• The Art Industrial Average seems to be showing signs of life — at least when it comes to the old school stuff. Plus: Sotheby’s returns to profitability. (Arts Journal.)
• On the New Museum controversy, “art collector, heir” Adam Lindemann takes to the Observer to announce: Get over it whiners, it’s a rich person’s world — and y’all just live in it. A coupla things: One, Lindemann forgets to inquire how the Joannou show fits in with the New Museum’s mission of ‘new art, new ideas.’ (As far as I can tell the only thing ‘new’ in the show is the paint job on the museum’s walls.) Secondly, he says that as long as “the public gets a great show” then that’s all that matters. Um, except the show isn’t great. It’s kind of a hot mess. Top floor reminds me of standing in line at Universal Islands of Adventure…except I don’t get the joy of riding the Hulk roller coaster when it’s over. (@hragv.)
• ¡Celebrity Curator Smackdown! Jeff Koons versus Shaquille O’Neal. Thank you, Ben Davis.
• Marina Abramovic, the minimalist. Holland Cotter at the NYT reviews the show here.
• In related news: Jerry Saltz makes “genital contact.”
• Harry Benson totally annoyed to see one of his pix “appropriated” by Whitney Biennial artist.
• A profile of Christophe de Menil in W — aka Dash Snow’s grandma.
• Booby-trapped art work. (@KnightLAT.)
• Plus, in NYC: Sculptures that look as if they are about to leap to their death.
• Man Bartlett’s balloon pile.
• Abstract expressionist stamps.
• Create your own Chiquita Banana’s stickers.
• Photo Essay: Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta.
• Welcome to Your Parents New York. (Flaming Pablum.)
• Today’s Street Art: Stinkfish in Bogotá.
• RIP Bruce Graham, the architect who designed the Sears Tower in Chicago.
• Sorry Wallpaper, you have it wrong: This is not the world’s first artificial floating island. These have been around for hundreds of years.
• The Big Lebowski morality continuum.

• Today’s post-apocalyptic animated video: Future Man by Ryo Hirano.
• Jeff Koons, art collector. My favorite line: Randy Kennedy describing Koons’ studio as having “the bright, hygienic aura of a pharmaceutical lab or a high-end car-detailing shop.”
• Sorta related: An adulatory profile of New Museum trustee and Jeff Koons boat-owner Dakis Joannou. Interesting fact: Koons designed his daughter’s wedding cake.
• Plus, more rich-people folly: Elton John’s shower art.
• Museums see rise in attendance. But bigger crowds don’t necessary translate into more revenue. (Arts Journal.)
• Lost Haitian Art: Writer Amy Wilentz gathers images of destroyed Haitian cultural treasures on Flickr. Join the group if you have pix. (Intelligent Travel.)
• Laser surgery technique used for tattoo removal is now being used to clean sculptures. (Arts Journal.)
• Marina Abramovic has a pimple. (Would that make a great name for a band, or what?)
• The case of David Burdeny and Sze Tsung Leong: Did one photographer plagiarize the other?
• Sepia Town.
• How the brain processes sarcasm. Or why you need both sides of your brain to understand C-Monster.
• Awesomely Groovy Photo Essay: The Mali pix of Malick Sidibé.
• The Boneyard.
• Wiping turtles butts — and other things National Geographic photographers do.
• There’s a free screening of Whole Train tonight at the Goethe-Institut in L.A. at 7pm.
• Today’s Street Art: Luz Interruptus, Literature versus Traffic, in Brooklyn.
• A house floats out to sea following the quake in Chile. It pains me to see this. Plus: the earthquake released 50 gigatons of energy.
• Aggrandizing architecture porn alert!!! The trailer for How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster, a new flick about the Dark Lord Norman Foster, which seems to be equal parts Raise the Red Lantern and Koyaanisqatsqi – without any disagreeable-looking sweaty labourers, of course. (Coudal.)
• Very cool: The VitraHaus, an architecture museum in Germany designed by Herzog & de Meuron.
• Ice skating!!! Makin’ me wish I had a spangly body suit.

