There is very little about Washington, D.C. that is cutting edge, avant-garde, culturally trenchant, cool, hip, or forward-thinking. I can say that—I’m from there. It’s a city built on a swamp, dotted with monuments to the nation’s past, the home to governing bodies so deadlocked they prevent change from happening in the future. The bars suck. Punk is dead. Sure, the subways are clean, but isn’t there something suspect about that? Anyway, Melissa Chiu, the new director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in my lovely hometown where a new high-hops microbrew is the peak of creative vision, has decided to introduce D.C. to something we like to call “contemporary art.” How is she going to do this? She’s created the position of curator at large, who will be based in New York City. [NYT]
Ever wonder what happened to that Jordan Wolfson dancing lady robot? No? Hasn’t really crossed your mind? Well, if you do care about the person who chose to purchase Female Figure (2014), we now know that it’s Eli Broad. The news was revealed at a press luncheon at Le Cirque for the Broad Museum, which will actually open in fall 2015, according to reports from the lunch. [artnet]
Bridget Donahue, the director of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, will set up shop in her own. She’s leaving the mothership and open a space at 99 Bowery, near a great number of tasty noodle joints. Get ready for a Lynn Hershman Leeson show in February. Mazel to all! [ARTnews]
Françoise Gilot—painter, lover to Picasso, muse to many, wife to Jonas Salk, esteemed nonagenarian—reminisces about meeting Matisse, as a aperitif to “The Cut-Outs” at MoMA. “His sweater was green. It matched certain things on the wall behind him, such as a purple Chinese wooden objet. One of the things about Matisse is that whenever there is a green, a purple always goes with it. It was interesting to see that he lived the way he painted—when you entered the house, you were in his universe.” [WSJ.]
Who does billionaire LVMH kingpin Bernard Arnault collect? Anish Kapoor, Doug Aitken, Philippe Parreno, Christopher Wool, Rosemarie Trockel, Richard Serra, Maurizio Cattelan, Ugo Rondinone, and more! [The Art Newspaper]
Do you feel like Art Basel Miami Beach is far away? Oh, what a fool you are! Art Basel Miami Beach is so, so soon. Art Basel Miami Beach is essentially tomorrow—you will wake up and it will be time to go to Miami for Art Basel Miami Beach. And so we have a pretty surprisingly comprehensive, two-part guide to parties at Art Basel Miami Beach via Paper magazine, complete with a quote from Marc Spiegler and an item about moving the vernissage from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning, thus allowing the real VIPs more breathing room. They don’t have all the details, though. The DJs for the Disaronno Terrace “are TBA.” Waiting with bated breath. [Paper]
