• The New York Times has a story on Mexican narchitecture. And I’m supremely jealous I didn’t write it. Be sure to check out the splendiferous slideshow, complete with bullet hole façades and zebra-stripe furnishings.
• Speaking of which: The house where Pablo Escobar was gunned down is for sale.
• Bacteria as conservation tool.
• KCET Departures has just launched a highly intriguing online series about the laws (starting with the Laws of the Indies) that have shaped L.A.’s landscape. The second essay is on how helicopter landing pad laws have resulted in the city’s boxy architecture.
• It’s a bummer that Robert Smithson never got to build the land art pieces at DFW airport described in this essay. Would make landing in Dallas infinitely cooler. (See a design schematic here.)
• Late on this, but still important: Jeff Weinstein reminds us that Helen Frankenthaler helped gut the NEA.
• UNAM is putting the materials from their libraries and collections online. This is very cool.
• Set aside 11 minutes for this: An animation of a talk by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist about the divided brain (with Andy Warhol/Banksy reference towards the end). Wow.
• It all rests on transformation: Some discussions about the Patrick Cariou versus Richard Prince copyright case (in which Prince was sued by another artist for copyright infringement). The NYT has an overview. Hyperallergic also has an explainer. Anyone else think that both sets of works are not at all interesting?
• Sort of related: Copying stuff is now a religion in Sweden.
• SPIN Magazine now reviewing albums on Twitter.
• Plus: Why authors Tweet.
• Maria Bustillos, on what makes a great critic.
• Which led me to this interesting Financial Times essay on literary criticism gone soft.
• Tumblrs to Follow: Preservationist Ryan Gosling and Museum Ryan Gosling. (San Suzie.)
• Today’s Graff: Would love to have Djalouz redo my bathroom.
• 10 pieces of trash-talking ancient graffiti.
• The story of Chinese food take-out containers.
• Ugly Renaissance Babies. (@rcembalest.)

I like the digital reference on this one. It means “Power to the People.”

My partner-in-crime, Celso, was running around Central Park’s North Woods when he stumbled into this (uncommissioned) carving of a face on a rock. I like the Olmec head aspirations and that someone decided to carve (rather than spray) one of the park’s boulders. If you’re the artist and you’re reading this: keep up the good work. (Photo by celso_nyc.)

• Thanks to Salon, Jezebel and Mediaite for picking up/linking to my piece on Jennifer Dalton’s installation at the Winkleman Gallery. Interestingly, as Mediaite points out: Jon Stewart’s lady ratio is even worse thus far in 2011. To make up for the inequity, male members of the program should all be required to get bikini waxes — the full back, crack and sack.
• Not as Futuristic as It Looks: Christopher Hawthorne rawks it on this critique of Apple’s proposed new corporate park in Cupertino, which is designed in a not terribly cutting-edge, car-centric suburban style. Brings to mind Lewis Baltz’s photos of Irvine’s office parks from the 1960s and early ‘70s.
• How big money financiers run education “reform.” An incredible, tragic read.
• Lame: Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland cancels Palestinian children’s art show after being pressured by Jewish and other community groups.
• Tumblr to follow: WTF Art History.
• Bootleg movie posters from Ghana. (Thank you, Giovanni.)
• The mysterious, unresolved etymology of “nerd.”
• Things I gotta see at the Smithsonian: A nearly 500-year-old robot from Spain. Whoa.
• The nuances of acquiring new media art. Like purchasing any Apple products, you can buy it, but you can never really own it.
• Plus: is new media art coming of age?
• Stephen Powers love letter to Brooklyn. (The comment about Powers’ choice of font made me snort-laugh.)
• Luna Park’s tour of vintage NYC graffiti.
• And now, I’ve officially seen everything: Graffiti as corporate bonding tool.
• Matthew Barney’s Anus.
• And, best of all, fat tabby cats inserted into famous paintings. YES. (Grazie, Fabrizia.)

• Portland, Oreg.: Jack Pierson, Twilight, and Mise-en-Scène, a group show, at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Through July 16.
• Los Angeles: For a Long Time, Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Raymond Pettibon and others, at Roberts and Tilton Gallery in Culver City. Through August 6.
• S.F.: Sign Your Life Away, with Steve Powers, Jeff Canham and New Bohemia Signs, at Guerrero Gallery. Opens Saturday at 7pm.
• Fort Worth: Focus: Teresita Fernández, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Through June 19. (…might be good.)
• Chicago: Avant Garde Art in Everyday Life, at the Art Institute of Chicago. (And while you’re there, be sure to check the African art galleries, which will display a textile made from the silk of a Golden Orb spider. Like, whoa.) Opens Saturday.
• LAST WEEK — NYC: Live From Detroit, a group show, at Fred Torres Collaborations, in Chelsea. Nice to see a show featuring Detroit artists rather than outsiders doing ruins porn. I really dug the paintings by Dick Goody. Through Saturday.
• PLUS: get my up-to-date New York City recommends over at WNYC.