URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT

1248 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 4, 2007 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

TODAY IN BUSINESS
SECTION: Section C; Column 5; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 824 words

CHIEF OF HOME DEPOT LEAVES -- Robert L. Nardelli, the chief executive of Home Depot, who came under heavy criticism for his pay package and his failure to lift the chain's stagnant stock price, was ousted by the board. [Page A1.]

A VICTORY FOR SHAREHOLDERS -- The surprising departure of Mr. Nardelli was a victory for shareholders hoping to force corporate directors to be more accountable on the increasingly incendiary issue of executive pay. Market Place. [C1.]
NO LONGER AUTOMATIC -- General Electric has long been seen as a training ground of future C.E.O.'s. The ouster of Mr. Nardelli, a G.E. alumnus, may change that perception. [C1.]
A TARGET OF ACTIVISTS -- Mr. Nardelli's rich compensation and poor performance at Home Depot has long been cited by shareholder activists as one of the prime examples of what they view as excessive executive pay. [C4.]
KPMG CHARGE DISMISSED -- A federal judge has dismissed a criminal charge accusing KPMG, the accounting firm, of conspiring to sell illegal tax shelters, after prosecutors said that the firm had met its obligations under a 2005 deferred prosecution agreement. Jeffrey Stein (above), the former deputy chairman at KPMG, filed his own legal request urging the judge not to dismiss the criminal case against KPMG, arguing that the firm had failed to pay the legal fees for his defense. [C7.]
ONE DRUG'S SIDE EFFECTS -- For many patients who take Zyprexa, the antipsychotic drug manufactured by Eli Lilly, the side effects are severe. Exactly how many people have died as a result of those side effects, and whether Lilly adequately disclosed those risks, are central issues in thousands of product-liability lawsuits. [A1.]
BACKGROUND CHECKS AT PORTS -- More than 750,000 port workers will be required to have criminal background and immigration checks in an antiterrorism program announced by the Homeland Security Department. [A14.]
CONCERNS OVER VOTING TESTS -- A laboratory that has tested most of the nation's electronic voting systems, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colo., has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests. [A1.]
PLAYS BOTH KINDS OF DVDS -- Warner Brothers plans to announce next week a video disc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the two competing formats for high-definition DVDs. [C1.]
SLOWDOWN IN SEX TRADE -- The sex-related entertainment industry's leading performers, owners and fans gather in Las Vegas for conferences amid indications that pornography's robust growth since it came out from behind the counter in the 1970s is slowing. [C6.]
TALENT AGENCIES SCRAMBLE -- Two leading Hollywood agents with top-ranked clients in movies and television joined the Endeavor talent agency after many years at the rival International Creative Management, sparking a Hollywood-style scramble as each agency strove to claim -- or retain -- the agents' star clients. [C6.]
A GECKO ON THE BRIDGE -- The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the George Washington Bridge, is expected to announce a deal with Geico, the auto insurance giant, to allow a big billboard on top of the toll plaza, as well as other signs. [B1.]
TRAINS TRY TO OUTRUN CRITICS -- Taiwan's new system of sleek, 180-mile-an-hour bullet trains is scheduled to open tomorrow. For some on this congested island, the project is an example of how Asia may be able to control oil imports and reduce air pollution; but others fume over the $15 billion price tag. [A4.]
