Hasta La Ideas

After September 1st, don’t expect to just waltz into the Museum of Modern Art, plop down a twenty dollar bill, and expect to start milling about all that art. Instead, you’ll need to pony up an additional $5, as the MoMA has announced it will be raising its admission fee by 25% (pdf), up to $25 for a regular ticket. Seniors and students aren’t getting a break either, as those rates will be bumped up by $2 as well. Here’s their explanation for the increase:

Since the last increase in admission prices, in 2004, the Museum has faced escalating costs in virtually all aspects of operating the Museum. As a private, non-profit institution that does not seek government funding for general operations, MoMA depends to a significant extent on earned revenue. These carefully considered increases in admission prices will help ensure that the Museum is able to maintain financial stability and a balanced budget, which in turn will allow the Museum to continue providing outstanding exhibitions and programs to a diverse audience of some 2.8 million visitors per year.

The MoMA also just recently dropped $31.2 million for the building that formerly housed the American Folk Art Museum, which likely hit the books pretty hard, given that it wasn’t a planned expansion. And in response to this price increase, Bloomberg followed that fairly familiar path by sharing the annual salary MoMA director Glenn Lowry rakes in ($1.6 million when all paychecks, bonuses and perks are added up), perhaps to make the increase go down a little less smoothly.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

P.S. We Love You Looks from the fall 2011 Proenza Schouler collection.

Last month, Proenza Schouler‘s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez set some kind of land-speed fashion achievement record by collecting their second womenswear designer of the year award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America for a label that is less than a decade old. Today the dynamic duo have new bosses in fashion industry veterans Andrew Rosen (Theory) and John Howard (Irving Place Capital), who head up a group of investors that have acquired a non-majority stake in Proenza Schouler from European private equity firm Permira. Financial terms of the deal, which was first reported this afternoon by WWD, were not disclosed, and Permira-owned Valentino Fashion Group will retain a small share in Proenza Schouler. A statement received by WWD describes the new partnership as a “recapitalization” that will allow the brand to blossom. “We believe that the Proenza business is the future of American luxury, and uniquely poised to compete in a global marketplace, which is currently dominated by European designers,” said Rosen and Howard in a joint statement issued today. “In infusing this brand with our resources and experience, we will position this business to achieve its full potential.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fashion designer and aspiring lifestyle brand Roberto Cavalli has never met an object he didn’t want to swaddle in animal-printed silk (or better yet, ponyskin). Even a minimalist exercise bike is no match for his zebra-striped ways. Behold, the “Roberto Cavalli for Ciclotte” collection, which adds a jarring touch of the jungle to the sculptural Ciclotte exercise bike. Designed by Luca Schieppati and produced by the Italian materials masterminds at Lamiflex, the Ciclotte is a one-wheeled, two-horned wonder of carbon, steel, or fiberglass that uses four gears with differentiated teeth to generate a magnetic field. This fancy “epicycloid” gear system maximizes resistance levels and recreates pedalling conditions one would encounter on a road bike (so riders can be sure they’re getting their roughly $10,000 worth). Cavalli’s collection of six models, available exclusively at the designer’s boutiques, all feature signature house touches—shinyness, animal prints—for the luxury consumer who likes to go nowhere fast atop a jaguar-patterned ponyskin seat and a wheel of gold steel. Of course, this exotic piece of gym equipment creates a wardrobe dilemma: ordinary athletic apparel clashes terribly with fuschia carbon fiber. Cavalli is on top of it with his new Roberto Cavalli Gym collection (pictured above), which is hitting stores now.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Speaking of the ends of legal issues, as we were in that last post, the case against former Lawrence Salander henchman, Leigh Morse, finally wrapped up last week with her sentencing. You might recall that, back in April, the former director of Salander’s gallery, was found guilty of selling millions of dollars of art from the estates of artists without letting the owners know. Salander had been convicted and sentenced back in the summer of 2010 and is expected to spend the next 6 to 18 years in prison for his roles in defrauding investors, becoming known as “the art world’s Bernie Madoff.” Morse was facing up to four years in prison herself, but wound up getting off a bit more easy. Instead, Reuters reports that she’ll be required to pay back $1.85 million in restitution, “will spend weekends in confinement for four months,” and is set to “serve probation for five years.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Web Friends Photos altered with Pixlr-o-matic, a free online image editing tool.

Design software giant Autodesk has acquired Pixlr, a free online service for creating, editing, and sharing images. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in Sweden by entrepreneur Ola Sevandersson, three-year-old Pixlr has been likened to a browser-based Instagram. The site offers a trio of Flash-based applications—Pixlr Editor, Pixlr Express, and Pixlr-o-matic—as well as a screengrabbing tool and one-click photo sharing. Sevandersson, who has joined San Francisco-based Autodesk in the wake of the acquisition, focused on speed and ease of use in developing Pixlr. So what changes are in store for Autodesk-owned Pixlr? “Nothing, nada, zip,” wrote Sevandersson on the Pixlr blog earlier this week. “The people at Autodesk believe in the stuff we have done so far, and we are going to be free enough to still deliver kick-ass products. We are however going to be more people working on the service, so better, more stable and new products are going to be the result.” Autodesk plans to use Pixlr to provide image editing for its consumer products, such as SketchBook.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.