope the piece isn’t an insidious new marketing plan targeting art consumers with spending capital and is instead just an attempt by The Olds to show their adaptability. After all, if David Hockney can find a way to transport the “tricky” device with an awkward shape (he “has always had his suits made with a large internal jacket pocket for carrying sketch books”), so can you, you spry young thing. Wonder if Hockney’s trying to reinvent the swimming pool?

Read More »

Andy Warhol lived at the center of a social scene that put him in daily contact with players and wannabes from every walk of life — from film and rock stars to politicians and hustlers. An appropriator of media imagery for his early-‘60s Pop art paintings, Warhol started making Polaroids for his commissioned portrait paintings in 1968 and got hooked on snapshot photography when he acquired a pocket-size Minox camera in 1976. Using black-and-white film, he reportedly shot a roll a day, documenting the beautiful people, and everything else, around him.

Read More »

1. We didn’t see this one coming: it’s the James Cameron vs. Glenn Beck smackdown. All because Beck thinks that Cameron is the anti-Christ. [via ArtsBeat]
2. Zach Braff has announced on his Facebook page that the new Scrubs is dead, but ABC isn’t commenting. [via E!]
3. Blame it on the alcohol: Jamie Foxx is writing a modernized film adaptation of Laverne and Shirley that will be directed by Gary Marshall and could possibly star Jennifer Garner and Jessica Biel. [via Vulture]
4. The Ricky Gervais Show — an animated series based on Gervais’ podcasts with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington — has been renewed for a second season by HBO. [via THR]
5. Don’t expect a David Hockney anti-smoking PSA anytime soon: “I have smoked for 52 years and I’m still here working away very ambitiously.” [via Independent]

Bonus link: Marisa Meltzer’s favorite concert footage by female artists