Batman inspired Thierry Mugler boat - The Thierry Mugler Spire Speedboat

Speed-freaks and fashionistas will dig the Batman boat by runway designer Thierry Mugler modeled by Spire Boat Builder, set to debut in September this year in the 2011 Monaco Yacht show. The boat is a blend of nostalgic 50s era chrome and tailfin-inspired car aesthetic with the comic book style of Bat mobiles. But designing for a floating lifestyle maybe a new trend.

Aquariva by Marc Newson

Batman inspired Thierry Mugler boat - The Thierry Mugler Spire Speedboat

Speedboats and yachts have become the new luxury art objects after Gagosian Gallery launched Aquariva by Marc Newson which combined Italian riviera chic from the 60’s with the best of aerodynamic design by Riva

Batman inspired Thierry Mugler boat - The Thierry Mugler Spire Speedboat

Other nautical inspirations include the Greek billionaire art-collector Dakis Joannou’s Jeff Koons-commissioned work for his yacht Guilty. Koons’ idea came from WWI  boat-camouflaging techniques called razzle dazzle, or razzle camouflaging, but his angular abstract shapes also recall pop-art by Roy Lichtenstein.

The Jeff Koons' designed boat for Dakis Joannou

Dennis Ingemansson designed green concept boat

Dennis Ingemansson designed concept boat

Simon de Pury, turning law and reason on its head, in front of Maurizio Cattelan's Frank and Jaime, 2002. Edition of 3. Estimated at $1-1.5 million. Photo credit:Kisa Lala

Let the drum-rolls begin – Simon dePury, the market-savvy chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company, was at hand to christen the new Park Avenue location for the inaugural preview of the Part 1- Contemporary Art Evening Sale. The collection, entitled ‘Carte Blanche,’ curated by Phillipe Segalot, former international head of Christie’s Contemporary Art, is scheduled for auction November 8, 2010, with a low-estimate of $80,000,000.

Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy) 1998-99.Ektacolor photograph. Edition of 2 plus artist proof. Estimated at $1-1.5 million

Phillips’ move uptown to the new 25,559 square feet space at 450 Park Ave will extend their buyers’ circle beyond the Meatpacking District, and bring them closer to their bidding rivals Sotheby’s and Christie’s. “The sale will be a game-changer in the way auctions are being prepared,” said Simon de Pury.

Simon de Pury looking pleased in front of the inverted cops' of Maurizio Cattelan's Frank and Jaime. Photo credit: Kisa Lala

Paul McCarthy, Mechanical Pig, 2005. Edition of 3 +1 AP. Estimate $2.5-3.5 million

Takashi Murakami, the poster child for the show, is his own best salesman. Riding high on his Versailles exhibition, he currently commands high prices (listed estimate of $4-6million for Miss KO²), but his work, though astonishing at first, can quickly turn dreary on the twentieth reiteration. It’s unfortunate for Warhol that his career ended before the Age of Reproduction fully took hold, because with the multiplicity of editions that abound, even Walter Benjamin would be baffled by the soaring and undiminished value of an ‘original’.

But sometimes, a reproduction, as in the case of Cattelan’s Stephanie, maybe a better bargain than its original.

Maurizio Cattelan, Stephanie, 2003. Edition of 3 + 1 AP Estimate: $1-1.5 million

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #153, 1985. Edition of 6. Estimate: $2-$3 million

View of Phillips de Pury's space at 450 Park Avenue with upper tier skyboxes for premium clients. Photo: Kisa Lala

Jeff Koons, Hand on Breast, Courtesy of Luxembourg and Dayan Gallery

It has been twenty years since Jeff Koons’ show Made in Heaven opened at Sonnabend to busloads of cruising tourists – unleashing endless debate, was it art, was it porn, and did it successfully titillate…the mind?

Made in Heaven has come back down to earth, to the Upper East side gallery, Luxembourg and Dayan where it is celebrating its 20th anniversary incarnation, and remains if not new, surprisingly timeless. The gallery has released a catalogue of the works with an informative essay by Alison Gingeras in which she posits that Koons’ career can be dissected in terms of what came before and after the exhibition of these paintings, “with Made in Heaven he broke away from the aloof and ironic sphere of the art world ‘brat pack’ into a perilous zone of full exposure,” she says. Although Koons’ reputation for cheekiness was already established by such works as Michael Jackson and Bubbles, (1988), and his stainless steel Rabbit, (1986), he catapulted into celebrity after his collaboration with Illona Staller (better known by her porn-star moniker, Cicciolina) who was already at the time a championed porn-star member of parliament.

