Rockaway Beach: A well-established Hipster Hamptons of sorts for the last few years, a place many thought would hit fever-pitch sometime this summer, the moment when—like Williamsburg and Bushwick and Red Hook and hell, the rest of the entire borough of Brooklyn before it—well-heeled Manhattanites discover it, and then, ruin the fun for those who were ostensibly there "first."*

First came The Taco Stand.

Then, the Trend Pieces.

Then, The Hoteliers.

And now: The Page Six Item. 

Yes, if you're the ornery, traditionalist, orthodoxy-of-cool type, this is the moment you can singularly declare Rockaway Beach "over": When Page Six gets—and publishes—sightings there.

Which happened today.

In a "Sightings" column that also included the New York Giants' Victor Ortiz, Jon Bon Jovi, Harry Belefonte, and Josh Lucas, the top item was:

Patti Smith and MoMA PS1 head Klaus Biesenbach strolling the Rockaway Beach boardwalk . . .

Three things of note, here:

1. Patti Smith and Klaus Biesenbach rated higher than Victor Ortiz and his girlfriend. In the New York Post.

2. Unlike the majority of gossip column sightings entries, this one was clearly not a plant. Either someone tipped them off, or a Page Six-er hangs out in Rockaway Beach.

3. This is, as far as we can tell, the first Page Six sighting in Rockaway Beach, ever. The precedent for notable sightings in Rockaway Beach in the New York Post: A bloodthirsty "Shark (or Ray)."

This is how it begins.

Soon, Rockaway Beach will be flooded with all different kinds of Sevigny and Ronson. Pop-up French clubs with doors that only open for people with personal texts from Larry Gagosian or Daenerys Targaryen's dragons will be erected. The Walkmen will re-locate there, and record an album. Madras-sporting Conde Nast warlords and ink-merchants will eventually venture out via towncar, ostensibly in search of "authentic" lobster rolls at first, lying about being on a wayward detour to Martha's Vineyard—we got lost on the way to Teterboro, har har—but eventually bringing their friends, convincing them that putting $1M into renovating a local standby clam shack with leather banquettes, a hostess who can only read names printed in boldface, and a chef whose greatest talent is an ability to upsell the shaving of truffles over anything from a burger to an artisinal Ritz cracker. Finally, the Manhattanites who read about it on Thrillist and Daily Candy will clamor for entry, eventually getting it, and everyone who preceded them will have already started to repeat the process somewhere else (in all likelihood, 5.9 miles down the road, at Fort Tilden), but not before Kanye West has built a replica Coliseum nearby, where he will show a movie on twelve screens of him using King Tut's tomb as a urinal.

Or, of course, this could all be a matter of semantics, and not even remotely a tipping point inasmuch as a curious anomaly: A Page Six item in Rockaway Beach, oh my, how whimsical (but otherwise insignificant).

...Which may also be what they want you to think.

Summer at your own risk.

[*Excluding, of course, those locals who have been going to Rockaway Beach since its lifeguard union was basically The Warriors. They are simply an adorable accessory of the local charm, and nothing more.]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Truly, the band of bon chic bon genre artists, patrons and gallerists assembled at Capitale Monday evening all appeared in shades of sable. Black jackets, black cocktail dresses, black eye-liner and black ties streamed into the room, punctuated by wan, porcelain faces. The group’s chatter  soon reached a dull roar, and guests did their best to shout and drawl simultaneously. “I don’t really think they’re crypto-fascists, do you?” someone asked. We did not catch the subject of her inquiry.

Christened in 1981, BOMB magazine has enjoyed three decades of blessings from artists of both wide and marginal renown, the art world’s papal personae and choir-boys alike. While the full spectrum of BOMB devotees appeared at the gala, the vast majority were noteworthy members of the contemporary art scene. Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, Dorothy Lichtenstein and Tim Nye all greeted their coal-clad friends and enjoyed the array of comfort-food canapés.

Various paintings and sculptures, donated by artists and galleries for a silent auction, were scattered throughout the room. Our personal favorite, bar none, was an apparently kitchen-made concoction by B. Wurtz, crafted from a Citarella Tupperware (once filled, in all likelihood, with a truffled goose fat marinade), a piece of wire and small wooden cylinder resembling a toiler paper roll.

