‘Times’ Editorial Chief Andy Rosenthal, UnpluggedMEDIA
• Incoming Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes may well spin off the company’s huge cable unit, but a sale of Time Inc. looks unlikely since the small potential proceeds (and big tax penalty) would little benefit a company of Time Warner’s size. [NYT]
• Times editorial-page editor Andy Rosenthal calls all executive editors, including Bill Keller and his own father, crazy. Sweet. [Radar]
• Rupert Murdoch is confirming to all his friends he plans to bring in Times of London editor Robert Thomson to become the Journal’s publisher as part of an “Aussie invasion” in the first few months of next year. [Guardian via Media Mob/NYO]
party lines
Bloomberg Meets Ganek and Touts HerLast night found the Guggenheim, hosting a book party for Danielle Ganek’s Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, an art-world tell-all, appropriately crawling with Upper East Side collector types. “Is Larry [Gagosian] here yet?” was the recurring whisper up and down the spiral gallery — until an even heavier hitter dropped in. At around 7:15 p.m., many burly security guards began to traverse the crowd, and soon several handlers were ushering in none other than Michael Bloomberg. Awkwardly, the mayor was not there for the festivities: He’d come specifically to take in Alyson Shotz’s “The Shape of Space,” the title piece of Guggenheim’s current here’s-a-little-something-while- we’re-renovating exhibit. No matter. The Lulu people saw a good chance, and they took it. A lightning-quick negotiation took place behind the wall-like sculpture, and within a minute, the mayor was holding up Lulu Meets God for the cameras and being snapped mid-chitchat with the author. After another minute of this, the genial if slightly befuddled Bloomberg made a brisk exit, with the muscle clearing the way. The party, having officially bested its own Scheduled to Appear list, pressed on. —Michael Idov
cultural capital
MoMA, Guggenheim Experts Say You’d Be Better Off Buying Real EstateWith the big-money contemporary-art fairs in town last week and the big-money contemporary-art auctions set for this week, we had to wonder whether all these big-tickets works are good investments. “No Picasso is worth what people are paying today,” MoMA president emerita Agnes Gund told us at a party for Joel Gray’s photography last week. “They just aren’t that valuable in comparison. There are really Van Goghs and drawings that are worth more.” So where should you put your money? “Real estate is always the better investment because real estate will always be here, but the prices of art fluctuates,” she said. “Oops, I guess I shouldn’t say that!” Guggenheim director Lisa Dennison concurred. “I’d have to say real estate,” she said. “You can live in it, you can hang art in it, and the prices seem more reasonable.” Real-estate prices seem reasonable? “As a museum director, it’s hard for me to say you should invest in art.” —Justin Ravitz
cultural capital
Guggenheim Presents Hugo Boss Prize; Winner Gets Cash, Show, Dinner Next to Dennis Hopper
There were about 1,300 people crammed into the Guggenheim for the Hugo Boss Prize party last night, and virtually all of them were in black, as if by commandment. (The crowd, curling up the building’s ramp, looked like one enormous, dark martini-carrying centipede.) The $50,000 prize, funded by the German clothing company and administered by the Guggenheim Foundation, is presented every other year and, since its founding in 1996, has become the U.S. equivalent of Britain’s very big-deal Turner Prize.
