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The on-going award, inaugurated in 2003, honors style legends for their contributions to the worlds of fashion and entertainment. Gianni and Donatella Versace’s permanent plaques, featuring their quotes and signatures, were unveiled the evening prior at the new Beverly Hills Versace boutique on Rodeo Drive. An outdoor banner exhibition featuring images from the Versace Spring 2007 collection shot by former Rodeo Drive Walk of Style® honoree, Mario Testino was displayed on Rodeo Drive and in the Beverly Hills Golden Triangle through February 25.
Today, Versace has evolved into a true lifestyle brand that designs, manufactures, distributes and retails exclusive products including Atelier Versace, prêt-a-porter, accessories, jewelry, watches, fragrances, a complete home collection, private jets and most recently, super cars, in the form of the Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640 VERSACE. Donatella started at the company supervising the photo campaigns that so greatly contributed to the unique advertising style of Versace. Her design talent was quickly spotted and she expanded her role to include the design of accessories. Subsequently, she was nominated head designer for Versus, a brand aimed at younger fashion pioneers. After the death of her brother in 1997, Donatella became the Creative Director of the house. Gianni and Donatella Versace are the ninth and tenth recipients of this award, following previous honorees Salvatore Ferragamo, Edith Head, James Acheson and Milena Canonero (2006), Herb Ritts and Mario Testino (2005), Tom Ford (2004), and Giorgio Armani (2003). The Walk of Style® Program is a partnership between the City of Beverly Hills and the Rodeo Drive Committee developed to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary achievements of artists from the worlds of fashion and entertainment. HARRY WINSTON - THE MASTER OF OSCAR BLING Susy Korb, creative director of the House of Harry Winston on Rodeo Drive mentioned a surprising trend in retro designs, featuring cluster diamonds and vintage looks, reminescent of "Old Hollywood" style. The House of Harry Winston has dressed more Oscar winners than anyone else in the history of the Academy Awards and this year is no exception. Mr. Winston began in the early 1940’s with actress, Jennifer Jones. Among the Winston-wearing celebrities in recent years are: Halle Berry, Marcia Gay Harden, Gwyneth Paltrow, Renee Zellweger, Diane Lane, Jennifer Lopez, Billy Crystal, Kate Hudson, Salma Hayek, Ben Affleck, Whoopi Goldberg, Julianne Moore, Hilary Swank, Steve Martin, Shoreh Aghdashloo, Nia Vardalos, Tyra Banks, Queen Latifah, Sidney Poitier, Julie Andrews, Geena Davis, Sissy Spacek, Dame Maggie Smith, Emily Watson, Kim Basinger, Geoffrey Rush, Sofia Coppola, Jada Pinkett Smith, Glenn Close, Mira Sorvino and Steven Tyler. Neo Rauch at the Met Neo Rauch at the Met presents six new paintings made specifically for this exhibition by the artist Neo Rauch (b. 1960, Leipzig, Germany), one of the most widely acclaimed painters of his generation. The exhibition — on view from May 22 through September 23, 2007 —is the third in the Museum’s series dedicated to artists at mid-career, following exhibitions featuring Tony Oursler in 2005 and Kara Walker in 2006. Shaped by the experience of growing up in East Germany, Rauch’s paintings teeter between Surrealism and Social Realism, defying easy interpretation. Viewers are drawn into scenes replete with strange beings and ambiguous landscapes. Full of activity yet mysteriously static in feeling, Rauch’s paintings are fantasy painted as fact, and many of his large-format works are populated by figures that are connected spatially, yet remain alienated and unaware of each other. With a distinctive palette of bright acidic colors contrasting with deep shadows, the artist’s paintings conjure up an atmosphere of confused nostalgia and failed utopias. Trained at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Rauch continues to live and work in the city of his birth, and has inspired a younger generation of painters in Leipzig’s thriving artistic community. Rauch’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2006); Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal, Canada (2006); Albertina, Vienna, Austria (2004); Saint Louis Art Museum (2002); and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany (2001), among other museums. Neo Rauch at the Met is organized by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Metropolitan’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. The exhibition will also be featured on the Museum’s Web site, www.metmuseum.org. Hidden in Plain Sight: Hidden in Plain Sight: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection, on view from May 15 through September 3, 2007, features the work of artists who use the camera to call our attention to the poetic richness latent in ordinary things. Often deliberately understated, these photographs are filled with everyday epiphanies, inviting us to look more closely at the world around us. The exhibition will feature approximately 35 works by American and international artists, including Walker Evans, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Patrick Faigenbaum, Gabriel Orozco, Damián Ortega, Daniel Faust, Mitch Epstein, Lewis Koch, Bertien van Manen, Carrie Mae Weems, Rachel Harrison, and Shomei Tomatsu. The photographs featured in Hidden in Plain Sight encourage a heightened awareness of the fleeting beauty to be found in simple objects and chance occurrences. In his photographs of empty tree planters, Damián Ortega (b. 1967, Mexico) finds geometric patterns and entropy in the pavement cracks and sprouting weeds that appear on barren patches of Mexico City sidewalks. The slightly melancholy photographs of Jean-Marc Bustamante (French, b. 1952) evoke magical moments in commonplace settings. In an untitled 1998 photograph from his series Something Is Missing, Bustamante records a “found sculpture” he discovered on the street: an orderly newspaper stand with stacks of papers fluttering at the corners. A 1992 photograph by Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953), taken in Sea Island, Georgia, depicts a mattress spring mysteriously hanging from a tree — a purposeful intervention by residents of the local Gullah community, who believe it will ensnare evil spirits. Rachel Harrison (American, b. 1966), in her Perth Amboy series, photographed the window of an ordinary-looking house in New Jersey where it was believed that the face of the Virgin Mary had appeared. The pictures focus on the accumulated fingerprints left by the faithful as they touched the pane of glass. A particular focus of the show will be the work of Gabriel Orozco (b. 1962, Mexico), whose Cemetery (2002), captures an unassuming yet surprising landscape that the artist encountered on one of his travels: dozens of round terracotta pots, used as grave markers and receptacles for offerings, lay scattered across on the desert sand of Timbuktu. Since the 1980s, this peripatetic artist has used photography as a form of visual note-taking, as well as to document ephemeral sculptures he makes on his local walks and world travels. Hidden in Plain Sight is organized by Mia Fineman, Senior Research Associate in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Photographs. The exhibition will also be featured on the Museum’s Web site, www.metmuseum.org. VISITOR INFORMATION Location Hours Recommended Admission For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org No extra charge for any exhibition. Metropolitan Museum to Unveil
