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By Mark BermanSunday,
March 7, 2010

Sunday’s 82nd annual Academy Awards should offer a dazzling combination of excitement (look, a famous person!) and sheer boredom (the front-runners in all the major categories seem so far ahead that the only surprise would be if they use their trophies in a duel to the death). But there’s also history! This is the first telecast of the Oscars with 10 Best Picture nominees, for example, a change the Academy made last year to enable popular crowd-pleasing movies such as “An Education” and “A Serious Man” to join serious art such as “The Blind Side.” And there’s more history that could be made. Let’s take a look at some of the things that could happen for the first time

THE FIRST FEMALE BEST DIRECTOR WINNER
Kathryn Bigelow is the heavy favorite going into the Oscars. If she can best her ex-husband James Cameron and win the award, she’d be the first female winner. If she loses, she’s still just the fourth woman to lose the award. The last woman to be nominated was Sofia Coppola for 2003’s “Lost in Translation.” She lost to Peter Jackson, the director of that year’s big, CGI-heavy spectacle — the third “Lord of the Rings” movie. And no Best Picture winner has been directed by a woman.

THE FIRST BLACK BEST DIRECTOR WINNER
Lee Daniels lives in a world where an African American can do anything, including become president. But apparently there’s still at least one exception: win a Best Director Oscar. He’s already accomplished a lot with “Precious” — he’s just the second black man nominated for Best Director (after John Singleton in 1992) and the first African American to direct a Best Picture nominee. If he pulls off the upset and wins, he’d make history (not sure what happens to Bigelow; does she become the Academy’s secretary of state?).

FORGET THE SCREENPLAY, LET’S JUST MAKE SURE ALL THREE DIMENSIONS ARE PRETTY
If “Avatar” wins Best Picture, it would be the first film in more than a decade to win the award without a screenplay nomination. The last movie to accomplish that feat? “Titanic.” But hey, Cameron is talking about writing an “Avatar” novel. So he’s still got his eye on that PEN/Faulkner award.
THE FIRST ANIMATED MOVIE TO TAKE A MAJOR AWARD
“Up,” nominated for Best Animated Feature, is also up for four other Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay (the sixth of Pixar’s 10 feature films to earn that nomination) and Best Picture (just the second animated film to crack that category, the first since “Beauty and the Beast”).
THE BIGGEST/SMALLEST MOVIE TO WIN BEST PICTURE
If the Best Picture trophy goes to “The Hurt Locker,” which earned $12.6 million in domestic release, it’ll be the smallest box office total for a Best Picture winner since “Annie Hall” in 1978 ($38 million, according to boxofficemojo.com). If “Avatar” ($700 million and counting) wins, the biggest movie of all time becomes the highest-earning Best Picture winner. Historical parallel alert! When the meager-earning “Annie Hall” won the top award, it also overcame the biggest movie in history at that time — “Star Wars.” (Note: If “Inglourious Basterds” pulls off the upset, forget we said anything.)

But there’s also history yet to be made. Some barriers still unbroken. Such as:

A DOCUMENTARY? A FOREIGN FILM?
Despite the expanded Best Picture race, no documentary or foreign-language film made it to the final 10. No doc has ever been nominated, despite Michael Moore’s 2004 attempt to push “Fahrenheit 9/11” into that year’s Best Picture race. In the past 35 years, just three foreign-language movies have been nominated — “Il Postino” in 1996, “Life is Beautiful” in 1999 and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2001. (Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” was a foreign-language film but was not a foreign flick — hard to be more American than Dirty Harry.)

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A fair number of the guards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are artists themselves, yearning for a little exposure. Now they are stepping into the spotlight with a new art journal called Sw!pe Magazine: Guards’ Matter, and an accompanying exhibition, which runs through March 7 at 25CPW, a gallery at 62nd Street and Central Park West. Many of the works are paintings, like this one by Fabian Barenbaum.

Because of advances in DNA analysis since the 1990 robbery, the lead agent in the case, Geoffrey Kelly, decided to send evidence to the FBI’s scientific laboratory in Quantico, Va., a spokeswoman in the FBI’s Boston office said.
The heist, which included three Rembrandts and a Vermeer, remains the world’s largest art theft in dollar value.

Kelly said he could not disclose the type of evidence to be reviewed, but others familiar with the case said it would probably include long strips of duct tape used to tie up the museum’s two night watchmen, whom the thieves overpowered to get access to the artwork.
“If they left any sweat on that duct tape, a sample could be drawn, and with that sample there’s the possibility of a result,’’ said Dr. Bruce Budowle, former senior scientist of the FBI’s Quantico lab.

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The following exhibitions open next week. “In the Realm of the Buddha,” opening March 13 at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, celebrates the sacred arts of Tibetan Buddhism with two exhibitions: “Lama, Patron, Artist: The Great Situ Panchen” focuses on an 18th-century Tibetan painter, while “The Tibetan Shrine From the Alice S. Kandell Collection” is a shrine room containing hundreds of individual works of Buddhist art. 202-633-1000 (TDD: 202-633-5285). . . . On March 17, the National Museum of Natural History opens the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, a permanent gallery on the subject of human evolution. 202-633-1000 (TDD: 202-633-5285).

Art dealers, blue chip collectors, artists, art press, art hangers-on and lots of people decked out in totally bizarre outfits have all descended on Manhattan for the annual extravaganza of art shopping known as Armory Week. There are more than a dozen fairs that run through the weekend — including Pulse, Scope and Volta — but the Mack Daddy of them all is the venerable Armory Show, a sprawling arrangement of 285 exhibitors spread out over two piers on the west side of Manhattan.

