The Digest. 07.08.08.

Deuce Seven in Seattle. See it large. Plus: the full set. (Photo by blvd_flicks.)

• C-Monster Art Merch!! Buy the Brussels Griffon Kelala Head Journal, which features one of my photos on the cover and the description, “Kelala, a rescue from a backyard, enjoys long walk on the beach and is a real ladies man!” All proceeds go to the National Brussels Griffon Rescue. Because Everyone is Precious. (My original shot here.)
• Seems like there’s some very fishy dealings afoot in that Denver Art Museum acquisition of Thomas Eakins’ Cowboy Singing, reports Modern Art Notes.
• From the Department of They-Cannot-Be-Serious: The Guardian has a competition for teenage wannabe art critics. Because I’m sure the average teen wants nothing more than to sit around, thinking about inverting the paradigm and interpreting visual signposts.
• Art by men sells for more than art by women.
• Today’s Art-in-China installment: “The global art world’s burgeoning love affair with Mao and the Cultural Revolution makes a very neat fit with the current Chinese regime’s efforts to sell itself as the authoritarian power that everybody can learn to love.”
• Frenchman in Florida indicted on charges of attempted sale of a stolen Monet, Sisley and Breugel.
• Australian gummint types once again freaked out by the sight of nekkid children, this time, on the cover of a magazine. More here. (Via A.J.)
• Galleries in tough economic times. Related: The super-wealthy are keeping the U.K. art market afloat.
• Rising costs are making life in far-off suburbs prohibitive.
• Photo Essay: Ed Kashi’s The Curse of the Black Gold. Listen to an NPR interview with the photographer here. (Via PDN Pulse.)
• Art press release sentence of the day: “Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present The Shallow Curator, a summer group exhibition with neither urgency nor depth.”
• A story about how Holly Block, formerly of Art in General, led the turnaround at the Bronx Museum of Art. (Via A.J.)
• Decorate your yard with the living dead.
• Graff of the Day: Ren, Savao and Nadao in Santiago, Chile.
• Skewville Hype crates get the fashion treatment.
• Silvio Berlusconi, architecture critic. Italy’s dear leader on a proposed Libeskind design: “…it’s not manly and it emanates a sense of impotence.”
• Brasilia: The buildings are gorgeous, even if the urban planning sucks.
• Where propaganda meets architecture: Herzog & de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing makes the new 10 yuan note. (Via Hrag.)
• Ikea coffins.
• Your moment of Eye of the Tiger. (Click on the video.)