Leon Neyfakh | The New York Observer

Copy That! Wait, Don't. Whitney Ponders Problem of Replication in Modern Art

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:31:00 -0500

Earlier this year, the conservation department at the Whitney Museum of American Art was given the task of preparing Claes Oldenburg’s Ice Bag-Scale C for exhibition in a retrospective. The work, a massive, fan-powered contraption 12 feet in diameter made of nylon cloth and polyester resin, was first created in 1971 and had fallen into disrepair while in storage. When functioning properly, the bag was meant to subtly inflate and deflate, evoking something like...

At the Frick, a Focus on the Collector as Art History

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:48:56 -0500

Inge Reist’s father was not interested in the subject of money. A medievalist in the comp lit department at Columbia, he reserved a “certain disdain for business and the stock market,” according to his daughter, and preferred instead to spend his time thinking about more meaningful things. “I think,” Ms. Reist said, “it was just the culture among academics to have this disdain for things that related to commerce.”

Ms. Reist began her career...

Go Jodi Go! Times' Kantor Scores Seven Figures From Little, Brown For Obama Book

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:08:15 -0500

New York Times Washington correspondent Jodi Kantor has secured a stunning seven-figure book deal this week with Little, Brown to write a volume on the Obamas.

The deal was the result of a heated citywide auction, and was brokered by independent lit agent Elyse Cheney. It comes on the heels of the 34-year-old reporter’s New York Times Magazine cover story on the Obamas’ marriage, which argued that “the Obamas mix politics and romance in a...

Drudge's Henchman Hits Big Time With Book

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:16:34 -0500

Andrew Breitbart, a self-described “accidental culture warrior” who used to work with Matt Drudge on the Drudge Report, is writing a how-to book called Thinking Big, aimed at frustrated non-leftists who want to fight back against what the author calls the “Democrat media complex.”

The book will be published by Grand Central, an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, which paid Mr. Breitbart an advance worth more than half a million dollars. Mr. Breitbart will...

Outside Art

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:42:30 -0500

On the day before his first day as director and head curator of the Public Art Fund, Nicholas Baume took the ferry to Governors Island to admire a group show of emerging artists called “This World & Nearer Ones.” The show was a multidisciplinary affair that consisted of works including a tent city and a cinder-block wall riddled with bullet holes. It had been curated and mounted by Creative Time, an organization that most...

Philip Gourevitch Stepping Down as Editor of The Paris Review

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:34:02 -0500

Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch told his staff this afternoon that he will be stepping down in April after five years on the job.

Mr. Gourevitch, who is also a New Yorker staff writer, said in an interview that his decision to resign was motivated by a desire to focus his energies on his writing, and that his current book project, which is about Rwanda, is proving too time-consuming to allow for a successful balancing...

Kyle Pope Is the Next Editor of The Observer

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:09:31 -0500

Kyle Pope, formerly the number two editor at Conde Nast Portfolio, has been announced as the next editor of The New York Observer.

Observer publisher Jared Kushner announced the appointment today. Editor Tom McGeveran, who announced last week that he will be leaving the paper at the end of the year, introduced Mr. Pope to the editorial staff at a meeting this afternoon.

Mr. Pope started his career in journalism in 1994 as reporter and editor...

Tony Shafrazi and John Herring After Last Night's Christie's Sale

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:30:22 -0500

After the sleepy Modern and Impressionist Art Sale last night at Christie's, the gallerist Tony Shafrazi and John Herring stood outside and beamed at each other.

"Is this guy a living legend or not?" Mr. Herring said, pointing to his friend. "It's not a question. That's academic."

Mr. Herring and his twin brother, Paul, work together as high-end art dealers, and are known for their discretion. According to a charming 1994 profile in the New York...

MacFarquhar This! Gourevitch's Gal Gets Book Deal With Godoff

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:39:48 -0500

New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar has signed with Ann Godoff at the Penguin Press to write a book, tentatively titled Extreme Virtue, about people with an uncommonly heightened sense of morality. A publishing source said the deal, brokered by Sarah Chalfant of the Wylie Agency, was worth a sum in the high six figures.

Ms. Godoff and Ms. MacFarquhar know one another well, partly because they met through a mutual friend years ago but also...

How to Make It As An Artist In New York 101

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:09:06 -0500

Marco Antonini stood in front of a tiny classroom at the Brooklyn art collective 3rd Ward on Monday night working a PowerPoint and explaining to a group of young artists how to make it in the New York art world.

"The most important thing with collectors is never pull their sleeve," he said. "Never ever. Rich people, they can become very self conscious, and the last thing they want is for you to be nice...