Having enjoyed a mini ham-and-cheese sandwich, The Observer spoke to Betsy Sussler, BOMB editor-cum-matriarch. “I thought it was going to ‘bomb’ in the first couple of issues,” she said, explaining the quarterly’s inauspicious title. “What I didn’t understand was the groundswell of artists who really, really loved the idea.”

Still, the handle has not come without difficulty. Mayhem erupted after a box of magazines, with the ominous return address label, was sent to the Smithsonian. “People at the Smithsonian called the fire department because they thought it was a bomb. But we all said, ‘Would we have put it on the box if it were?’” Still, however, she doesn’t expect bomb-squads or naysayers to dismantle the publication anytime soon. “It delivers the artists voice,” she said. “And that can last generations and generations.”

Richard Serra, one of the evening’s honorees stood quietly amongst the crowd, a glass of cold water in his hand. A longtime friend of Ms. Sussler, Mr. Serra noted the unique space BOMB has occupied for the past thirty years. “I think it provides a venue for a multiplicity of media, that are unavailable in other formats. So whether its architecture or poetry or literature or film, or interviews, they not only cover unexpected youth, but they cover people that you would not be aware of,” he said slowly, deliberately.

Although BOMB helps him stay abreast of emerging trends and art personalities, Mr. Serra has little interest in many other mainstays of the contemporary art realm. Art fair season has long since lost its appeal, he explained. “I don’t pay attention to that. When I started making art there wasn’t a cultural industry, and now there’s a cultural industry that’s worldwide, and billions of dollars,” he said. “And I don’t go to those events.” Still, he doesn’t oppose the concept of art fairs, walks, tours and parties, he prefers his singular, steely zen. “Its not my interest,” he said with a wizened shrug. “I’m not trying to be cynical,” he added quickly.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum and the other side of the room, Eric Fischl shook hands and chatted loudly, clearly comfortable in the cocktail milieu. With his hair tousled and his oxford shirt half tucked into his jeans, he was indeed at ease.  We asked Mr. Fischl what recent art trends he finds most vexing. “Probably all the art that is like art made by children. Like the pre-pubescent adolescent jokey type stuff: Toys, dolls. It’s time to grow up. That’s where I’m at,” he said, with a beer-on-the-beach intonation.

Soon, guests were ushered into the main dining space, flanked by gilded Corinthian columns and two full bars. Honorees were toasted by friends and contemporaries over a first course of yellowfin tuna sashimi. Taking the stage for her introduction of Mr. Biesenbach, Patti Smith was welcomed with a warm ovation. “If you’re applauding my glasses, the frames are from Germany,” she began. Theresa Rebeck presented her close friend Marsha Norman with a bomb-shaped award, while Hal Foster saluted Mr. Serra.

After a course of stuffed leg of lamb, guests made their way back into the foyer for dessert and final auction bids. James Franco materialized from the twilight Chinatown ether and entered the vaulted, vaunted room. Serendipitously finding him adjacent to the B. Wurtz piece, we asked him what he thought of the sculpture (which had by this time reached a high bid of $4,100.) “Don’t ask me that,” he said, heaving a disinterested sigh. Well, fine.

What was the most outrageous thing Mr. Franco had seen recently, we wondered. “That’s a weird question,” he grumbled, proceeding no further. He was, however, eager to discuss his most recent art project. “I’m doing a big show in L.A at the MOCA, called rebel,” he recited. “It’s inspired by the Nicholas Ray movie, the James Dean movie, rebel without a cause.” Whether he is a rebel and what his cause may be the, world might never know, as he chose not to answer our question. Instead, he asked us if we had seen HBO’s Girls.

As the evening was coming to a close, guests nibbled cannoli, brownies, lemon bites and chocolate peanut butter squares as they scribbled their final bids on the auction artwork.  Coffee (black) concluded the evening. Mr. Biesenbach, Mr. Franco and Ms. Smith left together, a triad of noirish sang-froid disappearing into the still-young night.
editorial@observer.com

A Mexican hotel room. A chair.

Midmorningish.

Klaus, sitting on the floor, is trying to remove the phone jack from the wall. He pulls with both hands, panting.

Enter housekeeper.

Housekeeper: Nothing to be done.

Klaus: [Gloomily] Why not?

Housekeeper: [He looks around the room.] Well there's nothing to clean, is there?

Klaus:  I hate small objects. [He stops pulling at the jack.] I thought you were gone forever.

Housekeeper: [Irritated] Our hotel offers daily room cleaning as well as nightly turndown service, that was all laid out with your assistant James Franco when he booked the room. What happened to all the furniture?

