1. Beating out both Jennifer Garner and Keri Russell, Gossip Girl Blake Lively has been cast as the female lead opposite Ryan Reynolds in The Green Lantern. [via THR]
2. Billy Name, resident photographer of Andy Warhol’s Factory for seven years, is missing his archive of negatives. [via NYT]
3. How the Jay Leno disaster could ultimately cost NBC more than $200 million. (Also of note: As a result, they’ve just unveiled six new drama pilots.) [via LAT]
4. Sarah Jessica Parker’s new Bravo reality show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist will feature New York gallery owner Bill Powers, New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, and curator Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, as judges; China Chow and Simon de Pury will host. [via Variety]
5. Foster Kamer explores the short distance between the branding of mega pop stars and the branding of indie rock bands like Vampire Weekend. [via Gawker]

Bonus link: The New Age Cavemen and the City

1. New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz on defending the New Museum: “At a certain point, the hatred seems unrelated to the offense. It is just people reveling in nay-saying and name-calling without examining the motivations for their behavior — and believe me, I know whereof I speak.” [via Vulture]
2. Imeem is in the process of being purchased by MySpace; that leaves LaLa. [via MediaMemo]
3. Bjork has written a song for Moomins and the Comet Chase, a freaky Finnish kid’s movie about hippo-like animals. [via Pitchfork]
4. David Letterman mocks the New York Times for their “douche” cover story. [via HuffPo]
5. In what Gawker is calling a photo disaster, there will be no full-frontal Levi Johnston in his upcoming spread for Playgirl. [via Gawker]

New York mag art critic Jerry Saltz, he of the gender parity crusade at MoMA and Glenn Beck challenge, profiles seven female artists in this week’s issue. Saltz points out that 36 percent of New York gallery solo shows are featuring women this fall, up from 17 percent in 2005, and highlights a cross-section of “gender-bending” work by women, including a full-scale museum show by multimedia artist Roni Horn at The Whitney. Read More »

CLICK HERE to view our gallery of female artists to know right now>>

Say the phrase “female contemporary artist” and you’re likely to conjure, via Google or collective memory, images of Cecily Brown’s writhing bodies; Tracey Emin’s messy, suggestive bed; Lisa Yuskavage’s kitschy soft porn; or Vanessa Beecroft’s nude installations. The financial success of such in-your-face sexuality — whether viewed with icy remove (Beecroft), humor (Yuskavage), or brassiness (Emin) — dovetailed nicely with the Third Wave feminism popularized in the early nineties. So what’s next for the double-X chromosome creative set in our current period? Photo evidence and a few words from art critic Jerry Saltz after the jump. Read More »

The text panel prefacing The Problem Perspective, the first major U.S. retrospective of German artist Martin Kippenberger, opens with a quote from Aristotle: “everything in moderation.” It then continues with the following statement: “Martin Kippenberger never got this message.”

Curatorial assistance or not, it doesn’t take long to pick up on the Dionysian overtones of Kippenberger’s work. At the entrance to The Problem Perspective an oat-covered Ford Capri peeks out into the foyer (a nudge to Anselm Kiefer) and continuing through the exhibit, the viewer passes by drunken street lamps (which unlike sober ones weave in and out of walls) deprecating self-portraits, and a junkie’s forest populated by disco balls, wooden pills, and ominously headless birch trees.

Read More »

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE PHOTO GALLERY NOW >>

The past two days passed by like two hours. We arrived at Pier 94 for the contemporary wing of the Armory Show at 4 p.m. Wednesday, in advance of the opening. Before we could actually see much art we starting seeing out-of-towners, such as Beyeler Fondation director Sam Keller, who used to direct Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach.

We cruised the first few aisles, where galleries like Deitch Projects and Victoria Miro held court, while taking pictures of New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, Swiss Institute director Gianni Jetzer, and others. We snagged artist Maurizio Catalan and New Museum curator Massimiliano Gioni for an amusing photo at Lombard-Freid Projects booth and then headed over to the VIP lounge for a coffee break.

Read More »