William Eggleston Stops Traffic

PHOTO BY PORTER HOVEY

If there’s one thing to which Rob Pruitt’s Guggenheim-hosted Art Awards, the New York Magazine profile of Klaus Biesenbach, and the current fascination with James Franco commonly attest, it’s that the art world both craves and is cruelly deprived of its own native celebrities. What the art world has got on Hollywood is a photogenic old guard, headlined by late career-resurgent artists like Mary Heilmann and Marilyn Minter. One such artist is southern gentleman (and himself a late-career resurgent) William Eggleston, who made an anticipated appearance at the opening of his work installed with Diane Arbus. The only thing that would have filled Cheim and Read faster would have been an unlikely appearance by Arbus.

Four blocks south, a promising southerner, Marlo Pascual, made her solo debut at Casey Kaplan. The exhibition brought the artist’s supporters and peers, and left the famous faces (or at least famous-looking) for her noirish found photographs.