LOW MARK FOR THE BIG THREE -- General Motors, the Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Group ended 2006 with a new low in their collective market share -- 51.5 percent for the month of December. [C1.]
MARKETS FINISH MIXED -- Stocks surged early on the first trading day of 2007, but then fell sharply and closed mixed after minutes from a Federal Reserve meeting indicated that inflation remains a chief concern. [C3.]
EARTHLINK EXECUTIVE DIES -- Garry Betty, an executive who built the EarthLink Corporation from a struggling start-up into a public company that took on telecommunications giants, died on Tuesday in Atlanta. He was 49. [B7.]
ONLINE
WHY ROOTS MATTER -- Health scares and mass-produced food have people reaching for local produce, which has meant a lift for small businesses. A special report is at nytimes.com/business/smallbusiness.
WHO WILL BUY? A special video report follows hopeful entrepreneurs as they bring their products, including greeting cards that hug, to a search sponsored by QVC, the TV shopping network. A report is at nytimes.com/business/smallbusiness.
CAREER CHOICES -- An effective job search requires more than sending out resumes. Job seekers must know as much as possible about potential jobs, including salary comparison data and company research. A report is at nytimes.com/marketing/jobmarket.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SHAREHOLDERS (90%); EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION (90%); LITIGATION (90%); WAGES & SALARIES (89%); TAX FRAUD (78%); BOARDS OF DIRECTORS (77%); BUSINESS TORTS (76%); CONSPIRACY (74%); QUALITY CONTROL (73%); ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS (73%); CRIMINAL OFFENSES (72%); JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (72%); JUDGES (72%); APPROVALS (72%); ATTORNEYS FEES (72%); PRODUCTS LIABILITY (69%); ANTIDEPRESSANTS (69%); SETTLEMENTS & DECISIONS (68%); CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM DRUGS (67%); SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE FORCES (67%); NATIONAL SECURITY (64%); PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATION MFG (64%); TELEVISION PROGRAMMING (62%); VOTERS & VOTING (61%); ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES (61%); DRUG INTERACTIONS & SIDE EFFECTS (52%); COUNTERTERRORISM (50%); IMMIGRATION (50%); BLUE LASER DISC TECHNOLOGY (64%) Terms not available from NYTimes
COMPANY: KPMG (82%); CIBER INC (63%); GENERAL ELECTRIC CO (57%); ELI LILLY & CO (54%); HOME DEPOT INC (93%)
TICKER: CBR (NYSE) (63%); GNEA (AMS) (57%); GNE (PAR) (57%); GEC (LSE) (57%); GE (NYSE) (57%); GEB (BRU) (57%); LLY (NYSE) (54%); LEL (LSE) (54%); HD (NYSE) (93%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS541211 OFFICES OF CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS (85%); SIC8721 ACCOUNTING, AUDITING, & BOOKKEEPING SERVICES (85%); NAICS336412 AIRCRAFT ENGINE & ENGINE PARTS MANUFACTURING (57%); NAICS335222 HOUSEHOLD REFRIGERATOR & HOME FREEZER MANUFACTURING (57%); NAICS335211 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & HOUSEHOLD FAN MANUFACTURING (57%); SIC3724 AIRCRAFT ENGINES & ENGINE PARTS (57%); SIC3634 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & FANS (57%); NAICS325412 PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATION MANUFACTURING (54%); SIC2834 PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS (54%); NAICS444120 PAINT & WALLPAPER STORES (93%); NAICS444110 HOME CENTERS (93%)
PERSON: BOB NARDELLI (93%)
GEOGRAPHIC: COLORADO, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: January 4, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: Photos
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Summary
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