Klaus: I put everything in the closet. It's too much for one man. [Pause. Cheerfully.] On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.

Housekeeper: [Hurt, coldly] May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

Klaus: On the terrace.

Housekeeper: The terrace? Where?

Klaus [In Teutonic monotone]: Over there.

Housekeeper: Didn’t they beat you?

Klaus: They? The college students on Spring Break? [Pause] Certainly they beat me.

Housekeeper: Why didn't you take off your boots? The room is filthy. Boots must be taken off every day, I’m tired of telling you that. Why don’t you listen to me?

Klaus: I’m going.

He does not move.

Is Lady Gaga performer--or performance artist? (Getty Images)

The name of the exhibition says it all: “David Bowie, Artist.” The Museum of Arts and Design’s upcoming retrospective intends to demonstrate how Mr. Bowie’s work “has become the blueprint for contemporary artists working in performance.”

What does it mean for a contemporary recording artist to “work in performance”? Consider a star who has absorbed Mr. Bowie’s lessons in out-there dressing and adventurous music: Lady Gaga described her 2009 guest appearance on Gossip Girl as “like, a real coup d’état for me as a performance artist.” She’s merited praise from performance artist Marina Abramovic, who told a reporter, “I really appreciate her.” She’s earned criticism, too, from MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach, who reportedly informed Lady Gaga that she was not a performance artist, quoting Susan Sontag to tell the pop star, “All we have is our opinion.”

If you think Lady Gaga’s is an egregious use of the term, pay no attention to the actor James Franco, who referred to his gig on the soap opera General Hospital as performance art, explaining it in a Wall Street Journal piece that name-checked Ms. Abramovic and the self-flagellating Chris Burden.

Then there is Daphne Guinness. She may be no gallery artist, but on the eve of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual costume institute gala in May, in honor of the museum’s exhibition of late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, Barney’s asked the beer heiress to get dressed for the event in its windows. “[M]e as performance art!” Ms. Guinness crowed on Vogue.com. It raised the question: Was Ms. Guinness the art, or were the clothes by Mr. McQueen—who also transformed Lady Gaga from downtown princess to queen of the avant-garde in the “Bad Romance” music video—doing the performing?

Is this the true legacy of Mr. Bowie—the creep of the term “performance art” into the culture? The use of it to encompass any performance by a would-be artist? For what did Mr. Burden bleed while crucified to a Volkswagen in 1974 when Lady Gaga could claim his mantle with a dress made of steak at an MTV awards ceremony?

“I would think that Lady Gaga is performing art,” said Mr. Biesenbach, “and I think that Marina Abramovic is performance art. There’s a difference. If there’s a narrative, it’s performing art; if it’s an object, it’s performance art. It’s—to me—a clear distinction.” (The distinction gets muddier, though, considering that performance artists have taken to performing—Ms. Abramovic, for instance, is staging a musical on her life at this year’s Manchester International Festival.)

Mr. Biesenbach’s view is echoed by the artist Liz Magic Laser, who recently staged a performance piece in Times Square in which six actors chased one another on stairs to re-enact classic cinema. “They’re not performance artists,” said Ms. Magic Laser of Lady Gaga et al. “It doesn’t have to do with the intrinsic value of their performances—it’s all about context and target audience. A Lady Gaga concert … is not hailing the art world audience.” Lady Gaga’s success hardly rests on cornering the art crowd: she makes her money selling albums. “Lady Gaga is well equipped to enter the art world if she so chose—that requires aiming her performance at physical venues and social and theoretical conversations,” said Ms. Magic Laser.

But isn’t she doing so already? In 2009, Gaga performed at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, pounding away on a Damien Hirst-customized piano in a Frank Gehry-designed hat—the whole spectacle was coordinated by Francesco Vezzoli, an artist whose other work includes videos packed with celebrities. If Mr. Vezzoli is an artist, why isn’t his collaborator?

“I think performance art seems more desirable because what’s in a museum lasts for eternity, while performing art is very time-sensitive and might just be for a certain season,” said Mr. Biesenbach. Just by being featured at MoCA, Lady Gaga maybe got a little piece of the canon, something harder to achieve for a young artist than a hit single is for a singer. “I don’t know if Lady Gaga is eternal, but when a museum acquires something and shows it, it’s meant to be truth and beauty, but forever.”

