– Sting To Play LACMA: LACMA has just announced that British pop star Sting will entertain attendees at this year’s Art + Film gala. Co-chaired by Leonardo DiCaprio and museum trustee Eva Chow, this year’s fundraiser is in honor of David Hockney, who has an installation at the museum, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who directed DiCaprio’s latest film "The Wolf of Wall Street." [LAT]
– Lawyer Fleeced Twombly Foundation: On Wednesday prominent New York art lawyer Ralph E. Lerner was accused of taking some $750,000 in fraudulent fees from the Cy Twombly Foundation in an ongoing court case in Delaware. According to new papers filed in the suit, Lerner secretly charged the late artist's foundation fees while serving as its secretary and a director of its board. According to court papers, Lerner "even charged legal fees for merely attending board meetings as a director," even though "no other board member received (or was entitled to receive) compensation (much less at the significant rate of $950 an hour) for attending board meetings or reviewing and editing the board meeting minutes." [NYT]
– Male Nudes Hit Paris: After "Masculin/Masculin," an exhibition composed entirely of male nudes, ruffled feathers with racy ads in Vienna last year, the show is now traveling to the Musée D’Orsay in Paris. While the Paris show was inspired by the exhibition at Vienna's Leopold Museum, Guy Cogeval, the Orsay's president is quick to emphasize that the Paris show only contains 20 of the same artworks. "I've wanted to explore this theme for a long time, since I was director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal 15 years ago," Cogeval said. "I suggested doing it but it was explained to me that it would be frowned upon." [AFP]
– Knoedler President Sues for Defamation: Ann Freedman, the former president of the Knoedler & Co. gallery until it closed in 2011, is suing Manhattan dealer Marco Grassi for defamation over a comment he made to a New York magazine reporter questioning the thoroughness of her research into a series of alleged works by canonical American modernists that turned out to be forgeries. More charges in that forgery case, implicating Freedman, Long Island dealer Glafira Rosales, and others, are expected soon. [WSJ, TAN]
– Louvre Flooded With Fake Tickets From China: Since mid-August staff at the most-visited museum in the world has been noticing an influx of thousands of fake admission tickets, most of them from Chinese guides and tourists. Belgian customs officials recently intercepted a package from China containing some 3,600 fake tickets to the Louvre. [Le Monde]
– Warhol's BFF Declined Marilyn Gift: The recently deceased TV set designer Charles Lisanby was a lifelong friend of Andy Warhol, but when the Pop artist offered to give his buddy one of his then-new print portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Lisanby declined, claiming he didn't have room for it. [LAT]
– The Guggenheim Collection in Venice has released a limited edition (and kind of creepy) toy Lhasa Apso puppy named Cappucino — after Peggy Guggenheim’s first dog — because the breed was her favorite. [ArtDaily]
– The Wall Street Journal visits Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Chelsea studio where he keeps his "obsessive collection of Stone Age artifacts." [WSJ]
– The ArtInternational Istanbul art fair, which is taking place later this month, has been forced to change its name to just ArtInternational after a legal battle with the company behind Contemporary Istanbul. [TAN]
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