Steve Rubin Named President and Publisher of Henry Holt

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:35:11 -0400

Almost exactly a month after stepping down from his brief post-Doubleday stint as Random House publisher-at-large, Steve Rubin has landed at at the Henry Holt imprint of Macmillan. Mr. Rubin has been named publisher and president of the imprint, thereby leaving current publisher Dan Farley to "turn his attention exclusively" to the children's book division of Macmillan that was formed amid a company reorganization last year. Mr. Farley has been publisher of Holt since...

The Emperor Has No Clothes—And That's O.K.!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:27:25 -0400

Massimiliano Gioni knows how to get what he wants. This is a skill that has served him well over the past few months in his capacity as the curator overseeing the artist Urs Fischer’s takeover of the New Museum. Putting together Mr. Fischer’s logistically treacherous installations, which will open as a show called Marguerite de Ponty on Oct. 28, has required Mr. Gioni to field all of...

Heffernan Proposes Self as Sontag of the Internet

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:23:14 -0400

The New York Times’ Virginia Heffernan has a book proposal out to publishers just in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair, via her literary agent, John Brockman. The former Times TV critic wants to write about her second love, the Internet, which she has covered for The Times Magazine since 2007 in a column called the Medium.

In the proposal, a copy of which was obtained by the Transom, Ms. Heffernan’s book...

Koons on Koons, For Sale at Frankfurt

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:37:30 -0400

Jeff Koons and the British curator Norman Rosenthal are working on a book together that the Wylie Agency is currently shopping to publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The book will be called The Confessions of Jeff Koons, and will take the form of an extended conversation between the two longtime friends.

The Wylie Agency hopes to see Confessions published in the fall of 2010, in coordination with the release of a film...

All the Nude That's Fit to … Bill Keller, Heather Graham Almost Collide at Sotheby's Big Naked Auction Night

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:19:44 -0400

Maria Esposito came to the 18th Annual Take Home a Nude silent charity auction for the New York Academy of Art, held at Sotheby's, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, with five girlfriends, one of them a serious art collector who thought the others would like it if they gave it a try. Ms. Esposito had never been to an art auction before; the only advice her collector friend gave her before sending her out...

The Gallery Is Fake, But the Paintings Are Real

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:00:16 -0400

Oct. 23 will see the release of (Untitled), a satire of the New York art world in the key of The Emperor’s New Clothes that asks what is art, what is hackery and why does it seem like no one in Chelsea wants to admit the distinction.

The film centers around a successful painter (Eion Bailey) whose decorative, abstract canvases hang from the walls of hotels and office buildings, and the ambitious Chelsea gallerist...

Li'l Lionel Trillings Will Have to Fend for Themselves

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:57:17 -0400

Columbia English professor James Shapiro’s undergraduate seminar, “The Book Review,” which teaches skills necessary for students to make it as freelance literary critics, is on indefinite hiatus.

“There are intellectual reasons to teach the course again,” Professor Shapiro wrote in an email, when the Transom asked if a rumor that he’d discontinued the class was true. “But what’s no longer there is the possibility of training a generation of book reviewers, since, as you...

One Bauhaus, Two Shows

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:38:34 -0400

Barry Bergdoll didn’t know there was a major Bauhaus exhibition already in the works in Germany when he raised the idea of mounting one at the Museum of Modern Art at a meeting in January of 2007. Soon, though, the MoMA’s newly appointed chief curator of architecture and design discovered that the three major Bauhaus archives in Germany—located in Berlin, Dessau and Weimar—had been planning for several years for a large scale show that...

Dyin' for Ryan Adams at the Morrison Hotel Gallery: Singer Auctions His Art for Housing Works

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:52:17 -0400

The last lot last night during an auction of Ryan Adams paintings at the Morrison Hotel Gallery was a double whammy: Two paintings, one of a sad face and the other of a happy one. Bidding was momentarily stalled at $2,100 when the artist intervened: “I can change them if they’re not good!” he called.

The line drew big laughs, but more importantly it goosed those who had shown up with money in...

Magnus Opus

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:07:50 -0400

Looking at Magnus Plessen’s paintings feels like squinting through fog: Almost everything is white and what isn’t looks muted and milky. The German painter debuted his work in the United States at P.S.1 back in 2002, and has since had three solo shows here, all of them at the Gladstone Gallery (515 West 24th Street). Comparing this one, on display until Oct. 24, to the first two, you get the impression that Mr. Plessen...