MoMA made headlines in 2009 when it acquired its first piece of live performance art, Tino Sehgal’s Kiss (2003). Then there was last year’s blockbuster MoMA show “The Artist Is Present,” during which Ms. Abramovic sat motionless, staring at one attendee at a time. Attendees included Marisa Tomei, Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall and, naturally, Mr. Franco. “It was kind of the talk of the town or talk of the country; even when I traveled people mentioned it,” said Mr. Biesenbach. “It definitely made it more mainstream. Because nobody questioned it being at MoMA. It’s a change of the discourse.”

Asked about performance art versus other types of performing, RoseLee Goldberg, founder of the Performa biennial, told The Observer, “To be an artist is to be isolated, to work in a way which is original and highly experimental. The artist rarely knows where he or she is going, until he/she gets there.”

But consider Lady Gaga’s costumes. If they are not art, they are … something apart from the typical pop-star uniform. “When you observe her costumes,” said Leslie Tonkonow, the gallerist who works with artists like Laurel Nakadate, “there’s definitely an influence of actual history, even going back to the beginning of the 20th century. She’s definitely aware of the history of performance art—she’s influenced by it and incorporating it into her act.” Ms. Tonkonow cited the mid-1970s work of Pat Oleszko, whose costume of dozens of inflatable, red-nippled breasts Lady Gaga reappropriated as a custom-made body suit for a recent Harper’s Bazaar fashion spread. (Other examples might include the work of Carolee Schneemann, whose Meat Joy presaged that meat dress by decades.) That said, “I wouldn’t necessarily consider her a performance artist,” indicated Ms. Tonkonow, “but she definitely incorporates performance as an art form.”

Andrey Bartenev, a Russian performance artist whose outsize costumes look somewhat Gagavian, told The Observer that performance art is based upon “new visual ideas, new technology, new composition—everything new. It makes everything fresh, and that freshness made it interesting to pop culture. Pop culture wants to make everything fresh and promote happy future.” Those who prefer performances of “Born This Way” to performance art and thus don’t catch the Carolee Schneemann-esque dog-whistle in Lady Gaga’s meat dress can still appreciate it as a groundbreaking installation, if not art. “She’s great as an example of how crazy people should use ideas from other crazy people,” said Mr. Bartenev.

Fair enough. But is she a performance artist? “Performance art has destroyed the gap between the stage and the audience,” said Mr. Bartenev.

It is perhaps not so far-fetched to suggest that these days we might all at one point or another think of ourselves as performance artists. “We live in a time where everyone is updating the weather on your iPhone, your life on Facebook,” said Mr. Biesenbach. “I think it just makes it clear that things are in a constant flow, and performance art, the most amazing thing with Marina sitting in the atrium, it was constant updating. It was a clear expression of time, which seems kind of the golden trend of our time.”

Ms. Goldberg takes a less optimistic view of the use and abuse of the term “performance art” by popular media. “The term catches on and the media tends to use it for everything that is over the top or unconventional. A politician cries in public and the media declares—oh, that’s performance art! It has become part of everyday terminology.”

Performance art’s newfound ubiquity in the culture may generate more real performance art, as well as much performance art of the ersatz variety. Of Ms. Abramovic’s recent show, Mr. Biesenbach said, “I think it’ll have an impact on the following generations, right? I see many artists that were playing with sculpture and photography—they really allow themselves to do a piece that’s not object-related. When I saw Terence Koh at Mary Boone, I thought like, this is really a liberation, thanks to Marina, that a great artist is doing a show at a great gallery without even producing an object.” Mr. Koh appeared with Lady Gaga in a 2010 performance, entitled GAGAKOH!, at a Japanese club.

Mr. Biesenbach seems to prefer discussing the gallery art, and he’s not alone. The gap between artist and audience, if dented, remains intact. But is the work of past artists diminished by the latest would-be practitioners of the form? Of references to performance art made by popular performers like Lady Gaga, Ms. Goldberg told The Observer: “It’s a reference and an inspiration for sure. It’s essentially popularizing work that is made in a very different context.”

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Lady Gaga, performer or performance artist? (Getty Images)

The name of the exhibition says it all: “David Bowie, Artist.” The Museum of Arts and Design’s upcoming retrospective intends to demonstrate how Mr. Bowie’s work “has become the blueprint for contemporary artists working in performance.”

