Earlier this year the Guggenheim's notoriously-hated director, Thomas Krens, announced his departure from the museum (which many blame him for turning into a McGuggenheim). The NY Times announces today that the Guggenheim is now ready to name Richard Armstrong as the next director, saying the final board meeting regarding the decision will be held on or before September 23rd.The choice was considered a safe one after nearly 20 often tumultuous years of Mr. Krens’s maverick......

Director David Gordon Green, called "one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic independent filmmakers of the last decade" by The Believer, will be sharing his lyrical take on southern culture with Brooklyn moviegoers starting Thursday, when BAMcinematek kicks off All the Real Americans: The World of David Gordon Green. What's interesting about the week-long, early-career retrospective is that Green has paired each of his four feature films with six movies from the '70s and '80s......

The Dia Art Foundation announced the hire of a director yesterday; Philippe Vergne, will be joining Dia starting September 15th. Vergne co-curated the Whitney Biennial in 2006, and will be leaving his position at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for the job. While Dia has one area of New York covered with a sprawling space in Beacon, their Chelsea space closed in 2004. Vergne's main challenge will be to find a permanent place to......

Born in Munich in 1942, Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria, where he never saw any films, television, or telephones until he was 17. The effects of this isolated childhood can be seen in many of his films, which often focus on the struggles of independent dreamers who deliberately square off against impossible circumstances. Herzog has directed more than 40 films over the course of his career, and although the......

The Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack whose films include Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Way We Were and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, died this afternoon in his Los Angeles home. The cause was cancer. Pollack grew up in Indiana and headed to New York City when he was 17, joining The Neighborhood Playhouse and studying acting under Sanford Meisner. He acted, but, according to the NY Times obituary, Burt Lancaster told him to direct,......

The art world is breathing a sigh of relief today as the announcement of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's director stepping down was announced. For many, Thomas Krens has been more of a dictator than director; with a focus on franchising a "McGuggenheim" business over exhibiting modern art or focusing on the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building itself.The Guggenheim flagship -- one of New York's top tourist attractions -- was falling apart. (Its crumbling facade is......

The construction worker who killed Adrienne Shelly in her West Village office pleaded guilty to manslaughter - and gave new details about why he killed the actress-director. Diego Pillco will receive 25 years in prison; as an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, the Post says his sentence will be "almost certainly followed by deportation." Originally, Pillco had told the police he killed Shelly in November of 2006, he was in a "bad mood" and picked a......