We’re all for fun art pranks. Love them, even. We saw the first Yes Men documentary and we’ll likely see the new one, too. But if you’re going to pull one, make sure you’re not just copying someone else, okay? Otherwise, it just comes off as contrived, because that’s a word that artists don’t usually like to be associated with. Guilty party is the New York-based painter Mat Benote, who secretly hung his artwork on the walls of a variety of museums like the Saatchi Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum, some of which stayed up for a couple of days before officials noticed them and they were removed. If that sounds at all familiar, it should. Banksy did the exact same thing back in 2005, which by our count was the first big step in turning him into an internationally-recognized household name. Case in point: shortly thereafter he’d landed on NPR and was the subject of a feature story in the New Yorker. Benote has also tried to remain mysterious, not telling the Daily News what part of New York he lives in, nor how old he is. This also sound like some super famous street artist you’ve heard about? In fact, it sounds so similar that maybe it is Banksy and he’s just offering up a critique about the uniqueness of art or something? For a little more reading, here’s an interview with Benote who has apparently been doing this for a while and often gets this Banksy critique.

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At the very start of the year, the still fairly new head of the Smithsonian, Wayne Clough, put a lock down on spending at the famed institution, stopping almost all new hiring and ceasing all raises and bonuses. Just a couple of months later, he was back at it, extending hours at the more popular museums and offering up new ideas to keep the money from drying up (sadly, he can’t take credit for The Smithsonian Collection line of department store furniture). But as we’ve been constantly reading since about this time last year, things aren’t easy for museums at the moment and so another cost-cutting measure at the Smithsonian has come to light. Modern Art Notes was slipped an e-mail sent from Alison McNally, Under Secretary for Finance and Administration, to all the Institution’s employees explaining that they would be offering voluntary buyout packages for “an amount equal to an employee’s calculated severance pay entitlement or $25,000, whichever is less” and decided upon between this past Monday and November 30th. So it looks like some more trimming is in store. But as for how many employees decided to take the leap, we’ll have to wait and see.

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In a strange bit of strange, on Monday we posted that GAP founder Donald Fisher had announced his decision to let the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art take his art collection for the next twenty-five years. Then, just five minutes later, Stephanie posted the news that Fisher had died late Sunday. Judging from the close proximity of those two posts, you can see that the latter news came as something of a shock. Though ours was just distant “a news-maker guy we know about” sort of shock, which is nothing compared to how the aforementioned SFMOMA has had to deal with the news. Apparently a lot of the details of Fisher’s donation hadn’t been worked out, including when it was going to happen and how the museum was going to go ahead in building a new wing to house it all. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the museum has formed an emergency committee to help try and figure out just what’s going to happen, largely all about said new wing and where it needs to go.

“This all happened quickly,” says Libby Garrison, a museum spokeswoman. “We have a handshake, but not many details beyond that.”

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Totally “Things I Have Learned…” right? We might be a little late to have seen this spot, but given all the other places we’re seeing his work in, we think it’s worth asking if we are now in what would be considered a wider movement to rehash old Sagmeister ideas? If so, why now? What’s in our collective consciousness that’s making us do the things like those linked above or stuff like the clearly-referential, much passed around tattooed Swedish magazine? Has this always been going on and we just haven’t noticed? Or is this all just a case of laziness? As Peachfuzz puts it: “If you’re going to be a hack, at least cover your tracks by not picking the guy every clueless first semester design student lists as his favorite designer.”

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An interesting piece of juicy talk concerning the American Institute of Architects lately, and this time completely unrelated to either Kermit Baker or the always sexy Billings Index. Story goes is that the AIA has decided to suspend Montana-based architect Donald Briggs after it was learned that he had been having an affair with one of his clients. If that weren’t enough. the husband of the affairing-woman was also upset at the cost overruns during the new house design/building they’d hired Briggs for, particularly because he’d largely only spoken about the details about the project to his wife. The AIA determined that Briggs’ conduct had violated the rules of their Code of Ethics, given that said affair might have “affected his professional judgment while rendering professional services” and thus, his membership has been suspended for two years. Although this doesn’t have any baring on Briggs’ license to practice architecture, who knows what the effect on his business will be without that AIA affiliation. The whole case has drummed up some interesting debate over at Archinect‘s forums, with readers offering opinions from both sides, all under the forum’s title “The Farnsworth Days Are Over.”