What does it mean for a contemporary recording artist to “work in performance”? Consider a star who has absorbed Mr. Bowie’s lessons in out-there dressing and adventurous music: Lady Gaga described her 2009 guest appearance on Gossip Girl as “like, a real coup d’état for me as a performance artist.” She’s merited praise from performance artist Marina Abramovic, who told a reporter, “I really appreciate her.” She’s earned criticism, too, from MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach, who reportedly informed Lady Gaga that she was not a performance artist, quoting Susan Sontag to tell the pop star, “All we have is our opinion.”

If you think Lady Gaga’s is an egregious use of the term, pay no attention to the actor James Franco, who referred to his gig on the soap opera General Hospital as performance art, explaining it in a Wall Street Journal piece that name-checked Ms. Abramovic and the self-flagellating Chris Burden.

Then there is Daphne Guinness. She may be no gallery artist, but on the eve of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual costume institute gala in May, in honor of the museum’s exhibition of late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, Barney’s asked the beer heiress to get dressed for the event in its windows. “[M]e as performance art!” Ms. Guinness crowed on Vogue.com. It raised the question: Was Ms. Guinness the art, or were the clothes by Mr. McQueen—who also transformed Lady Gaga from downtown princess to queen of the avant-garde in the “Bad Romance” music video—doing the performing?

Is this the true legacy of Mr. Bowie—the creep of the term “performance art” into the culture? The use of it to encompass any performance by a would-be artist? For what did Mr. Burden bleed while crucified to a Volkswagen in 1974 when Lady Gaga could claim his mantle with a dress made of steak at an MTV awards ceremony?

“I would think that Lady Gaga is performing art,” said Mr. Biesenbach, “and I think that Marina Abramovic is performance art. There’s a difference. If there’s a narrative, it’s performing art; if it’s an object, it’s performance art. It’s—to me—a clear distinction.” (The distinction gets muddier, though, considering that performance artists have taken to performing—Ms. Abramovic, for instance, is staging a musical on her life at this year’s Manchester International Festival.)

Mr. Biesenbach’s view is echoed by the artist Liz Magic Laser, who recently staged a performance piece in Times Square in which six actors chased one another on stairs to re-enact classic cinema. “They’re not performance artists,” said Ms. Magic Laser of Lady Gaga et al. “It doesn’t have to do with the intrinsic value of their performances—it’s all about context and target audience. A Lady Gaga concert … is not hailing the art world audience.” Lady Gaga’s success hardly rests on cornering the art crowd: she makes her money selling albums. “Lady Gaga is well equipped to enter the art world if she so chose—that requires aiming her performance at physical venues and social and theoretical conversations,” said Ms. Magic Laser.

But isn’t she doing so already? In 2009, Gaga performed at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, pounding away on a Damien Hirst-customized piano in a Frank Gehry-designed hat—the whole spectacle was coordinated by Francesco Vezzoli, an artist whose other work includes videos packed with celebrities. If Mr. Vezzoli is an artist, why isn’t his collaborator?

“I think performance art seems more desirable because what’s in a museum lasts for eternity, while performing art is very time-sensitive and might just be for a certain season,” said Mr. Biesenbach. Just by being featured at MoCA, Lady Gaga maybe got a little piece of the canon, something harder to achieve for a young artist than a hit single is for a singer. “I don’t know if Lady Gaga is eternal, but when a museum acquires something and shows it, it’s meant to be truth and beauty, but forever.”

MoMA made headlines in 2009 when it acquired its first piece of live performance art, Tino Sehgal’s Kiss (2003). Then there was last year’s blockbuster MoMA show “The Artist Is Present,” during which Ms. Abramovic sat motionless, staring at one attendee at a time. Attendees included Marisa Tomei, Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall and, naturally, Mr. Franco. “It was kind of the talk of the town or talk of the country; even when I traveled people mentioned it,” said Mr. Biesenbach. “It definitely made it more mainstream. Because nobody questioned it being at MoMA. It’s a change of the discourse.”

Asked about performance art versus other types of performing, RoseLee Goldberg, founder of the Performa biennial, told The Observer, “To be an artist is to be isolated, to work in a way which is original and highly experimental. The artist rarely knows where he or she is going, until he/she gets there.”

