(Image courtesy EarthCam)

Raise your Warhol-themed bottle of Perrier, because Andy would have turned 85 today. We think the artist would have gotten a kick out of one morbid, panoptical take on a birthday party: live-streaming footage from his elaborately landscaped Pittsburgh gravesite. The footage–which is also available in high-definition 16-megapixel and pop art-style formats–is a collaboration among EarthCam, the Andy Warhol Museum, and St. John Chrystostom Byzantine Catholic Church (home to a temporary “ChurchCam” in honor of the birthday boy, who was baptized there). “I think my uncle would have been jealous. He would have said, ‘I should have been at Marilyn’s gravesite filming everything,’” said Donald Warhola, Warhol’s nephew, in a statement announcing the birthday grave webcam. “It pays homage to one of his most famous and controversial projects, the ‘Death and Disaster’ series.”

Ai Weiwei’s “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” (1995-2009)

“I did that piece ["Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn"] truly as a joke. I had three cameras that I brought back to China. And the camera could take, like, five frames every second. And, like most things, I did it quick, no plan. People think everything’s planned, but it was spontaneous. We dropped one and we didn’t get it because the photographer was paying too much attention to this valuable vase. So we had to do another one. We had two of them. Then I forgot about those photos for a while. At that time, there were no galleries, no art. I never thought I would become an artist again, you know? I started collecting old Chinese cultural relics, like jade, bronze, beautiful things. I was a top expert on Chinese antiques. Few people had my skill. That’s what I did in the ’90s. On my résumé, I don’t have a show for more than 10 years. I don’t really have any work. I did my first art show after returning to China only in 2003, in Switzerland. But now those photos have become, like, iconic in a sense. But it’s kind of kitsch, huh?”

-Artist Ai Weiwei in an interview with Christoper Bollen in the August issue of Interview

We first discovered the genius that is John Hodgman in late 2005, when we spent Christmas reading aloud to our family (and anyone else who would list) the lists of “hobo facts” and wacky state mottoes (e.g., Nebraska: “Birthplace of Unicameral Government!”) in The Areas of My Expertise. That inspired volume, the first in his since triumphantly completed trilogy of Complete World Knowledge, would go on to catalyze Hodgman’s transformation from a literary agent-turned-magazine writer to global renown as an author of fake trivia books, The Daily Show‘s resident deranged millionaire, judge, and most recently, star of his own Netflix special. In addition to the highly enertaining Judge John Hodgman Pocast, he adjudicates disputes (in 100 words or less) in a wee column of The New York Times Magazine, and his latest is a doozy:

Sophia writes: My father eats corn horizontally. I eat it in a circular motion. I believe that his way of eating is inefficient. Could you please issue an injunction stating that the proper way to eat corn is in a circular motion?
Your father eats corn that way because, as I do, he remembers what a typewriter is. It’s hard for us to see a roller-food and not proceed left to right before returning to the next line. Sometimes I even hear a bell ring. You dismantle your corn like a 3-D printer in reverse: vertical stack by vertical stack. Your argument from efficiency is specious, so I find in your father’s favor: I would rather look like Hemingway while eating than like some kind of mechanized chipmunk any day.

The artist with a study model of the Marina Abramović Institute. (Courtesy OMA)

“In the life of an artist, it’s very important to think of the future,” Marina Abramović has said. “When you die, you can’t leave anything physical—that doesn’t make any sense—but a good idea can last a long, long time.” Her good idea? Purchase a crumbling old theater in Hudson, New York (check!), get Rem Koolhaas and OMA on board for a gut reno (done!), and channel 40 years worth of pioneering performance art into the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation for Performance Art, a living archive-cum-laboratory that will explore “time-based and immaterial art,” including performance, dance, theater, film, video, opera, and music. To help achieve that last part, the artist has launched a Kickstarter campaign, where her goal is to raise $600,000 by August 25.

“I feel like I’ve become a brand, like Coca-Cola,” said Abramović of her decision to name the institute after herself. “When you hear ‘Marina Abramović,’ you know it’s not about painting. It’s about performing art, and it’s about hardcore performing art.” Hardcore donors to her Kickstarter effort (those who pledge $500 or more) can receive thank-you gifts such as a tour of the MAI and OMA offices, an eye-gazing experience via webcam, and lunch with the artist, but there’s something for everyone, including an 8-bit Pippin Barr video game version of the institute ($5 donation) and access to live-stream demos of Abramović Method exercises ($25). Our favorite performative bonus is reserved for those who pony up $10,000 or more. They’ll be treated to a life event called “Nothing”: “Marina will do nothing. You will do nothing,” notes the website. “You will not be publicly acknowledged.”
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• Clinton Smith, former editorial director of Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles, is moving to New York to become editor-in-chief at Veranda. He succeeds Dara Caponigro, who resigned from the Hearst mag in May.

• Curator and writer Zoë Ryan has been tapped to curate the second Istanbul Design Biennial, which will run from October 18 to December 14 of next year. Ryan is curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

• Good news, design lovers: after testing the waters with a May issue, Departures has decided to increase the frequency of its Departures Home + Design spin-off to two times a year in 2014, with May/June and October issues that will arrive with the flagship magazine.

