– Frank Gehry, Poster Designer?: The world’s most famous living concert hall designer has taken on another music-related task: designing the official poster for the 54th Grammy Awards. The poster, which depicts the Grammy's trademark golden gramophone in the middle of what appears to be a Gehry-designed city, is reminiscent of the starchitect’s 1991 Chiat/Day building. (Both pair a bizarre, oversize object — the Grammy or, in the case of Chiat/Day, a pair of binoculars — in the middle of a Gehry design.) Gehry designed the L.A. Philharmonic's Walt Disney Concert Hall and sits on the board of the philharmonic, which is this year nominated for a Grammy. [LAT]
– Alex Prager Gets Naughty for T Magazine: The self-taught photographer Alex Prager shot T Magazine’s cover and online video gallery devoted to cinematic villainy. Inspired by nefarious icons and featuring the best performers from the year in film, the feature depicts Rooney Mara as Alex from "A Clockwork Orange," George Clooney as Captain Bligh from "Mutiny on the Bounty," and Brad Pitt as Henry Spencer from "Eraserhead." [NYT]
– French "Googleplex" Hosts Cultural Institute: A team of engineers at Google's newly-inaugurated Paris headquarters has been put in charge of the distribution and preservation of culture online. "We offer, for example, virtual museum visits with high res-pictures of landmark artworks," said cultural institute director Steve Crossan. Google has said it will foot the digitisation processing bill. Perhaps it's an attempt to enroll so-far-reluctant French museums in Google Art Project? [artclair]
– A New President for London's Royal Academy: Christopher Le Brun has been elected the 26th president of the Royal Academy. Le Brun, who is the first ever painter to get the job, said he wanted the RA to become "a major force in contemporary art." No small task. [BBC]
– Will Casinos Destroy Miami’s Art Scene?: Anti-casino advocates gathered in Wynwood, Miami’s cultural district, over the weekend to discourage lawmakers from approving a bill designed to bring three $2 billion casino resorts to South Florida. “It’s too big, it overwhelms the entire arts concept we had there,” said Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center board chairman Mike Eidson. [Miami Herald]
– The Arts of Occupation: The Nation assesses the range of methods, styles, and tactics adopted by the artists of Occupy Wall Street and probes the tensions surrounding the very category of art itself relative to what might be called the “spatial politics” of OWS. A must-read for anyone interested in the aesthetics of the movement. [The Nation]
– Washington Post's Best of 2011: To kick off the requisite barrage of end-of-year "best of" lists, Philip Kennicott selects the best in art and architecture for the Washington Post. The list ranges from the expected (de Kooning at MoMA, the National September 11 Memorial) to the unlikely (a contemporary Mexican photography exhibition at the Art Museum of the Americas and "Xu Bing: Tobacco Project" at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts). [WaPo]
– Huntington Damaged: The Huntington Library and its surrounding gardens were hit hard by last week’s Santa Ana winds, which caused at least $40 million in damage across Southern California. The library is launching a public appeal for donations to pay for the removal of 50 trees that fell in the storm. [LAT]
– Reasons to Love New York: For New York Magazine’s annual “Reasons to Love NY” issue, Jerry Saltz waxes poetic about the city’s galleries, which he calls “the greatest single machine ever invented for exhibiting art.” [NYM]
– Art Dubai's Inaugural Residencies Announced: Artists Hadeyeh Badri, Fayçal Baghriche, Zeinab Al Hashemi, Nasir Nasrallah, Deniz Uster, and Magdi Mostafa have been selected for a three-month residency in the lead-up to Art Dubai, and commissioned to contribute a piece for Art Dubai Projects. Alexandra MacGilp has been selected as curator-in-residence. [e-flux]
– Yoko Ono at the London 2012 Festival: The show, scheduled at London's Serpentine Gallery next summer to coincide with the Olympic Games, will be Ono's most important exhibition in a decade. It will include "SMILE," a large installation taking place simultaneously online and in the gallery, which invites people to submit photos of themselves smiling. [ArtLyst]
– Worst Album Covers of 2011: Pitchfork rounds up the worst album covers of 2011. Our favorite is Limp Bizkit’s cringe-inducing cover art for its album “Gold Cobra,” which is “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” meets Gauguin meets creepy middle-school doodle. [Pitchfork]
– Art Detective: The Boston Globe profiles Victoria Reed, the MFA Boston’s curator of provenance. Her job “is to make sure the MFA is not embroiled in any of the controversies that have swirled through the museum world in the last decade” with respect to looted artworks. To read ARTINFO’s interview with Reed, click here. [Boston Globe]
– Phyllida Barlow Receives the Aachen Art Prize 2012: The €10,000 ($13,310) biannual award is given to an artist "whose works have continually given new impetus to the international art scene." The award ceremony will take place on May 13 at the Ludwig Forum, Aachen. [Press Release]