Jeff Koons at Versailles. See the full slideshow over at Hustler of Culture. (Image courtesy of Hustler of Culture.)
- The best paintings ever. Only $49.99. (My favorite: the Carmen Miranda-influenced one, of course.) (museumy.)
- Good question: will the financial crisis do away with the phenomenon of hedge fund manager collectors? And more importantly, what will they do with all that art that they bought at ridiculously high prices when times were good?
- Americans for the Arts makes nine recommendations for art policy to the incoming Obama administration. Among them: allow artists to claim unemployment benefits and have access to health care. Extend that idea to freelance writers and I’ll pimp this package like a mutha. (Culture Monster.)
- The story of the man who has cared for Walter De Maria’s Earth Room in SoHo for 19 years. (Coudal.)
- The British Museum turns 250.
- The California Academy of Sciences: all about climate change. (Culture Monster.)
- This exhibit in Florence, about art and the art market, looked like a good one. We Make Money Not Art reports in one and two parts.
- Speaking of which, London’s art industrial average is in the crapper.
- Czech artist offends with piece intended to offend. Man, I love the news. (Thanks, Big Papi G.)
- Berlin, “hipper” than ever. (Not if it’s being written about by a financial news service.)
- Hiroshi Sugimoto photo will reportedly be used on the cover of U2’s next album.
- Some people have been getting their panties in a knot over the Brooklyn Museum’s paid Twitter feed, 1stfans. I personally don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a fundraiser for the museum at a time when museums desperately need the dough. Plus, it’s not as if it’s a thousand dollars. It’s $20 — a.k.a. the price of five lattes. Besides, the museum has a free feed here.
- Plus: A Q&A with Victor Samra, the guy behind MoMA’s Twitter feed (which I have to confess is one of my favorites — just the right combination of weird and erudite).
- Newsflash: Stan Lee reportedly at work on the first gay superhero. Because lord knows all those other guys in ass-hugging tights were not gay. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- Today’s Graff: Yokone, GB334, Kazar, Osk, Swet, Bilos and Ioannina in Greece.
- Painted Brazilian trains.
- Everything’s bigger in Texas: The Bushes “modest” Dallas house.
- What will save the suburbs? Not much, it seems. Since they were designed with a complete lack of transformational flexibility.
- The solar energy supply chain: not so green. (architecture.mnp.)
- Your moment of 1970s Swedish dance bands. Oh, the clothes! (Coudal.)