A sure sign of the end of summer, September magazines, beefy as ever, have hit the newsstands. No need to lug them to the beach over Labor Day, we've highlighted the art world tidbits right here.
But first, a look back to the art world's August highlight, the 1999-2000 Art in America Guide. The indispensable directory lists a total of 4,977 galleries and museums (141 more than last year) in its 320 pages. The $15 price tag hasn't changed, but the book has a snappy new design. Editorial matter includes a preview of some forthcoming museum shows, as well as 1998 obits, listings of art schools, an editorial index and a new column called "Auction Highlights."
The guide is brimming with advertisements, as always, but this year a new product has taken over -- art-related websites. Heralding the new millennium, the book opens with page after page of ads for Internet companies. (There were none last year.) Don't know what they're thinking -- they can't possibly compete with Artnet.com.
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Vogue is all over the art world this month, starting with the Guggenheim SoHo's dinner party for the opening of Andy Warhol's Last Supper series, back in early August. The theme of the party was the Last Supper, of course, and apparently the guests all sat on the same side of the 10 tables and ate 300 grilled sardines. According to Vogue, model Stephanie Seymour, who along with husband Peter Brant lives upstairs from the museum, was a Christ-like hostess; she "went around to each of the ten tables -- but no one betrayed her." She did wear a long, sort of robe-like white dress, anyway.
Fashion editors at the Milan catwalks this summer found Calvin Klein to be particularly artistic. According to Vogue, Calvin derived inspiration for his Spring/Summer 2000 men's line from Jasper Johns' White Flag -- the clothes are all different shades of white. Keep him away from the Chris Ofilis!
Vogue also has a one-page "People are Talking About" on drawings dealer Kate Ganz, daughter of the late supercollectors Victor and Sally Ganz. After 15 years in London, Kate is opening a gallery at 25 East 73rd Street in New York in October.
Finally, on page 230, there's a great pic of Cindy Sherman and beau (?) Steve Martin at the Venice Bienniale back in June.
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Impressed by her Braille piece at the Venice Bienalle, Mirabella named artist Ann Hamilton as one of the 25 smartest women in America. Scientist Rhonda Roland Shearer made the list too, for her attempt to prove that Marcel Duchamp didn't find his readymades in hardware stores, but rather was a "cryptographer" who made the objects himself and "planted them as physical 'clues' to his own mathematical system." Mirabella also recognized Brooke Shields, Tina Brown, eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Lauryn Hill, Times fashion reporter Cathy Horyn, Susan Sontag and Chelsea Clinton as brilliant babes.
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Elle did a much less interesting top 25 list -- of "people and things you'll be talking about this fall, and into the next millennium." Quintessential 1990s photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Mark and David LaChapelle were named, all as one entry. Each artist has a major monograph coming out this fall. Like we haven't talked about Avedon and Liebovitz enough?
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Remember when New York magazine reported that director James Cameron copied a Sally Mann photograph without permission and passed it off as one of Leonardo di Caprio's sketches in Titanic? According to a story on the photographer in Elle, Cameron settled with Mann out of court and gave her an unnamed sum of money she used to buy a farm in Virginia.
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In an interview buried on page 358 in W, sandwiched between a bunch of second-rate jewelry advertisements, Brit painting sensation Gary Hume claims he makes paintings -- like the one of Kate Moss -- by tracing images in fashion magazines, since he's "terrible at drawing."
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The theme for the biannual New York Times Fashion of the Times magazine was "no more boring fashion: let the games begin." There was a crossword puzzle, a Madlibs, a "Where's Waldo" takeoff and a Mad magazine style fold-in, among other amusements. Best of all was Karen Kilimnik's paint-by-numbers "Vision of the New Fall Season," two pages of coloring-book drawings of the artist as a model wearing Lagerfeld, Fendi and Alberta Ferretti.
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Artist Tom Sachs spent three and a half hours in an airplane lavatory for his next installation at Mary Boone, Sept. 10-Oct. 23, according to the story behind the story of a New York Times Magazine write-up on former art dealer Tom Healy's swank New York apartment. Sachs' Brillo Boxes adorn a corner of Healy's living room. Daniel Sachs (no relation to the artist) and Fernando Santangelo, who designed the apartment, gave a few tips for a great apartment. No mention of buying cool art, but they did suggest investing in "the best upholstered seating you can afford." Preferably "springs with 12-way ties."
MEREDITH MENDELSOHN is associate editor of Artnet Magazine.