It’s positively mind-boggling — and a fine opportunity to see contemporary art from galleries from Tel Aviv to São Paulo. Here are three pieces not to miss at the Armory Show:
Shaun Gladwell at Anna Schwartz Gallery (Melbourne), Booth #1157

A stunning video piece titled “Apology to Roadkill” shows the artist decked out in black biker gear cradling the limp body of a dead kangaroo on the side of an Australian road. The scenery is bright and dusty, at odds with Gladwell’s dark, shining motorcycle gear (complete with full-face helmet), which gives him the appearance of a post-modern angel of death. It’s worth watching more than once.

Every ceramic artist begins with inspiration, sometimes that inspiration is directly in the field in which the artist works, other times it is seemingly unrelated, but deeply inspired.

From early childhood I’ve dreamed of having black images (faces that look like me) on kitchen ceramics. Therefore, my ceramics and artwork reflect that dream. The images represent my heritage and culture. Each piece is hand-painted, therefore one-of-a-kind originals.
Joyce Lomax invites you to visit her Store.

Eunice LaFate was born on the island of Jamaica. Her creative vision finds its origin in the colors and tones of the island’s people, landscapes, and culture.

While her homeland has had a major effect on her art, so too have her many experiences here in the United States, where she has transitioned from her early career in education to human services administration. LaFate has immersed herself in teaching and helping people of all ages and races, which is why her creative spirit shows itself in art that emphasizes the beauty of human diversity and the importance of cultural heritage. She also brings to her art her appreciation of natural splendors —all in a universe that welcomes differences and celebrates rites of passage.

Influenced by the work of Grandma Moses and Bill Taylor, LaFate is an accomplished self-taught artist who has been painting for more than 20 years. Her varied use of abstract imagery, line, pattern, and color reflect this.

The winter season stimulates her creativity. In colder weather, her paints and brushes beckon her to spend more time at work indoors. And in the quiet warmth of these days and nights, as LaFate envisions her evolving worlds, she gives herself over to the process of rendering on paper and canvas what she sees, intuits, and imagines.

Eunice LaFate served on the Delaware Department of Education’s Curriculum Framework Commission for the Visual and Performing Arts. She is a member of the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, and her works have been exhibited in Juried, One Person, and Group Shows. In 1993 she opened LaFate Gallery as an additional resource that provides greater access to her paintings.

New York’s annual Armory Show, the biggest window on contemporary art in the United States, has opened with hopes of injecting energy and cash into the city’s recession-hit art scene.

“This fair shows the vitality and internationalism of New York. All these exhibitions are part of what makes New York so exciting,” said Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

The Armory Show, which is partnered by MoMA, features 300 galleries exhibiting in the huge hangar-like buildings on two jetties on the Hudson River in Manhattan.

On Wednesday there were already thousands of visitors taking part in the invitation-only opening events, which are reserved for collectors, critics, galleries and museums. The show is open to the public until Sunday, and 60,000 people are expected.

Some 30 countries are represented in this year’s show, including 20 Berlin galleries.
“We wanted to celebrate the energy of Berlin. Every fair has to find ways to make it exciting for visitors,” Katelijne Debacker, executive director of the Armory Show.

In addition to the Armory Show there are 10 shows taking place at the same time around the city, including for the first time a Korean Art Show, with more than 20 Seoul galleries represented. There is also Dutch Art Now.

The Armory Show long has been a chance for collectors and dealers to find cutting-edge work, and this year’s batch brings something for everyone: from hyper-realism to abstract expressionism, from traditional oil painting to more experimental methods.

Nili Shamrat of Tarzana was caught after she sold clocks back to the Jerusalem museum that her late husband, Na’aman Diller, stole them from in 1983, investigators said.

When prolific Israeli burglar Na’aman Diller discovered he was dying of cancer in 2003, he decided to leave his widow a collection of some 100 artifacts of decidedly questionable origin.

They included rare clocks, manuscripts, paintings and an item billed as “the world’s most expensive watch”: a gold and rock crystal pocket watch made for Marie Antoinette in the 18th century.

All the items had allegedly been stolen during a storied heist at Jerusalem’s L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in 1983.

But that didn’t stop Diller’s widow, Nili Shamrat, 64, of Tarzana, from trying to sell dozens of the timepieces back to the museum no questions asked, authorities said.

Her effort set in motion a lengthy international investigation that ended a few weeks ago when Shamrat was sentenced in L.A. County Superior Court to five years’ probation and 300 hours of community service for receiving the stolen property.

The California insurance commissioner’s office announced the end of the case Tuesday, saying most of the valuables had been sent back to the museum.

By Jeff Karoub, Associated Press Writer

DETROIT — In the heart of the largest concentration of Muslims in the U.S., the Detroit Institute of Arts this weekend is opening a new permanent gallery of Islamic art showcasing exhibits including a rare 15th-century Quran of a Mongol conqueror.

“The Arab and Islamic community is significant enough that it needs to see itself in the museum,” said director Graham W.J. Beal. “Their collection had not been shown very prominently in the previous recent decades.”

Sunday’s opening comes as several museums worldwide are broadening their collections. New York‘s Metropolitan Museum of Art is working on a suite of Islamic art galleries and The David Collection in Copenhagen is preparing to close its gallery for a reinstallation. The Louvre in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London also boast of major renovations to their collections. And Egyptian officials plan to reopen Cairo‘s Museum of Islamic Art.