Money on The Wall
Great series of stories on art in the December Vanity Fair.
MONEY ON THE WALL: "From Shanghai to Greenwich, Connecticut, contemporary art is being snatched up faster than the paint can dry, at eye-rattling prices. Ingrid Sischy quizzes five prominent insiders on the forces fueling a multi-billion-dollar industry."
THE SUBJECT AS STAR: Avant-garde director and designer Robert Wilson's latest sensation? The life-size high-definition-video portrait. Previewing Wilson's renditions of Brad Pitt, Steve Buscemi, and other stars, Bob Colacello reports on how—for $150,000—art patrons can commission the performance of a lifetime.
ELI BROAD'S BIG PICTURE: With a $5.8 billion wallet, Eli Broad has built a major art collection and changed the landscape of the museum world—not to mention downtown L.A. Bob Colacello sizes up a philanthropic powerhouse. Photographs by Dennis Hopper and Todd Eberle.
V.F.'S JAZZ AGE CANVAS: Editor Frank Crowninshield gave modernism a home in the pages of Vanity Fair. Sampling the magazine's archives from 1914 to 1936, David Friend presents commanding portraits of such masters as Chagall, Matisse, and Picasso. THE ART UNIVERSE: Where astronomers fear to tread, V.F. maps the constellations, pulsars, and planets of the international art scene.
THE NEW NEW YORK SCHOOL: Using hip-hop heraldry, laptop sorcery, and good old paint-smeared hot pants, a new generation is making it big. Ingrid Sischy and Todd Eberle frame eight of tomorrow's museum stars.
THE WAY THEY WORK: With a nod to Alexander Liberman's The Artist in His Studio, A. M. Homes and Hedi Slimane capture the aesthetics of Banks Violette and Mathew Cerletty.
ENFANT TERRIBLE: For five decades, François-Marie Banier has used every medium to record the life around him and his "family"—Dalí, Yves Saint Laurent, and Johnny Depp among them. Amy Fine Collins explains why he's still Paris's beloved bad boy. Photographs by Jonathan Becker.