– Picasso Baby Gets Music Industry Nod: Jay Z’s now-infamous performance art project-cum-music video "Picasso Baby" has been nominated for a Grammy. Jay has the most nominations this year, in nine categories, but none in the major ones like album, record or song of the year. Competitors for the Best Music Video prize include Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for "Can’t Hold Us," Jack White for "I’m Shakin," and Jay himself for "Suit & Tie" with Justin Timberlake. [WSJ]
– Charities Could Rescue DIA: A new plan being brokered by U.S. Chief District Judge Gerald Rosen would safeguard the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts from being sold off to pay back creditors of the bankrupt city of Detroit, by having a coalition of 10 or more national and Michigan-based charity organizations donate sums totaling $500 million to the city's pensions. This scenario is one of the only feasible plans on the table, according to Judith H. Dobrzynski, who suggests that the other most viable solution would be for the state of Michigan to acquire the collection; a scenario governor Rick Snyder has yet to entertain. [Detroit Free Press, WSJ]
– Saltz and Smith Open Up: Art critic duo Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith were interviewed together by Christopher Bollen and the results are pretty darn cute. In addition to discussing their careers and working practices, the pair reveal that they have a thrift store painting collection and that Eric Fischl brought them together. "Our job is to watch artists dance naked in public, and then we will, in turn, dance naked critically in public," said Saltz. [Interview]
– LACMA Relaunches Art and Technology Initiative: Nearly 50 years after its innovative "Art and Technology" program, which paired artists like Robert Irwin and James Turrell with an aerospace company among other fortuitous match-ups, LACMA is relaunching the initiative as "Art & Technology," which will let as many as 30 artists and technology innovators collaborate on projects in a lab setting. [NYT, Unframed]
– Germany Pressured to Improve Nazi Loot Process: The United States and Israel are lobbying the German government to beef up their procedures for handling Nazi loot claims from Jewish heirs by making them speedier and more transparent. [WSJ]
– Photographing Art Numbs Our Memory: A new study by Linda Henkel, a psychology researcher at Connecticut's Fairfield University, suggests that photographing works of art may inhibit museum- and gallery-goers' ability to remember the work — although zooming in on specific details of a piece can bolster viewers' memory of the entire artwork. [LiveScience]
– Suzanne Greening will be the first director of the Audain Art Museum, currently under construction in Whistler. [The Globe and Mail]
– Saatchi Gallery’s recently launched online sales site Saatchi Online has named former Ticketmaster president and CEO Sean Moriarty as its new CEO. [Emag]
– The eighth fire in eight months (most likely due to arson) has destroyed another artist-designed house at Detroit’s Heidelberg Project art park. [Huff Po]
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