HEF HAWKS HIS WARHOLS Playboy Enterprises, publication of the legendary girlie magazine founded and still edited by the septuagenarian Hugh Hefner, has consigned 10 works by Andy Warhol to the spring auctions at Christie's New York, May 16-17. 2001. The works, commissioned to accompany various articles between 1961 and 1985, are apparently culled from the magazine archives.
Top lot is Warhol's Double Torso (est. $600,000-$800,000), a monumental 5 x 3 foot white-on-white double image of a pair of breasts which appears electric blue under ultraviolet light, commissioned for the 1967 Playboy project, "The Playmate as Fine Art." Double Torso is one of only three "ultraviolet" paintings that Warhol executed in the 1960s. (Other artists participating in the paint-a-playmate project, published in the magazine's January 1967 issue, included Salvador Dalí, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist and Tom Wesselmann.)
Other Warhols from the Playboy collection include a series of seven hand-colored photocopy self-portraits from 1969 (est. $70,000-$90,000) and a 1961 watercolor with gold appliqué accents (est. $35,000-$55,000) that is reproduced on the cover of the day-sale catalogue. Playboy is also selling seven Polaroid collages of Warhol superstars from 1974. The Playboy collection is said to exceed 4,000 works.
HAMMER TIME FOR L.A. ART UCLA Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin isn't letting other Los Angeles museums be the only ones to speak the zeitgeist (i.e., "Public Offerings at L.A. MOCA and the forthcoming "Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collection" at LACMA). As its major summer show, the Hammer has scheduled "Snapshot: New Art from Los Angeles," June 3-Sept. 2, 2001, to showcase 25 of L.A.'s hottest young art talents.
So, who are these monsters of the future? They are Mark Bradford, Edgar Bryan, Tessa Chasteen, Lecia Dole Recio, Mari Eastman, Thomas Eggerer, Christie Fields, Monique van Genderen, Katie Grinnan, Aiko Hachisuka, Linda Kim, Deb Lacusta, Liksa Lapinski, Won Ju Lim, Florian Maier-Aichen, Yunhee Min, Kori Newkirk, Jonathan Pylypchuck, Steve Rhoden, Ronald Santos, Bea Schlingelhoff, Alex Slade, Robert Stone, Erick Wesley and Amy Wheeler.
PICASSO ÉROTIQUE IN MONTREAL
The boffo survey of erotic art by Pablo Picasso -- some 50 paintings and sculptures along with 300 etchings, watercolors, prints and drawings -- won't be making it to the puritan U.S.A., though our wilder neighbors to the north jumped at the chance to have the show. "Picasso Érotique," which has them lined up around the block at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris till May 20, comes to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, June 14-Sept. 16, 2001. And as a note for your "high-tech firms and the arts" file, the show is sponsored by Accenture, the recent $10-billion dot-com spinoff of Andersen Consulting.
KUDOS FOR KRUGER
The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is honoring artist Barbara Kruger and actress Anjelica Huston at the fourth annual MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts luncheon on May 17 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. Both receive a bronze plaque designed by Jenny Holzer that features her truism, "It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender." Following the award presentation the fashion designer Escada is introducing the American premiere of its fall 2001 collection.
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