Bagged: Chanel’s Mobile Art Pavilion

Color us Coco-friendly black and white, but don’t color us surprised: the latest victim of these troubled times is the Zaha Hadid-designed Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion. Somewhat inexplicable even in a flush economy, the traveling, snail-shaped guerrilla gallery, built to house interpretations of Chanel’s iconic 2.55 handbag by such artists as Sylvie Fleury, David Levinthal and Fabrice Hybert, has finally deflated after stops in Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York City.

Now Screening | ‘Dance of the Golden Axe’

Agyness Deyn: platinum-haired pixie, Kate Moss scion, voodoo goddess? Now, thanks to Gordon Hull, a director and contemporary bricoleur of sorts, the fashion model Deyn can add a new credit to her résumé: Erzulie, goddess of love. In our latest T-commissioned film, Hull, founder of the SoHo-based global creative collective Surface to Air, appropriates elements of Afro-Caribbean culture. What emerges is an atmospheric portrait of a pine grove, and a group of soldier-initiates entranced by an ursine coyote who are pushed to perform what the director terms “the desperate act” — all it takes it one puff of Deyn’s (errr, Erzulie’s) magic dust. We’ll have what they’re having.

The Digital Ramble | Geared Up

 

(Bauer Hockey)

The Digital Ramble explores aesthetic topics through materials found online.

The photographer Robbie Cooper’s wonderful pictures and video of kids playing video games got me thinking about athletics: the aesthetics of when people use equipment for play. There’s no shortage of gear being used online. The blog Be Sportier does a good job keeping tabs on new high-tech gear for athletes —

Art Basel Miami Beach | Interview with Ai Weiwei

 

“Bubble” installation by Ai Weiwei.

Of the public art works at this year’s fair, Ai Weiwei’s “Bubble,” a sprawling installation on the lawns of Watson Island, comprising 100 blue porcelain orbs (each is about 20 inches tall and about 30 inches in diameter), is arguably the standout. We caught up with the Chinese artist and provocateur.

What are the difficulties of producing a project of this size?
Firstly, it’s not easy to find a space like this — one that is near water, and has such different lighting throughout the day. As for the material, I found a place in China that used to make porcelain for the emperors, using a technique that’s almost disappeared since there are no emperors these days. And, you know, each of the balls weighs about 90 pounds so bringing them here was a production.

The Digital Ramble | Le Smoking

(Peter Stackpole/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

The Digital Ramble explores aesthetic topics through materials found online.

LIFE magazine made millions of photos available this week — most never before published — through Google image search, and I got digging. Cigarettes turn up everywhere: with Sophia Loren between takes, with Eisenhower after a parade. But it’s tough to enjoy that world-war-era cool when there’s this two-year-old smoking in your face. “Le smoking,” as a phrase, has a bit more of the glamour and sex I sought, even if it only means “tuxedo.”

ABMB | A Fashion Retrospective Starring Dynasty Handbag

 

“Poor Aim” (Sophie Morner)

With Liza Minnelli debuting her new show at the Palace Theater on Broadway and The Moment’s reporting from Art Basel Miami Beach this week, we thought it was important to give some due to the performance art world’s answer to Ms. Minnelli, Dynasty Handbag. With an overexcited tongue, a twitch and a synthesizer, Ms. Handbag (the alter ego of Jibz Cameron) mixes vocal recordings of her self-loathing inner monologues with live songs and writhing dance moves. The result? Cameron is as committed to her performance as Dynasty Handbag should be to Bellevue.

Art Basel Miami Beach | Interview with Ingvild Goetz

The redoubtable Ingvild Goetz has been collecting for more than 40 years. Her private collection, housed in a Herzog & de Meuron-designed glass pavilion in Munich includes more than 3,500 works and an extensive mix of Arte Povera.

Do you believe this year marks the revenge of the Europeans?
I really don’t understand why American collectors don’t attend the fairs when the market is down. They disappear, and yet a lot of them still have money. You just don’t have this at the European art fairs. When you are true collectors, you may lose money but you don’t care if the art market goes up or down.

What was your impression of the collectors’ preview?
There is not a greedy sensibility anymore. I don’t like to chase art —

Now Viewing | An Accurate Illusion

“Industrial Hall (Nike),” 2000, (Frank Breuer)

It’s a shame that truth and illusion weren’t in as fine a balance over the last eight years as they are in an arresting new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition of contemporary photos explores the ways photographers toy with viewers’ expectations of what is real and what is fabricated.

Now Shopping | The Art Basel Miami Wish List

‘‘Lili’s Legs,‘‘ 2008. (Mickalene Thomas/Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York)

In which T’s editor in chief, Stefano Tonchi, jots down remembrances of things passed over.

What I should have bought yesterday at Art Basel Miami….

• Something plush, like a giant, furry, talking orang-outang or a Gelatin teddy-bear sculpture.

Now Serving | Arty Spoons

(Max Lamb)

The 28-year-old British designer Max Lamb has found his niche: spoons. This fall Lamb introduced a collection of utensils at Johnson Trading Gallery in New York that he makes by hand out of bamboo, pewter, driftwood and copper. Using techniques that range from electroplating to whittling, he’s created pieces by hammering copper pipe and nails and by carving branches from Lausanne, Switzerland, where he teaches industrial design. For Lamb, who dreams of making spoons from leather, glass and clay, “the beauty of the handmade is that it allows each spoon to hold the identity of the maker.”