Jeff Koons, Violet Ice (Kama Sutra) 1991 Colored Glass, Courtesy of Luxembourg and Dayan

Jeff Koons, Ponies, 1991 Oil inks silkscreened on canvas228.6 x 152.4 cm (90 x 60 inches)

By weathering the controversy as well as he did, Koons solidified into his persona of invincibility. I recall Koons discussing his paintings years later at Columbia University over a slide show of Ilona Staller’s parted bottom, when he silenced a hall full of snickering students by his deadpan remarks on the generosity of his then, ex-wife’s rear-end. By the purported innocence of his biblical fantasies with its garish backgrounds along with his choice of medium, painting, and price (they are oil inks silkscreened on canvas, having sold for as much as $2-3million), Koons astutely distances himself on many levels from prosaic pornography. Still, so many years later we find ourselves unable to reproduce (definitely on the web) most of the works from this collection, which elevates timeless human lovemaking into  celestial heights, both spiritual and kitsch.

Despite the high and lows of his relationship with Staller, and the custody battles over his son Ludwig, Koons remained faithful to his original, sinless vision. And one hopes that Ludwig, now nearly twenty years older, also celebrates his well-documented conception, having been so lavishly conceived out of a union made in heaven.

Jeff Koon’s Made in Heaven, Paintings are on view at Luxembourg & Dayan October 6, 2010 – January 21, 2011 – Monday through Friday, from 11AM to 4PM – 212 452 4646

Gavin Brown's Enterprise transformed

On Saturday night, Gavin Brown’s West Village Enterprise played host to the launch of Rob Pruitt’s first collective monograph, Pop Touched Me. A Barbour-clad Pruitt sat perched behind a table, taking up to five minutes to personalize each patron’s book (while an annoyed Brown shouted at him to “hurry it along”). A pack of gum was an essential prop, as he chewed a new piece for each book, spitting it into the title page and, folding it over so as not to stick, inscribed, “My DNA” above.

“Thomas,

Thanks for the support, I want to fuck you.

-Rob,” read one personalized inscription.

In between signings, Pruitt rationalized the copious testimonials lining the pages of his book: “I knew that I didn’t want to have an essay by some big, fancy art writer saying, ‘Oh, this work is just so fabulous, it’s been overlooked for the past twenty years.’ Something that I’d essentially have to pay for that would flop up my position in the art world so, instead, I asked two hundred or so associates—people I have done projects with over the years—to write something heartfelt about me. Some of the things are nice and some aren’t so nice, but I think that it’s a really clear message about what it is that I do.” Marc Jacobs, Jeff Koons, and John Waters are just a handful of those you can expect to find hiding in the pages, renouncing and praising the artist’s artist.

Jeffrey Deitch, who leaves for the west coast June 1^st to clean house at MOCA, was one such friend and collaborator on hand to pay homage to Pruitt’s career. “Rob has been an inspiration for me for years. I’ve known him since the beginning. I knew him when he was a gallery assistant at Sonnabend because I was always there with Jeff Koons and Rob was always coming out of the back room. I’ve followed him from the very beginning as he followed his vision as an artist and I was there for all the ups and the downs, too.”

In 1985, when billionaire Greek industrialist Dakis Joannou bought the first piece of his now world-renowned contemporary art collection—a basketball signed by Dr. Jay submerged in a tank of water and simply titled “Equilibrium”—it started two chain reactions. One, Mr. Koons would never have to worry about people buying his work again, as Jonnau has been very successful in buying up most of it for his monolithic museum in Athens. Secondly, Joannou would be very adept in helping to solidify emerging artists and future greats (Terrence Koh, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami), as well as helping to shape the very nature of collecting.

And thus, in the middle of last week, the world got the first look at Jeff Koons’ curatorial debut: “Skin Fruit: Selections for the Dakis Joannou Collection.” On how he chose the pieces for the exhibition, Koons told SPREAD ArtCulture: “I did everything very intuitively. I’ve known Dakis since 1985, and from meeting with him and following the collection from that time, I just wanted to try and capture what I felt represented his interests and his ambition and broadness in collecting contemporary art…but very intuitively.”

SPREAD ArtCulture: Is this your first of many curating efforts?

