— SF Offers George Lucas Museum Spot: The Presidio Trust has offered George Lucas an alternative location for his museum after rejecting his proposal for Crissy Field earlier this week. The Trust has proposed that he installs his Cultural Arts Museum next door to the Letterman Digital Arts Center, a special-effects unit of Lucasfilms in another section of the Presidio. Lucas told Trust board members that he would consider the new location, but that he will also be entertaining offers from other cities, including one such proposal from Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. [SF Gate]
— Sotheby's Wrecks Records: Auction records for Camille Pissaro, Pierre Bonnard, and Pablo Picasso were broken at Sotheby’s Impressionism, Modernism, and Surrealism evening sale last night in London. Pissaro’s "Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps" went for $32.1 million. "It is an honour to be entrusted with offering the greatest work by Camille Pissarro ever to appear at auction — a work that encompasses such a richly painted canvas and a supremely elegant composition," said Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Department Europe. [AFP, BAI]
— Harry Styles Collects Again: One Direction heartthrob Harry Styles is adding more art to his collection, this time dropping $33,000 on some pieces by British artist Hayden Kays. Purchased at Cob Gallery in Camden, the works on paper feature cheeky phrases such as “If I wasn’t straight I’d definitely be gay” and “I think about sex every sex words.” Really thought provoking stuff. [E Online]
— Southbank Centre Rethinks Plan: A halt has been put on building plans for London’s Southbank Centre after Mayor Boris Johnson ordered the arts center to steer clear of a skate park that was to be razed. [Telegraph]
— Portugal Still Wants to Sell: Portugal’s Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho announced that the country would still auction of their cache of 85 Joan Miro works despite the murky legal situation that led Christie’s to cancel their sale earlier this week. [AFP]
— Performance Artist Pavlensky on Russian Censorship: “You can be afraid if you feel you are guilty of something and I don't,” says Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who recently nailed his scrotum to Red Square, in a conversation about the charges of hooliganism he is facing. “Anything the authorities do against me means discrediting themselves. The more they do with me, the worse they make it for themselves.” [The Guardian]
— Four months before it is set to open, the organizers of the Bucharest Biennial have cut ties with their curator, Nicolaus Schafhausen, and appointed to two new curators to replace him. [TAN]
— The winners of the Tate’s new digital arts prize are planning to install a series of nighttime robots in the museum that will allow art lovers to browse the museum after hours from home. [The Guardian]
— Fathers4Justice member Tim Haries, who defaced a portrait of the Queen at Wesminster Abbey last year, has been sentenced to six months of jail. [AFP]
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