• Ralph Lauren is funding a restoration project at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. He also plans to stage a post-Paris Fashion Week runway show at the school in October.

• Oscar de la Renta weighed in on the Anthony Weiner scandal, part deux: “I think in life people do deserve a second chance,” said the designer during a recent appearance on CBS This Morning (de la Renta designed the wedding dress of Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin). “A third and a fourth? I doubt it.”

It’s the summer of Sendak here in New York, with the Society of Illustrators celebrating the beloved children’s book artist, who died last year at the age of 83, with an exhibit of more than 200 never-before-seen Sendak originals (on view through August 17). Over at the New York Public Library, “The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter” exhibition (on view through March 2014) devotes an entire wall to a giant, furry, and unmistakable silhouette of one of the “Wild Things” encountered and conquered by young Max. We scoured the gorgeous Abrams book that accompanies the former exhibition—and particularly the chapter contributed by children’s book expert Leonard S. Marcus, who happens to have curated the latter show—to bring you this handful of fun facts.

1. Sendak honed his drawing skills at a young age, while looking out from the window of his family’s Brooklyn apartment and “making endless sketches of the children playing in the streets below,” writes Marcus in Maurice Sendak: A Celebration of the Artist and His Work, “drawings that recorded not only the children’s body language and facial expressions but also their emotional weather.”

2. He skipped college and went right from high school to a job as the assistant window decorator at FAO Schwarz on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

3. Sendak’s close friend and editor Ursula Nordstrom, who Marcus describes as “America’s most daring publisher of books for young people,” planned early on to pair Sendak with Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon), but she died suddenly in 1952 at the age of 42 before the two could even meet, much less collaborate.
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Dealer-turned-director Jeffrey Deitch is poised to part ways with the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles Times reports. He is expected to step down with just under two years left in his five-year contract. “One person, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that Deitch was ‘choosing to step down,’” wrote Mike Boehm in an article published today. “Another person who has spoken to Deitch said that MOCA is expected to announce Deitch’s exit along with the news that the museum is nearing completion of a fundraising campaign it announced in March to boost its endowment from about $20 million to $100 million.” Stay tuned for the press release, which is reportedly due following a MOCA board meeting scheduled for tomorrow. And L.A.’s loss may be New York’s (re)gain. B.L.A.T.C. reports that Deitch is already on the hunt for an apartment and a gallery space on the Upper East Side.

Jean Pigozzi (pictured) is an eccentric millionaire with a sharp eye for contemporary art and a weakness for loudly patterned shirts. He needs your help. Pigozzi is expanding his wild and crazy menswear line, LimoLand, with a Zodiac-themed collection, and is looking for a few—OK, a dozen—out-of-this-world astrological designs. Submit your most “original, quirky, and colorful” concepts by the end of the month, and esteemed judges including Pigozzi and Barneys creative director Dennis Freedman will pick their favorites.

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Amar Bose has gone to that big Wave Radio in the sky. The Philadelphia-born, MIT-educated founder of the Bose Corporation died Friday at his home Massachusetts. He was 83. “Dr. Bose founded Bose Corporation almost fifty years ago with a set of guiding principles centered on research and innovation. That focus has never changed, and never will,” said Bob Maresca, president of Bose Corporation, in a statement. “Bose Corporation will remain privately held, and stay true to Dr. Bose’s ideals. We are as committed to this as he was to us.”

A classical music buff, Bose founded his company in 1964 out of disappointment with a pricey stereo system he purchased while a student at MIT. His own acoustic engineering research was behind the first Bose sound system. He sought advice from one of his mentors at MIT, Y. W. Lee, on naming the company. “We were trying out various combinations with ‘acoustics’ and ‘electronics’ but couldn’t register any of them till Professor Lee gave me a few tips,” said Bose in a 2004 interview with India’s Economic Times. “He said the name shouldn’t be restrictive, since you never know what you’re going to be doing five years later, easy to pronounce in America, and short, so that the logo didn’t hog too much space.” In 2011, Bose gave to MIT the majority of the stock of Bose Corporation in the form of nonvoting shares.

Magnum Photos has added to its esteemed ranks: Olivia Arthur and Peter van Agtmael were voted in as full members at last week’s general meeting in London. Both joined the agency as nominees in 2008. London-based Arthur has been photographing professionally since 2003 and has already racked up awards including the Royal Photographic Society’s Vic Odden Award and the OjodePez-PhotoEspana Award. Her first book, Jeddah Diary, about young women in Saudi Arabia, was published last year. Van Agtmael, a Yale grad with honors such as the ICP Infinity Award and a W. Eugene Smith grant under his belt, has focused his work in recent years on the Middle East, covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their effects on life in America. A collection of his combat photography, 2nd Tour Hope I Don’t Die, was published in 2009.

Magnum has also welcomed a new nominee member in Michael Christopher Brown. The Washington native, who often uses his camera phone in the field, got a close-up of his own in the recent HBO documentary Witness: Libya, about his experiences during the 2011 Libyan Revolution. His latest project examines resource conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.