The Digest. 05.06.09.

Oze, in NYC. (Photo by Becki Fuller.)

Congrats to Brian, from Texas, for winning the dong-arrific Michelangelo shorts!

• Stefan Ruiz: The Dump Lord.
• A new book claims that Van Gogh’s ear was cut off by Gaugin. Bloomberg’s Martin Gayford doesn’t believe a word of it.
• Spring sales at Sotheby’s: Flaccid. Picasso fails to sell. More here, here, and here.
• Fighting over Brooke Astor’s spoils: Philippe de Montebello testifies saying that she’d promised the Met a painting by Childe Hassam. More here.
• Tucson Museum of Art was getting cleaned out by its accountant, who allegedly stole a million dollars over five years.
• Paddy Johnson opines on the Rose Museum situation in the Guardian and Looking Around takes a look at the university’s committee of apparatchiks that is okaying this whole mess.
• At the High Museum: A new Leonardo?
• Modern Art Notes has an interesting piece on naughty painter Kees Van Dongen, an artist who clearly lives up to his surname.
• Speaking of which, no Wednesday is complete without ogling a little Thomas Hart Benton.
• If you live in L.A., David Lynch is coming to a gallery near you.
• Objects, by Martin Parr.
• Oh, yeah! Studio 360 has a piece on Nortec DJs Pepe Mogt and Ramon Amezcua.
• Photo Essay: the last days of Bobby Sands.
• The Day in Garbage Art: A wedding dress made of used underwear.
• The fascinating world of the dung beetle: “a miniature world of sex and violence.” If you’re into this, then pick up the highly readable book Tropical Nature by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata and read the first chapter. You’ll never see poop the same way again. (Hustler of Culture.)
• Skewville on MTV Brasil. Somebody please give Ad Deville his own show.
• Camilo José Vergara’s photo project, Invincible Cities, documenting the built environment of poor, minority communities around the U.S. The photo essay on Richmond, Calif. is incredible for its architecture. (ArchiDose.)
• Spooky schematics for a new Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City shows a giant cross stabbing a mountaintop. Kind of weird considering that the man was a Zapotec Indian obsessed with all things pre-Columbian.
• Cooper Hewitt announces Design Awards winners. The Walker Art Center takes prize for corporate and institutional achievement; SHoP architects take architectural award; and the NYT Graphics department wins communications award. (ArchDaily.)
• Your moment of Europe explained. See it large. (architecture.mnp.)