But consider Lady Gaga’s costumes. If they are not art, they are … something apart from the typical pop-star uniform. “When you observe her costumes,” said Leslie Tonkonow, the gallerist who works with artists like Laurel Nakadate, “there’s definitely an influence of actual history, even going back to the beginning of the 20th century. She’s definitely aware of the history of performance art—she’s influenced by it and incorporating it into her act.” Ms. Tonkonow cited the mid-1970s work of Pat Oleszko, whose costume of dozens of inflatable, red-nippled breasts Lady Gaga reappropriated as a custom-made body suit for a recent Harper’s Bazaar fashion spread. (Other examples might include the work of Carolee Schneemann, whose Meat Joy presaged that meat dress by decades.) That said, “I wouldn’t necessarily consider her a performance artist,” indicated Ms. Tonkonow, “but she definitely incorporates performance as an art form.”

Andrey Bartenev, a Russian performance artist whose outsize costumes look somewhat Gagavian, told The Observer that performance art is based upon “new visual ideas, new technology, new composition—everything new. It makes everything fresh, and that freshness made it interesting to pop culture. Pop culture wants to make everything fresh and promote happy future.” Those who prefer performances of “Born This Way” to performance art and thus don’t catch the Carolee Schneemann-esque dog-whistle in Lady Gaga’s meat dress can still appreciate it as a groundbreaking installation, if not art. “She’s great as an example of how crazy people should use ideas from other crazy people,” said Mr. Bartenev.

Fair enough. But is she a performance artist? “Performance art has destroyed the gap between the stage and the audience,” said Mr. Bartenev.

It is perhaps not so far-fetched to suggest that these days we might all at one point or another think of ourselves as performance artists. “We live in a time where everyone is updating the weather on your iPhone, your life on Facebook,” said Mr. Biesenbach. “I think it just makes it clear that things are in a constant flow, and performance art, the most amazing thing with Marina sitting in the atrium, it was constant updating. It was a clear expression of time, which seems kind of the golden trend of our time.”

Ms. Goldberg takes a less optimistic view of the use and abuse of the term “performance art” by popular media. “The term catches on and the media tends to use it for everything that is over the top or unconventional. A politician cries in public and the media declares—oh, that’s performance art! It has become part of everyday terminology.”

Performance art’s newfound ubiquity in the culture may generate more real performance art, as well as much performance art of the ersatz variety. Of Ms. Abramovic’s recent show, Mr. Biesenbach said, “I think it’ll have an impact on the following generations, right? I see many artists that were playing with sculpture and photography—they really allow themselves to do a piece that’s not object-related. When I saw Terence Koh at Mary Boone, I thought like, this is really a liberation, thanks to Marina, that a great artist is doing a show at a great gallery without even producing an object.” Mr. Koh appeared with Lady Gaga in a 2010 performance, entitled GAGAKOH!, at a Japanese club.

Mr. Biesenbach seems to prefer discussing the gallery art, and he’s not alone. The gap between artist and audience, if dented, remains intact. But is the work of past artists diminished by the latest would-be practitioners of the form? Of references to performance art made by popular performers like Lady Gaga, Ms. Goldberg told The Observer: “It’s a reference and an inspiration for sure. It’s essentially popularizing work that is made in a very different context.”

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Only 900 people were there to witness it, and each one was there by invitation only, "each as preciously selected as a six-thousand-yen mango at the Takashimaya gourmet grocery."

Lady Gaga and Mr. Koh have collaborated twice before, both times on custom-designed pianos. As ArtForum puts it: "In Koh, Gaga seems to have found her flamboyant and press-hungry art-world counterpart." Or as Lady Gaga herself put it to ArtForum: "When I'm around Terence I just want to poop out art ideas nonstop." OK, great!

What happened in Tokyo at this club opening sounds like the result of a lot of "art ideas" jumbled together. First, "four chiseled studs in tighty-whiteys and bunny masks led Gaga and Koh-veiled and silent-into the club," then when the show started Lady Gaga performed her song "Speechless" while Mr. Koh wailed along atonally. ("I sound like a horse and Gaga sounds like a magical angel," he would explain to the ArtForum reporter. "So that makes it art.")

Later:

Gaga concluded with "Bad Romance," and the music simmered to a pulsating bass drone. The dancers slavishly delivered long fluorescent tube lamps to Gaga and Koh, then crawled away. Koh resumed his pseudo-Gregorian crooning, while shuffling toward Gaga like a blind man. He filed behind her, pressing as if asexually consummating their union. The lamps formed into a cross and artificial snow and cherry blossoms fluttered down from above.

