+ Days after being released, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot announced their disbanding during an official Moscow press conference with international press where they expanded on their plans for humanitarian endeavors which will initially focus on prison awareness. However, prior to this major press conference they made a rather strange debut appearance on the Independent Russian channel “TV RAIN” where they were quite insultingly interviewed by the “Paris Hilton of Russia”, Ksenia Sobchak. The socialite-turned-TV journalist opened up with a question about the valuation of the “Pussy Riot Brand” and referred to Nadezhda as the Beyonce of Pussy Riot before asking “the most important question” to Masha. “What have you done to your eyebrows?”

+ A Chinese calligraphy scroll that was auctioned off at Sotheby’s New York last september for $8.2 million has been declared a forgery by art historians associated with the Shanghai Museum . The original artwork, attributed to the poet Su Shi, would have created it during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and was considered one of the most significant pieces of ancient Chinese calligraphy. It possessed seals that “proved” it to have been owned previously by other notable Chinese artists and scholars, however this edition is more likely to have come from the 19^th century, using a tried and true method for copying art works, usually performed in order to learn the traditional techniques of the original.

+ A large group of private and public Turkish companies and organizations have secured a 20 year lease for the Turkish national pavilion in the Arsenale of the Venice Biennale. Some of the corporations, such as the Koc Holding conglomerate were at the heart of the scuffle between protesters and organizers of the 13^th Istanbul Biennale and their sponsorship involvement.

+The French museum F.r.a.c. Lorraine in Metz, northern France, has been forced to pay a symbolic 1 Euro to a regional court, the result of a law suit centered around the reception of artist Eric Pougeau’s exhibition “You Are My Mirror: Infamile”. The exhibition was met with scorn by “L’Agrif”, or the general alliance against racism and for the respect of French and Christian Identity, an organization of France’s extreme right. The claim is that the pieces could be harmful to individuals under the age of sixteen and “incite fear in minors”. Examples of the art pieces include Catholic crosses with the word “asshole” scribed above it, wreaths with the word “salope” (slut, whore), and text pieces that read with such things as “Children, we will kill your dog. You are our flesh and blood. See you later. Mom and Dad.”