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What is it with starchitect Santiago Calatrava and bridges? The guy can’t seem to design and build one without something happening crummy along the way. Last year there was his killer bridge in Venice that was inflicting damage on a score of clumsy tourist victims. Then just a couple of months back, his Peace Bridge in Calgary was catching all sorts of serious flack, with a good portion of the city calling it things like “a middle-aged man going through a mid-life crisis.” Now we have news from Dallas that Calatrava’s Trinity River Bridge, which had already been mired in controversies and miscellaneous slowdowns for the past decade, has run into yet another snag, this time with the Army Corp of Engineers who have said the bridge would be unsafe during a possible 100-year flood. While re-do plans are being scrambled together, this means that the bridge’s finish date will be pushed back at least another few years and possibly all the way out to 2016. For everyone’s sanity (and pocketbooks), we’re thinking a) Calatrava should be strictly land-based from here on out, or b) people should stop hiring him to build these things.

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What’s new? Lingerie, for one thing. “We loved the joyful chic of Sonia Rykiel’s 40th anniversary runway show [held last fall at the Parc de Saint-Cloud in Paris] and in that spirit this collection is all about revelling in great lingerie for its own sake,” said H&M creative advisor Margareta van den Bosch in a statement issued today announcing the collaboration. “This is a totally modern, new kind of lingerie look, and when we started to work together with Rykiel on it, we just couldn’t stop.” Other than addictive underthings, which will debut in 1,500 H&M stores on December 5, the company promises “an iconic knitwear collection for women and girls accompanied by playful accessories.” The second collection is slated for a more limited launch (at approximately 250 stores) in late February. Look for a surfeit of black with pops of jewel tones, stripes, lacy flourishes, and cut-rate intarsia.

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Even the most severe recession in recent history can’t keep great design down. “No matter how bleak the situation into which we have been thrown by the global economy—it does offer opportunities. Designers need only invent them,” said AIGA president Debbie Millman in a speech welcoming guests to the annual AIGA Design Legends Gala, held earlier this month at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. “By understanding our living and working context, we blow open avenues of opportunity and innovation not yet charted or explored.” The highlight of the design star-studded evening was the presentation of the 2009 AIGA Medals to designers Pablo Ferro, Carin Goldberg, and Doyald Young.

AIGA medalists past and present take to the stage.

Steven Heller presented the medal to Ferro, draped in his signature red scarf, for “introducing narrative and nonlinear dimensions to design for films, changing our visual expectations, and demonstrating the power of design to enhance storytelling,” while Paula Scher did the honors for Goldberg, who was lauded “for her exquisite ability to join intelligence, craft, and an eye for the evocative image in designing iconic pop-cultural and literary artifacts, and for her commitment to design education.” Young, who just turned 83, was recognized for “demonstrating the power of a lifelong love of the craft of calligraphy, type, and graphic design, for his contributions as an author, and for his dedication as an educator” and received his medal from Deanna Kuhlmann-Leavitt. JetBlue and Patagonia took home the the AIGA Corporate Leadership Award, and 22 designers from around the country were honored as AIGA Fellows.

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Back in early May, we told you that Peter Morrison and the gang at the very large architecture firm RMJM had plans in place to weather this economic storm we find ourselves in. And against all odds, it appears to be working. While nearly every other major architect or firms are seeing their high-profile projects either disappear or get chopped in half, RMJM has just announced that they’ve gotten the go ahead in Russia to begin work on the tower at Okhta Center in St. Petersburg. The hold-up had been over building height laws in the city, which have now been revised to fit Okhta in. When finished, it will be Europe’s tallest tower and is expected to cost more than $2 billion to get there. Though, with all things mixing “big” and “architecture” anymore, we’re certain that everyone involved, although sounding optimistic for the press, is likely always aware that these shadowy economic gremlins could swoop in at any second and rob the project of its life just as it has with so many others like it.

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It’s been a little while since we last checked in at Brandeis University to see what’s going on with the Rose Art Museum debacle. As you might recall, back in January, the university’s board decided in secret to shut down the museum and sell off all of the art therein to help pay the bills. This led to a firestorm of protests, meetings, op-ed pieces, and everything in between. The last time we’d reported on Brandeis, back in late July, supporters of the museum were taking the university to court, trying to block any possible sales. Well now, after nine months since this began, it looks as though things have swung the way of the protesters. The big news is that the university’s longtime president, Jehuda Reinharz, has announced that he will be resigning, which is largely being perceived as relating to his mishandling of the Rose. Furthermore, the school recently decided through committee that the museum should remain open and that its future should be of more concern from here on out. So good news all around, it seems, for Rose supporters. Though this story has a tendency to take some quick turns, so we’re keeping our congrats to only around 87% until we know for sure everything is safe and sound on the Brandeis campus.

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Legend has it that the Fishers founded the company on August 21, 1969 after a frustrating experience exchanging a pair of jeans that didn’t fit. That year, the couple raised $63,000 to launch a single jeans and music store called The Gap (named for “the generation gap”) in San Francisco. In 2008, Gap reported annual sales of approximately $14.5 billion. Fisher served as chairman and CEO of the company from 1969 through 1995 and as chairman through 2004. He held the roles of director and chairman emeritus until his death.

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