Billionaire Hollywood mogul David Geffen, whose ability to use charity donations to embody the principle of selfishness is truly astounding, made—spoiler alert!!!—another gaudy, wasteful, self-aggrandizing charity donation today.
On random days this month, Tilda Swinton (actress, Bowie-enthusiast, badass) will be performing her 1995 piece "The Maybe," which consists of Swinton sleeping in a glass box. In fact, at this very moment, Tilda Swinton is sleeping in a glass box at MoMa for your viewing pleasure.
Tickets went on sale online today for the eight concerts that seminal electronic band Kraftwerk is playing at the Museum of Modern Art in April (one for each album). As is often the case in these situations, a lot of people didn't get tickets. (Your blogger included.) The internet's Jake Fogelnest noticed, and faked a retweet from Kim Kardashian claiming that she'd gotten tickets. And who'd have thought? People bought it.
Trying to convince their clients that "everything ages fast," Brazilian ad agency Moma mocked up some hilarious vintage 1960s-style ads for Facebook, YouTube, and Skype. (Including charmingly broken Brazilian English.) Yes, there's even a Keyboard Cat cameo.
Watching this will either make you want to get your lazy ass to the nearest museum, or theoretically fulfill your monthly quota for culture in two minutes—it all depends on the type of person you are.
Some visitors to Marina Abramovic's "The Artist is Present" exhibit, which features live nude models, have been kicked out of the Museum of Modern Art for groping. And some models are creeped out: "It can be a little sketchy." [NYP]
It's no surprise that Marina Abramović's exhibit at MoMA ended up as a hot topic on The View. It's filled with naked people! Watch as Barbara Walters tries to describe her visit to the show as delicately as possible.
[Lydia Hearst shows a bunch of immovable dolls how this modeling thing is done at the MoMA's Second Annual Film Benefit honoring Tim Burton last night. Image via Getty]
Thehappycorp is an edgy little ad agency that most recently made news for getting Poster Boy to remix some MOMA ads, and getting fired by MOMA for it. Now a tipster says everyone's been fired.
MoMA, which allegedly stands for "Museum of Modern Art," has fired a guy for wantonly associating the MoMA name with art, of the modern variety.
Well now, our vandalartist friend Poster Boy has become embroiled in an edgy art world to-do! He's out doing authorized vandalmixes of MOMA posters. Uh, or is he? Yes he is. Is that bad?
Transplanted UK songstress M.I.A. interviews visual artist Kehinde Wiley in this month's Interview, but as usual she ends up with the more interesting quotes. Despite the fact she lives in Bed-Stuy with her fiancé Ben Brewer, she calls New York a wasteland for young artists, and looks back nostalgically on her time in her native war torn Sri Lanka. Is she about to piss off her considerable fanbase again?The visual artist and musician tells her friend Wiley that, "Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like it has peaked in culture. The Village Voice called it McHattan. It's just become impossible for young, creative artists to live in New York." Should she finish that sentence with "and afford to buy my concert tickets?" Considering the rising hype from this cultural wasteland is what brought the multi-talented musician and artist to prominence in the first place, her subsequent crack that she detects an overwhelming "feeling of entitlement" from the city's denizens is bound to turn off some of her unemployed, struggling supporters. She recalls attending a recent event at the MoMA:
To mark the award to Jean Nouvel of the Pritzker prize, here's a reminder of the French architect's plan for an extraordinary skyscraper in Midtown. By winning the Pritzker, the equivalent of a lifetime's achievement award in the profession, Nouvel has improved the chances of the proposed 75-story tower for the Museum of Modern Art, on 53rd Street. The architect's first great building, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, resembled a high-tech recreation of a Sultan's palace; this double spire looks like it jumped from the set for The Fifth Element, missing only the flying yellow cabs darting between the buildings.
This afternoon, as Book Expo America begins, Tina Brown and Doubleday hosted a luncheon at MoMA's The Modern to celebrate the release of The Diana Chronicles. In the back room, like dwarves, each of the seven tables came with an adorable author of note. Ian McEwan, Kate Christensen, Jeffrey Toobin, Sebastian Faulks, Valerie Martin and Dan Wallace were the literary set pieces and their books, except Brown's (it's still unpublished, though excerpts will be in next week's Vanity Fair), were liberally distributed throughout. We counted two seersucker suits and more than one pair of Converse. The group could choose between sea bass with coco beans and spring vegetables "au pistou" or beef strip loin with morels, wilted lettuce and yukon gold salad. Tina Brown was fashionably late.
On June 3, a retrospective of 40 years of sculptor Richard Serra's work opens at MoMA. But first, he will be feted in traditional New York socialite-art-world style, with a fancy dinner at the home at Jo Carole Lauder (mom of Aerin, wife of Ronald, daughter-in-law of Estee!) next Tuesday, the 29th. Let's take a look at the guest list and menu!
