Art in America

Joel as ‘Jessie.’ (Image from Secrets of the Living Dolls)

AFC’s offices are a buzz this morning, as art news just keeps pouring in!

• Jerry Saltz has written a letter to MoMA’s Trustees imploring them not to proceed with Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design, which he believes won’t be conducive to viewing art. Good luck with that Jerry. This isn’t a problem with the architects, but with their clients. [Vulture]
• It looks like the Baltimore Museum of Art has retrieved its stolen Renoir from Baltimore resident Marcia Fuqua, who’d bought the painting at a flea market for $7. Since the work was stolen, the court ruled that Fuqua doesn’t have a right to it. The work was estimated in value at between $75,000-$100,000. [TAN]
• Jeffrey Deitch gets a profile in New York Magazine, which washes over curator Paul Schimmel’s dismissal in favor of a creating an image of a “swashbuckling” badboy whose sensational shows were too New York for LA to handle. This is in part true, since L.A. residents didn’t seem to want a celebrity focus in their museums. But Deitch was never supposed to be the museum’s curator, he was its director, and he failed in that department when he lost the support of the board and didn’t raise the necessary funds. He’s a better curator, he’s going back to that, and is looking into space in Red Hook and the so-called SuperPier on the Hudson at 14th Street. [Vulture]
• Looks like Occupy may be re-emerging? After Anonymous holds a Bush protest today at Grand Central the Whitney Museum will host an “officially sanctioned” Occupy network at the museum tomorrow night. [twitter]
• Former New York Times Editor Bill Keller is upsetting people again. This time, following his wife’s lead in The Guardian, he ruminates on whether Lisa Bonchek Adams, a cancer patient suffering from 4th stage breast cancer, tweets too much. Can’t wait for the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan to weigh in on this one. [The New York Times]
• The Globe and Mail’s Artists of the Year are predictably conservative. Painter Kim Dorland is dubbed “artist of the wild”,  and why is Vince Gilligan, an American, the recipient of awards given to Canadians? [The Globe and Mail]
• The BBC may be bringing outside TV to North Korea. A senior diplomatic Brit is quoted as saying “I have always believed what brought down the Berlin Wall was not highbrow diplomacy but Dallas and Dynasty.” [TIME]
• Artist, filmmaker, and now generally popular person Steve McQueen took home the Golden Globe for Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave at last night’s ceremony. [Gawker]
• In case you missed it last week, Amanda Hess really stirred the pot with her Pacific Standard cover story “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet.” She details death threats that have come her way for writing frankly about sex, and notes statistics that show that this kind of abuse happens far more often to women than men. Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat responds and suggests that ridding the Internet of male-on-female comment wars is “ultimately a task for men” and involves finding “a more compelling vision of masculine goals,” neither of which is going to help out female writers who’re dealing with trolls right this second. [The New York Times]
• The people who dress as blow-up dolls are coming out, and have done so through the documentary “Secrets of the Living Dolls”. We can’t watch the whole thing because we’re not in the area, but maybe our UK readers will have more luck with it. [laughing squid]
• And because we’re constantly thinking about butt plugs in preparation for our upcoming benefit auction, I found the “baby Jesus butt plug” who may have been birthed by an alien. [The Slaughter House]