– Sarah Palin Hates Art: The gun-toting frontierswoman has some choice words for the value of art in our democracy, which may or may not have been influenced by her own experience with, let's say, nontraditional portraiture. "NPR, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, all those kind of frivolous things that government shouldn't be in the business of funding with tax dollars — those should all be on the chopping block as we talk about the $14-trillion debt that we're going to hand to our kids and our grandkids," Palin said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. "Yes, those are the type of things that for more than one reason need to be cut." Oh, there are so many reasons to cut arts funding! As Christopher Knight points out, "the government of every major civilization in world history has also prominently funded the arts," and civilization has such a liberal elite ring to it, doesn't it? [LAT]

– The Artist's Friend?: USA Today has a feature about how artists are using Facebook more
and more to showcase their work and make professional connections. This
is something that's obvious to anyone who has ever ventured on the
social media platform — let alone Jerry Saltz's page — but the story
still provides food for thought. One artist "doesn't think anybody's
ever going to reach stardom in the art world by being popular on
Facebook." Let's see. [USA Today]

– Underground Art: Artist Roman Ondák has installed a replica of Fénix 2, the rescue devise that was used to save the trapped Chilean miners last year, in a Modern Art Oxford gallery. Called "Time Capsule," the dramatically lit work was built by the same manufacturers in Chile who engineered the original, and, like the original, it goes deep, according to an admiring Adrian Searle. [Guardian]

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– TV Exec Responds to Palin: The CEO of Ovation, Charles Segars,
has sent out a statement decrying Palin's statements on Hannity. "This
kind of knee-jerk, uninformed rhetoric is the stuff of cheap-shot
campaign commercials," Segars says. "Shame on her for turning the arts
into partisan politics. It doesn't take much creative thinking to work
this out. The Arts are good for America and Americans." [press release]

– MOCA Announces Acquisitions: The Jeffrey Deitch-run L.A. museum has taken on lawyer Richard J. Grad as a new board member, megacollector E. Blake Byrne as a lifetime trustee, and 100 new works of art for its collection, including pieces by hot local artists Elad Lassry, Sterling Ruby, Walead Beshty, and Thomas Houseago. [LAT] 

– Phillips' Inaugural Evening Editions Sale: Boutique auction house Phillips de Pury will hold this new sale — featuring relatively affordable works by Picasso, Warhol, Nauman, Rauschenberg, Dürer, Rembrandt, Freud, Pollock, de Kooning, and more — on April 21. The sale's 79 lots have a total presale estimate of $3.5-$5 million. [press release]

– Pavel S. Pyś Wins Zabludowicz Collection Curatorial Open: The curator — the recipient of the inaugural annual prize — will be awarded £40,000 and unlimited access to Anita Zabludowicz's storied art collection to plan an exhibition for this July/August at 176 Prince of Wales Road, which will examine the "malleability of the past." [press release]

– "An Expensive Mistake": University of Texas professor Wilfried Wang, a member of the jury that selected Peter Eisenman in 1999 to design the massive Santiago de Compostela cultural complex in Spain has spoken out against the choice of architect, calling it one of the priciest flubs "in the history of architecture." The City of Culture is already €292 million over budget and is eight years behind schedule. [TAN]  

– Cinecitta, the Theme Park?: The film lot from which "La Dolce Vita," "Roman Holiday," "Ben Hur," and "Gangs of New York" were born, and which Fellini dubbed "my ideal world, the cosmic space before the big bang" is in dire financial straits, and is hoping to recoup some cash by opening an amusement park (with rides designed by Oscar-winning set-creator Dante Ferretti), hotel, and spa. [Guardian]

– RIP Figurative Painter Gabriel Laderman: The artist, critic,
and teacher who championed a revival of figurative art in the 60s and
70s has passed away at 81. "If a section of a city could be taken like a
spray of leaves or a blossom and pressed and dried between the pages of
a book, it would come out like these paintings, with most of the color
and all of the juice gone, but with a new clarity in the flattened
version of a pattern originally supplied by life," John Canaday said of Ladderman's work in a 1964 review in the Times. [NYT]