– USPS Censors Cattelan's Dildo Art: Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan may have "retired" from art-making, but he can't stop stirring things up! A VICE magazine cover designed by the artist (with his "Toilet Paper" magazine collaborator Pierpaolo Ferrari) was apparently deemed too hot to deliver: "Due to the United States Postal Service's disgusting and ambiguous censorship policy, we were forced to obscure the very realistic-looking fake penis that graces the March issue’s cover," writes VICE. The agency required the magazine to place a sticker — which reads "DILDO" — over the offending object, and the mag's editors now gleefully claim to have documented DILDO stickers cropping up all over New York. (Click here to see Cattelan's full spread in the magazine.) [VICE]
– "It's My Saatchi Gallery, Basically": Damien Hirst has detailed plans for a giant public gallery he will open in South London in 2014 to house his personal collection, which features more than 2,000 artworks. "It's basically Bacon and beyond," said the artist of his holdings, which also include work by Jeff Koons, Sarah Lucas, and Banksy, among others. The space, formerly a theater carpentry workshop that is described as being close to the Whitechapel in scale, will be designed by architect Caruso St John. [Guardian]
– Bardot Beau's Bounty Bound for the Block: The collection of the German multi-millionaire, former bobsleigh champion, and Brigitte Bardot's ex-husband, Gunter Sachs will go to auction at Sotheby's in New York on May 22 and 23. Among other things, Sachs (who committed suicide last spring) commissioned his friend Andy Warhol to make Bardot's portrait, and later bought one the Pop artist's last self-portraits, "Fright Wig" (1986), which is expected to fetch between $3 and $4.7 million. [Bloomberg]
– London Gets a New Art Fair: Launched by the original founders of Art HK, Art13 London aims to showcase the best in international modern and contemporary art. Stephanie Dieckvoss, formerly of Serpentine Gallery and Art HK, will direct the fair, which debuts in London next March. [Press Release]
– Dallas Art Museum Gets New Deputy: The new director of the Dallas Museum of Art is staffing up: Recently appointed head Maxwell Anderson has named Robert Stein, his former colleague at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, as the DMA's new deputy director. Stein currently serves as the deputy director for research, technology, and engagement at the IMA. [Press Release]
– Texas-Sized Art Fraud: A couple in Dallas has pleaded guilty to defrauding another Texan couple of $3 million in a 2004 scheme that involved purportedly loaning artworks to European museums and instead purchasing art with with the victims' money, which they used as collateral for a $300,000 loan from the Art Capital Group. [Glasstire]
– Public Art Gets a New Purpose: The city of New Orleans has selected a sculpture that will be reproduced around the city to mark evacuation spots, or places where people can gather to be transported out of town in case of a mandatory evacuation. The sculpture, by Massachusetts artist Douglas Kornfeld, features the outline of a human form with a single arm raised. [LAT]
– Word on the Street: Jeff Koons is said to be beginning construction on a new mega-mansion with his architect Richard Olcott. The project, which might just rival the palatial New York residence of his dealer, Larry Gagosian, will connect two East 67th Street buildings to create a 21,500-square-foot home. [NYP]
– Hell, Yes!: Michigan's Open Concept Gallery recently acquired a rainbow-hued text sculpture by Ugo Rondinone similar to one that hung on the New Museum's facade that read "Hell, Yes." Because it doesn't have sufficient funds to transport and insure "Big Mind Sky" (2007), however, the gallery has turned to popular microfunding site Kickstarter to raise the remaining money. [HuffPo]
– Smithsonian Shines Light on Jefferson's Slaves: A new exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art titled "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty" looks at the lives of the 607 slaves Thomas Jefferson owned during his lifetime. "Considering that there are those who have problems with this exhibition in 2012," said the Smithsonian's Rex Ellis, "I'd say that 15 years ago, it would have been pretty difficult to do something like this." [NPR]
– Copycat Banksy?: "Banksy on Advertising," a four-paragraph, manifesto-like quote attributed to the street artist that has gone viral on Twitter and Tumblr, turns out to have borrowed heavily from writer Sean Tejaratchi's essay "Death, Phones, Scissors." "My goal is to set the record straight online," said Tejaratchi. But perhaps Banksy's actions shouldn't come as a surprise — he once did, after all, take credit for Picasso's famous line, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." [Gawker]
– Angel Sculptures Get Their Own Guardian Angel: An Ohio makeup artist has become a sort of patron saint for religious statues left behind. When a Catholic church closes, Lou McClung gathers its neglected religious statues and restores them to their former ethereal state. [NYT]
– Santa Barbara Museum Gets Endowed Directorship: The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation has pledged $5.5 million to endow the museum's director position, currently held by Larry Feinberg. [LAT]
– RIP Comics Artist Moebius: The French artist Jean Giraud, better known by the signature on his fantasy and sci-fi comics, Moebius, died at 73 after a prolonged battle with cancer. Giraud helped launch the legendary comic monthly "Heavy Metal" in 1975, and contributed designs to seminal sci-fi films like "Alien," "Tron," and "The Fifth Element." [LAT]
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