The Digest. 07.15.09.

Thug Life, by Vidalia. You know you want to see it large. (Photo by Vidalia.)

• The world’s largest cupcake is coming to Covent Garden. (Coudal.)
• What MOCA’s Charles Young does on his day off.
• UNESCO reports on damage to Babylon archeological sites sustained while the area was used as a coalition base. They quote the British Museum which had previously said that this had been “tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain.” (IIC.)
• Dash Snow dies at 28. More here. (As well as NY Mag‘s hagiographic profile.)
• Tyler Green has been exploring the torture debate in art. This post, which incorporates a piece by Bruce Nauman, is fascinating.
• All the Reality You’ll Ever Need: Public performance art gets democratized on Antony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth, says Looking Around.
• Photo Essay: Italian Renaissance drawings so delicate they only go on view once a generation.
• Shirtboards, Gay Talese’s and others.
• Medic! Tate Modern show leaves 23 with minor injuries. (Arts Journal.)
• Ed Winkleman’s new book, How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery is officially out. Congrats, Ed.
• 16 Miles of String reviews Creative Time’s latest effort — with lots of pix! — on Governor’s Island in one and two parts.
• Obamart, still not going away.
• The Shepard Fairey/AP lawsuit clusterfuck: In the latest legal maneuvering, photographer Mannie Garcia’s lawyers are saying that the AP doesn’t really own rights to the Obama Hope image because Garcia was a freelancer when he took the pic. More here. (Arts Journal.)
• Today’s Graffiti: Evan Roth’s graffiti taxonomy project at the Fondation Cartier. Trippy.
• The Telegraph reports that street art is, like, so over.
• Banksy: New Orleans then and now.
• Hitoshi Abe’s Ftown building. Very cool.
• La Zaha’s Bach concert space in Manchester. See a very cool video of how it was built.
• Prince Charles quits the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings after getting annoyed that he can’t preserve everything in amber.
• Your moment of…BEST. ART ESSAY. EVER. Seriously. (Eyeteeth.)