Art Dealer and Author Richard Polsky Dishes on 2009 Art Market

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:43:27 -0400

The West Coast–based art dealer Richard Polsky has a memoir out this week called I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon), that provides a vivid and detailed portrait of the booming high-end art market as it existed until the economy went to pieces last fall. The book tells the story of the author’s long quest to track down an Andy Warhol Fright Wig painting on behalf of a collector who desperately wants one on his...

Love It or Hate It, O'Keeffe's at the Whitney

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:22:28 -0400

There are two types of people Barbara Haskell hopes to surprise with the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition opening on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Whitney Museum of American Art: those who love O’Keeffe for her famous flowers and those who deride her for them.

The show, which consists of more than 130 pieces, highlights O’Keeffe’s little known abstract works, many of which she made early in her career, before her focus shifted to the...

Graydon Carter Won't Be Meeting With McKinsey; Fran Lebowitz: 'If I Needed Advice, I'd Ask Myself!'

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:50:47 -0400

Graydon Carter hosted a book party last night at Monkey Bar, his little restaurant on 54th Street, to celebrate the publication of Lebron James' memoir.

The Observer caught up with Mr. Carter at the party, and it turns out that David Remnick of The New Yorker isn't the only editor at Condé Nast who won't have to meet with the McKinsey consultants currently trawling the hallways of 4 Times Square.

We asked Mr. Carter if...

Graydon Carter Throws Big Bash-ket for Lebron at Monkey Bar

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:54:48 -0400

At 6 feet 8 inches, basketball player Lebron James was obviously the tallest guy at his book party at Monkey Bar last night. One surprising thing, though, was that young literary agent/musician Luke Janklow is almost as tall.

Mr. Janklow, wearing a very clutch necktie and a bulging messenger bag, spent much of the evening talking to his former colleague Eric Simonoff, the agent who represented Mr. James and his co-writer, Buzz Bissinger, on their...

Daily Beast Hires 24-Year-Old Books Editor

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:55:27 -0400

The Daily Beast has hired a new books editor, and he’s a 24-year-old who spent most of the last two years working as an editorial assistant at the publishing house W. W. Norton. He had been promoted to assistant editor shortly before he left for the Daily Beast.

Lucas Wittmann's hire comes about two months after the abrupt departure of the site’s first books editor, Alexis Gelber, who had been a managing editor...

'All Sorts of Delicious Letters': Food Writer M.F.K. Fisher's Grand-Nephew to Write Book About Her, Child, Beard

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:59:11 -0400

Luke Barr, the grand-nephew of the late food writer M. F. K. Fisher, has sold a book about her and her pals James Beard and Julia Child to Clarkson Potter, the food-centric imprint of Random House’s Crown division.

According to Clarkson editorial director Doris Cooper, the book will tell the story of a milestone winter in 1970 when Fisher, Child, and Beard—along with cooking teacher Simone Beck and food writer Richard...

Massive Times Mag Katrina Piece Could Be Book

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:49:44 -0400

The week before Labor Day tends to be a quiet one for book publishing, as agents and editors head for the hills in preparation for the rush of big-ticket book proposals that inevitably come flooding in during the weeks leading up to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Sometimes it pays to get a jump on the action, though—or at least that’s what Janklow & Nesbit agent Tina Bennett seems to have figured when she sent...

After Times Kennedy Leak, Hachette Hires Private Dick

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:47:25 -0400

All hell broke loose at the Hachette Book Group building last week when The New York Times published a story detailing some of the most newsworthy bits contained in the late Ted Kennedy’s forthcoming memoir, True Compass. A spokeswoman for the paper said Times reporters had purchased multiple copies of the book at a bookstore the day before, and, much to the chagrin of Twelve publisher Jonathan Karp and his publicity director, Cary Goldstein,...

Another Wronged Wife Wants to Write About It

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:02:38 -0400

Jenny Sanford, wife of Mark Sanford, the emotionally complex governor of South Carolina, is apparently looking for a book deal.

Following a glowing profile by Rebecca Johnson in the September Vogue, in which Mrs. Sanford was portrayed as an “unlikely heroine” who responded to recent revelations of her husband’s infidelity with stoicism and grace, the first lady put together a book proposal with the help of literary agent Joy Tutela of the David Black Agency.

According...

Naomi Wolf to Write History of the Vagina

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:21:39 -0400

Naomi Wolf is going back to her roots. The journalist and author, who has seemingly been on a break for the past couple of years from writing books on the kinds of feminist themes that made her famous in the early 1990s, has signed on with the Ecco Press for a project tentatively titled A Cultural History of the Vagina.

