The boss was on TV! We’ll have a post on this soon, but you can watch Paddy Johnson on ArtPrize finalists, here. [WoodTV]
Documenta’s going to Athens in 2017. In all likelihood, this has no bearing on our travel plans. [artnet News]
Debbie Harry on Blondie T-shirts. Not much to say here, but she does give a shoutout to a superfan who’s been drawing cartoons of her for 25 years. [Vulture]
For his birthday, Vladimir Putin gets an art exhibition depicting him as Hercules. The Sochi Olympics is one of his twelve labors. Also, shooting down French war planes with a bow and arrow. [New York Magazine]
You don’t have to tweet all the time to be a good journalist, just like you don’t have to cover court cases and police activity, says New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet to Steve Buttry. [Steve Buttry via @brianstelter]
McKenzie Wark continues his comparison of artists to hackers. [e-flux]
In one of history’s surprises, the Marcos family has returned to the good graces of the Philippines government. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos allegedly used stolen funds to amass an art collection, and now the government is hunting down the location of those works. So stolen money used to buy art that ends up being stolen. [Al Jazeera America]
Abdel Kader Haidara, the head of Timbuktu’s privately-funded Mamma Haidara Memorial Library, has received the German Africa Prize for putting his life at risk to save nearly half a million ancient manuscripts from Islamic extremists. He rescued those documents “for all of humanity”, he says, because the knowledge contained therein can never be recovered. [Deutsche Welle via Metafilter]
Woman gives birth with donated womb!!!!!!! A 35-year-old woman with a congenital absence of a uterus has given birth with a womb donated from a 61-year-old woman, according to a paper published by The Lancet. [The Lancet via Metafilter]
Startup investors like Snoop Dogg and Jared Leto (really) gave Reddit $50 million in funding. The barebones, community-oriented site won’t have ads. [Marketplace Tech]
Warning! It’s fashion week again. Previously acceptable areas of Manhattan will be flooded with unacceptable fashionistas. Avoid. [HuffPo]
AFC’s Paddy Johnson is teaching a class! Do you want to write about art? Enroll, and she’ll teach you. [tumblr]
Apparently no fewer than 128 people completed Damien Hirst’s “spot challenge” back in January. 128. They’ll get their prints soon, but more importantly, what the hell, people? [The Art Newspaper]
Photographer Juozas Cernius, who’s taken his share of pretty pictures for this blog from around the world, is looking to fund a project documenting the work of aid groups in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. He’s raising the money through IndieGoGo, and then giving the proceeds back to aid organizations. It’s a good thing to do for the world, and maybe you should help him out. [London Free Press]
This week, AFC’s Paddy Johnson will be at the Toronto International Film Festival. In anticipation of TIFF, Indiewire have realised 25 films they are looking forward to. Are you excited about seeing Keira Knightley trying to do Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina justice? Us neither. We’re looking forward to The ABC’s of Death, comprised of short horror films by 26 directors. Each was assigned a letter of the alphabet and accompanying word, leaving it up to the director to come up with a short story of death. GNARLY. [Indiewire]
Anyone going to TIFF must watch the premiere of Reincarnated, an Andy Capper documentary made about Snoop Dogg embracing rastafarian culture/smoking lots of weed in Jamaica. Anyone not going must watch this trailer. [YouTube]
The Walker had an Internet Cat Video Festival and we were really excited. The “people’s choice” cat video winner was revealed last week, and now we’re disappointed. Existential feline Henri 2, Paw De Deux won out of the thousands of entries, that included Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat. AFC’s Paddy Johnson has something to say about the unexpected result. [Today]
James Panero writes about how punk rock influenced Pussy Riot and Ai Weiwei. In a nutshell: “While at times misused within Western culture, … when employed against oppressive regimes [punk] can be potent.” [The Wall Street Journal]
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