Photo:  New York Magazine / Ben Hassett

On Sunday Night, conceptual artist Jennifer Rubell told the Rosh Hashanah crowd at the Crosby Street Soho Synagogue about art that wasn’t–a familiar subject as the synagogue itself, designed by Dror Benshetrit, falls into the category of art that almost wasn’t but certainly is.

Rubell, daughter of famously prescient collectors, is famous for her food-themed performance art events and happenings. She is also handy with the old testament, having produced a series of installations at the old Dia Center inspired by the book of Genesis.  For example, Adam’s Rib is represented by two thousand pounds of of ribs drenched by honey poured from the ceiling. It’s unclear if Eve was as sweet as her making.

Rubell was artistically fascinated by honey, inspiring at least a  famous New York magazine cover in which she is drenched by the stuff. It is also an apropo theme for the service, honey being traditionally consumed in celebrating the Jewish New Year.  Rubell related how she attempted to create, in conjunction with the city parks department and the best urban beekeepers, a painting of honey by starting with some bees. More specifically, she and her team of apiarists created a bees-wax impregnated canvas at Van Cortlandt park with bee-friendly spaces built in so that the structure would become a natural beehive. The bees would inhabit the structure and create the honey which would form the painting. Godlike in its ambition and lazy all once; to wrest a work of art from nature, but delegate the lifting to the Apiformes.

She built it, and the bees came — but the honey did not; the bees refused to get to work (there is a city union joke in there somewhere). Her only failure amongst her many happenings, Rubell considered the experience once of her most valuable lessons. May you have a sweet new year, but not because you have dominion over that sweetness — you don’t get to decide how or when it will come. But it will come. And with that, the congregation retired for pastrami sliders and some sort of custom honey-vodka cocktail. The bees came through after all.

When I boarded a big white bus near Grand Central Station on Wednesday evening, bound for the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, I had no idea what to expect once I arrived. The evening was billed as a “Persol Magnificient Obsessions Exhibition,” honoring costume designer Arianne Phillips (who worked on W.E. with Madonna) and director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, Mildred Pierce). An email said the work of Douglas Trumbull and Ennio Morricone, along with artifacts from films including Amelia, Far From Heaven, The Last Emperor, Million Dollar Baby, North by Northwest and Pollock, would be displayed.
Inside, I saw Patricia Clarkson and Abbie Cornish looking at the Vionnet gown specially designed for W.E., unpublished illustrations of North by Northwest for Coronet magazine, untitled paintings and drawing by Ed Harris, created in preparation for his film, Pollock, and a detailed look at the color palette Haynes drew inspiration from for Far From Heaven. There were tons of little details like this in the show and if you’re a movie buff, you’ll easily spend a few hours checking out the behind-the-scenes research that goes into filmmaking.
Later, we sipped rum cocktails downstairs, while Twin Shadows was behind the DJ booth. When I took their picture they mentioned they have another gig coming up on Saturday, at Surf Lodge. I’ll be there.

We’ve learned a few things about Karl Lagerfeld during his press tour to promote his new Chanel exhibition, The Little Black Jacket, but the most surprising bit of news to surface has nothing to do with his photography or Chanel.
During an interview with WWD, Lagerfeld was asked about Choupette, his Siamese cat. He revealed that his cat has two personal maids and knows how to use an iPad (take that, Jinxy). Choupette now has her own Twitter account and frankly, the fashion world hasn’t been able to talk about much since.
Admittedly, I got caught up in all of this until I made my way to the Swiss Institute on Wooster Street today, to check out the exhibition in person. The entry way features a gigantic picture of Anna Wintour facing away from the camera in what else? A little black jacket. Inside the space, there are photographs of Kanye West, Olivier Theyskens, Lauren Hutton, Natalia Vodianova and many others, posing for The Kaiser in a Chanel creation.
It’s too bad they aren’t selling jackets on site. One can only imagine how many would be purchased on the spot. While I have yet to acquire my own little black Chanel jacket, I do have a little black Chanel purse. For now, it will have to be good enough.