One thing is for sure: this wacky performance should put to rest any controversy over Lady Gaga's art world credibility--which was called into question recently when David Byrne revealed on his blog that Klaus Biesenbach, the spiky-haired bull of a man who now runs P.S.1, does not consider the "Poker Face" singer an artist.

Mr. Byrne's scoop, brought to our attention by Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic, came from a dinner party where Mr. Biesenbach told the former Talking Heads singer that he'd "crossed paths with Lady Gaga" and heard her assert that she was a performance artist. According to Mr. Byrne's account, Mr. Biesenbach informed Lady Gaga that she was not an artist of any sort, which left her "a bit taken aback and stunned."

Mr. Byrne had to retract the post a few days after Hyperallergic linked to it. Apparently to Mr. Biesenbach--who could be seen over the weekend hanging out on the steps of P.S.1 enjoying a late afternoon set by New Jersey band Real Estate--was not pleased to see the quote in Mr. Byrne's blog, and emailed him to correct the record. In the e-mail, according to Mr. Byrne's follow-up post, Mr. Biesenbach said, "Of course Lady Gaga is an artist" and added that he "hopes to work with her someday."

It is hard to tell, based on the ArtForum item at least, how exactly Mr. Koh feels about his partnership with Lady Gaga. "The art world is a bubble that, like the fashion bubble and the music bubble, is just not ready to fuse into a new bubble," he is quoted as saying. "Art is a diamond. The rest is just soft, silk pillows for art to tear apart."

Accounts differ on exactly what happened. But it seems Ms. Young, performing as her “confrontational” character “Sherry,” began her show on Feb. 27, in the early evening, by insulting the woman who had just left the stage. That was performance artist Georgia Sagri. The audience burst into laughter as Ms. Young began polling them on how bad they thought Ms. Sagri’s show had been. (“I don’t know about art-world manners and I don’t care,” said Ms. Young. “Everyone was leaving during her show.”) Ms. Young peed into a bowl with the intention of auctioning it off. She and Ms. Sagri continued to exchange various obscene gestures and suggestions, Ms. Young stripping and delivering most of her insults naked. Someone yelled, “Your set is over!” but Ms. Young, who by day is a benign-looking Jersey City mom of a toddler, continued. Then, the lights and the mike shut off.

Mr. Biesenbach, who declined to comment, was in the audience for all this. It was his decision to cut the power, MoMA confirmed (P.S.1 is a satellite of MoMA). It, at best, seems out of character: Mr. Biesenbach is well known for curating such shows as 2006’s group exhibition “Into Me/Out of Me,” which featured graphic scenes of sex and violence, along with a basement full of hard-core art. Stung by the shut-down, one of the organizers of the evening, Brooklyn curator Andres Bedona, almost immediately released a statement charging “censorship.”

“The P.S.1 event has really engaged the community,” said Paddy Johnson, author of the blog ArtFagCity.com, which has written much on the evening. “It raises a lot of questions,” even though, or perhaps because, “it feeds into the worst stereotypes of performance art.” Dubbed “The Pee in the Pan Controversy,” it just keeps growing, Ms. Johnson said.

The museum explained that it acted “to safeguard the audience, performers and P.S.1 staff from an escalating and potentially volatile situation.” “Safety?! That’s ridiculous,” countered Ms. Young. Ms. Biesenbach was annoyed in part because she hoped to sell DVDs of her performances after the show, she said. That might have interfered with a book-signing Marina Ambramovic was having at the P.S.1 bookstore the same day.

But another of the event’s organizers backs Mr. Biesenbach. “It’s so easy to cry ‘censorship!’ but I don’t believe it was,” Sarvia Jasso declared. Ms. Young “took a great opportunity and made it all about herself, made it a negative spectacle.” Both Ms. Jasso and MoMA said they were unaware of what Ms. Young planned to do in her show. But she is fairly well established on the alternative theater circuit and has performed pieces like “Tribute to Elliot” (rolling in her beloved pit bull’s ashes) and “Snow White” (a tattered costume of the Disney princess, plus a dildo) in the U.S. and Europe.

The high priestess of performance art, RosaLee Goldberg, historian and founder of the huge biennial Performa art festival, just wanted to stay out of it. She was at P.S.1 when all this happened, but she was on another floor. She’s heard different versions of it and doesn’t know exactly what took place, she said. But she hoped it drives people to see the P.S.1 exhibition up now, “100 Years,” on the history of performance art.

