– Days of Swine and Poses: Artist Miru Kim caused a bit of a stir at Chelsea's Doosan Gallery earlier this year when she displayed photographs of herself crawling nude amid a herd of pigs, but that's nothing compared to the attention she's going to get next week when she recreates the work at Art Basel Miami Beach… live. Inspired by French philosophy, the artist says she's ready to jump back in the pen. After all, she's taken the worst the pigs can dish out. "Once, when I was focused on getting into position, one chomped down on my butt, which made me jump and run," she recalls. "It was very strange to have teeth marks and bruises there." Call her Francesca Bacon. [Societe Perrier]
– How Leonardo Anticipated Darwin: British art critic Jonathan Jones takes a look at Leonardo's drawings of rocky mountains and marvels at the Renaissance master's grasp of landscape, which went beyond mere realism to contain "astonishing insights about geology and fossils" — some of them, inspired by seashells found on mountaintops, relating to the multimillennial span of the Earth's geological transformation. These findings, Jones writes, contradicted Genesis and prefigured the discoveries leading to Darwin's theory of evolution. [Guardian]
– Laure Provost Wins Max Mara Award: The French film and installation artist captured the fashion company's annual prize for women artists, beating out Spartacus Chetwynd, Christina Mackie, Avis Newman, and Emily Wardill. [BBC]
– Coppola’s Take on Mapplethorpe: The independent filmmaker Sofia Coppola will put her extensive background in still photography to use as she curates an exhibition of photography by Robert Mapplethorpe at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. Her show follows in the recent footsteps of Mapplethorpe exhibitions by David Hockney in 2005 and Cindy Sherman in 2003. [Press Release]
– Not-So-Mysterious Benefactor: The artist David Hockney says that the Tate and LACMA are the two museums that "have meant the most to me over my lifetime," and in gratitude the 74-year-old artist plans to bequeath a large chunk of the paintings held in his $125 million foundation to the far-flung pair. This news, reported by the Times of London, seems to have come as a pleasant surprise to LACMA, which gave Hockney a 1988 retrospective. [LAT]
– The Art.sy Pitch: In a Wired profile, Art.sy COO Sebastian Cwilich reveals what he says to get "the high-end galleries” like Pace and Gagosian to sign up for his Pandora-for-art site: “If you don’t think that there’s going to be a lot more art discovered and purchased online, then you don’t need to talk to us. But if you believe that the world is changing, then you shouldn’t miss out.” Carter Cleveland, the company's 25-year-old CEO, expresses things a bit differently: "What we’re trying to do here is be an omniscient art historian for the entire world." [Wired]
– Graffiti Art Takes Off in Singapore: Of course, in the fastidious country that caned a Swiss visitor last year for tagging a train, graffiti art is not political and is rendered on canvas or cardboard. Street art, this is not. [Reuters]
– Album Art Masterpiece to Go to Auction: Next month, Bonhams will oversee the sale of the original cover art for the Rolling Stones album “Let It Bleed.” Designed by Robert Brownjohn and featuring a gaudy cake made by Delia Smith, it is one of the most recognizable album covers in music history. The high estimate is £40,000. [The Independent]
– Where to Find Tons of Catholic Art in the U.S.: Who knew? Bob Jones University, generally known as a bastion of Protestant fundamentalist values, holds one of the largest collections of Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings. Catholic imagery doesn’t seem to bother Erin R. Jones, director of the BJU Museum and Gallery and wife of the current university president. “If you are going to have a strong university,” she says, “you need a strong collection of art.” [Washington Post]
– Obama Poster Recruited for Occupy Movement: An icon associated with Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign has been modified by its original designer, Shepard Fairey, in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The new poster shows the President’s face replaced by a Guy Fawkes mask originally known from the film “V for Vendetta,” accompanied with the text: “Mister President, we HOPE you're on our side.” [ITA]
– U.S. Arts Mission to China a Rare Success: The U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture, which brought such creative figures as cellist Yo Yo Ma and actress Meryl Streep to China for a series of performances and readings, was widely praised in the official state media and on informal networking sites. But its success raises an uncomfortable question: Why are there not more programs like it? The U.S. is “not nearly as proactive as other countries,” said Alex Pearson, who runs an international literary festival in China. “Their embassy has an arts section,” she said, “but they don’t seem to have any money.” [NYT]
– Jurassic Bird Comes to the Museum: The 147-million-year-old fossil of a prehistoric winged creature, the Archaeopteryx, will be the "Mona Lisa" of the new display at London's Natural History Museum, to be unveiled in November of next year. The fossil played an important role in confirming Darwin's theory of evolution when it was discovered in 1861. (Yes, that's two Checklist items referencing Darwin today!) [Press Release]
– Formal Analysis of Occupy Posters: The Guardian is the latest media outlet to formally analyze the poster art of the Occupy movement, compiling a slide show of 14 of the most striking posters from across the world. “The movement is combining 1920s constructivism with modern graphic novel design to create striking series of images,” explains the newspaper. [Guardian]
– RIP English Poster Artist David Langdon: Posters by the draftsman were a universal fixture in midcentury London life, particularly during World War II. A contributor to the Daily Mirror, Punch, and the New Yorker, Langdon made cartoons imbued with bright, compact satire, with captions that wittily captured the political and civic culture of the times. He was 97. [The Guardian]