More stories from the week ended July 14:

  • Phil Akashi creates Nelson Mandela portrait from 27,000 punches with the Chinese characters 自由 (freedom).
  • RIP: Norman Parish, pioneering dealer of African American art, who died of a brain tumor at age 75.
  • Takashi Murakami has scrapped plans to open a Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Singapore.
  • Fathers4Justice vows to step up attacks on artworks in the UK.
  • Same-sex marriage ruling brings tax benefits for art world professionals.
  • Charles Saatchi getting a divorce from Nigella Lawson after apparent public choking incident.
  • Manager says that Met Museum cashiers trained to mislead visitors in regards to admission cost.
  • Petition calls for Sept. 11 museum not to charge entry fee (currently up to $25).
  • Low-wage workers strike at Smithsonian museums, demanding better pay.
  • Sicily cancels a major exhibition of ancient treasures at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
  • Opposition to Dia deaccessioning some works from their collection goes public.
  • Centre Pompidou abandoning mobile museum project and plans to launch instead a temporary exhibition in Saudi Arabia.
  • The NSA actually cracked Jim Sanborn’s Kryptos Sculpture years before the CIA did.
  • Online petition started after LA Times fires its art reporter, Jori Finkel and museum directors send letter in protest.
  • Constance Caplan, chair of Hirshhorn Museum board, announces resignation, citing turmoil and mistrust within.
  • Bernard Madoff’s lackluster art collection to go to auction.
  • Hyperallergic asks if you can ripoff artwork that itself is a ripoff.
  • The rising trend of “artist-in-restaurant”.
  • Christopher Knight thinks LACMA & MOCA have been giving short shrift to solo exhibitions of art made by women.
  • Emerging elites and foreign investors are driving a booming collectors’ scene in Africa.
  • Andrew Vickers uses £50,000 worth of comics (including a Avengers #1) to create sculpture worth around £500.
  • Chest bought for $150 and used as TV stand sold for $9.5 million after dealer identifies it as long-lost Japanese antique.
  • Total sales volume of fine art in the US is up 7% in the first half of 2013. Global sales, however, are down.
  • Despite NC-17 rating, Paul McCarthy’s Park Avenue Armory show has become its second-most-attended exhibition.
  • MoMA PS1 to acquire new building and expand, after being allocated $3 million.
  • Anthony Weiner featured prominently in NY’s Museum of Sex exhibition.
  • Breaking Bad exhibit coming to Museum of the Moving Image.
  • Can two artists, husband and wife, make a career and a life together in Tulare County?
  • The salaries of director, executive, and other high-level arts and culture employees.
  • The top ten collectors on the 2013 ARTnews 200. And the complete list.
  • Adam Lindemann urges artists to consider making smaller pieces instead of going bigger and bigger all the time.
  • Ryan McGinley’s Varúð video now playing in NYC’s Times Square.
  • Julian Opie has painted installations in the Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital where Kate Middleton is due to give birth.
  • Jay-Z performs at Pace Gallery for six hours with sustained video shoot inspired by Marina Abramović.
  • Lady Gaga collaborates with some artists, including Jeff Koons, and plans a artRave event.
  • Johnny Depp in talks to star as Charles Mortdecai, a debonair art dealer in feature film.