Since the incident, Ms. Young happily reported that she’s gotten an uptick in bookings in Europe (“they like controversy,” she noted) and a rabid band of defenders, and has nudged up the rate she charges to about $7,000 a show. She said Mr. Biesenbach can make it all up to her by just giving her a solo show at P.S.1. “Then we’d call a truce,” she offered.

apeers@observer.com

“We’re looking for younger people who are really ready to commit themselves to being involved with P.S.1 and being satisfied with that, who don’t see MoMA as the place to maybe be on the board of over something like P.S.1,” Ms. Gund said.

She added: “My ambition is to see [P.S.1] come alive again the way it was under Alanna, and really be a place that is a destination for people. It already is for younger people and artists, but we have to really get a more mixed crowd.”

Reached for comment at her studio on Tuesday, Ms. Anderson said that she initially hesitated when Mr. Biesenbach asked her to join the board. “I’m not so good on boards, frankly, because I’m usually out of town on a tour, but I love thinking of what institutions should or could do,” Ms. Anderson said. “I love P.S.1 and I have for several decades. I don’t know what Klaus has in mind for it, but, you know, I think he’s really open to a lot of different things.”

“P.S.1 is really the hotbed in New York for the next generation of artists, and that’s really something I wanted to get involved with,” said Mr. Kimmel. “Klaus has really big shoes to fill with Alana and I think he’s bringing her spirit and his own, and it’s a beautiful thing.”

None of the other new board members, nor Mr. Biesenbach, could be reached for comment yesterday.

lneyfakh@observer.com

The Observer profiled Biesenbach back in 2007, when he became chief curator of the new MoMA media department. He was an intense guy:

“He doesn’t have his own family,” said the performance artist Marina Abramovic, who has known Mr. Biesenbach since he was 21 years old. “He sacrificed a very large part of his private life for the work. Basically, all his life is the work.”

In the early years of their acquaintance, the two experimented with a romantic relationship, despite the 20-year gap in their ages (she just turned 60 last November). “It was a very short time, yah, yah, about three months,” she said in her sumptuous Slavic accent. “It was really a disaster. It was really funny. We devoted three months together, and we decided we can have like a ‘house life.’ He would make the apple pies, but they were always burning!”

And in January, W magazine toured Biesenbach's rigorously spartan apartment, providing another glimpse into the world of Klaus:

“Small objects make me nervous,” says Biesenbach, 42, looking around his apartment on New York’s Lower East Side, which is notable for its lack of not only small objects but also large ones. The living room has no sofas, tables, pillows, books or lamps; the kitchen has no countertops, cookware or appliances, apart from a $99 mini fridge. As for beds, there is a mail-order mattress in the bedroom, but Biesenbach prefers to sleep on the one on the outdoor terrace, weather permitting.

To the Editor:

I had to laugh out loud when I read Steve Kornacki’s article on the Senate maneuverings over the Iraq War debate [“Republican Senators Deepen a Hole for 2008,” Wise Guys, Feb. 12]. It’s hard to imagine that someone would think to criticize another, when they themselves are completely misinformed about what happened.

Unfortunately for Mr. Kornacki, it appears that he actually believed Harry Reid’s bald-faced lie to reporters Monday afternoon. The Democrats tried to cut off debate on the Iraqi resolution with a cloture motion. The G.O.P. rebuffed that attempt to end the debate.

Only the ignorant or hopelessly naïve swallowed the mainstream media spin that the Republicans blocked the debate. But at least the majority didn’t write insipid articles using the lie as a premise for criticizing the G.O.P.

The next time Mr. Kornacki decides to write an article, he would be well advised to know what he is talking about. In that way, people like myself won’t consider him a fool.

Brian Goettl

Nicholasville, Ky.

MoMA, Dearest?

To the Editor:

Nicholas Boston, as is typical for cultural writers, describes MoMA in glowing terms [“MoMA Gets Biesenbached in Euro-Curator Stampede,” Feb. 12]. Not everyone shares these warm fuzzies.

He doesn’t touch upon Klaus Biesenbach’s use of YouTube as an advertising gimmick. Gimmicks are supposed to be below any curator’s status.

YouTube derives its viability from the concept of reciprocity and sharing. MoMA shares nothing. It speaks down to people on YouTube and exploits them. The Museum of Modern Art, in the final analysis, isn’t so lofty, in spite of its media curator’s rock-star status.

A reporter should always at least try to look behind the curtain at the man who operates the controls of Oz.

Tim Barrus

Paris