Weekly Russian Art Collective Sentenced, Mitt Romney's Anti-Culture Plan, & More Art News

- THE BIG STORY -

In a tumultuous court proceeding that resulted in at least 30 protestors being arrested, a Moscow judge sentenced the three members of feminist art group Pussy Riot to two years in jail on hooliganism charges stemming from their now-famous February 21 performance in which they played a "punk prayer" at an Orthodox cathedral for the Virgin Mary to kick Vladimir Putin out of Russia. The imprisonment of the young women—two of whom are mothers, all of whom are linked with the anarchist art collective Voina—generated immediate condemnation from the international community, with the European Union demanding that the "disproportionate" ruling be reversed and even German's austere Angela Merkel calling the sentence "excessively harsh." Cultural figures, too, have rushed to support Pussy Riot, with chess grandmaster Garry Kasparovapparently beaten by police for his vocal protest outside the courtroom and celebrities from Madonna to Paul McCartneycalling for their release. In New York, meanwhile, a solidarity event held at the Ace Hotel last night in which Chloe Sevigny and other stars read the women's jailhouse writings was mobbed, with a line around the block hoping to enter the over-capacity venue.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -

"My drawings have to be quick. If they don't happen in 20 minutes or a half hour, then they're no good. Matisse can't do a line without it being a Matisse. I'm not that way. I do a lot of mediocre stuff, and if they're not good, they go out." - Ellsworth Kelly on how he approaches his flower drawings, currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bloomberg)

- MUST READ -

Mitt Romney Is No Arts Guy - The Republican candidate parroted the far-right-wing view that government shouldn't fund the arts, saying he'd cut loose PBS, the NEA, and the NEH as president (assumedly leaving patronage to the über class of untethered megarich Ayn Randian titans that he'll usher into being). (Fortune)

Not So Cheesy - A series of 12 country scenes by Edward Munch that adorn the cafeteria of Kraft Foods Norway have been designated protected artworks by Oslo's heritage agency. (Art Newspaper)

Syrian Conflict Exploding Monuments Too - Bashar al-Assad's murderous crackdown on his people is also tearing apart the country's national heritage sites, with the civil war no endangering such monuments as the recently discovered Temple of the Storm God, one of the oldest buildings in the world. (NYT)

Speaking of Which… - Slate reports that online site Art.sy may be in violation of United States sanctions against Syria because their cute ".sy" suffix is actually a national domain name that they had to purchase from the Syrian government. (Slate)

How Do Artist Foundations Spend Their Money? - Shane Ferro took a look at the tax returns from everything from the Calder Foundation to Robert Motherwell's Dedalus Foundation to find out how these organizations break down their expenses, showing her findings in juicy pie charts and graphs. (Artinfo)

- ART MARKET -

Chinese Auction Market Shadiness - Forbes's Abigail Esman calls shenanigans on leading Chinese auctioneer Poly, detailing how unscrupulous sellers buy back their own artworks at wildly inflated sums to create fake auction records. (Forbes)

Soup Can? Or Soup Can't? - Because a Twinkie's shelf-life apparently exceeds that of a soup can, a series of Campbell's Soup cans signed by Warhol that are now appearing on eBay have been reduced to leak-stained labels and rusty lids. (LACM on Fire)

New Sotheby's Chinese Art Head - The auction house has named Tao Want, an academic from London's School of Oriental and African Studies, to lead its Chinese works of art department in New York. (Gallerist NY)

- IN & OUT -

The artist Mickalene Thomas is going to debut her first feature film, a documentary about her mother called Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, at the Brooklyn Museum on September 28.

London's Victoria & Albert Museum is going to devote an exhibition next year to David Bowie, recognizing the protean singer's tremendously rich contribution to visual culture. Cool. (Art Newspaper)

Artpace (read that closely) has picked Amanda Cruz to become director of the San Antonio nonprofit, recruiting her from United States Artists