Ms. Wolf was represented by lit agent John Brockman. Neither was not available for comment....

Seven Months After Collins Collapse, Gillian Blake Joins Henry Holt

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:21:37 -0400

Gillian Blake has been named executive editor at Henry Holt, replacing the recently departed Webb Younce at the Macmillan imprint. Ms. Blake's hiring comes about seven months after severe cutbacks at HarperCollins left her out of work. Her appointment at Holt is just one of several green shoots to have sprouted in the publishing industry in recent months, as a handful of other big-name editors who lost their jobs in the course of last...

How The Times and Andrea Mitchell Made Today Difficult For Jonathan Karp and Cary Goldstein

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:03:00 -0400

People at the Hachette Book Group building winced this morning as the New York Times published a highlight reel from the embargoed Ted Kennedy memoir that Jonathan Karp will be publishing through his Twelve imprint on September 14th. The Times story, which was posted online last night, was picked up widely, and by this afternoon Andrea Mitchell was on NBC proudly holding up a copy of True Compass of her very own and reading...

Simon & Schuster Laid Off at Least Three Last Week

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:20:06 -0400

Two editors at Pocket Books and an editorial assistant at Simon Spotlight Entertainment were laid off in a small round of cuts carried out at Simon & Schuster last week.

Maggie Crawford, the editorial director of Pocket Books, had been with the company for more than eight years, and developed a reputation in the field of women’s fiction. Margaret Clark, who edited books in the Star Trek franchise as part of Simon Spotlight’s...

Scholastic HQ Is Sprayed For Bedbugs, As Infestation Worries Quiet at Penguin

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:45:14 -0400

Scholastic became the second New York publishing house in a week to suffer a bedbug scare this past Friday afternoon, as employees were told to put whatever belongings they needed over the weekend into plastic bags and asked to go home. As was widely reported at the time, a similar scene had taken place at Penguin’s offices in Hudson Square just days earlier.

According to Scholastic corporate spokeswoman Kyle Good, a sniffing...

Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree Has Book Proposal on Gates Arrest, Which Suggests Skip Will Skip His

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:03:57 -0400

Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree is looking to write a book centered on what happened when his client, friend, and colleague Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. was arrested in his home on charges of disorderly conduct last month, an incident that turned the nation's attention to the issue of racial profiling. Several sources confirmed that Mr. Ogletree has a book proposal out to a number of the major New York publishers, and is...

Twin Cities: Portfolio Cover Photo Goes Gloomy for Lethem Jacket

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:09:48 -0400

If the eerie aerial photograph of Manhattan that graces the cover of Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City reminds you of something when Doubleday publishes it this October, do not second-guess yourself. It is indeed the same shot that was used on the cover of the first issue of Condé Nast’s Portfolio when that magazine—now dead—premiered in April 2007.

The eye-catching photo, taken from the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building...

McGinniss Hops Agents (Again), So What's He Working On?

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:05:14 -0400

Author Joe McGinniss has a new literary agent, having signed on with Dave Larabell of the David Black Agency after parting company with David Vigliano last spring.

According to several sources, Mr. Larabell has spoken with publishers about a book Mr. McGinnis has been wanting to write about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the subject of a cover story he wrote for an issue of the now-defunct Portfolio back in March. Mr. Larabell declined...

David Gergen Writing Book on Presidential Transitions For Simon & Schuster

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:35:19 -0400

David Gergen is working on a book about the Obama administration, according to Alice Mayhew, his editor at Simon & Schuster.

Ms. Mayhew declined to go into detail about Mr. Gergen’s project, but characterized it as as being about “watching an administration take hold.”

“It’s early days,” Ms. Mayhew said by phone this afternoon. “He’s writing about this administration and how it takes office, but he’s writing from the perspective...

The New Thing: Books Without Jackets

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:43:24 -0400

September will see the publication of three unusual-looking books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux's No Impact Man by Colin Beavan, Viking's Bicycle Diaries by former Talking Head David Byrne, and Graywolf's The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott. What makes these books so unusual-looking is that, even though they're hardcovers, their cover art is not printed on dust jackets but instead stamped directly onto the boards that hug their pages. The result is a handsome, eye-catching...

Bedbugs at the Penguin Building: What Will Become of All Their Books?

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:50:45 -0400

The Penguin building has a bedbug infestation, as Gawker reported earlier this afternoon. Management sent a memo out to staff yesterday warning them of “an insect issue in certain areas” on several floors. Staff were instructed to vacate the building by 1 p.m. today and not return until Monday while pest control goes in and takes care of business.

The obvious question to ask here is: what will become of all the...

