– Cashing In on Rush's Anti-Cachet: In wake of the recent uproar about Rush Limbaugh's vile comments about Sandra Fluke, the Missouri Capitol touched off a tizzy last week when it became known that it was ushering a bust of the radio host into its "Hall of Famous Missourians" (The commission was made before Limbaugh's now-infamous remarks.) Now fans or foes looking for a convenient effigy can have a Limbaugh bust of their very own, made from the same mold, for just $15,000: the work will be made in an edition of six. "After they purchase it, they can do whatever they want with it," said Paul Dorrell, the dealer who represents the commissioned artist. "They can use it as a boat anchor or target practice or display it in their home." [WaPo]
– David Zwirner Hops the Pond: The New York super-dealer continues to make moves in the global gallery arms race in a big way. Last night, word came of what many have long suspected: he will open a new gallery in London. The overseas outpost is an 18th-century Georgian townhouse in Mayfair that will open its doors in October with an exhibition of new works by Luc Tuymans. [NYT, ITA]
– Stolen Masterpieces Recovered: A crack team of Italian art police (yes, apparently they exist) have recovered 37 paintings, including works by Peter Paul Rubens and Nicolas Poussin, more than 40 years after they were stolen from a businessman in Rome. Police were alerted to the cache's whereabouts after some of the pieces were spotted in a catalogue for an upcoming auction. Five paintings from the theft remain missing. [AdnKronos]
– Model Becomes Face of Art: Lily Cole, who earned an estimated £11 million ($17.3 million) from modeling and graduated last year from Cambridge with a degree in art history, is to front Sky Arts's new six-part series "Art Matters." The program will feature artists such as Paula Rego, Tacita Dean, and Christo. [ArtLyst]
– Tracking Richter's Market: The Wall Street Journal's Kelly Crow charts the meteoric rise of Gerhard Richter, who last year outsold Monet, Giacometti, and Rothko — combined. The artist has apparently told friends he thinks his recent auction records are "absurd." Some art market players, like Jose Mugrabi and David Namhad, seem to agree. [WSJ]
– WTC Arts Center Hires Its First Staffer: The performing arts center at the World Trade Center, which spent years in bureaucratic limbo, has hired Maggie Boepple, a former president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to serve as senior advisor to the arts center board. [WSJ]
– VW Bugs Art Thieves: German automaker Volkswagen is putting up 75 percent of the funds for a major German-Russian research project to track down art stolen from Russia during WWII. The company will put up nearly $800,000 — though researchers will have to drive their own cars. [Bloomberg]
– Wiley Trades Big Canvases for Billboard: A scaled-up version of one of the works in Kehinde Wiley's new exhibition at the Jewish Museum is being painted on a Houston Street billboard. [TAN]
– TEFAF's Inaugural Restoration Fund Rewards Announced: Maastricht's art and antique fair has awarded the Denver Art Museum €26,000 ($34,403) for the restoration of Canaletto's "The Molo from the Bacino di S. Marco." The Rijksmuseum will also receive €22,000 ($29,110) for the restoration of ten bronze statues from the tomb of Isabella of Bourbon, dated 1476. [AMA]
– Weird Art Yankovic: An L.A. gallery is making an unlikely icon of wacky pop satirist Weird Al. The latest exhibition in the "Is This Thing On?" series opens at L.A.'s Gallery 1988 today will include a series of nine prints, each commemorating a different Weird Al track, such as "Fat" and "Another One Rides the Bus." [HuffPo]
– Van Goghbot: Scientists from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute are showing off a new €40,000 ($52,000) robot capable of creating a recognizable portrait of a human sitter in just three minutes. The robot was originally developed to test the quality of reflective materials like safety vests, but its ability to detect subtle light reflection patterns made it uniquely suited to portraying human facial features. [Reuters]
– Gilbert and George Go Rogue: The British artist duo's new exhibition, which opens today at all three White Cube locations, features nearly 300 works all made up of billboards that the pair stole over the course of several years. "Nobody would let us have them," said George Passmore. "We decided we would have to steal them all and one by one we stole 3,712." [HuffPo]
– Sotheby's Gets Handsy: The Henry Buhl Collection, a grouping of hundreds of photographs of hands by the likes of Walker Evans, Laslo Moholy-Nagy, and Robert Rauschenberg, will be auctioned off at Sotheby's in December. Perhaps the most famous image in Buhl's collection, a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz of his then-future wife Georgia O'Keefe's hands, has an estimate of $1-1.5 million. [NYT]
– Museum Gets Into the Hotel Business: The Indianapolis Museum of Art has formed a partnership with the real estate developer Buckingham Companies. The museum has commissioned art for the public spaces of Buckingham's newest hotel (from the likes of Jaume Plensa, Alyson Shotz, and Jorge Pardo) in exchange for a curatorial fee of $350,000. [NYT]
ALSO ON ARTINFO:
ARTINFO's 2012 Armory Show Honors: The Best, the Worst, and the Weirdest of New York's Biggest Fair
Moving Image, New York's Video Fair, Returns With Bigger, Better Screens (and More Nudity)
From Booths and Aisles to Temporary Cities: The Evolving Architecture of Art Fairs
Street Style: See Artists' Sartorial Selections at the Armory Show VIP Vernissage
From a Watermelon Rock to a Resin Bong, the Trippiest Works at the 2012 Independent Fair
Hoberman on “John Carter,” Cowboy and Indians on Mars