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Old-school Sweethearts Conversation Hearts, pictured above, are no more.

Ammar Eloueini's plastic CoReFab chair, created with digital animation and manufactured using 3D printing technology, is among the objects that go on view today in "Action! Design over Time," a new installation of the contemporary section of the architecture and design galleries at the Musuem of Modern Art.

Sure, UnBeige is published online, but we actually compose all of our posts on a pair of candy apple red Olivetti typewriters before turning them over to Eero, our technology-savvy web monkey, who somehow beams them into cyberspace (he also handles all of our links). Eero recently informed us that UnBeige and the rest of the mediabistro.com blog family have joined the future with mobile-optimized sites that are easily browsable on your iPhone, Blackberry, or Palm. Should you routinely carry one of these devices on your person, you need only type unbeige.com into the browser to be automatically redirected to our mobile-friendly page. The mobile optimizations are in beta, notes Eero, so if you have any problems reading UnBeige on the go, please drop us an e-mail.

Maira Kalman, "The Glass House," 2004-05. Don't miss "Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)," the first major museum survey of Kalman's work, on view through June 6 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

The latest victim of the print media crisis is Art on Paper magazine, which has ceased publication. Co-publishers Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett announced the New York-based bimonthly's closure this evening, noting their hope "that six to twelve months from now, when the economy has improved, someone new will come along and revive the publication, either in print or digital form."

Art on Paper began in the late 1960s as The Print Collectors Newsletter, a resource aimed at the burgeoning market for limited-edition prints. In the mid-1990s, the newsletter became Art on Paper (technically a spaceless, lowercase affair: artonpaper) and its editorial coverage was expanded to include photographs and drawings. Thereafter, the magazine maintained its commitment to works on paper in all media and recently collaborated with artists including Thomas Nozkowski, Polly Apfelbaum, and Monique Prieto to produce limited-edition works for its "Great Poster Project."

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National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman and self-described "recovering Broadway producer" Rocco Landesman (pictured) has announced a new program that will provide funds to help U.S. cities plan and undertake design projects or further existing ones. Announced yesterday at the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., the NEA Mayors' Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative (MICD 25) builds upon the MICD program, founded in 1986 to transform communities through design. Through the new initiative, the NEA will make up to 15 grants ranging from $25,000 to $250,000 "in recognition of the role that smart design, arts, artists, and arts organizations can play in building dynamic places where people want to live and work," explained Landesman in a speech yesterday. Any of the approximately 600 cities that have had a mayor go through the MICD program are eligible to apply for a grant.

"We are looking to fund planning projects, including the planning of arts districts, the mapping of cultural assets along with their development potential, and the creation of innovative plans to maximize the creative sector," said Landesman. "We want to fund design projects, to enhance public spaces—such as parks, public buildings, libraries, memorials, streets, and pedestrian bridges. We will fund the revitalization of neighborhoods through the adaptive reuse of historic buildings into affordable housing for artists, studios, and work space. And we want to make sure that citizens engage with the arts by having communities transform themselves through public spaces that have cultural activities—innovative festivals, outdoor exhibitions, murals and sculptures, sculpture gardens, and waterfront art parks." Cities are advised to think creatively and fast, as statements of interest should be submitted to the NEA by March 15. More information awaits you here.

It's blue! It's green! Stop, you're both right! Color authority Pantone has selected turquoise (15-5519 TCX on your Pantone fandex), with its legacy of Western jewelry and '80s fashion, to carry the banner of Color the Year for 2010. We associate the hue with the bold "Bondi blue" of the original iMac, but Pantone sees a vacation in a color swatch. "Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing," noted the company in a statement announcing the pick. Given that the selection of the decidely tropical hue follows "Mimosa," the 2009 choice, we're beginning to suspect that Pantone's color of the year selection process involves a beachside conclave and plenty of cocktails. Anyone else have a sudden craving for Bombay Sapphire martinis?

Previously on UnBeige:

Frank Stella, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, 2006

At the end of August, we checked in with the ever-stalled Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial project, only to find that it had reached yet another roadblock. Said roadblock that time actually dealt with the lack of roadblocks, with the National Park Service demanding that some sort of terrorist-stopping objects be placed surrounding the planned memorial. At that point, it looked like we were in for another couple of years of stand-still, as nearly everyone involved or had been following its progress had grown used to. But surprise, surprise, just under two months later and the latest updated plans (now with the additional security measures) have been approved. Now just one more hurdle stands in the way before construction can begin: the building permit. Fortunately, it appears as though that will come fairly easily (but we've heard that before, haven't we?). Here's from the Washington Post:

Peter May, an associate regional director with the Park Service, said the construction permit likely will be issued in a matter of days, after a final review of the building plans. The project also must contribute to the long-term preservation of the $120 million memorial and its site, he said. The project has raised $107 million so far.

Shepard Fairey's sudden about-face on the source photo for his iconic Obama HOPE poster puzzled many followers of an already multilayered legal battle with the Associated Press concerning what constitutes fair use. What prompted Fairey's admission? Lawyers, of course. Thorough ones. The American Lawyer has the scoop from the perspective of the AP's legal team, led by Kirkland & Ellis partner Dale Cendali:

...the fuse that ignited Fairey's bombshell revelations was lit two weeks ago, when the AP's legal team...confronted Fairey's lawyers from Stanford's Fair Use Project and Durie Tangri with "trace evidence" from materials turned over in discovery. The trace evidence, Cendali said, indicated to Kirkland that Fairey hadn't given them everything he was supposed to. "We were able to detect that there were other documents that should have been produced," Cendali said.

Armed with that information, the Kirkland lawyers sent an October 2 letter to Fairey's legal team, demanding that the missing material be turned over. A week later the Fairey camp responded with a letter outlining plans to amend its complaint against the AP, which initially sought a declaratory judgment that the artist's use of a photograph of Obama was permissible under fair use doctrine.

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