Schnabel + Depp = Dante: In an interview with the Playlist, omnivorous artist Julian Schnabel says that he has teamed up with Johnny Depp — whom he had initially cast as the lead in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" before the actor opted for the "Pirates" movies instead — to make a film adaptation of Nick Tosches's novel "In the Hand of Dante." That book, a kind of "Dante Code" page-turner featuring parallel narratives of Dante Alighieri fiddling around in 14th-century Sicily and Tosches himself investigating a Dante mystery in contemporary New York, has been optioned by Depp for a few years now. "I think it's a great book so maybe you should read it," says Schnabel. "It's pretty beautiful. It's about everything." [Playlist]

  Ai Weiwei Accepts German Professorship: The recently released Chinese artist has accepted an offer to teach at the Berlin University of the Arts, though it is unclear if the artist will be able to take the post as he has been banned from leaving Beijing for a year. He's also begun to fight the oppressive tax fines following China's "investigation" into his supposed economic crimes. [IN THE AIR]

Howard Rachofsky on the Market: Leading contemporary art collector Howard Rachofsky shares a few choice words about the state of the art market today, saying it's near peak levels but that "the one risk is expanding art fairs. If you're looking for froth in the market, that's where it is." [Bloomberg]
 

German Billionaire Pays Over $56 Million for Holbein: Screw magnate Reinhold Wuerth has outbid Frankfurt's Staedel Museum to buy Hans Holbein the Younger's humorously titled 1525-26 painting "The Madonna With the Family of Mayor Meyer," buying the work from Charlemagne's descendants (that's right) for "significantly higher" than the $56 million that the museum offered for it. [Bloomberg]

–A Postmodern Loop: Soon-departing New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourossoff reviews Rem Koolhaas's CCTV Tower in China, one of the country's most iconic buildings, and says it "may be the greatest work of architecture built in this century." [New York Times]

Famed Early Banksy Destroyed in Bristol: When Saeed Ahmed  took over the former North Bristol Social Club building, he didn't realize the masked gorilla stencil adorning one of its exterior walls was a beloved early work by the city's favorite son, Banksy."I didn't know it was valuable and that's why I painted over it," he says. "I really am sorry if people are upset." Ahmed is now exploring whether it's possible to remove whitewash. [BBC] 

Prolific Graffiti Artist ZEB Arrested: The New York Post says that 20-year-old Zebadiah Arrington (aka Bomb the System), who has been fined $6,910 and sentenced to 25 days of community service for marking up MTA subways, "vandalized a more than 260-mile swath from Massachusetts to Philadelphia." That may, just possibly, be an exaggeration. [NYP] 

– 9/11 Memorial Books Huge Advance Crowd: The National September 11 Memorial has already given out 42,000 passes for its September 12 opening. [CNN]

Meat Dress as Performance Art: The Observer asks the question on everyone’s mind: is Lady Gaga a performance artist? Various art world heavyweights weigh in including PS1 Director Klaus Biesenbach who makes a distinction between performing art (Gaga) and performance art (Abramovic): “If there's a narrative, it's performing art; if it's an object, it's performance art.” (The Guardian also throws in its two cents on the issue in an article that compares Gaga to Yoko Ono.) [Observer]

Is Chelsea on Its Way Out?: With the advent of the High Line and increased real estate development in the surrounding area came the concern that Chelsea’s art spaces might go the same way as Soho. Turns out a lot of galleries bought their space rather than leasing which “will preserve their spaces, and the flavor of Chelsea as kind of an art mecca,” says Barbara Byrne Denham, the chief economist at EasternConsolidated, a commercial real estate brokerage firm. [NYT]

First Texas Contemporary Art Fair Announced: Brooklyn's own artMRKT Productions has announced its inaugural Texas Contemporary fair, which will occupy Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center from October 20 to 23 this fall. The event, which falls on the heel's of this weekend's debut artMRKT Hamptons fair, will showcase art from galleries in the Houston area and beyond. [Press Release]

Tate Liverpool Director Resigns: Christoph Grunenberg, who’s been at the Tate Liverpool Gallery for ten years, is taking a job at the Kunsthalle Bremen gallery in Germany. The news comes after announcements that the Tate Liverpool is trimming the fat to run the gallery more efficiently. [BBC]

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Beware of nudity, faux masturbation, Abramovic, and Allora & Calzadilla choreography in Adrian Searle's guided tour of the Manchester International Festival. [Guardian]