Jeff Koons: I think artists always curate their own work, but I have an Ed Paschke show that will open in about two weeks that I will curate that I brought together. But it’s like anything: When you’re creating an artwork, you’re just following your interests, and in curating, it’s the same thing. But it’s intuitive, there’s a lot of great work. Some of the best art pieces, some of the best works in the collection, aren’t here. Maybe they’re on loan or it’s an artist’s work that didn’t it within this context of looking at the body.

SAC: How did you choose the pieces in this show and under what context?

JK: It’s just my intuition. I would go through the collection and choose works that I felt represented Dakis’s desire with the collection, and I would go back through and go over them again, and I would find that I was always coming up with the same things. And I made models of the museum; I would lay things out and they developed their own relationships, and it’s just the same when you’re following your own ideas and creating your own works that this happens. It got to a point where if I would try and move something on one of the floors, and take it from one location to another, for me, it just wouldn’t work.

Some of the artists we were able to speak to at the opening, such as Terence Koh, were far less articulate about their involvement in the show:

A sculpture by Terence Koh

SPREAD ArtCulture: Tell me about your involvement in Skin Fruit.

Terence Koh: I was just chosen.

SAC: What are you working on now?

TK: Drinking water.

Koh was the only artist to have sculptures, as well as paintings, in the show.

Some patrons, such as the Chelsea behemoth Tony Shafrazi, were able to weigh in with the learned authority of and award-winning curator (Shafrazi was the recipient of Rob Pruitt’s “Best Group Show” in 2009 at the first ever Art Awards):

"Noodles" by Urs Fischer

SPREAD ArtCulture: What do you think of the show?

Tony Shafrazi: I love the show! I think it’s an eclectic wonderful representation of what’s going on. Dakis is a great collector, and has been for many years, and you see such a great mixture of young, new work, such as been selected from a great many things. I love this Fischer piece right here (Urs Fischer’s “Noodles”), don’t you just love it? It’s one of my favorite pieces in the place. Every piece in here is interesting.

Charles Ray's "Aluminum Girl"

"Fall '91" by Charles Ray (foreground); Terence Koh's "Chocolate Mountains" (background)

Charles Ray's "Revolution Counter-Revolution"

A piece by Downtown favorite and partner of the late Dash Snow, Dan Colen

Dan Altmejd's calamitous "Giant"

Maurizio Cattelan's very bland and largely pedantic "All," an eight-piece installation featuring life-size body bags carved from Carrara marble

"Untitled (Jack)" by Paul McCarthy, which could be a prop straight out of Kubrick

A wonderfully whimsical and weird colloboration by the team of Paul McCarthy and Paula Jones

A wonderfully whimsical and weird colloboration by the team of Paul McCarthy and Paula Jones

There seemed to be a very even split among opening-night patrons as to whether or not the show was a success. Check it out for yourself until June 6th and let us know what you think.

François Pinault with the architect Tadao Ando on the Grand Canal. Photo: Graziano Arici

At the entrance to the city of Venice, parting the waters between the Giudecca and the Grand Canal like a ship’s prow, is the Dogana di Mare, the Sea Custom House from 1677. The Dogana was the port of entry policing the lucrative trade from the Silk Road of exotic cargo from the Orient and a beacon of medieval power, like the Lighthouse of ancient Alexandria. Long neglected, this crumbling decaying watchtower reclaimed attention when it was sought by the Guggenheim Foundation,which with Zaha Hadid as architect, coveted its premises to host its own collection. But in the end, Venice favoured François Pinault’s plans, who, having dropped the Île Seguin project on the Seine, was looking for a second home for his private collections, already installed in the Palazzo Grassi across the canal.

Pinault chose Tadao Ando to construct a modern museum out of the ruins of the Dogana. Guidelines for historical preservation restricted modifications to the façade, and so to create a contemporary space, Mr. Ando created an inner wall, parallel and separate from the historical foundations matching the triangular tip of Dorsoduro Island. To keep the art dry, one of the difficult phases of renovation was to waterproof the shell of the building to protect against water damage from Venice’s notorious annual flooding during the Alta Aqua.

