March 5, 2006

Guy Trebay Fashion Diary discusses trend by designers at fashion shows in Paris toward conservative clothes, reflecting unconscious group effort to reassure buying public that French fashion is stable after riots and violence of last year; photos (M)

Article on plans by Robert F X Sillerman, billionaire media entrepreneur who paid more than $100 million in 2005 for conrol of Elvis Presley's name and likeness, to overhaul Graceland in Memphis, Tenn; Sillerman plans to demolish 128-room Heartbreak Hotel and visitors center; Sillerman's plans for property detailed; graph (L)

Contemporary art is a multibillion-dollar global industry. But why does such a big deal look so small, so slight, with its bland paintings, self-regarding videos, artful tchotchkes and shoppable M.F.A. artists-to-watch? There has to be another way to go, an alternative to a used-up ''alternative.'' By far the most interesting option so far, one that began to be news a few years ago and has increased its visibility since, is the work of miniature subcultures known as collectives. Basically, art collectives do away with the one-artist-one-object model. They come in various sizes and formats: couples, quartets, teams, tribes and amorphous cyberspace communities. Sometimes a group of artists assumes the identity of a single person; sometimes, a single artist assumes the identity of many. Membership may be official, or casual, or even accidental: friends brainstorming in an apartment or strangers collaborating on the Internet from continents away. And they may or may not refer to their activities as art. Research, archiving and creative hacking are just as likely to produce objects, experiences, information that is politically didactic or end-in-itself beautiful, or both. One way or another, joint production among parties of equal standing -- we're not talking about master artist and studio assistants here -- scrambles existing aesthetic formulas. It may undermine the cult of the artist as media star, dislodge the supremacy of the precious object and unsettle the economic structures that make the art world a mirror image of the inequities of American culture at large. In short, it confuses how we think about art and assign value to it. This can only be good. Consider, for example, the work of a collective with the name 0100101110101101.ORG. It consists of two young Spanish artists, Eva and Franco Mattes, who call their art ''media actionism.'' Last year, they produced an elaborate international promotional campaign (posters, magazine, trailer, etc.) for a Hollywood-style war film titled ''United We Stand,'' starring Penélope Cruz and Ewan McGregor.

Tiger Woods takes third-round lead at Ford Championship; photos (M)

Profile of Arianne Phillips, costume designer nominated for Oscar for her work on movie Walk the Line; photos (M)