PAUL MCCARTHY TO HAVE WHITNEY SHOW

Los Angeles mixed-media artist Paul McCarthy will stage an exhibition of new and rarely seen works at the Whitney Museum of American Art this summer, it was announced yesterday.

“Paul McCarthy: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement: Three Installations, Two Films,” opening June 26, will feature among other works “Spinning Room,” a project conceived in 1971 but completed for the first time at the Whitney, in which live images of spectators are projected and reflected on the gallery’s four mirrored walls, and “Mad House,” in which a room is made to tumble about. The show will be on view in the Peter Norton Family Galleries through October 12. As part of the exhibition, Mr. McCarthy will curate a film series for the museum’s Kaufman Astoria Studios Film & Video Gallery, dedicated to artists — such as Francis Picabia, Alfred Hitchcock, Yves Klein, and Andy Warhol — who have been influential in his own work.

Staff Reporter of the Sun

‘BIENVENUE CHEZ LES CH’TIS’ TO BECOME MOST SUCCESSFUL FRENCH FILM

An upbeat comedy focused on regional prejudices in the north of France is poised to become the most successful French film ever, Reuters reported yesterday.

“Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis,” which had been seen by more than 17 million French viewers already in its brief six-week run, promised to pass by yesterday the audience mark set by the 1966 comedy “La Grande Vadrouille.” The American-made “Titanic” still holds the audience record in the country, having attracted more than 20 million French moviegoers, but its grasp on that distinction looks suddenly vulnerable.

Staff Reporter of the Sun

CARLA BRUNI NUDE PHOTO PROCEEDS REJECTED BY CHARITY

Sodis, which provides drinking water in poor countries, is to benefit from the sale of a nude photograph of France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, after another charity rejected the cash offer.

Art collector Gert Elfering had first intended to keep the proceeds from the sale of the picture and others at Christie’s International, New York on April 10. After the Bruni-Sarkozy picture received publicity, he decided to offer the profit from the one image to Fondation Kantha Bopha, a children’s hospital in Cambodia that has a base in Switzerland.

“I refused the offer,” Kantha Bopha’s founder, Beat Richner, said in an e-mail yesterday, “partly out of respect for the French and the Cambodian governments.” Accepting money from the sale of such an image would “trivialize the institution of Kantha Bopha, and some regular donors may begin to wonder.”

Bloomberg News

NEW VISITOR CENTER TO OPEN AT GETTYSBURG

Without an itinerary, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the vastness of Gettysburg’s battlefield — a 6,000-acre expanse dotted with nearly 1,400 memorials and monuments to North America’s bloodiest battle.

Park officials are hoping that a $103 million museum and visitor center scheduled to open April 14 will give visitors a better starting point for exploring the site where Union armies beat back Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s assault on northern territory, and where Abraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech.

The complex is a red and gray stone structure reminiscent of a 19th-century barn and covering the equivalent of 2 1/2 football fields. It is tucked into a wooded area on the Gettysburg National Military Park — land that saw no major action in the three-day Civil War battle in which more than 51,000 Confederate and Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.

The complex is located about two-thirds of a mile southeast of the current visitor center. Those cramped, deteriorating facilities are both situated on the Union battle lines on Cemetery Ridge and will be razed as part of a related battlefield restoration project.

Associated Press

JAY-Z AND BEYONCE WED, APPARENTLY

It appears that Jay-Z and Beyonce have finally tied the knot. There was a swirl of activity Friday at the rap mogul’s TriBeCa apartment. Delivery men funneled in and out of the building, dropping off silver candelabras and white flowers. A white tent was set up on the roof.

Rumors circulated all week about the event after a report that the couple had taken out a marriage license in Scarsdale, N.Y. Ms. Knowles, 26, and Jay-Z, 38, whose real name is Shawn Carter, have been dating for six years but have never publicly acknowledged they are together.

Associated Press