Thanks to Dazed & Confused for pointing out this Paul Fryer installation that was up for the duration of Frieze.

At the Church of the Holy Trinity Marylebone, Paul Fryer replicates the heavens and earth to demonstrate man´s megalomaniacal folly.

He [] displays the consequences of man´s hubris with a figure of a child-sized angel trapped in telegraph wires, recalling his 2007 ´Martyr´ installation, where he depicted the accidental death of a lineman from falling onto wires as modern-day image of Icarus.

Zak Smith’s latest solo exhibition at Fredericks & Freiser gallery opens this Friday, October 10. From the press release:

Midnight in the Empire features compulsively dense abstract works, a grab bag of drawings and paintings on different subjects, as well as the latest installments of “Girls In The Naked Girl Business”–Smith’s ongoing series of portraits of acquaintances and friends in the sex industry. The exhibition also includes “Drawings I Did Around The Time I Became A Porn Star”—a sprawling autobiographical series of sketches recording Smith’s days and nights working as “male talent” in the adult film industry. In Spring 2009, Tin House Books will publish this wall-size work under the title We Made Porn along with 300 pages of Smith’s written observations on those experiences.

The back gallery will display two of Smith’s ongoing collaborations with artists Nicholas Di Genova, Shawn Cheng, Sean McCarthy, John Mejias, Craig Taylor, and Matt Wiegle.

Opening Reception:
Fredericks & Freiser
536 West 24th Street
6-8 pm

In a bout of self-promotion (which I hope to keep to a minimum), I wanted to inform our readers that the show that Alex and I curated and have been working on for so long is finally open.  The reception for the LouvreFRITOS will take place tomorrow, Friday, October 3rd at Cuchifritos gallery/project space from 5 - 7:30pm.  This is our open invitation for everyone to come and celebrate with us and our friends.  We’re very happy with all of the artists’ contributions and believe the show exceeded our initial aims.  Thanks go to all of the artists, but also to d. yee,  Omar Lopez-Chahoud, Felicity Hogan, Paul Clay, Zeina Assaf, and Jamie Sterns.

Works by Steve Ellis, Shanna Fisher, Gabe Kirchheimer, Rick Prol, Martin Wong, and Infinity SS

Opening Reception:

Friday, October 3, 5.00pm - 7.30pm — Performance by Infinity SS at 6:30pm
Exhibition on view through September 27 - November 8, 2008

Open Monday through Saturday 12:00 noon to 5:30pm. Closed Sundays

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Express yourself on Saturday, October 4, at Art Response’s silent protest event. Bring a canvas (whatever that may be), your creative materials, and a posse.

At 11 am on October 4th, 2008 ART RESPONSE!® will be hosting its first public art project. We are calling on the art community in and around the Brooklyn area to meet in Prospect Park with your supplies in hand. This is a peaceful silent protest where we ask that you paint your reaction to present day America.

At 5 p.m. we will then move under the Arch of Grand Army Plaza. Once there we will present passing pedestrian and mobile traffic with our art in silence for 15 minutes.

Find out where to meet and what to bring here. Art Response is a new non-profit organization.

The NYTimes’ Carol Vogel has been able to squeeze three days worth of coverage (Day one, two & three) regarding the exclusive Sotheby’s London auction of Damien Hirst works titled, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever.  The 223 works were all bought by the auction’s close for a grand total of $200.7 million, exceeding estimates and setting a single-artist auction record.

Vogel reported on the 14th that “Sotheby’s expects the two-day sale to total about $200 million,” and now claims, “the auction house’s high estimate [was] $177.6 million.”  Setting the math and hyperbole aside, Mr. Hirst’s ability to cash in on this clearinghouse of a retrospective speaks to his bankability in an otherwise dismal present for the financial world.

Famed Warhol obsessive Jose Mugrabi, who knows something about markets, may be most prescient in claiming:

Today people believe more in art than the stock market. At least it’s something you can enjoy.

More than something to enjoy, investing in a Hirst (As he claims that “he would no longer be making spin or butterfly paintings and that there would be far fewer dead animals and almost no dot paintings.”) helps support this contemporary art bubble and create a repository of value much more stable than the paper issued over the last few years by the rapidly collapsing world of Wall Street.

