The Digest. 11.24.08.

Nate’s and Carolina’s shoes in conversation. (Photo by Erik Piepenburg.)

• The piracy map.
• Damien Hirst is laying people off. (Art Observed.)
• Art investment strategies from Javier Peres, aka Terence Koh’s art dealer: “I would never invest money in art, not as an investment.”
• The future of art/fashion collaborations. (Art Observed.)
• New York/Miami art dealer Guiseppe Concepcion arrested for selling forged paintings by Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Tom Wesselman. (Arts Journal.)
• MOCA-PALOOZA: Eli Broad offers a $30 million challenge grant to save L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Okay, rich people, time to open your wallets. (Which isn’t going to solve the museum’s main problem: Its board of directors, which has clearly been asleep at the wheel.) Analysis here and here. Plus: 450 people turned out to support the museum at a Sunday rally organized via Facebook. And: Jeremy Strick’s e-letter to museum supporters.
• In related news: Eli Broad clearly doesn’t have his hand in enough museums, because now he wants to build another.
• São Paulo Biennial at risk, for all kinds of problems, including good old-fashioned Latin American-style corruption. My favorite kind!
• Jerry Saltz on Cindy Sherman: “…like a porn star, Sherman is obviously doing what she’s doing in all her pictures—but you never know if she’s faking it.”
• MoMA is on Twitter.
• Hipster deer art.
• Hot Gay Statues: Getty Villa edition. (Featuring my photos!)
• Today’s Street Art: Aakash Nihalani in NYC.
• A lengthy report about street art on BBC World Service, featuring an interview with NYC’s Elbow-Toe.
• Dubai’s architecture market begins to crumble. (Arts Journal.)
• So Miami: “The Vault,” a schematic for an over-the-top art storage facility by Oppenheim Architecture.
• “Translation of Architecture Gibberish.”
• The Chicago Trib’s Blair Kamin on Yale’s restored arts and architecture building, designed by Paul Rudolph: “As a student, I hated it.” (A beautifully written story, BTW.) Plus: Rudolph houses, soon to be an endangered species?
• Mayan playing cards.
• Your moment of tripped-out 1970s Helen Reddy animation. Seriously, light up for this one. (Mercy, Mlle. Connasse.)