It is great to watch a nicely-dressed somebody meet a nicely-bodied undressed somebody. Standing at the press preview of "The Artist is Present," the Marina Abramovic retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art the other day, I watched people squeeze between two very fit actors, a man and a woman, who stood naked on either side of a narrow doorway. Like most people, my friend John R. Lane, former director of the Dallas Museum of Art, didn't flinch as he passed through the flesh gauntlet, dressed in his usual British bespoke tweeds. I think I pretended not to sneak a look when I took my turn, though I did. I most liked watching a woman visitor, dressed fully in black, giving the naked guy a long and appreciative up-and-down.
Imponderabilia, photo by Scott RuddThe nasty thing about a lot of art is that it seduces you into beauty and then reminds you of death. It's called memento mori--remember that you, too, will die--and those kinds of artful reminders are on full display at the Abramovic show. Naked people display themselves as if they were mounted on a cross, or they lie below skeletons, or throw themselves at elastic bands time after fruitless time.
Luminosity, photo by Scott RuddSkeletons, blood and gore abound. Not all the actors are so fit, and their aging flesh becomes a gentle and familiar reminder of our own time-bound nature posed between the harsh realities of beautiful youth and death on display.
Nude with Skeleton, photo by Scott RuddWhat is even more remarkable is how the performers just sit, or stand. Even those who are clothed are eerie: their living, breathing bodies have become as if of stone, almost dead artifacts in this great tomb of modern art. After a while, all I could do to stay sane was to run out into the Manhattan streets, where everything happens in fast motion and the only nearly naked, motionless bodies are the ones guarding the entrance to the Abercrombie & Fitch store around the corner.
Abramovic, photo by Scott Rudd Read our interview with Marina Abramovic from the January 2010 issue.
I just leased a new car. Now when I drive to work I feel as if I'm in a spaceship facing so many dials, knobs and buttons that I'll need a couple of years of NASA training to pilot my craft. It's actually an Acura (seen above), and Honda has done a pretty decent job of organizing all the many controls into a manageable array, but still, there are a lot of choices. That's the basic problem with car interiors today: their design is driven by the desire to make technology available. But, of course, they have to do so without distracting you from the real world you're driving through while listening to Car Talk, making phone calls or getting the climate just right. The rest of the car's space doesn't really matter, because you don't notice it. That means the designers have to get the controls right: they have to be attractive and functional, easy to understand and to use.
Mercedes-Benz E Class
Chevrolet Volt
Chrysler 200C
Walking through Hong Kong's Happy Valley last week, a billboard caught my eye: "Delay No More," it said in large type next to a photograph of a guy undoing his belt buckle. A friend enlightened me: Delay No More is the fashion brand of 
G.O.D., art directed by its architecture-trained founder Douglas Young, mixes mass-market kitsch, Mao-era propaganda and sleek modern design. Chinese letter boxes become card cases ($12), photographs of tenements adorn mouse pads ($7) and ring binders exhort you to "Make Meaningful Content," "Keep Things Organized," and, of course, "Delay No More" ($8) for a set of four in assorted colors.
CEO Michael Maharam has previously collaborated with designer Hella Jongerius on a
Nike shoe, and he says he hopes to continue to put the firms' looms to
work on Nike's designs, not only for footwear, but also for clothing.
Camel, cashmere, silk, cotton and velvet are all destined to find their
way under -or rather over-foot. The idea is to bring sensuality to the
sneaker, and dress up the sports shoe for running through airports and
swishing through restaurants, rather than basketball courts. Maharam
calls it "restrained luxury." At $250 a pair (at selected Nike stores),
these shoes do fit into boardrooms better than locker rooms. 
Zaha Hadid boots for Lacoste
If there is anything I hate more than Christmas music, it is bad Christmas decorations. I am not really a bah-humbug-type of guy, but do our houses have to succumb to plastic trees, endless jolly Claus figures, stars covered with American flags and everything from Smurfs to guitars hanging from every rafter? Let's face it, Christmas has become the ugliest time of year, while it should be a time of cozy contact with our loved ones, our beliefs and dormant nature, covered with snow. It should be a time when everything around us lets us cherish what we have and encourages us to dream of birth and rebirth.
Here are my pet peeves: natural things -- like fir trees, wreaths and pine cones -- made out of plastic, covered with fake snow or buried under extraneous ornament; stars, which should produce the effect of twinkling, that are electric red, yellow or green; glass globes so covered with colors and patterns they look like a fast food advertisement; miniatures of Santa Claus, the elves or reindeer made so bulbous no diet would ever be any help and, of course, completely gratuitous ugliness like those guitars, miniature flags, robots, or even jet fighters. 
Here is a simple recipe to recapture Christmas: let's use real nature, like real trees, real wreaths, and real pine cones; let's look for stars that are simple, light and made out of metal, so that they catch the reflected light; let's hang transparent glass globes that drink in and transform the scene around them; and above all, let's try to create the warm, comforting feeling of being at home, waiting for spring to return. Happy Christmas shopping.
Critic, curator and museum director Aaron Betsky curated the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2008, ran Rotterdam's Netherlands Architecture Institute from 2001-2006 and these days, helms the Cincinnati Art Museum. See his previous blogs 
Above: the new University of Oregon football uniform.
From left: the Ohio State football uniform; the new University of Cincinnati football uniform.