1249 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 4, 2007 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

A Store to Make Your Feet Say Ole
BYLINE: By Alex Kuczynski
SECTION: Section G; Column 1; Thursday Styles; Critical Shopper; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 958 words
MANY years ago, I lived in Spain for a summer, teaching English at 5:45 a.m. to a group of pharmaceutical executives, most of whom knew only three words in English at the onset of the season: ''yes'' (enthusiastic bobbing of heads), ''no'' (sad frowns) and ''marketing'' (big smiles and thumbs-up gestures).

Every day I took the subway to work with the city's construction workers, stopping for a sherry and a coffee (this is what the construction workers did, at least, and I always say, when in Madrid ) and a churro, which considering the Dunkin' Donuts society we live in, might be described as a smaller, lighter bear claw.

Unfortunately I was the most impatient teacher on the planet -- or maybe it was the 5 a.m. sherry -- and at the end of the summer that remained pretty much the extent of what my students knew.

Everyone in Spain, I noticed, wore beautiful leather shoes. Like the Italians, the Spanish have a thing for footwear. In SoHo, we now have our own Spanish outpost in the newly opened Te Casan, a 7,500-square-foot emporium for shoes alone.

The name of the store comes from the Gaelic phrase for ''a woman's path,'' but that sounds like a self-help book for women going through menopause, so I prefer the Spanish translation. If you don't count the accent on the first word, it translates as ''they marry you,'' and frankly I felt married to at least two pairs of the shoes by the time I left.

Te Casan, the brainchild of a Spanish entrepreneur, has brought together young designers with experience at Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Versace and Dries van Noten, among others.

The aesthetic is deeply evocative of Barcelona, a city known for its dripping Gaudi cathedral and avant-garde artistic environment. It's a place where somewhere, any time of year, you can catch a staged version of Ionesco's ''Cantatrice Chauve.''

The store's gimmick is that it offers high-quality shoes at relatively inexpensive prices, and it plans to change the merchandise and designs every few weeks. I think $400 to $850 is a lot to spend on a pair of shoes, but in recent years well-to-do American women have been suckered into a bewildering fashion conspiracy.

To anyone who looks at Vogue or W, it would appear that in order to be fashionable, to be stylish -- to be, in fact, footwear -- shoes must cost $700. There is something dark about this, as if we have become Stepford Wives, marching off to the high-end shoe brands as if our brains had been sucked out of our skulls and replaced with slots for charge cards. Ka-ching.

At Te Casan, the message is change and exclusivity: each style is manufactured in limited numbers, as the salesclerks will eagerly tell you. These editions, according to the company literature, are limited by state. So if a designer makes 80 pairs of the same shoe in size 40, there may be 80 women in New York wearing the same shoe in the same size. Not all that different from other small-scale designers.

The heels generally have a more modest cant than your average Jimmy Choo but less of the grandmotherly quality and faux duck-toed modesty of shoes at, say, Anthropologie.

HAVE you noticed that while models in fashion magazines two decades ago stood with their feet in a proud position, straight forward and elegant, all the models and celebrities now seem to stand with their feet turned inward, knock-kneed as if they were ashamed, or 10 years old? When was the last time you saw a model in the J. Crew catalog standing with her feet straight out?

This seems to be part of an ongoing infantilization of the American woman, along with an obsession for weighing 90 pounds. A shoe is a shoe, after all, not a statement of virginity or, perhaps, faux-virginity.

This is why I like the shoes at Te Casan so much. They do not force the wearer into a kind of submissive frailty. A designer named Manuela Filipovic did a pair (much photographed in the news media) with a solid heel and Art Deco-esque winged scrolls on either side, in black or green suede -- very 1980s Maud Frizon.

Niki Robinson, one of the more avant-garde designers at the store, offers flat boots made of leather, fronted with madras patchwork made from men's work shirts, snapped shut with wooden buttons.

Gaetano Perrone's shoes are shaped like pagodas, some with six-inch-wide taffeta bows at the back. There are cherry-red platform pumps with a square toe; evening sandals are made from woven strands of metal. Fay.B's leather boots, plain on the outside with a hint of apricot metallic lining at the top, are $385.

The space itself could pass for a chic restaurant. Although it was designed by Ron Pompei, the man behind Anthropologie, it is a cleaner, more space-age gallery. A large central glass staircase is edged with mirrored circles; an open dressing room offers semiprivacy for the serious fetishists -- sorry, I mean fashionistas.

After trying on a dozen pairs, I was surprised to see that the clerk was still remarkably cheerful. To be waited on by a shoe clerk with such patience was as miraculous as if my Spanish pharmaceutical students had learned to recite ''Paradise Lost'' in two short months.

Te Casan

382 West Broadway (near Spring Street); (212) 584-8000

ATMOSPHERE -- Jetsons meets Arte Povera in an all-white boutique.

SERVICE -- As is common with much-publicized new stores, excellent. Time will tell if it remains so.

PRICES -- Metallic sneaker bootie, $210; black, gold and cream leather pumps, $245; red patent-leather platforms, $315; flat patchwork madras and leather boots, $425; satin evening sandals with rhinestones, $395.