In case you hadn’t heard, the 2008 CONFLUX Festival begins tomorrow:

Starting September 11th, over one hundred local and international artists will transform New York City streets into a laboratory for exploring the urban environment at the Conflux Festival. Located in Greenwich Village at the Center for Architecture (a.k.a. Conflux HQ), the four-day event includes art installations, street art interventions, interactive performance, walking tours, bicycle and public-transit expeditions, DIY media workshops, lectures, films and music.

Hosted by Christina Ray (founder of New York art space Glowlab) and a team of New York-based curators, the 5th anniversary of the festival will feature projects including the “$1k Giveaway” by the Federation of Students and Nominally Unemployed Artists; botanical walking tours of Manhattan “narrated” by plants; an iPod video and cell-phone-instructed scavenger hunt through the East Village; an expedition to discover the underground rivers and streams of New York; an interactive installation of New York City trash; solar-powered Morse Code workshops; and London-based collective CutUp, returning for a second year to create fresh work throughout the city. The festival’s keynote speaker is Chris Carlsson, author of the recently-published book: ‘Nowtopia: How pirate programmers, outlaw bicyclists, and vacant-lot gardeners are inventing the future today.’ Be sure to check out all the projects, and see you at Conflux!

Following last week’s news regarding several New York art institutions and their personnel shakeups, the NYTimes reports, both factually and critically, that “Thomas P. Campbell, 46-year-old English-born tapestries curator, [is] to succeed Philippe de Montebello as director and chief executive”of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

No one should be stunned or surprised that the Met’s selection committee chose someone internally whom is well-liked, understated, diplomatic, and rigorous in his work; what is stunning and surprising in the endeavour is that Mr. Campbell wasn’t considered a contender, certainly not vying or lobbying for the job, but instead came to lead the pack of potential directors through frequent recommendation.

I would not expect a flood of contemporary art pouring into the Met any time soon, but there will be many years for him to define his legacy at the museum, shaping our reflections on this point in our artistic history, and all the the rest of it, too.  Mr. Campbell assumes the position on January 1st of next year.

The NYTimes reports that The Museum of Modern Art has finally found a successor to John Elderfield, chief curator of sculpture and painting:

[Ann] Temkin assumes the curatorial post, considered the most prestigious in the field of Modern art, as MoMA gears up for its second growth spurt in less than a decade[…]

In addition to the display of paintings and sculptures, Ms. Temkin’s top responsibilities will include planning special exhibitions and advising the museum on acquisitions.

Taking a scholarly, universal look at modern and contemporary art, Ms. Temkin is expected to reorganise the collection into the new 50,000 square-foot gallery space in the coming Jean Nouvel extension.  Also reported is “[t]he Modern’s next hiring challenge” to replace Alanna Heiss, “founding director of its P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, who retires at the end of the year.”

Further uptown, the Guggenheim has confirmed that Richard Armstrong, whom stepped down from the Carnegie Museum of Art in June, will be the likely replacement for Thomas R. Krens. Finally setting aside the torrid, final spasms of a Late Modernist-style ego run amok, Armstrong represents “a calmer, steadier presence,” according to Guggenheim insiders that spoke to the Times.  The museum is about to hit middle age, so maybe it is time to take things seriously with the man who helped curate the ‘87, ‘89, and ‘91 Whitney Biennials, respectively referred to as, “somewhat quieter and more contemplative;” “bland, middle-of-the-road;” and finally, “eager to please.”

MSNBC.com has a piece on 798, one of the massive art spaces in Beijing gaining worldwide notoriety and dripping with a hip, trendy sheen unseen in the New York art world in recent times. More impressive is the sheer size of the space, owing to its previous life as a munitions factory.

(ARTINFO) Marc Chagall Window Vandalized; Seven Indicted in International Art-Fraud Schemes; Basel Rejects Claim from Heirs of Persecuted Art Dealer; Permit for Oil Drilling Near Spiral Jetty Denied; (NYTIMES) Russian and Rich: Art’s New Tastemaker; (ARTFORUM) Sugar Rush — Terence Koh’s Asia Song Society opening reception; Cory Arcangel live and the opening of the new Galapagos space in Geek Chic; (BLOOMBERG) Billionaire Chandler Invests $4 Million for Mom’s N.Y. Gallery. [Ed. Note — “The vanity gallery has arrived.”]