By Belinda Luscombe

SEEN & HEARD

Is Wimbledon showing favoritism toward top seed Andre Agassi? Or is BORIS BECKER being weird? "It cannot just be a coincidence that it is always Agassi at 2 p.m. on Centre Court," said Becker, who played Centre Court only once this year (and lost). "I think Nike has something to do with it." Wimbledon officials denied the charges.

Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner was at Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum last week unveiling her CIRCLE OF LIFE, a painting auctioned for charity along with pieces by Ringo Starr and Jane Seymour--all of which will also grace credit cards. Griffith-Joyner's brushwork is similar to her track work. "I can do 10 or 15 canvases a day," she says. And her style? "I've seen a lot of work in this museum like what I do."

BREATHING LESSONS

Forest Whitaker, currently being prodded by an alien on a screen near you in Species, is working on a touching project of his own. He's making his feature-film directing debut with Waiting to Exhale, the adaptation of the hugely popular 1992 novel by Terry McMillan, starring the even more popular WHITNEY HOUSTON. It's the story of four women, played by LORETTA DEVINE, Houston, ANGELA BASSETT and LELA ROCHON, who are all, for reasons mostly involving men, holding their breath. How did an actor macho enough to play a bomb expert in a bomb like Blown Away fare directing such a project? "It was intense," says Whitaker. "I have new insights into women. I can't pinpoint what they are, but I'd recognize them in real life."

HIM AGAIN

Being popular isn't the same thing as being known. Or is it? KATO KAELIN, who appears in next month's GQ dressed as Kato, the Green Hornet's sidekick, to embody "The Cheesing of America," is still enjoying his protracted 15 minutes. Particularly, he says, after a recent incident in which 30 girls cornered him and "asked me to sign their breasts." FROM HAUTE TO HOT

Audrey, Jackie and Grace are gone, but a crowd of HUBERT DE GIVENCHY'S peers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino and Christian Lacroix came out to pay homage to the 68-year-old designer as he presented his last haute-couture collection ever. He departed with class, as he arrived, playing classical music and sharing his standing ovation with his entire atelier. Givenchy hands the bodkin of his eponymous house over to 34-year-old English designer JOHN GALLIANO, not such a classical-music kind of guy. Recently, Givenchy's relationship with his backers has been strained, but the couturier is "a happy man," he told Le Figaro. "I am left with the joy of having had the most beautiful profession in the world."