One hundred artists from the New York art scene, including Aurel Schmidt, Cass Bird, Terence Koh, Olivier Zahm, Cynthia Rowley, Dash Snow, Gordon Hull and Ryan McGinley have painted, drawn and photographed portraits of each other that are exhibited salon-style at The Hole gallery on the Bowery. We stopped by the opening on Thursday night and it was bananas, with crowds of people standing outside and the inside was so uncomfortably hot we couldn’t stand it for too long. Glenn O’Brien and Dustin Yellin made the rounds, presumably sweating. It’s a “cool” exhibition nevertheless and it’s definitely worth checking out.

The gallery is also hosting André Saraiva’s first major solo show, “Andréopolis,” a miniature city installation of wooden, fully lighted buildings that are “re-creations of a hallucinatory vision of New York nightclubs and restaurants.”

Saraiva is the nightlife legend behind Le Baron and the Beatrice Inn, which may explain the fog machines at the show. His work as a graffiti artist has also been featured in the film “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Saraiva’s work has been in demand as of late, with a small print of his recently selling out in 48 hours on art Web site Exhibition A.

Lawrence Schiller’s solo exhibition of Marilyn Monroe photographs debuted last night at Steven Kasher Gallery on West 23rd Street. He was on hand, signing copies of his new book, Marilyn & Me, just published in a memoir edition by Nan Talese/Doubleday. Here’s what Colum McCann had to say about it, “In this short, splendid memoir…in clear, honest straightforward prose, Schiller allows us to dwell in the heart of another time. He captures Marilyn, both in photographs and words, and in so doing he gives us intimate access into one of the great stories of the twentieth century.”
Also, don’t miss the photographs of Paul Newman in the back room. I’m pretty sure he never took a bad picture.

For Kehinde Wiley’s new exhibition, “An Economy of Grace,” he partnered with Riccardo Tisci from Givenchy. Paintings from the Louvre inspired Wiley’s new series of portraits of African-Americans wearing couture. On Saturday evening, there was a line out the door at the Sean Kelly Gallery to check out the exhibition. Later on, the party continued at the Bowery Hotel.

Did you hit up Frieze New York this weekend on Randall’s Island? We had a little drama getting there…managed to get a few tickets for double parking (don’t ask).
We had planned to stay at the fair for a few hours but five hours later, we found ourselves still immersed. Anyway, here is small sampling of what I enjoyed.
Do you recognize any of them? There’s Rudolf Stingel, in the Gagosian booth. Tim Rollins and K.O.S., creating A Midsummer Night’s Dream on thai mulberry paper, Michael St. John’s “scrapbooking,” and Olaf Nicolai on “why women like to buy textiles that feel nice.” Oh, and one of my favorites, George Condo.

I want to meet this guy.

Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Former fashion designer Helmut Lang will open his first art exhibition on Friday, in Greenwich Village. His friends seem cautiously optimistic about the career change. “I think it’s very difficult, very brave for someone who has had such acclaim in one realm to stick his neck out in another and run all the risks that success shields you from,” Neville Wakefield told The New York Times. “I think he’s approaching this with humility. It’s written into the work, whether consciously or not.”

Wakefield worked with Lang, art dealer Mark Fletcher and London gallerist Sadie Coles on the show. “I think it’s changing, but there’s still a kind of odd Berlin Wall between fashion and art,” Fletcher said, to the Times. “A barricade between what’s perceived as a higher art and a lesser one.”

Check out the story here

At the Free Arts NYC event this evening at Eyebeam, works from Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Aurel Schmidt, Todd DiCiurcio, Andre Saraiva, Massimo Vitali, Ben Watts and Stephanie Hirsch (among many others) were auctioned off for charity.
Amanda Ross, Amy Sacco and Mary Alice Stephenson co-chaired the art auction, which drew Blythe Danner, Birdie Bell and a bunch of other art enthusiasts. The bar closed down when the live auction began (bad idea, people!) but each lot sold for approximately $20,000.