Special Art PrOn Edition!!

*Visitors to the Art Institute have a jaywalking problem (Chicago Tribune).

*Getty Research Institute to close Bibliography on the History of Art (BHA, IBA) (via CAA news).

*NEA Survey indicates arts audiences getting older, scarcer (er, more scarce) (CAA News).

* Top ten best Star Wars architecture. The comparisons to real-life buildings are fascinating. (via Culture Monster).

*The history of Jewish punk.

*Shady deal: Orange County Museum of Art sells much of its plein air painting collection to a private collector. Read about it at Culture Monster and Modern Art Notes.

*I like to watch: Robbie Cooper’s Immersion: Porn (via boingboing).

*More pr0n: Russian Art Collective Voina (WAR) stages controversial exhibition (via boingboing).

*Even more pr0n!!: Highlights from the World Air Sex Championships (The XX Factor).

*Students design exhibitions that get people to talk to each other (talk! as in, ‘in person’!) (via Tomorrow Museum).

*The drawings of Chicago artist Deb Sokolow featured on Beautiful/Decay.

*You are what you Tweet: Twitter Psychology Profiling (via Avant Chicago).

*Writer Dave Eggers tells those bummed about loss of print to buck up.

*Justin Wolfe at songsaboutbuildingsandfood covers Freebird, and it’s lovely. (Thanks to Art Fag City for linking to this blog a few weeks back — I’ve been hooked ever since).

**(Image Credit: Robbie Cooper’s Immersion: Porn).

A subjective round-up of the week’s art-world events, news stories, blog links and other happenings in Chicago and beyond that are of note or otherwise got me thinkin’.

*Deathtoll of L’Aquila earthquake in Italy is at 189; the earthquake injured over 1,000 and left thousands more homeless; extensive damage to architectural monuments and artworks in the area deal a severe blow to Italy’s cultural heritage.

*Salander Gallery Director Steven Harvey pleads guilty to falsifying records (via ArtsJournal).

*Robert Delford Brown, performance artist and founder of The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic has died at the age of 78. (New York Times).

*Museum ethics smackdown: Donn Zaretsky’s “What’s Wrong with the AAMD’s Deaccessioning Policy” vs. Christopher Knight’s “What’s Wrong with the Argument Attacking AAMD Policy.” Go Christopher!

*Mies’ Test Cell aka The Gunnery aka The Watchtower: whatever you call it, the Metra wants to tear it down. Edward Lifson tells us why we shouldn’t.

*Economy hurting museum but attendance is up; Museums Do More With Less (Chicago Tribune).

*The Geography of Buzz. (New York Times).

*“I’ve Seen the Future, and It Belongs to the Dead”: Edward Winkleman on whether deceased artists can bring the art market back to life.

*Getty Research Institute Acquires Guerrilla Girl Archives (Culture Monster).

*Ball-Nogues Studio (based in L.A.’s Echo Park) to design Elastic Plastic Sponge for Coachella this year.  It’s a 250 x 25 foot sculpture made of plastic tubing that will mist water on overheated festival-goers, made in collaboration with students at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci Arc). (via Culture Monster).

*Attention all K-12 art and media educators in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles: applications for Art21′s Art Educators 2009/10, “a yearlong professional development initiative designed to cultivate and support K-12 art educators interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into their classrooms,” are available now.