The Digest. 05.02.08.

Edge, by Tamir Sher. (Image courtesy of Tamir Sher.)

• Jon Stewart asks Howard Dean what the hell the Democrats think they’re doing.
• How to synchronize five metronomes. (Via Kottke.)
• When artists go out of fashion.
• Thieves stealing public art for scrap. (Via AJ.)
• Kintaro ukiyo-e prints.
• Gregor Schneider talks about why he wants to use a dying person in his art: “I reckon that an artist can build humane rooms for death, where people can die in a dignified way—a room that creates dignity and protection. As a sculptor I build rooms. The room is the art.”
• Speaking of death: one of the central works in MoMA’s Design and the Elastic Mind show, a small jacket made up of embryonic stem cells taken from mice, has died.
• Six-part documentary on Francis Bacon online.
• When life imitates Cindy Sherman’s art: Cindy Sherman’s ex makes doc about life with Cindy Sherman. (Via PDN Pulse.)
• Iraqi official proposes a ban on trade of all Iraqi antiquities to help stop looting.
• Police seize Latin American artifacts in Germany.
• Van Gogh painting recreated with cigarette boxes.
• Enterprising Ceramist of the Week: Former public school teacher in England churned out ceramic fakes in his back yard and passed them off as the work of established artists.
• From the Department of Holy-Shit-Everything-Decays: Conservators face issues trying to preserve video.
• Photos from Action/Abstraction at the Jewish Museum.
• Calling all Clement Greenbergs: Write some art criticism. Win a prize. (Unpublished newbies only.)
• Can artists and critics be friends?
• Judd-a-palooza going down in Marfa, Tex. this weekend.
• Museum director compensation is trending up. (Via AJ.)
• Images of the preliminary design of Renzo Piano’s downtown Whitney. Like the art the museum shows: looks impenetrable. The NYT’s Ourossoff, who, overall, liked the structure, describes it as having a “strange, even forbidding aura.”
• Rome’s new mayor wants to tear down new Richard Meier-designed museum near the Spanish Steps. (Via AJ.)
• Midwest Mid-Century Modern in Indiana.
• Totally Bizarre Architectural Story: Mongolian mogul hires 100 architects from around the world so that they might despoil the area’s lovely landscape with…architecture. The best part: the architects travel around the country in gold-colored buses.
• Looks like a tribute to the Kauffman Desert House: Casa Gatica, by Assadi + Pulido, in Rancagua, Chile.
• The Yakisugi house by Terunobu Fujimori in Nagano. (Via NotCot.)
• Cinco de MiMo in Miami, this weekend. (Via Critical Miami.)
• Edward Durell Stone gets remixed: The New 2 Columbus Circle in NYC.
• Mural of the Day: Isoe in Thailand.
• The Cans Festival in London, this weekend. Get location info here.
• Video of the Dutch collective Antistrot at work.
• It’s over for humanity now: Modular robots reassemble themselves when kicked apart. (Via Coudal.)
• Super Cool Custom Super Heroes.
• Your moment of Grease, doggie style.