The Digest. 03.17.08.

Peelander-Z at SXSW. Photo by Vidalia.

• The cost of war: One day in Iraq=$720 million.
• Whitney Biennial Review of the Day #1, courtesy of Richard Lacayo: “Its heart may be in the right place, but it emits an awfully faint pulse.” He’s also got a good video piece of the show, in case you can’t or won’t fork over the $15 entry fee.
• Biennial Review of the Day #2, courtesy of Jerry Saltz: “The show doesn’t alchemically add up to more than the sum of its parts.” He’s also got video, that’s not quite as soothing as Lacayo…and that shows him man-handling the Gatorade/plant piece. (Dear Whitney: How come Saltz gets to grope the art and I can’t even take a picture? WTF??)
• In related news: The Whitney has collaborated with The Gap on a line of Biennial merch. Because what the world needs is more T-shirts.
• Smithsonian names new chief: G. Wayne Clough of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
• A Q&A with Jaime Hernandez of Love & Rockets. (Dear Gringos at Anthem Magazine: His name is Jaime, not Jamie. Gracias.) (Via ackackack.)
• Rome’s contemporary art scene: Lots of small kingdoms, no cohesive center.
• Google Sky.
• Vice has a terrific series of videos, in one, two, three and four parts of an interview with Brooklyn artist John Kessler, in which he discusses his kinetic sculptures and what the good old days (as in 1980) were like in Williamsburg. (They’re only three minutes each.)
• The day in neat-o graphics: The Guardian has a 360-degree view of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s mirror installation at Beijing’s Galleria Continua.
• Be obsessed.
• R.I.P. Magda Cordell McHale, founder of British pop art.
• R.I.P. Rafael Tufiño, Puerto Rican painter and printmaker.
• The donut burger.
• Another Lori Early work stolen from Jonathan Levine.
• The art of Shinique Smith.
• When the Glue Society imitates Brian Jungen.
• Graffiti Research Lab’s work featured in a music video by AZ and Styles P.
• Obama street art.
• David Choe in London.
• Street art of the Day: Lignes Rouges in France.
• New Museum tagged! (Via AO.)
• Tax-payer dollars well spent: Denver’s high-tech anti-graffiti cameras fail to catch any graffiti.
• Toast art. (Via NotCot.)
• City of the future to have cooled sidewalks. (Thanks, Antonio. If you keep sending me links, I’m gonna have to put you on the payroll.)
• The Newspaper House.
• Motel 6 gets a redesign.
• The Harvard canteen.
• Zaha Hadid’s Chanel merch art pod opens in Hong Kong.
• For those of you fortunate enough to speak Spanish, El País’s website has started featuring a new short film once a week. Eres, by Vicente Villanueva, is the first.
• A thoughtful essay about the Margaret Seltzer debacle.
• A gallery of troubled men.
• Your moment of American Idol, English-as-a-Second-Language edition. (Thanks, Vanessa.)