The Digest. 04.11.08.

Space Invader in NYC. Photo by Espeis.

• Bangkok’s ghost buildings.
• In architecture, impermanence is hot, hot, hot.
• Washington D.C.’s Newseum: Architecture as print journalism’s death knell, reports the NYT. “Despite its lofty tone, the design reeks of parochialism, not bold ideas…If the building reveals anything about the state of journalism today, it conveys the industry’s anxieties over the shrinking attention span of the average American.”
• House of the Day: By Karl Refi in Portland, Ore.
• Design by (a very bad) committee: Mucking up the architecture at Ground Zero.
• Speaking of bad architecture: getta load of this.
• Photo Essay: a short visual history of Pirelli Girl calendars.
• How polyester makes you less horny and other interesting facts from the new book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.
• A Minnesota grad student is up for a Webby for an Internet art project in which he creates words out of letter-shaped buildings found on Google Maps.
• ¡Artworld Smackdown! Tyler Green vs. James Kalm (a.k.a. Loren Munk) and Christian Viveros-Faune vs. Tyler Green – on the topics of inaccuracies, arts bloggers and conflict of interest. It’s getting ugly, with one party telling the other to stick it “up yours.” Winkleman has a good rundown of the whole drama. As an aside: I just love it when art critics blab on about how only art critics know how to write about art. Because everyone else is a blogger barbarian impugning the genre with base prose and pedestrian points of view. What do I have to say to that? Fuck yeah!
• Cigarette Jesus.
• Surveillance as art: S.F. collectors get tailed by artist Jill Miller. Kinda creepy…
• Combining art and travel, two of our favorite subjects: Photos from All-Inclusive: A Tourist World at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt.
• SVA students stage guerilla “solo show” inside MoMA bathrooms. Not sure why they would want to do this. The bathrooms at MoMA always seem to be heated to Everglades swamp temperatures and smell distinctly of doo.
• The work of Maya Hayuk.
• A retired postal clerk and his wife, who spent 45 years collecting Minimalist, Conceptual and post ‘60s art will donate 50 works each to 50 institutions around the country. L.A.’s MoCA to get 50 of the works, including pieces by Richard Tuttle and Lynda Benglis.
• Book sculptures by Nicholas Jones. (Via NotCot.)
• The Daily Show on Fox News on Bush’s last year in office. Me love.
• Hello Kitty tombstones. (Via ackackack.)
• Like, omg, New York Mag is full of white guys. (Via PDN.)
• Street art of the Day: Judith Supine in Brooklyn.
• Animal New York reports that Shepard Fairey’s studio allegedly sent a cease and desist letter to a Texas artist who had parodied his work. Kinda strange, given that Fairey’s work has already been relentlessly parodied (and that he is a master of appropriation himself). Apparently Fairey’s studio isn’t returning Animal’s calls to find out whether this is for real or not. They also have yet to return my e-mail inquiry on the subject.
• Space Porn: Dunes on Mars.
• Your moment of Dance Party USA.