• Who Owns What in art history. (@tabgirl.)
• Late addition: The NYT profiles Eli Broad, “a billionaire philanthropist whose beneficence comes with not just strings but with ropes that could moor an ocean liner.” (@KnightLAT.)
• I love it when Jerry Saltz gets RANTY. Dude needs a YouTube channel, stat. A few points I take issue with in this writing-about-art tirade:
  • One, there already are online art mags out there (see Triple Canopy, Idiom).
  • Two, there’s an implicit assumption that art magazines offer a writer editing. C’mon dude, one word: ArtForum. If that stuff is “edited,” I don’t want to see what it looked like before it went in. Most unedited bloggers I read produce better copy than that. Besides, good editors are hard to come by in any media.
  • Three, dude has got to get over the anonymous trolls. They’ve always been around, it’s just that the Internet makes their trolling more public. I’ve worked at news dailies and weeklies where we’ve gotten vicious, crazy shit via every imaginable means — letters, packages, e-mails, not to mention psychotic phone calls. My advice: Let. It. Go. By getting enraged about this, you’re egging those freaks on.
  • Lastly, because I have to add my two cents: I think everyone in the art industry — especially writers — should be obligated to hold at least one job outside of it at all times (like long-haul trucker), ‘cuz there’s something to be said about having experience in the big wide world and not just in cement boxes full of objects. (In the interest of transparency: My name is Carolina A. Miranda and I approved this post.)
• In a related story: the atomic drops are flying in ¡The John Yau versus Jerry Saltz Art Critic Smackdown! Let’s get ready to ruuuuuuuuuuuumble!!!!
• And because it’s All-Jerry-All-The-Time here on C-Mon: Some websquatter is trying to send the The Great Saltzino a message.
• Whew. Onto other things: Japanther is debuting a book in collaboration with Dan Graham.
• Jeff Koons is hiring. (@16miles)
• SFMOMA has raised $250 million for its new wing. (Arts Journal.)
• 17 museum admissions tags from around the world. (@musueumnerd.)
• Have been enjoying Man Bartlett’s 1stfans Twitter feed for the Brooklyn Museum. And yes, you have to be a museum member to read them. (It’s $20 a year, the price of about 5 cappuccinos. And no, I don’t want to hear any belly-aching about it.)
• Shit I Wish I’d Made Up: The Marina Abramovic Energy Blanket, only $460.
• Artspeak, “a grey porridge of abstract nouns.”
• Silvio Berlusconi made of sand.
• A Q&A with Shaquille O’Neal, curator. My favorite line: “I”m working with the greatest artist in the world, Peter Max.” (@ARTnewsmag.)
• TwitPics from space. (@simondumenco.)
• A blog called Studies in Crap. (Out There.)
• One in four Americans is employed to protect the rich. (The Rumpus.)
• When fine art plagiarizes fine photography.
• Graffiti New York, one man’s three-decade chronicle of graffiti in the NYT. Funny line: “Some European aficionados arrive and immediately start asking how they can paint the side of a train. (Mr. Felisbret says some also think that teenagers rule the city and all graffiti writers are break dancers.)” See the slideshow.
• Today’s Street Art: The tree shadows of Pablo Sánchez Herrero in Salamanca.
• Madonna, aging pop star/green architecture patron.
• Chocolate anus. Seriously.

All photos by San Suzie.

• The Knave Abides: The Big Lebowski as written by Shakespeare. (@roo370)
• L.A. MoCA was going to be announcing its new director today (but apparently, the press conference has been postponed because it interfered with the broadcast of Lost). On the short list: commercial gallerist Jeffrey Deitch. (Read about the other contenders here.) Either way, expect an awesome art world knotted-panty clusterfuck of coverage in the coming days. Update: It’s gonna be Deitch, says Christopher Knight of the LAT. The paper’s arts blog has the (very short) story. Roberta Smith of the NYT chimes in. The paper’s main story here.
• Edward Winkleman has a very thoughtful post on the whole Deitch schmegagie over at Art World Salon.
• The envelope please: The judges for Bravo’s art reality show — called Work of Art — have been announced! They will be NY Mag’s Jerry Saltz, curator Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn (who will be representing the art-industry’s pixie haircut cartel) and auctioneer Simon de Pury, with “art enthusiast” China Chow as host. And is it me, or do I see China’s Spanx in this press photo? (@TwoCoats.)
• Important Warhol negs go missing.
• Wu-Tang Clan’s The RZA, celebrity artiste.
• Where art and Google Streetview intersect.
• This is art: Dude goes to Best Buy for 24 hours and doesn’t buy anything.
• Cloud Prototype #1.
• A stock photo of Dash Snow used for a story about teeth cleaning. (Anaba.)
• The last days of the El Dorado Hotel: Photographs by David Sotelo. (Coudal.)
• Elvis at 21.
• Today’s Street Art: Tosco in Lisbon.
• Paul Goldberger on architecture on Charlie Rose: “It’s not a cure for cancer.” Plus he says he’s working on a story about women architects who aren’t La Zaha. Interesting. (architecture.mnp.)
• Defending the Burj Khalifa: Blair Kamin and architecture.mnp.
• Twin Towers, the firm started by Minoru Yamasaki, who designed New York’s Twin Towers, is folding due to debt.
• Best description I’ve ever read of Jay Leno.