(Courtesy Getty Images)

Anish Kappor's wax cannon in Berlin requires ear plugs. [Bloomberg]

Two new curators with very Met-sounding names, Peter Barnet and C. Griffith Mann, are hired by the Met. [Artforum]

François Pinault is a contemporary art god, says The WSJ in the first paragraph of this profile. [WSJ]

Are trophy art works good investments? [Forbes via AMM]

Peter Schjeldahl visits the Met's newly renovated European art galleries. [The New Yorker]

Anthony Byrt at the Fifth Auckland Triennial. [Artforum]

The coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. (Courtesy Wikimedia)

Felix Salmon on "Cooper Union's shameless trustees." [Reuters]

Twenty Frank Lloyd Wright homes are on the market. Living in one may sound glamorous, but it is may be a lot of work. [WSJ]

Here is a profile of the artist Jeffrey Gibson. [NYT]

Paddle8 is looking to buy a stake in Artnet. [The Art Newspaper]

A roundtable discussion about the changing nature of photography. [The Guardian]

Richard Dorment's latest article on the Andy Warhol Foundation. [NYRB]

Here's an interview with Ellsworth Kelly, who turns 90 on May 31 and whose "Chatham Series" goes on view at MoMA this month: "But one can't help but encourage the artist to talk about, for instance, his brief encounter with Pablo Picasso in Paris after World War II, as Picasso's chauffeured car squeezed past him on a narrow street: "He saw me and smiled and said, 'Do we know each other?' And it was almost like, 'Come in.' And my French was so bad I said [to myself], 'If I get into that car, he'll throw me out in the next five minutes.' "" [WSJ]

Adriana Lara and Gene Beery at Algus Greenspon. [ABAB]

Nathan Whipple plays Taylor Swift. [Sex Magazine]

Some nice news: the first "stock exchange for art" has gone into liquidation in the courts of Luxembourg. [Financial Times]

Sandro Botticelli's 1495 portrait of Dante. (Wikicommons)

"The German federal association of galleries and dealers (Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien und Kunsthändler—BDGV) has, for the moment, won a major battle to keep VAT rates down on the purchase of original works of art." [The Art Newspaper]

NYU suspends art history prof Ross Finocchio after he is accused of filming women undressing at Beacon's Closet. [NYP]

Here's a preview of the Vatican's Venice Biennale pavilion. [NYT]

Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery is the subject of a museum exhibition. [NYT]

Eric Fischl does the MAN Podcast. [MAN]

Despite its economic crisis, Greece has given the same amount of funding to its Venice Biennale pavilion as in 2011. [The Art Newspaper]

Jonathan Jones looks at how artists have portrayed The Divine Comedy. [The Guardian]

Some beautiful Freedom of Information Act monochromes. [Greg.org]

Gene Beery. [ABAB]

Did Vermeer's daughter, Maria, serve as an apprentice to him? [NPR]

(Courtesy Patrick McMullan)

Marion Maneker warns that last night's Leo auction "had all the hallmarks of a market driven by anything but fundamentals." [Art Market Monitor]

Here's a party report from the Brant Foundation's Sunday event. [WSJ]

Tate Britain gets rid of explanatory texts. [The Guardian]

Controversial "stolen" Banksy is planned for auction, again. [NYT]

A new film by Oliver Stone's daughter profiles James Grashow, an artists who works with papier-mâché and cardboard. Oscar buzz is already huge. [NYT]

"Why Can’t We Take Pictures in Art Museums?" [Art News]

The Met's roof garden opens today. [NYT]

Contemporary art show opens inside the Tower of London. [The Art Newspaper]

David Beckham, left, meets another bomb-sniffing dog and a security guard. (John Stillwell/PA Wire)

"Valuable as Art, but Priceless as a Tool to Launder Money" [NYT]

Michael Kimmelman says MoMA shouldn't tear down the American Folk Art Museum building. [NYT]

Here's a list of all the ladies that James Franco brought to Frieze and MoMA PS1. [Page Six]

Jori Finkel interviews James Turrell. [LAT]

Frieze has a bomb-sniffing guard puppy. [The Art Newspaper]

El Museo del Barrio's board president, Yaz Hernández, is stepping down. [Artsbeat]

Antonio López García has been ordered to stay in the Spanish royal palace until he completes his portrait of the royal family. [The Guardian]

Serra and Judd hit the NBA. [@earlboykins/Twitter]

On Kenneth Goldsmith reading Richard Prince's The Catcher in the Rye at MoMA. [Greg.org]

(Courtesy Getty Images)

"A real-estate developer who collects contemporary art is building a new fine-art storage facility in Queens to rival spaces such as Christie's Brooklyn storage facility, where art was damaged by flooding during superstorm Sandy." [WSJ]

MoMA considers not tearing down the Folk Art building. [NYT]

Yet another former client sues Knoedler gallery. [NYT]