Punta Della Dogana, Charles Ray's Boy with Frog, 2009, and aerial view of tip.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Blood), 1992 and Maurizio Cattelan Untitled, 2007, Taxidermied horse

The triumphant awakening of the Punta Della Dogana from its hundred years of dormancy—coinciding with its first exhibition of artwork from Pinault’s own collection curated by Francesco Bonami and Alison M. Gingeras—called Mapping the Studio, which addresses the art’s trajectory from the private studio of the artist —via the collector—to the public domain of the viewer. Ms. Gingeras has also curated Pop Life at the Tate Modern recently, and Francesco Bonami is slated to be co-curator for the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Stepping into the Dogana for the first time, I was struck by the minimalist grandeur of the interior, which is a melding of medieval brickwork with Ando’s austere vision. I passed through Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ scarlet-beaded curtain, hanging like drops of blood, into an entombed and autonomous world, futuristic and separate from the bustle of ancient Venice outside. Displayed on multiple levels, the collection is a tribute to Pinault’s exquisite taste and curatorial decisions, which play with architectural light and space. Jeff Koons’ Bourgeois Bust is silhouetted by the semi-circular windows, which frame the Venetian gondoliers below, serenading their love-boat passengers. Although the collection has scattered elements of whimsy—Maurzio Catellan’s taxidermied horse absurdly stuck on the wall (a reversal of a trophy head) and Cy Twombly’s colourful and calming frescos—there are works that demand darker contemplation, such as the Chapmen brothers, Fucking Hell and Paul McCarthy’s Train, Pig Island. The curators wed established artists with newer ones, along with works by the same artist spanning a passage of time that diverge in emotion. Alison Gingeras says of Pinault as a collector, “What is interesting is his choice to follow twenty artists. Not only is he loyal to them, but he also discerns what is new in their work. He tends to choose artists that evolve, who do not continually express the same message or produce the same works over and over.”

Jeff Koons, Bourgeois Bust – Jeff and Ilona, 1991, marble.

Outside at the prow of the building is Charles Ray’s Boy with Frog, commissioned by Pinault for the Punta della Dogana. It is a take on Donatello’s David (c1440), and instead of the head of Goliath he holds in his fists a frog, and captures in his wondrous gaze a sense of astonishment at his own creative prowess.

“Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection,” Venice, Italy.  All installation Views and Photos Courtesy Punta della Dogana & © Palazzo Grassi SpA. Foto: ORCH, orsenigo_chemollo

A self portrait of the one and only Michelle du Bois

This Friday night marks the opening of Zoe Crosher’s latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Michelle du Bois, the American-born escort who worked her way across the Pacific Rim in the 70s and 80s. It still remains a mystery as to how exactly Crosher obtained these photographs—and she’s not telling, though it is speculated that du Bois herself bequeathed the massive archive to her fellow shutterbug.

Crosher and co-curator of the first du Bois project, Leslie Grant, explain their work in typical artistic prose: “This project explores the larger-than-life persona and culturally-weighted sexuality found in the wonderous archive and visual fragments of Michelle du Bois. An American woman who traveled in Japan as a prostitute in the 1970s and 80s, she took, collected, kept and bequeathed unto us hundreds of tourist photographs, family snapshots, and pornographic images of herself.”

Crosher and Grant add, “These casual and amateur snapshots of her posing throughout the Pacific Rim propose a complex of disparate but interrelated discourses, including notions of the archive, the role of photography in relation to narrative, story-telling, and personal identity, the politics of private and public, her fetishization of the East and issues surrounding family albums and vernacular images. Her exotic everyday proposes an identity that rises from within rather than any social construct imposed upon her from the outside.”

A collection of photos from Crosher and Grant's first du Bois-inspired show, The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois

The first du Bois-inspired show, The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois, opened in Claremont, California in 2008. Crosher’s newest fete to du Bois will be exhibited at DCKT Contemporary in New York from January 8 to February 14, 2010. The Unraveling of Michelle du Bois elucidates Crosher’s fascination with du Bois and her sexually charged journey and, though still an archive (of epic proportions), transcends onto an elevated plain with the passionate assimilation  of Zoe Crosher.

While the photographs were taken by du Bois, Crosher lends her hand to the delivery by blowing-up images and contrasting them against each other in a veritable tumultuous harmony. In the tradition of Jeff Koons’ upcoming curatorial debut at the New Museum, it’s a striking example of how far art travels when the hands of multiple artists help push it along.

Nothing could stop Art Basel from having another successful year in Miami. Not a recession, not adverse conditions—though heavy rain and flooding destroyed a few works of art—could keep the droves of people from returning to south Florida and jamming the aisles of all participating spaces and the streets of the Design District.

What felt like most of Miami—and New York, LA, and Europe’s art communities—flocked mostly to the Miami Convention Center in search of fine art and design. The more adventurous patrons made their way across the causeway and back to the mainland.

