The Digest. 05.13.08.

Den of Inequity, 2007, ink drawing with digital color by Kathryn DiLego. (Image courtesy of Kathryn DiLego.)

• Designer Karl Lagerfeld on contemporary art in the June issue of Vanity Fair: “I sold all of my art, because modern art is really only beautiful when it is displayed in huge places. If you live in an airport, fine. But I live on the Quai Voltaire, so where do you put this stuff?”
• Gap-Whitney art-merch T-shirts. How long before some poor kid in the Andes is spotted wearing a third hand version of one of these? (Via AFC.)
• A preview of the street art pieces at today’s Bonham’s contemporary art auction.
• The art market ain’t totally dead yet, reports The Telegraph.
• Bratwurst-a-palooza: Gagosian’s showing nothing but sausage for the month of May. Nothing but white sausage.
• In an unrelated story… A buncha girls make it to the Turner Prize short list: Cathy Wilkes, Runa Islam and Goshka Macuga. More here and here.
• But the Guardian’s Jonathan Jones is rooting for a dude, Mark Leckey, to get the prize: “He’s the only artist on the Turner shortlist who is really distinctive.”
• What to do with controversial art? If you’re the Long Beach Island Foundation for Arts & Sciences, in N.J., you put a scrim around it so no one has to suffer the consequences of being intellectually or emotionally challenged. James Wagner has the story.
• The latest Spencer Tunick nekkid people extravaganza: This time in Austria. And it involves (soccer) balls. More here.
• Miami just had its last Bas Fisher Invitational.
• The L.A. Times deconstructs the fall of Guggenheim Vegas: “Most residents and tourists will barely register the loss of the museum, which drew 1.1 million visitors over nearly seven years. The Venetian will simply morph, with the menacing ease of a comic-book villain, into its latest, post-Koolhaas incarnation. The Jewel Box is reportedly set to become a sizable Louis Vuitton boutique.”
• ThingsYoungerThanMcCain.com. Sample items: Alaska, Kodachrome, Israel and McDonald’s. (Via VSL.)
• Images from Tom Sanford’s show at Leo Koenig in NYC.
• The art at Carnegie International: It’s the end of the world as we know it.
• New doc to pay tribute to Alice Neel at the Northwest Film Forum, which starts Friday.
• In the Financial Times: “Most bankers worry that the art market is opaque, illiquid and unpredictable.” (Via A.O.)
• Sending a text message is more expensive than transmitting data from the Hubble to Earth. (Via Eyebeam.)
• Graff of the Day: BToy at the Cans Festival in London.
• Photos: Obey and Saber in L.A.’s Echo Park.
• Going On by Gnarls Barkley.
• Japanese custom scooters.
• Solar lily pads. (Via NotCot.)
• Going Up: Photos of OMA’s new CCTV building under construction in Beijing. Included is a link to a huge Flickr set of building shots.
• A Modern house grows in Queens.
• Are auctions the best way to protect classic Modernist houses?
• Bike trees. (Via architecture.mnp.)
• The inner workings of George Bush’s personality revealed.
• Your moment of O’Reilly, vintage tantrum edition.