– Not So Classy: Crusading mystery street artist Banksy backed a worthy cause in
bailing members of the Voina collective out of degrading Russian jails,
but his latest cause is quite a bit more lowbrow — helping
photographer Tyler Shields display an old body of work showing a scantily
clad Lindsay Lohan posting with a gun held to her face, being choked, or
lying splayed in a blood-splattered room. To promote the May 8 show,
Banksy allegedly helped Shields land the same Los Angeles warehouse space
where the British stenciler held his famed 2006 "Barely Legal" show, according to a statement from Shields. [A
Gallery]

– Bob Dylan Fails to Comment on Ai Weiwei in Beijing:
The crooner disappointed fans from his protest days by not mentioning
the detained political artist during his concert in the Chinese city's Workers' Gymnasium.
He didn't even sing his classic protest songs, such as "The Times They
Are a-Changin" at the event, which was attended by some 18,000 guests,
with 2,000 seats reserved by the Chinese Communist party. [Eyeteeth] 

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– Not So Enlightened: In light of Ai Weiwei's seizure, members of the German government have called for the return of loans to the National Museum of China for its debut "Art of the Enlightenment" show, arguing that "this exhibition was supposed to persuade the Chinese nomenclature to think about the ideas of the Enlightenment but in reality, the Chinese government has used it as an instrument to show its strength," in the words of Christian Democrats spokesman Arnold Vaatz. [Deutsche Welle]

– Threats: Chinese activist Zhao Lianhai has been calling for the release of Ai Weiwei, but government officials told him to "be quiet or go back to jail," where he previously served time for his campaign against a 2008 melamine milk poisoning that left his son ill. [Shanghaiist]

– A Sabbatical for Cattelan?: On the eve of the opening of his Guggenheim retrospective later this year, puckish artist Maurizio Cattelan
has announced that he wants to take a "creative break" to reconsider
the way his career exists within the contemporary art market, and also
to work more on his magazine project, Toilet Paper. "I have to stop," the 51-year-old artist said. [Artforum] 

– Sharjah Fallout: A day after news broke that Sheik Sultan bin Muhammad al-Qasimi fired Sharjah Art Foundation director Jack Persekian
over an artwork at country's biennial that offended religious pieties,
the curators of the exhibition have spoken out. The work in question, a
group of soccer-player mannequins with explicit Arabic sayings on their
t-shirts by Mustapha Benfodil, "borrowed the voice of the victims
of rape at the hands of religious extremists in Algeria — during the
civil war that took place there throughout much of the nineties — who
used religious texts to justify their crime," said state curators Rahsa Salti and Haig Avasian.
"We see now that we misjudged the limits of the tone with which to
address sensitive topics and the importance of carefully contextualizing
art work." [NYT]

– Close to Home: The Art Newspaper has rounded up responses to Perkesian's firing, including the above statement, a Tweet from Art Dubai director Antonia Carver, and a quote from the editorial director of the Art Newspaper. [TAN]

– Ventura to Represent Italy at Biennale: Italian artist Paolo Ventura
will exhibit his fanciful photographs at this summer's 54th Venice
Biennale's Italian national pavilion. Known for photographing intricate
stage sets that he constructs himself, Ventura's melancholic photos
recreate bygone eras of Italian history. (His Winter Stories series recreated snapshots of the lives of old circus performers, while his War Souvenir series depicted his grandmother's memories of WWII.) Ventura, who was selected for the Biennale by curator Vittorio Sgarbi, will be showing all new work at the Arsenale. [Press release]

– Less Fun: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced that the follow-up to Doug and Mike Starn's tremendously popular interactive rooftop sculpture "Big Bambú" will be a suite of steel sculptures by Anthony Caro,
whom the museum calls "the most influential and prolific British
sculptor of his generation, and a key figure in the development of
modernist sculpture over the last 60 years." But, no, you can't climb on
them. [Press Release]

– Coming Clean: Long suspected to
harbor Nazi-looted artworks in its state collection, the country of
Bavaria has passed legislation making it easier to return these illicit
works to the heirs of their rightful owners. [Bloomberg]

– The Huntington Is Loved, After All: The Huntington Library Art Collections
can breath a sign of relief: The Art Newspaper has issued a correction
after leaving the L.A. institution off its list of the world's most-visited art
museums. It ranks number 88. [LAT]

– A Race Against Time (and China) in Afghanistan: Archeologists are
working overtime to save what they can from ancient Buddhist monasteries in
Mes Aynak, Afghanistan, after a Chinese mining company inked a deal to turn the area into an open-cast copper mine. Only what can be excavated and removed to safety
will be saved. Mining is due to start in 2014. [TAN]

– Sid Vicious Artwork Auctioned: The punk rocker's sketches and paintings — of buttercups, mosques, and floating heads — created when the Sex Pistols frontman was a student at London's Hackney College of Further Education, are slated to earn $6,400 in an upcoming sale. Vicious, whose given name was John Simon Beverley, died at age 21 of a heroin overdose in 1979. [Contact Music]

– Cynthia Rowley Honors Hubby With Men's Line: The fabulous fashion designer has named her new menswear line "Mr. Powers" in honor of her Half gallerist husband, Bill Powers.
And yes, we checked, there's a weirdly slim-cut yellow-striped cardigan
included in the new line, so it's a no-holds-barred tribute. [WWD]

– LACMA's Embattled Film Program Back on Track: The Los Angeles museum's movie series was controversially canceled by Michael Govan after more than four decades, but will live once again, thanks to a new partnership with the nonprofit, Film Independent. [LAT]

– Chicago Area Art Scam: An Illinois art gallery owner has been
charged with selling more than $480,000 in fake art over the past 17
years (much of it on eBay), which he advertised as original works by Dalí and Chagall. [Chicago Tribune]

– New Ryan McGinley: The über-hip photographer's new work
features all the coolest things: naked people AND animals. "I like to
photograph animals because they're so squirmy and surprising and cute
and they crawl on you," he says. "They're playful. Like the turkin I
shot — it's a hybrid of a turkey and a chicken — it was so punk rock. It
had so much attitude. And people love interacting with animals, people
become very unselfconscious when they're playing with animals, and it's
fun to shoot that. It's also funny, like watching YouTube pictures of
kittens playing. Taking that silliness but making something beautiful
out of it." [Dazed] 

– Guggenheim Fellowship Awards: The 2011 prize-winners for the United States and Canada have been released. Check them out! [Guggenheim Fellowships