— Depp to Play Art Dealer Mortdecai: Johnny Depp is set to play a “roguish art dealer” in the much-anticipated film adaptation of the “Mortdecai” trilogy, which sounds a bit like “Monuments Men” meets “The DaVinci Code.” Alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor, Depp will fight to uncover a stolen painting that contains “the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.” Lionsgate chief executive Jon Feltheimer said that the studio sees Mortdecai as “a franchise-able character in the vein of ‘The Pink Panther.’” [LAT]
— Colosseum Gets a $35M Makeover: The Colosseum in Rome is six months in to the first full cleaning in its history, a project that costs $35 million. Along with returning the structure’s limestone to its original dark ivory color, restorers are finding other surprises along the way. “When you have the chance to put up scaffolding on an ancient monument and look closely while you’re cleaning, you discover things you would never otherwise see such as frescoes, stucco work, inscriptions, and graffiti,” said Clementina Panella, a professor of Roman archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza university. [WSJ]
— Online Art Sales Reach $1 Billion: A report published today by the insurance group Hiscoux estimated that the online art market accounted for $1.6 billion of transactions in 2013, and predicts it will reach $3.8 billion by 2018. Online sales still make up for 2.4 percent of the total market, but the figures in Hiscoux reports its figures are likely “conservative” due to unreliable public data. Other findings include 82 percent of buyers noting that physically being able to see the art object is the biggest challenge, and that more than 25 percent of online collectors are under 30. [TAN]
— Yonkers to Host Arts Weekend: The City of Yonkers is organizing its first Yonkers Art Weekend. A shuttle will take visitors to see the 11th annual YoHo Artists Open Studio, “The Art of Video Games” exhibit at the Hudson River Museum, and paintings from Satish Joshi and Blue Door Gallery at the Riverfront Library. [NYT]
— Basquiat’s Earliest Collectors Profiled: Early devout collectors and self-described “surrogate parents” to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lenore and Herbert Schorr, will be showing some of the drawings they purchased from the artist at Acquavella Galleries in New York. In a profile for Vanity Fair they recalled Basquiat, saying, “Having us drive him was clearly easier for him than his trying to get a taxi, because of the fact that he was black. He used to joke that he needed to get Herb a driver’s cap, and that he’d buy us a hot dog afterwards.” [Vanity Fair]
— LACMA Acquires 10 New Artworks: LACMA has acquired 10 new pieces for its collection at Saturday night’s gala, the final event for its 29th annual Collectors Committee weekend. New works include an interactive video game installation by Feng Mengbo, a glass work by Roni Horn, and the installation “Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible,” which is currently on view and was bought by trustee Carole Bayer Sager. [LAT]
— The Louvre is making plans to solve the “bottleneck” problem at its pyramid entrance. [TAN]
— Charles Lim is set to represent Singapore at next year’s Venice Biennale. [Gallerist]
— Frederick Janka is leaving the Sculpture Center to become director of development at the MCA Santa Barbara. [Artforum]
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