Press Room

Will Pavis - Timaru Herald, New Zealand.

New York - People from all over the world in the past week have been calling two ladies at their home in the Hamptons to ask about their legs. Could they still be seen on the street, the callers wondered, or had those slender limbs now been removed from public display, in view of the scandal they had caused?

Scandalous? Ruth Vered and Janet Lehr want to keep the Larry Rivers-created statue on their property.

The legs in question are 4.6m high and were cast in fibreglass by the pioneering pop artist Larry Rivers, who lies in a cemetery a few miles from the home of Ruth Vered and Janet Lehr in Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Long Island. The ladies acquired them a few years ago and they now languidly stride across one exterior wall of their house, occasionally stopping the very little that passes down their traffic street.

Local officials have wrestled with the question of whether the legs were a ''structure'', and whether they conformed with bylaws. Matters came to a head, or at least to an upper thigh, last year when it was concluded that the legs were a structure and did not comply with building laws. In December, Lehr and Vered received a letter from the building inspector, giving them until today to remove the legs or face a summons for violating the village code governing ''accessory structures'' and perhaps a day in court.

Yesterday Lehr said that they would not comply with the order. The ladies and their legs would make a stand, for art and for their First Amendment rights. ''Our lawyer has applied to stay the decision,'' she said. '' We hope not to take them down.''

The women run an art gallery and live in a converted Baptist church.

''We had a 60ft expanse of white, what would you do with it?'' said Lehr, explaining why they erected the legs in 2008. ''It just looks so right. This is a work by a worldfamous artist. Anyone who thinks they are anything other than a sculpture is a ninny.''

The village council's attorney, Fred Thiele, disputes that designation, both for himself and for the legs. ''It's a structure, and a structure is a structure is a structure,'' he told The New York Times recently.

January 28, 2011. Palm Beach Daily News - By John Nelander

Dogs and kids make great photographic subjects, as attorney Ray Merritt found out when he left his big-city law practice to become a freelance author and gallery curator.

His 2000 book, A Thousand Hounds, was a surprise hit. The collection of photographs from artists such as Picasso and William Wegman sold 100,000 copies and left Merritt's publishers begging for something new. "They asked me to do cats and I said, 'I don't want to do cats but I'll do children,' " he said.

The result was the 2006 book Full of Grace, a collection of some of the most famous pictures of children ever produced. Merritt used the book as the basis for his new exhibition of the same name, which opened Jan. 24 and runs through March 18 at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in West Palm Beach.

Art is some people's religion, and religion is the inspiration for a great deal of art. In the current exhibit at Vered Gallery in East Hampton, the powerful intersection between these two worlds is evident. Dozens of artists from all over the world, from a wide spectrum of ages and religious backgrounds, have contributed to "A Stitch in Jewish Time, " but one thing that all the pieces have in common is the painstaking attention to every little detail that only true passion and devotion can inspire. The exhibit takes on an additional poignancy as we approach the high holy days of Rosh Hashana this week and Yom Kippur on October 8.

Meat purse. Bubble dress. Lobster hat. Gaga's outrageous fashion sense is quickly becoming legendary-and so is her stage presence. In this vibrant photo exhibit, Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg-known for photographing everything from polar bears in the wild to former President Clinton-captures Gaga at her best: onstage, singing to thousands of her adoring Little Monsters. Lautenberg's photos certainly expose the energy and quirky sexuality Gaga emits. The red leather bikini helps too.

As the first art exhibition of its kind in the Hamptons, Art on the Edge at Vered Gallery represents a new environment dedicated to recognizing and supporting the significance of New Contemporary while showcasing the cutting edge talent that is filtering into our mainstream culture. The goal of the exhibition is to further advance the dialogue of new contemporary art movements, from their cultural roots to their current influence.

Breaking new ground in the art world is no easy feat. That being said, rock star curator Francesco LoCastro has never been one to let mere boundaries mandate the realms into which he brings his ambassadorship. The current exhibit in the Hamptons is just such an adventure. Art On The Edge - The New Contemporary, is now on exhibit through September at New York's premier fine art establishment, Vered Gallery. Follow us for a look at the exhibit.

A portrait by Andy Warhol of the late singer Michael Jackson is set to be auctioned in New York.

Ahead of the sale, the 1984 portrait will be on show at London's British Music Experience, inside the O2 Arena, where Jackson had been due to perform.

An Andy Warhol portrait of Michael Jackson is back on the auction block at a New York art gallery.

Some artists are abstract in the way they use line, some artists are abstract in the way they use form. Wolf Kahn is abstract in the way he uses color.