Comparing SCOPE to Art Basel at the Convention Center is like comparing the Uptown and Downtown scenes in New York; they’re total opposites. For those who have never been, Art Basel is made up of several different parts: Art Basel, SCOPE, Pulse, Art Asia, and the bevy of neighborhood galleries that fling open their doors during the week and curate exhibitions of their own. Truth be told, these are often the most interesting shows to experience, as they have no preconceptions and are akin to Dash’s old shows at Deitch circa 2005: completely uninhibited.

New York Street Artist Judith Supine's Newest Work

One such show was “Art Whino,” which was held at Charcoal Gallery on 1st Avenue in Miami. A somewhat industrial and raw space, the exhibition was curated with the likes of Barry McGee and early Shepard Fairey in mind. Silkscreens as far as the eye could see, paired with stencils on canvas…on top of other stencils on canvas, chunky oils, and collages. Paired with knowledgeable curators and the artists themselves mixing with their constituents, it had a refreshing absence of the structured art-fair feeling.

"It's Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away," at Charcoal Gallery's Art Whino

In the big top, Gagosian and Deitch were the undisputed heavy-hitters. Jeffrey brought out his customary big guns—Julian Schnabel, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, Keith Haring, Swoon, and Ryan McGuiness—while Gagosian countered with the likes of Richard Prince, Basquiat, Warhol, and Jeff Koons.

Barry McGee's "99 Bottles on the Wall"

"Aung San Suu" by Shepard Fairey at Deitch Projects

Jeff Koons at Gagosian

Stay tuned for more Art Basel updates throughout the week.

"Untitled" by Urs Fischer, Marguerite de Ponty 2009. Mixed mediums.

There’s something to be said about an artist who doesn’t take himself too seriously, whose whimsical approach to his art can shine forth and resonate in those who know little about his previous work, connecting them to the piece as much as the adept patron.

“Marguerite de Ponty,” Urs Fischer’s new exhibition that recently opened at the New Museum, has, in certain instances, just the right amount of charm to accomplish this. There are several sculptures, over the course of the three-floor exhibit, whose malevolent disposition—a lamp post that looks like it was melted in an inferno, a piano seemingly dismantled by baseball bats, and crutches that appear to have been stolen from their owner and glued to the floor just out of reach—is quelled by magnificent pastoral hues.

"Noisette" by Urs Fischer, Marguerite de Ponty 2009. Mixed mediums.

“Noisette” is another piece that is sure to be a crowd pleaser for the weekend gallery warriors and keeps visitors to the museum on their toes–a pink latex tongue that pokes out of a 3-inch glory hole in the wall and wiggles around briefly before disappearing for an indeterminate amount of time, thanks to laser technology. It ends up being a contribution that feels arbitrary and like little more than a Surrealist joke.

“Last Call Lascaux,” an exact, actual-size color image of the space printed as wallpaper, is the going favorite among visitors. This too is pink, the result of photographing the entire white empty space—ceiling and skylight included—inch by inch without adding more lighting. The trompe l’oeil is clearest when you examine the public-safety signs. By law they could not be removed, so they’re shadowed by images of themselves. In all, it is as if Mr. Fischer had discovered a space within a space and it were, literally, a twilight zone.

The show dies when it reaches the second and final floor, the exception greeting you as you step off the elevator. “abC” is suspended from a steal i beam that visitors pass by when entering the final floor. A bird that appears to be perched on a moon rock with a chain around its neck? This piece could be the anchor on Dakis Jonnaou’s Jeff Koons-designed yacht “Guilty.” It’s a compelling piece that may just be elevated to this level of acclaim by the rest of the free-standing statues that make up the remainder of the exhibit.

"abC" by Urs Fischer, Marguerite de Ponty 2009. Cast aluminum, steel chain, iron particles.

“Service à la Française,” a 51-piece installation of polished stainless-steel boxes in different sizes; the five exposed planes of each are printed with highly detailed color images of five views (front, back, side, and top) of everyday articles, enlarged to many times their normal size. They include food, children’s and dog’s toys, books, a ladder, and many more.

It’s fun to walk through these objects, as it doubles as a house of mirrors, but in the end, you’re able to find your way out, and the whimsical pieces staged on the higher floors seem detached from the rest of the show. But Fischer, in his first US solo show, didn’t act alone: the show was curated by New Museum veteran curator and Director of Special Exhibitions, Massimiliano Gioni.

“Service à la Française” by Urs Fischer, Marguerite de Ponty 2009. Silkscreen on mirrored chrome steel.