The Met is preparing to unveil its newly renovated European painting galleries later this month. [NYT]

The Getty has snapped up paintings by Rembrandt and Canaletto. [LAT]

Warhol actor and poet Taylor Mead has died. [Artforum]

Chris Burden will have a retrospective at the New Museum. [The Art Newspaper]

LL. (Getty Images)

Here is a profile of artist Ellen Gallagher. [The Guardian]

A house painter is accused of stealing a Picasso etching from a Long Island home. [WSJ]

Here's an interview with Betty Woodman, who just opened a show at Salon 94. [WSJ]

"The heirs of Richard Semmel, a Jewish industrialist persecuted by the Nazis, said they’re 'outraged' by a Dutch government panel’s decision to reject their claim for two Old Masters on the grounds that the works are more important to the museums which house them now than they are to the heirs." [Bloomberg]

Here's the Art Market Monitor roundup of the auction coverage from last night. [AMM]

In case you missed, it here's Dan Duray's report from the sale, which featured LL Cool J in a skybox. [GNY]

Martin Gayford looks at the very international cast of artists nominated for the Turner. [Bloomberg]

Colgate University will give more than 100 pieces made by Aboriginal children living in settlement camps in the middle of the 20th century to Curtin University in Perth Australia today. [NYT]

The U.S. has returned a fossil of a Tyrannosaurus bataar to Mongolia, from which it was smuggled. Convicted fossil dealer Eric Propoki faces 17 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for dealing in the work. [Time]

Munich's Lenbachhaus museum has reopened with "a brassy new entrance wing designed by Norman Foster that makes the Brandhorst look restrained." [Bloomberg]

Get pumped for the Whitney's Stewart Uoo and Jana Euler show with this November 2012 article about Ms. Euler's art by Isabelle Graw. [Artforum]

"Mobile lifestyles call for mobile sleep solutions." [Dis]

(Courtesy Getty Images)

"A Night When Chic Met Tough": Eric Wilson at the Costume Institute Institute gala. There were Jell-O shots for dessert. [NYT]

"He painted houses for a living, but prosecutors say Joselito Vega had a discerning eye for the more rarefied practitioners of his craft — Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet and Frank Stella [and stole works by them from the family of Rudolph B. and Hannelore B. Schulhof]." [NYT]

Danh Vō's grandmother is on the cover of this month's Art Review. [Art Review] 

Jerry Saltz comes out against Venice's plan to remove Charles Ray's Boy With a Frog from its public spot outside the Punta della Dogana. [New York magazine]

Here's a fine roundup of the fancy Frieze-related things rich people will be doing this week. [Page Six]

Vice did a ".jpeg interview" with Douglas Coupland. [Vice]

Bosch's Allegory of Gluttony and Lust, 1488–1500. (Yale University Art Gallery/Wikicommons)

Carl Swanson visits with Jeff Koons and "his brood." The artist's shows at Gagosian and David Zwirner open this week. [NYMag]

On Reynold Levy, the president of Lincoln Center, "a glutton for 'the ask.'" [NYT]

Here's a piece about Benedikt Taschen, publisher of Taschen books. [WSJ]

How Marco Brambilla brought his work to St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. [WSJ]

"A group of lucky women received a sneak peek at the artwork that will appear at Christie's coming Impressionist and Modern Art Spring Evening Sale, thanks to a ladies luncheon held at the auction house Friday." [WSJ]

"Fire claims part of Heidelberg Project, but the art, like Detroit, will survive." [Detroit Free Press]

Allese Thomson at the Ninth Gallery Weekend Berlin. [Artforum]

"Tracey Emin: me, my selfie and I." [The Guardian]

Forrest Nash of Contemporary Art Daily shows how he lives. [Chicago Magazine via Blouin Artinfo's In the Air]

David Douard at Valentin. [CAD]

Muybridge. (Courtesy Wikimedia)

Jonathan Jones declares the past 25 years the best 25 years in British art, and cites Damien Hirst as "a national shame." [The Guardian]

Art Review is interviewing a different artist showing in a national pavilion in Venice every day until the May 29 vernissage. Today: Jesper Just. [Art Review]

"The artist is a fiction, and Mike Kelley famously prioritized that fiction, allowing his production’s motifs to follow suit." Josef Strau reviews the Mike Kelly retrospective at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam. [Artforum]

Carol Kino talks with Orly Genger about her exhibition in Madison Square Park, which opens today. [NYT]

Jack Early does Strawberry Yoko, Boysenberry Yoko, Grape Yoko. [McCaffrey Fine Art via ABAB]

Controversy over Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth: German artist Katharina Fritsch wants to put a giant blue rooster on it, but that being the symbol of France, whom Britain was fighting in the Battle of Trafalgar, some people are up in arms. [The Daily Mail]

On Carl Andre’s Muybridge poems. [MAN]

Russian billionaire and art collector Vladimir Doronin is on the outs with Naomi Campbell. [Page Six]