A spectacular “museum-within-the-museum” for the display of its extraordinary collection of Hellenistic, Etruscan, South Italian, and Roman art – much of it unseen in New York for generations – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this April in its New Greek and Roman Galleries. After more than five years of construction, the long-awaited opening will conclude a 15-year project for the complete redesign and reinstallation of the Museum’s superb collection of classical art. Returning to public view in the new space are thousands of longstored works from the Metropolitan's collection, which is considered one of the finest in the world. The centerpiece of the New Greek and Roman Galleries is the majestic Leon Levy and Shelby White Court – a monumental, peristyle court for the display of Hellenistic and Roman art, with a soaring two-story atrium. “The New Greek and Roman Galleries are a milestone in an unprecedented building campaign – more than a dozen years in the making – to construct anew within the framework of our historic building, to make use of new methodologies while honoring the old, and to encourage our visitors to look at ancient art in a new way,” commented Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum. “Some 6,000 works previously in storage, many of them collected in the earliest years after the Museum's founding in 1870, will now be installed on two levels of commodious new galleries by our brilliant team of curators under the leadership of Carlos Picón, Curator in Charge of the Department of Greek and Roman Art, and with the outstanding organizational abilities of Collections Coordinator Bill Gagen. As we celebrate this landmark event, we remember with gratitude the generosity of our many friends, past and present, who have made this possible – among them Shelby White and her late husband Leon Levy, and our dear friends the late Bill Blass and the late Frank A. Cosgrove, Jr., whose generous gifts have made possible this glorious new exhibition space for Greek and Roman art.” Shelby White commented: “My late husband, Leon Levy, believed that by studying past civilizations we would better understand ourselves. What better setting to do that than these magnificent new galleries. I am thrilled.” He continued: “Similarly, Frank Cosgrove – who had an interest in Greek and Roman art – also made a very significant bequest to the Metropolitan, which was made known to the Museum following his death in 1992. We feel certain that he would have been delighted to see these new galleries. It is with great pleasure that the Museum places the names of these two men in thegalleries that contain superb examples of art that they both esteemed.” The New Greek and Roman Galleries, located in The Lamont Wing at the southern end of the building, will house art created between about 900 B.C. and the early fourth century A.D., tracing the parallel stories of the evolution of Greek art in the Hellenistic period and the arts of southern Italy and Etruria, culminating in the rich and varied world of the Roman Empire. On the first floor, contiguous to the central Leon Levy and Shelby White Court on three sides, are galleries for Hellenistic and Roman art. The installation continues on the wholly redesigned mezzanine level, where galleries for Etruscan art and the Greek and Roman study collection overlook the court from two sides. Together, the astonishing assembly of works on display – some never before seen by the public – will bring to life the visual and conceptual roots of Western civilization. The display also includes a group of Etruscan and Italic armor that brings to mind the political upheavals of the period, elaborately carved cinerary urns, and 14 beautifully engraved Etruscan mirrors. LEON LEVY AND SHELBY WHITE GALLERY HOUSING THE GREEK AND ROMAN The installation features a large display of study material, comprising some 4,000 works in all media and covering the entire cultural and chronological span of the department’s collection, from the art of prehistoric Greece through late Roman art. Among the noteworthy works in this area are a collection of prehistoric Greek vases given to the Metropolitan Museum in 1927 by the Greek government and a Roman transport amphora given by the noted underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau. Also on view are several hundred examples of Roman glass in fantastic shapes and colors, ranging from clear colorless to darkest blue, and from greenish yellow to deep amber. Computer screens located throughout the study collection will allow visitors to access electronic labels for the objects. An additional gallery on the mezzanine level will be devoted to the display of special exhibitions in the future. Location, Related Programs, and Credits Publication VISITOR INFORMATION Hours Recommended Admission For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org No extra charge for any exhibition. |
The Rodeo Drive Committee and the City of Beverly Hills honored Gianni Versace and his sister Donatella Versace with the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style® Award on Thursday, February 8, 2007 at Beverly Hills City Hall. 
Sharon Stone conducted the auction of a Lamborghini, which sold for $500,000. Sharon Stone and Rupert Everett presented Donatella with her Rodeo Drive Walk of Style Award, and Demi Moore (photo at right with Donatella) presented the award to Gianni Versace with Elton John accepting on his behalf. 
Founded in 1978 in Milan by Gianni Versace, Versace is one of the leading international fashion design houses and a symbol of Italian luxury worldwide. Gianni’s bold creative genius consistently challenged the boundaries of the fashion industry. His distinctive cuts, vibrant prints and unconventional materials united high art and contemporary culture, and he quickly earned international praise. 
Harry Winston of Beverly Hills invited the world press to preview more than $50 million worth of Oscar jewels to be worn by stars at the 78th Academy Awards in the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Shipped from all over the world, the jewels ranged from green Emerald earrings to red sapphire necklaces. 
© 2008 Bonnie Carroll, All Rights Reserved
