The Digest. 05.07.08.

Buenos Aires street. (Photo by R. Niemi.)

• The work of Lordy Rodriguez.
• The C-Monster Art Industrial Average Report™: Christie’s fails to hit its targeted sales during last night’s auctions, though Monet’s Le Pont du Chemin de fer à Argenteuil, which sold for $41.5 million, did set a record for the artist. More here and here.
• In a related story: Chinese artists annoyed by the sale of the Estella Collection, in which they claim they were duped into selling works at a discount because they were told the pieces would eventually be donated to a museum.
• An interesting essay about race and patriotism by Michael Eric Dyson.
• Cooper-Hewitt and MoMA win Webby Awards.
• The Day in Art Merch: Art computers by Dell.
• Carnegie International’s Life on Mars, much like life on earth, where the white guys run everything, reports the L.A. Times. “Take the eight California-based artists. California is a minority-majority state, with 57% of its population Latino, Asian and African American, but only two of its Carnegie International artists fit that profile. Neither is Latino, the largest minority. Only one is a woman.” More on the show here.
• The work of Arik Levy.
• An essay about the growing presence of robots in our lives.
• Photos from Colin Chillag’s show at Angstrom in L.A.
• I’ve linked to this in the past, but I had to link again: Let’s Paint TV. Because it’s so totally frackin’ weird.
• Jerry Saltz on Larry Gagosian: “People grouse because he has hundreds of thousands of square feet of exhibition space and represents like 95 artists, but New York would really miss him if his gallery closed down. He’s sort of a combination of a corporate raider, a dark lord, Peggy Guggenheim, and a railroad magnate.” (Via Kottke.)
• Weapons for the fashionista set. Love the Fendi chain saw.
• Photos: Richard Serra at the Grand Palais in Paris. The artist, btw, is p.o.’d that people are putting their feet on his sculptures, something that just furthers my belief that Richard Serra should someday design a skate ramp.
• The further blandification of NYC: Eddie Boros’s Tower of Toys in NYC’s East Village to be taken down on order of the Parks Department. (Via Gammablog’s Flickr.)
• The design arithmetic on the Dark Lord Foster’s new Moscow building.
• The Barn House by Buro2 in Belgium.
• The world’s tallest Lego tower. (Via NotCot.)
• Renderings of Daniel Libeskind’s Spirit House Chandelier, soon to be installed at the Royal Ontario Museum.
• Totally rad graffiti architecture of the day: Evol in Berlin. Turning utility boxes into mini-buildings.
• Stussy shirts by Ghost.
• The Cost of War, a link I nicked from my buddy, Bill.
• Your moment of Stephen Colbert, dancing.