So, was the show a triumph for the young Swiss wunderkind? It’s hard to say. Gioni and Fischer decided against a career survey, opting instead to showcase work from the last two years in a much more domesticated outcome. There were no massive holes jackhammered in the middle of the gallery as he did at Gavin Brown’s space in “You,” nor was there anything akin to 2005’s “Bread House,” which is exactly what it sounds like. He played it safe, and it shows.

New York still has some hope left for 2009: Roni Horn and Gabriel Orozco both have shows opening in the next few weeks, at the Whitney and MoMA respectively.

The Pruitt Award Is an empty champagne bottle surrounded by plastic ice, which is also a fully functioning lamp.

Was the art world ready for its Oscar moment? Regardless of that answer, the first annual Art Awards presented by Rob Pruitt took place last night in the Guggenheim’s rotunda.

A few choice members of the Hollywood glitterati (Kylie Mingoue, Julianne Moore, James Franco) blended into triviality among the bevy of art celebrities that were in attendance. As an extra perquisite, Rob Pruitt recruited as emcees the Delusional Downtown Divas, a satiric troupe of young, hipster women with an art-world pedigree (and a winsome schoolgirl crush on fellow presenter Jeffrey Deitch). In videos interspersed between the presentations, the Divas schemed to infiltrate the art establishment by any means possible. In one segment that was an animated homage to From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, they pitched a tent in the Guggenheim, doing their laundry and shaving their legs in the lobby fountain. In another, they made a pilgrimage to the downtown studio of a wryly shamanic Joan Jonas, deadpanning, “How do you know when you’re performing and when you’re just walking down the street?”

Ms. Jonas took home a lifetime achievement award, as did the curator Kasper Konig. Since the main categories weren’t split along the lines of actor/actress, everyone was keeping an eye on the gender balance, though, in the end, the women nominees ended up taking the majority of the awards home.

The Delusional Downtown Divas and Rob Pruitt

The Kanye-West moment of the evening was undoubtedly art vandal-turned gallery owner Tony Shafrazi’s acceptance speech for Best Group Show of the Year for Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns? Upon taking the stage, Mr. Shafrazi narrowly escaped being pummeled with a dinner roll. His speech was peppered with jeers from spectators, clearly mesmerized by his egregiously narcissistic discourse, “I’ve probably known for a long time that I was great. This award comes as no great surprise to me.” Known more for his scandalous track record than his curatorial capabilities, Shafrazi was arrested in 1974 for spray painting “Kill Lies All” on Picasso’s Guernica when it was on display in the Museum of Modern Art. On the matter of destroying a priceless work of art, he says “I wanted to bring the art absolutely up to date, to retrieve it from art history and give it life. Maybe that’s why the Guernica action remains so difficult to deal with. I tried to trespass beyond that invisible barrier that no one is allowed to cross; I wanted to dwell within the act of the painting’s creation, get involved with the making of the work, put my hand within it and by that act encourage the individual viewer to challenge it, deal with it and thus see it in its dynamic raw state as it was being made, not as a piece of history.” And this was only one of the evening’s colorful winners/presenters.

The 200 guests enjoyed a seated three-course dinner that accompanied the show, and resulted in sucking a lot of energy out of the room, as did the monotone and banal acceptance speeches that seemed to drag on endlessly, the background music to cut long speeches short seemingly overlooked. Guests perked up briefly when Mr. Pruitt bestowed the “The Rob Pruitt Award,” voted on by a committee of one. It went to the artist Cynthia Plaster Caster, who has been making casts of rock stars’ genitalia for decades and is the subject of an upcoming documentary. Ms. Plaster Caster brandished her masterpiece, the Jimi Hendrix, on the podium as Mr. Pruitt giggled, confident that though first awards shows can be bumpy, he had successfully negotiated his way through the ceremony and had begun paving the way for next year. You could see him stealthily reclaiming ownership of the event, reminding guests that the art world will never take itself as seriously as Hollywood.

The final list of winners is:

• Artist of the Year: Mary Heilmann
• Curator of the Year: Connie Butler
• Exhibition Outside the United States: Jeff Koons, Versailles, Château de Versailles, France
• Group Show of the Year, Gallery: Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns? Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
• Group Show of the Year, Museum: The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• New Artist of the Year: Ryan Trecartin
• The Rob Pruitt Award: Cynthia Plaster Caster
• Solo Show of the Year, Gallery: Manzoni: A Retrospective, Gagosian Gallery, New York
• Solo Show of the Year, Museum: Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Writer of the Year: Jerry Saltz