The Digest. 02.01.10.

Elastic Time, 2010, by Alexandre Arrechea at the L.A. Municipal Art Gallery, through April 18. (Photo by San Suzie.)

• Art historians remaining mum on whether alleged Degas plaster casts are for real.
• On the restoration of the Met’s shattered Tullio: How conservators are laboring (in secret) to revive the almost-dead.
• Rich people and their rich people schemes: Asher Edelman to guarantee prices for art headed to auction.
• Will the art market ever return to what it was in the early millennium? A report in the Art Newspaper predicts that “2010 will be a year of continued reshaping: auctions will remain smaller, private sales will be the preferred method of selling for the majority of collectors, the ‘best of the best’ will garner significant interest and sell well, and second- and third-tier works will be left unsold or see further price reductions.” The short answer, in other words, is…No.
• The Jenny Holzer temporary tattoo set. (Art Fag City.)
• Beer bottle man.
• The seriously-gnarly cut-paper pieces of Charles Clary. (Arts Journal.)
• Pure awesomeness: The San Francisco artist soap box derby of 1975. My favorites: the hand holding a pencil, the recliner and the one with all the dildos.
• Famous literary drunks and addicts. (Coudal.)
• Sorta related…Art for Stoners: A round-up of animated GIFs. (ackackack.)
• Disco ball.
• In praise of online obscurity.
• How Amazon tried to screw Macmillan so it could sell more Kindles – and, in the process, tried screwing writers even harder. Over the weekend, the retailer was back to selling Macmillan books, but not before issuing a totally grody, self-serving statement.
• Today’s Street Art: The adventures of Shitty Kitty.
• Masking tape street art. (@russelltrombone.)
• Rockefeller Center, playground of Lucifer. Don’t anyone tell Glenn Beck.
• What’s it like to inhabit iconic works of architecture? A series of films at the Storefront for Art & Architecture in NYC explore the question.
• How to suck at Facebook.