– Legal Battle as Art Form: Is Ai Weiwei’s response to the $2.4 million tax bill recently levied against him by the Chinese government actually a work of art? According to the AP, Ai has turned the government’s demand into performance art by posting official documents online, tallying loans from supporters, and making a video of himself singing an anti-censorship song. “This has become a social performance and there are so many people involved. Even the Global Times. They are also playing a role in this,” said Ai, referring to the scathing commentaries against him in the official Chinese newspaper. According to critic Barbara Pollack, “A lot of the work that Ai Weiwei's done with Twitter and his blog and all of that stuff that might look like just political protest in China, [but] many curators in the West have called it social sculpture.” [AP]
– Who Will Buy the "Salvator Mundi"?: Not the Getty Museum, according to the oil-rich Los Angeles institution, which claims the newly-rediscovered painting (said to have an asking price of $200 million) would prevent them from making other needed acquisitions. “Salvator Mundi” is one of two of the 14 surviving portable paintings by da Vinci not already in the Getty’s collection. (Read more about the work, and the man who helped authenticate it, here.) Currently the only other U.S. museum to own a Leonardo is the National Gallery in D.C. [LAT]
– Clyfford Still Museum, a Permanent Solo Show: The Art Newspaper offers a peek at the highly anticipated Clyfford Still Museum, which opens tomorrow in Denver. The institution will house 95 percent of the artist’s life’s work, most of which has never been exhibited. In his brief but demanding will, the Abstract Expressionist master stipulated that his estate remain in storage until a U.S. city agrees to build a museum “exclusively” for his art, meaning that no other artist’s work will ever be permitted to go on view to compliment or supplement the museum’s holdings. Works are also not permitted to “be sold, given, or exchanged.” Despite these limitations, museum director Dean Sobel is confident that visitors will have an art experience “so rewarding that they want to come back.” [TAN]
– McCartney Letter Sells for $55,000: A handwritten letter from Paul McCartney in which the musician invites an unnamed drummer to audition for the Beatles sold at Christie’s in London for almost £35,000, or about $55,000 — well over the pre-sale estimate of £7,000-9,000 ($11,000-14,000). Still, McCartney has a long way to go to catch up to John Keats, whose love letter sold for $151,000 at auction in March. [NYT]
– Street Artists Sue King Tut Company: Three Los Angeles street artists are suing the real estate division of Anshutz Entertainment Group (the company responsible for sending the treasures of King Tut’s tomb around the world) for allegedly destroying five artworks on display in a penthouse at the Ritz-Carlton Residences at L.A. Live hotel. According to the suit, works by street artists Mear One, Chor Boogie, and Shark Toof, which were installed last January as part of a cross-marketing initiative between the L.A. Art Show and AEG, were improperly removed and subsequently lost. They are seeking $150,000 for each lost artwork, as well as punitive damages. [LAT]
– It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s an Artwork?: The latest contribution to an ongoing public art initiative in London’s Kings Cross neighborhood is an “IFO” (Identified Flying Object), a nine-meter glowing neon cage by French artist and architect Jacques Rival that hangs above King’s Cross station. By day, the work will rest on the ground for tourists and visitors to enter, and take a ride on the swing at the cage’s center. By night, the piece will be lifted into the sky by a tall orange crane. It will remain in the neighborhood for the next two years. [Independent]
– Lowry Circus Sells for $8.8 Million: A figure-packed scene of London’s Piccadilly Circus by 20th century painter L.S. Lowry sold for £5.6 million ($8.8 million) at Christie’s, just below the £6 million high estimate and equal to the highest price ever paid for a Lowry painting. The artwork came from a collection formed by late U.K. caterer and hotelier Charels Forte. [Bloomberg]
– A New Golden Age for Antiquities?: Is there a new spirit of international cooperation beginning to blossom in the field of antiquities? The Cleveland Museum of Art reinstalled its collection of Greek and Roman art in 2010, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is renovating its ancient coin and jewelry galleries. Creating a network “of institutions linked with ones abroad or archaeological sites in source countries” is “where the world is going” and will result in richer displays of antiquities, said former Association of Art Museum Directors president Michael Conforti. [TAN]
– Richard Phillips’s New Muse: For the launch issue cover of Interview Russia, the first foreign edition of the iconic New York City magazine founded by Andy Warhol, photorealist painter Richard Phillips has helped to create a portrait of cover boy Leonardo DiCaprio. Phillips said he wanted to “amplify visually the uncanny feeling of identification that compels us to share in the experiences of [DiCaprio's] characters." [ITA]
– RIP James Neal, British Cityscape Painter: James Neal is best known for his cityscape paintings, which combine the steady brushwork of English post-impressionism and the strong graphic element of German expressionism. The artist, who spent most of his life in Hull, in east Yorkshire, was 93. [Guardian]