Hyperion's Barbara Jones: 'I Am the Wind of Change in the Book Industry'

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:43:13 -0400

For this week's paper, Pub Crawl interviewed a number of publishing people who started their careers in magazines, and got them talking about what they expected when they got into books and what surprised them once they got there. One of the people we spoke to was Barbara Jones, the former deputy editor of More magazine, who has been working at Disney Hyperion since the spring of 2008. Ms. Jones had a long career...

Notes for Andy Ward, on the Eve of His Move to Random House

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:28:36 -0400

Random House surprised the publishing industry Monday with the hiring of GQ executive editor Andy Ward, who will be joining the editorial staff of the house’s flagship imprint in mid-September. Though Mr. Ward began his career in letters as an editorial assistant at Little, Brown, he has spent the past 13 years working in magazines—the most recent six at GQ, and the seven before that at Esquire. Mr. Ward is just one of several...

Damn, Hoover Was Important!

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:09:27 -0400

Wylie Agency director Scott Moyers has sold a highly sought-after biography of J. Edgar Hoover by Yale history professor Beverly Gage. The book, which Ms. Gage plans to research and write in about four years, was acquired by Wendy Wolf at Viking for several hundred thousand dollars after about two weeks after Mr. Moyers first submitted it to editors. According to people who saw Ms. Gage’s proposal, the book will demonstrate that Hoover’s influence...

Monkey See, Monkey You

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:06:15 -0400

Last week, Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit sold a book called Zoobiquity, about heretofore unrecognized similarities between animal and human pathologies, by UCLA cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers. The prevailing bidder on the book was Knopf, where it will be edited by Jordan Pavlin. According to Ms. Pavlin, the project came out of Ms. Natterson Horowitz’s work at the Los Angeles Zoo, where she served as a consultant in an effort to...

Random House Hires GQ Editor Andy Ward

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:59:00 -0400

Random House just announced the hiring of Andy Ward, a longtime magazine editor who has spent the past six years at GQ. Mr. Ward, who will serve as an executive editor at Random House's flagship imprint under editor-in-chief Susan Kamil, leaves behind Condé Nast at a time when the company is playing host to a team of consultants from McKinsey who are scrutinizing its operations and figuring out what costs can be cut and...

Remember the Grunge Hoax?

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:11:58 -0400

Earlier this week, The New Yorker revealed that a Talk of the Town item from 1996 was “largely untrue,” and had gotten into the magazine as a result of a prank played on its author by his sources. The item was about Thomas Pynchon, and quoted members of the now defunct indie rock band Lotion as saying that the famously reclusive author had started following them around on tour in the capacity of a...

Three Cups of Tea Authors Mortenson and Relin Part Ways; Latter Sells Next Book to Random House

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:56:00 -0400

David Oliver Relin, the journalist who co-wrote the 2006 bestseller Three Cups of Tea with mountain-climber-turned-humanitarian Greg Mortenson, has left Viking Penguin and signed with Random House for his next book. Tentatively titled See How They Shine, Mr. Relin’s book will follow two doctors on a mission around the world to cure blindness. Susan Kamil, the editor in chief of Random’s flagship imprint, preempted world rights to the book from Jin Auh at the...

The Curious Case of the Missing Naipaul

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:14:08 -0400

Late last week, a funny thing happened on Andrew Wylie’s Web site: V. S. Naipaul, one of the most distinguished authors the lit agent has signed up in recent memory, had disappeared from his online client list.

For a little while there, it was easy to let your imagination run wild. Honeymoon cut short as famously difficult author splits from new agent after just mere months! Wylie loses prized catch!...

The Book That Took 29 Years to Publish

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:58:50 -0400

Morris Dickstein spent 29 years on Dancing in the Dark, his new book about the movies, books, theater and music that came out of the Great Depression. The book is being published on Sept. 14 by W. W. Norton, where it was edited by Robert Weil. Mr. Weil sees a big future for Mr. Dickstein’s book, which came to him through the author’s longtime agent, Georges Borchardt, during the summer of 2008. Mr. Weil...

Janet Silver Snares Big Book Deal For 24-Year-Old A.I. Buff From Brown

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:44:18 -0400

Janet Silver’s rookie season as a literary agent with Zachary Shuster Harmsworth continues, as the former editor and publisher has sold a book to Doubleday about artificial intelligence and the human mind by 24-year-old Brown grad Brian Christian.

The book will follow Mr. Christian’s efforts to “train” for the 2009 Loebner Prize, an annual competition to be held in September that aims to instantiate the Turing Test by asking judges...