– More Amazing Picasso at Gagosian: Fresh off his much-hated Damien Hirst spot spectacular, Larry Gagosian is returning to the kind of "museum-quality" shows that have brought him acolades (and big crowds) in recent years. The fourth in the super-gallery's series of scholarly Picasso exhibitions opens on April 30 in New York, this time focusing on art made by the Cubist master while he was living in southern France with lover Francoise Gilot. Three-quarters of the pieces in the exhibition were either loaned by or consigned from Picasso's family. "Having the opportunity to work closely with [Picasso biographer] John Richardson and the Picasso family...has been professionally, and on a personal level, one of the most exciting chapters in the gallery's history," Gagosian said. [Bloomberg]
– Dead Chicken Art Ruffles Feathers: If you thought the woman who rolled around naked with pigs at Art Basel Miami Beach was bad, try this on for size: Kansas artist Amber Hansen plans to publicly display five chickens before slaughtering and serving them at a community potluck. She hopes the Warhol Foundation-funded project, "The Story of Chickens: A Revolution" will establish a connection between residents and the food they eat. Some, however, are clucking their tongues: “When people in other states think of Kansas, they will think that we don’t teach evolution in our schools and we do those gruesome, public slaughters of chickens and call it art,” said one local. "This is just backward." [Kansas City Star]
– Fake Antiquities Ring Raided by Police: Seven people, including renowned archaeologist Edoardo David, have been arrested in Italy on suspicion of participating in a two-and-a-half-year-long archeological fraud that forged thousands of Greek and Etruscan artifacts. [TAN]
– Grayson Perry Snubs da Vinci: The potter and artist, whose own exhibition at the British Museum has been extended to meet the demand for last-minute tickets, admitted he "couldn't be bothered" to visit the National Gallery's landmark exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci. "It's too familiar, really," Perry said, referring to the Renaissance master's paintings as "fuzzy portraits by that famous bloke." [Telegraph]
– Can Street Art Rid a City of Pollution?: That's the question paint producer Boysen is asking after commissioning a group of artists to paint murals along the main highway in Manila, Philippines with special smog-eating paint. When exposed to sunlight, modified titanium dioxide molecules in the paint neutralize noxious gases. [HuffPo]
– Ai Weiwei Doc Gets Release Date: Alison Klayman's documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" will hit theaters in the United States this summer. The film, which chronicles the life of the dissident Chinese artist as he is targeted by the government, won a Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance at this year's Sundance Film Festival. [NYT]
– "Mona Lisa" Copy Will Show Alongside Original: A recently discovered copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" that is believed to have been painted alongside the original is drawing huge crowds at Madrid's Prado museum. In March, the restored copy — painted with more detail than the original — will go on show at the Lourve alongside the genuine Da Vinci version. [BBC]
– Marina Makes Even German Men Cry: In an interview with Canada's Globe and Mail, performance artist Marina Abramovic reveals one of the greatest challenges in her 40-year career: "To make German men cry is not an easy task," she said. [Globe and Mail]
– Watch the Throne: A new exhibition at London's Cartoon Museum on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's 60th year on the throne examines the British press's changing attitude towards the royal family. UK cartoonists became more cutting as the Royals' lives became more public. [WSJ]
– Murakami Goes Back to His Roots?: Though it might be a hard sell for a show that opens with a six-meter inflatable portrait of the artist, the Ecomomist argues that Takashi Murakami's exhibition, "Murakami-Ego," at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, is "as much about the Buddhist suppression of ego and the road to enlightenment as it is about the artist's overheated obsession." [Economist]
– Jurassic Park, Opening Soon: Researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia are developing a new use for 3D scanning and printing technologies that will allow them to test out long-held hypotheses with robotic dinosaur bone replicas. “Technology in paleontology hasn't changed in about 150 years,” said professor Kenneth Lacovara. “It hasn't changed — until right now.” [Press Release]
– From Herding Celebs to Herding Goats: The week before his exhibition of still life photos opens at Fred Torres Collaborations, David LaChapelle is at home in Hawaii tending to his goats. The photographer, famous for shooting celebrities surrounded by lavish sets, says he spends most of his down time at his house in the appropriately lush Hawaiian rainforest. [HuffPo]
VIDEO OF THE DAY
MoMA gives a peek behind the scenes of the just-opened "Cindy Sherman":
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