I have been seriously remiss for not writing about this sooner: PRISM Index, a lovingly crafted, hand-made art and culture magazine straight outta Columbus, Oh. Not only does it feature an original silkscreen cover by artist and founder Jeffrey Bowers, it comes bursting with goodies: drawings, stories, photography, excerpts of graphic novels and a funny, stand-alone mini-comic called Horror of the Hodag! Oh, and did I mention the multimedia components? A CD and DVD chock full of music and video compilations — the latter of which contains Jay Rosenblatt‘s must-see I Just Wanted to Be Somebody. I’m still going through all of the pieces (this is the sort of publication you chew on in bits), but if I had to pick one reason to pick up this wonderful magazine, it’s for Trent Harris’s moving essay on his friendship with artist Bruce Conner. It left me gasping.

Find the first issue via the magazine’s website, along with a short list of bookstores and galleries that also carry it. It is worth every penny of its $22 cover price.

You can find it right here.

I spent a better part of Saturday afternoon wandering around Andy Warhol: The Last Decade at the Brooklyn Museum. I’ve long felt ambivalent about Warhol as an artist. I love the ways in which he innovated the use of commercial imagery, but get worn out by the relentless rich-people portraits cranked out factory-style. I like the way he could play the media, but the hijinks can grow tiresome. Some pieces are clever, others too self-aware. But the gathering of silkscreens and paintings at the Brooklyn Museum, all produced during the last ten years of the artist’s life, contained a number of works that genuinely moved me — from the whoa-nelly-this-shit-is massive Last Supper (the middle shot above) to the maligned collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat (there’s a hopefulness and a darkness to Sin More that I find really compelling). I was totally absorbed — primarily by the works on the fifth floor portion of the exhibit.

But above all, I learned one important lesson: It might occasionally behoove me to clean the lens on my camera.

Andy Warhol, The Last Decade, is up at the Brooklyn Museum through Sept. 12. Plus, an interesting fact: Warhol used to like to celebrate his birthday at Serendipity.

• Looking for the most beautiful Tweet ever written. (The Book Bench.)
• Journalist Charles Bowden says that women in Juárez are killed at the same rate as in the rest of Mexico. The problem, he says, isn’t specifically violence against women, it’s the violence generated by extreme poverty and a failed state.
• The World Touristiness Map. (Coudal.)
• A jaw-droppingly wonderful choreography containing crutches, braces and boobies. Has to be seen to be believed.
• A performance artist on re-performing Abramovic.
• Where oh where is Carmen San Diego? Er, I mean, where oh where is Eli Broad planning on building his museum? For now, the conjecture points to downtown L.A. More here.
• The Art Industrial Average is Down: Lay-offs at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Arts Journal.)
• The Art Industrial Average Is Up: Whitney Museum board okays construction — and a move to — downtown Manhattan space. Boy, was I seriously wrong in thinking it was all conjecture.
• Well done: An artistic photo essay that takes its cues from the disaster in the Gulf. (The Jonathan Monk piece, #11, is an excellent use of a car hood.)
• Man Bartlett on what it was like to repeat people’s Tweets for 24 hours, as part of his work, #24Echo. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve been referred to as inspirational. From now on, call me Oprah.
• Fragments of stolen art come together to form another artwork by Eva and Franco Mattes.
• Do curators have too much power?
• Painted typewriters by Tauba Auerbach. (Coudal.)
• Zombie meat.
• A digital graffiti wall. (@GOOD.)
• Today’s Street Art: Lucho and quillo’s wrecked car in Santiago, Chile.
• Artist Molly Dilworth to turn Times Square into a river.
• In Paris: A door that leads to nowhere.
• Not even remotely related: The Champs Elysées is turned into a giant garden. (Cool Green Science.)
• Best. News Lede. Ever. (@russelltrombone.)

It must be summer, because the artsy jet-set and their Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses have materialized in abundance on the Greek Isle of Hydra, like the wild capers that grow from the cracks all over the island’s stone stairways. This past week’s super-event was the summer show at the Hydra Workshop, a waterfront art space that puts together an annual exhibit inspired by the collection of London-based art patron Pauline Karpidas, who flew in le tout New York (and demi-Dallas) for this year’s event. Co-curated by mega-gallerist Sadie Coles, the young artist featured this year was “bad boy” New York artiste Nate Lowman, who was in attendance with non other than petite amie Mary-Kate Olsen. (Coles’ hubby, fashion photographer Juergen Teller was also there — with nary a Marc Jacobs model in sight.)

The art this year was all about being self-referential: silk-screened portraits à-la-Warhol featured all the friends-of-Lowman crowding the Hydra waterfront (and saving everyone the trouble of having to look in the mirror). Many of the images were based on photographs snapped by John Shand-kydd (cousin-by-marriage to Diana Spencer), who, to keep things really meta, was also there, snapping away at the proceedings.

For more on this little fiesta, check out Rachel Chandler’s (self-referential) report at The Moment.

Click on images to supersize.

Before le deluge.

The show packed the crowds into the steamy gallery – some of them were even decked out in trousers. Fancy!

Here the artiste, sporting of-the-moment asymmetrical ‘do, confers with girlfriend/actress/grande coffee sipper Mary-Kate Olsen – holding a Diet Coke. (Loved your work in The Wackness, M-K! ) To the right, looking slightly dazed: Swedish photographer Hanna Liden.

“Do your balls hang low, do they wobble to and fro…?”

Lowman’s portrait of Pauline Karpidas.

The real deal.

Lowman, right, does yoga stretches while enjoying some chit chat with smokin’ sculptor U.B. Morgan. In the background, M-K holds court with Herr Juergen in front of gyro advertising.

Pandemonium was unleashed when this young lady tried to parallel park her donkey, almost mowing down the artiste. Quelle horreur!