LACMA’s Most Absolutely Fabulous Trustee

LACMA's trustees were once known for being uptight Hancock Park types. Under Michael Govan, things have lightened up a bit. Case in point: celebutante Dasha Zhukova (above right), named a trustee last June, a few days past her 28th birthday. Zhukova is identified as a fashion designer, editor of POP magazine, and founder of Moscow's Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture. But that's a small part of the fabulousness that is Dasha Zhukova.

• Zhukova once dated Russian tennis star Marat Safin.
• Her $19.5 million Hollywood Hills mansion was a gift from another boyfriend, Russian zillionaire Roman Abramovich (above left).
• She doesn't live there much.
• Zhukova has homes scattered over the globe, plus 100 acres of land on the moon (also an Abramovich gift).
• Abramovich spent $86 million for a Francis Bacon triptych. Coincidentally, a Bacon retrospective is planned for the Garage Centre.
• In 2007, Abramovich's ex-wife had these words for Zhukova: "He'll dump you too."
• Zhukova started her own fashion label, Kova + T., because "I couldn't find a plain white tee exactly the way I wanted it."
• Dasha's father, Russian zillionaire Alexander Zhukova, was convicted of arms trading in 1991 and served six months in Italian jail — before being cleared of the charges.

For more, check out Zhukova's profile in Interview magazine. Journalist Derek Blasberg confessed that he expected Zhukova to be a "James Bond villain" but instead found her "down to earth." Relatively speaking.

"It was so refreshing to finally hear a girl not denying that she likes a good time [Zhukova told Blasberg]. I cannot listen to another girl say, ‘I’m not a party girl. I just happen to always get photographed falling on the floor with lipstick all over my face and a bottle of champagne sticking out of my bag.’” For the record, Zhukova had champagne during this interview, and moved on to vodka later that evening.

One thing's for sure: Half the media world wants to hate Zhukova for being beautiful, rich, and un-wonkish. "Despite an utter lack of magazine experience," snarked Luxist, "she'll be working in partnership with POP editorial director Ashley Heath, leading some to snipe that she only got the job thanks to her mega-rich boyfriend." The Wall Street Journal dissed Zhukova as "just another oligarch princess frittering away millions in her quest for social standing and substance."
And what about art, given that Zhukova is now helping to shape LACMA's future as well as the Garage Centre's? So far, the Garage's signal achievement is an exhibition of Francois Pinault's Koons- and Hirst-heavy collection. That's exactly the sort of fluffery the art press has pilloried New York's New Museum for doing. That said, the Garage's current offering, "Futurologica: Russian Utopias" is a real, curated show, and its web page looks promising — whoever is behind it.

Comments

Johnny Naked said…
My name is Johnny Naked and I currently have a public art installation on view at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles. I have created a 14 foot by 17 foot high window ad promoting my ongoing multi-million dollar interactive art project NakedSlave4Art.com. The piece currently displayed is entitled: "MY AD HERE: NAKEDSLAVE4ART.COM" It is one of four solo shows on display at Gallery 825, and the other shows are wonderful and worth your visit, too! The gallery's website is: www.LAAA.org

The installation is gathering much notice within the neighborhood itself, having caused people to stop and both compliment the piece, or complain to the director of the Gallery to take it down!


You can find pics of the installation that you may use at my newly-created blog:

http://johnnynaked.blogspot.com/

(Or please feel free to request other pics, as I have many.)

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Best,
Johnny Naked


Event Title: "MY AD HERE: NAKEDSLAVE4ART.COM"

Type of Event: Art Installation

Cost: FREE and Open to everyone!!!

Date/Time: Show is currently up and runs until April 16!
Special Event on April 14: Conversations with the Artists from 7 to 9 PM

Where:
Gallery 825
825 N. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069

Phone: (310) 652-8272
Fax: (310) 652-9251
Email: gallery825@laaa.org


What: The multi-faceted artist Johnny Naked, creator of "The Ever-Changing Naked Picture Project," unveils his newest art provocation... a 13' x 16' Window Ad on La Cienega Blvd. promoting his ongoing multi-million dollar interactive art project NakedSlave4Art.com! Fun for all!!!
Donald Frazell said…
O M G
Who are the bigger whores, LACMA or LAAA. They always were a bunch weak panzies, but damn!

I have been charged with saving the Watts Towers, Rev Chip Murray, the only voice of reason after the Rodney King revolt, given me the task. A Music Museum of the America's to be built on site, real art, Jazz, Blues, Gospel, with houses from Cuba, Brazil, and Jamaica. Music of sex, love, sacrifice and commitment. And no idiot, voyeuristic spoiled brats from art academies. Life, and the living, only allowed.

Or pimp Russians and their whores. Fashion has fucked art, and given after birth to this. And you wonder why no one goes to contempt art, its simply absurdist entertainment for those too skinny, self absorbed, impotent, and literally retarded to know anything but their tiny dicks.

Come on now, I'm joking!(riiiight)
Conceptual "art"! Can't censor art now, can you? That would be so un"creative". LOL!

art collegia delenda est
Save the Watts Towers, tear down the rotten Ivories.
Bud Goldstone said…
The Watts Towers were saved from demolition by LA Building & Safety in 19591 I did it with engineering know-how! I didn't see you there !

Bud Goldstone