EXTRAS -- Booths for privacy; tea bar downstairs. On two visits the bar was unattended. (Memo to stores: Give it a break; we get our caffeine elsewhere.)

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: CONSTRUCTION (90%); FOOTWEAR (90%); WOMEN (89%); FASHION DESIGNERS (87%); MENOPAUSE (78%); NON FICTION LITERATURE (64%) Shoes and Boots
ORGANIZATION: Te Casan (NYC Store)
PERSON: Alex Kuczynski
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%); MADRID, SPAIN (79%) NEW YORK, USA (79%); CATALONIA, SPAIN (79%) SPAIN (93%); UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: January 4, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: Photos: HAPPY FEET -- At Te Casan in SoHo, designer shoes are relatively inexpensive, and inventory changes rapidly. There are even semiprivate dressing rooms, perhaps for those with shy toes? (Photographs by Donna Alberico for The New York Times)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

1250 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 4, 2007 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

In China's New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism
BYLINE: By DAVID BARBOZA
SECTION: Section E; Column 2; The Arts/Cultural Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1463 words
DATELINE: SHANGHAI, Jan. 3
After the peppered beef carpaccio and before the pan-fried sea bass there were raucous toasts and the clinking of wine glasses in the V.I.P. room of New Heights, a jazzy restaurant in this city's most luxurious location, overlooking the Bund.

Wang Guangyi, one of China's pioneering contemporary artists, was there. So were Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi and 20 other well-known Chinese artists and their guests, many of whom had been flown in from Beijing to celebrate the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Zeng Hao, another rising star in China's bubbly art scene.

''We've had opening dinners before,'' said the Shanghai artist Zhou Tiehai, sipping Chilean red wine, ''but nothing quite like this until very recently.''

The dinner, held on a recent Saturday night in a restaurant located on the top floor of a historic building that also houses an Armani store and the Shanghai Gallery of Art, was symbolic of the soaring fortunes of Chinese contemporary art.

In 2006 Sotheby's and Christie's, the world's biggest auction houses, sold $190 million worth of Asian contemporary art, most of it Chinese, in a series of record-breaking auctions in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2004 the two houses combined sold $22 million in Asian contemporary art.

The climax came at a Beijing auction in November when a painting by Liu Xiaodong, 43, sold to a Chinese entrepreneur for $2.7 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece by a Chinese artist who began working after 1979, when loosened economic restrictions spurred a resurgence in contemporary art.

That price put Mr. Liu in the company of the few living artists, including Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, whose work has sold for $2 million or more at auction.

''This has come out of nowhere,'' said Henry Howard-Sneyd, global head of Asian arts at Sotheby's, which, like Christie's, has just started a division focusing on contemporary Chinese art.

With auction prices soaring, hundreds of new studios, galleries and private art museums are opening in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Chinese auction houses that once specialized in traditional ink paintings are now putting contemporary experimental artworks on the block.

Western galleries, especially in Europe, are rushing to sign up unknown painters; artists a year out of college are selling photographic works for as much as $10,000 each; well-known painters have yearlong waiting lists; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Pompidou Center in Paris are considering opening branches in China.

''What is happening in China is what happened in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century,'' said Michael Goedhuis, a collector and art dealer specializing in Asian contemporary art who has galleries in London and New York. ''New ground is being broken. There's a revolution under way.''

But the auction frenzy has also sparked debate here about whether sales are artificially inflating prices and encouraging speculators, rather than real collectors, to enter the art market.

Auction houses ''sell art like people sell cabbage,'' said Weng Ling, the director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art. ''They are not educating the public or helping artists develop. Many of them know nothing about art.''

But the boom in Chinese contemporary art -- reinforced by record sales in New York last year -- has also brought greater recognition to a group of experimental artists who grew up during China's brutal Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

After the 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square, avant-garde art was often banned from being shown here because it was deemed hostile or anti-authoritarian. Through the 1990s many artists struggled to earn a living, considering themselves lucky to sell a painting for $500.

