4. A Tale of Two Transitions
When the Metropolitan Museum of Art named little-known Thomas P. Campbell as the successor to outgoing director Philippe de Montebello, the art world let out a collective gasp: Who? The choice of an obscure, bookish tapestries scholar to lead America’s, and perhaps the world’s, leading arts institution came as a shock in the era of… well, Thomas Krens, the controversial, high profile, celebrity-courting Guggenheim director who announced in Februrary that he was stepping down from his post. With his eye toward blockbuster exhibitions and global expansion, and his eccentric taste (motorcycles, anyone?), Krens practically reinvented the role of museum director — from gentleman scholar to swashbuckling, globetrotting, and, according to some, irresponsible rainmaker/entrepreneur. But as the stately de Montebello began to lobby on his successor’s behalf, the logic of the choice came into focus: Campbell was a vote for continuity, in favor of de Montebello’s steady stewardship and against the Krens CEO model. Meanwhile, the Krens resignation marked the end of a drawn-out power struggle between grandiose ambition and the limits of the possible — a battle whose many casualties have included former board chairman Peter B. Lewis, former Guggenheim Museum director Lisa Dennison, and numerous half-baked projects across the globe. With the appointment as Krens’s successor of Richard Armstrong, a former curator in the Campbell model, the Guggenheim seemed to indicate that it would be moving in a more subdued direction. And yet Krens soldiers on — in pursuit of his most quixotic project to date: a sprawling arts complex on a remote desert island.

5. U.K. Tries to Keep Its Titians (Or, What’s Good for Main Street)
While Hirst racked up more than £111 million in a couple of days this fall, the English and Scottish national museums, have spent months trying to raise the £50 million it would take to keep a prized Titian painting, Diana and Actaeon, from going on the open market. If they succeed, the work’s longtime owner, the Duke of Sutherland, who decided this summer to take advantage of the booming market, will throw in the chance to raise £50 million all over again, for the sister work Diana and Callisto. Which is actually a deal: The pair are estimated to be worth more than £300 million together. Dozens of British artists have spoken out in support of the government effort, including Lucian Freud, whose own work sells for almost that kind of money, and Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall even stripped in support of the campaign, but at last check the Brits were still scrambling (although the original December 31 deadline has now been pushed to January). The story recalls Austria’s similar struggle, in 2006, to keep Gustav Klimt’s 1907 masterpiece Adele Bloch-Bauer I. The country was not successful, and the work is now in the private collection of American cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder, who paid the then market rate of $135 million.

And an honorable mention goes to...
It's Not Easy Being Green
Any story involving an Italian politician on a hunger strike, a sculpture of a crucified frog, and the Pope deserves at least an honorable mention. When Italian official Franz Pahl launched a hunger strike in July over a piece by Martin Kippenberger, Zuerst die Füße (Feet First) (1990), which depicts a crucified frog holding a mug of beer in one hand and an egg in the other, he took indignation over a controversial artwork to a new level. Though it’s hard to see what all the fuss was really about — the artist said the piece depicts his internal struggle at the time that he made it, and it is, after all, just a frog — the story ended in hospitalization for Pahl, an erroneously reported intervention by the Pope, and the eventual firing of Corinne Diserens from her post as director of the state-funded Museion Museum of Contemporary Art, where the work was displayed. Local officials promised that Diserens’s dismissal was merely the result of “the difficult financial situation” and had nothing to do with her refusal to take down the foggy-eyed amphibian, but her supporters are not entirely convinced.