That has all changed. These days China's leading avant-garde artists have morphed into multi-millionaires who show up at exhibitions wearing Gucci and Ferragamo.

Wang Guangyi, best-known for his Great Criticism series of Cultural Revolution-style paintings emblazoned with the names of popular Western brands, like Coke, Swatch and Gucci, drives a Jaguar and owns a 10,000-square-foot luxury villa on the outskirts of Beijing.

Yue Minjun, who makes legions of colorful smiling figures, has a walled-off suburban Beijing compound with an 8,000-square-foot home and studio. Fang Lijun, a ''Cynical Realist'' painter whose work captures artists' post-Tiananmen disillusionment, owns six restaurants in Beijing and operates a small hotel in western Yunnan province.

If China's art scene can be likened to a booming stock market, Zhang Xiaogang, 48, is its Google. More than any other Chinese artist Mr. Zhang, with his huge paintings depicting family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has captured the imagination of international collectors. Prices for his work have skyrocketed at auction over the last two years.

When his work ''Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120'' sold for $979,000 at Sotheby's auction in March, many art insiders predicted the market had topped out and prices would plummet within months.

But in October, the British collector Charles Saatchi bought another of Mr. Zhang's pieces at Christie's in London for $1.5 million. Then in November at Christie's Hong Kong auction, Mr. Zhang's 1993 ''Tiananmen Square'' sold to a private collector for $2.3 million. According to Artnet.com, which tracks auction prices, 16 of Mr. Zhang's works have sold for $500,000 or more during the past two years.

Are such prices justified? Uli Sigg, the former Swiss ambassador to China and perhaps the largest collector of Chinese contemporary art with more than 1,500 pieces, calls the market frothy but not finished.

''I don't see anything at the moment that will stop the rise in prices,'' he said. ''More and more people are flocking to the market.''

Mr. Goedhuis insists that this is the beginning of an even bigger boom in Chinese contemporary art.

''I don't think there's a bubble,'' he said. ''There's a lot of speculation but no bubble. That's the paradox. In China there are only a handful of buyers -- 10, 20, 30 -- out of a billion people. You only need another 10 to come in and that will jack up prices.''

He added: ''Another astonishing fact is there is not a single museum in the West that has committed itself to buying Chinese art. It's just starting to happen. Guggenheim, the Tate Modern, MoMA, they're all looking.''

Representatives from those museums, as well as others, have made scouting missions to China. A growing number of international collectors are looking at Chinese art too.

''After the 2005 Sotheby's show I just jumped in,'' said Didier Hirsch, a French-born California business executive who has long collected American and European contemporary art. ''People said the next big run-up in prices would be at Sotheby's in March so I said, 'Now or never.' '' Mr. Hirsch purchased nearly his entire collection -- about 40 works -- by phone after doing research on the Internet. He said he went first for what he called the titans -- the original group of post-'79 painters -- including Wang Guangyi and Liu Xiaodong.

Some critics here say the focus on prices has led to a decline in creativity as artists knock off variations of their best-known work rather than exploring new territory. Some are even employing teams of workers in assembly-line fashion.

Christopher Phillips, a curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, has become a regular visitor to China, scouting young artists for the center and other places. On a recent trip ''I went to visit the studio of a well-known Beijing painter,'' Mr. Phillips said. ''The artist wasn't there, but I saw a group of canvases being painted by a team of young women who seemed to be just in from the countryside. I found it a little disconcerting.''

There are also complaints that some artists are ignoring international standards by selling works directly into the auction market, rather than selling first to collectors. And many experts here say that some gallery officials and artists are sending representatives to the auctions to bid on their own works to prop up prices, or ''protect'' the prices of some rising stars.

But Lorenz Helbling, director of the ShanghART Gallery here, said Chinese artists continue to produce an impressive array of works, and that talk about the market being overrun by commercialism is exaggerated.

''Things are much better than they were 10 years ago,'' he said. ''Back then many artists were commissioned to simply paint dozens of paintings for a gallery owner, who went out and sold those works. Now these artists are thinking more deeply about their work because they're finally getting the recognition they deserve.''

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