– Byte at the Museum: The AmericanMuseum of Natural History has debuted an "Explorer" iPhone app thatuses GPS technology to help visitors navigate the institution's wealth of displays, providing in-depth information for adults and and fossil treasure hunts for kids. [NYT]

– "I Welcome the Waning of the Blockbuster": In a Q&A, LACMA director MichaelGovan talks about the importance of diverse projects like the WattsTower conservation, Edythe and Eli Broad ("my hope is that over the long haul they will leave very significant artworks [to] this encyclopedic museum"), the late Renoir show ("Renoir is not my favorite"), and the crazy Koons locomotive ("A crane is a great symbol for a museum; when you see it in the distance, what do you think? Something's being made"). [LAT]

–Audubon's First Bird Discovered: The paragon of avian artistry got his start with a print of a "running grouse or Heath Hen (a relativeof the greater prairie chicken)" that he executed for a series of bank notes; the bird has since gone extinct. [DiscoveryNews]

– After It's in Fashion, It's in Taschen: As other bookstores have been shuttered by the economy, the sleek publisher of fashion and art books — which is having its 30th anniversary this year — has been expanding with new high-end stores in Miami and Beverly Hills. [LAT]  

– Chicago Updates Hirst's Freeze Idea: The cow sculptures that swept the world a few years ago apparently did not sate Chicagoans's appetite for public art, since the Windy City has now installed artworks around town that are made from refrigerators — which, knowing Chicagoans, are probably filled with meats and cheeses in homage to the cows. [NBC Chicago]

– Learning from Los Angeles: In his new book "Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970," Thomas S. Hines — "the dean of architectural historians" in L.A. — argues that the Pasedena bungalows of Charles and Henry Greene "'formed a bridge' between the 19th century Arts and Crafts movement and modern buildings to come." [LAT]

– City of Glass: Highly praised for his luminescent new renovation of the Israel Museum, James Carpenter — who spent three decades as a glass artist — is hoping that his plans for a visible office structure by Manhattan's High Line will be embraced by the city despite the fact, as he acknowledges, that "New Yorkers may be burnt out on glass buildings." [NYT]

– Painting His Way Out of Corner: James Rosenquist has decided not to show work at the Brandeis Rose Art Museum, but supposedly not because of controversies surrounding the institution's attempts to sell off its permanent collection. There were many factors that made the exhibition impossible, he explains, saying, "I don’t want to deal with it, really. It’s a big mess." [Boston Globe]

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: Photographer David Levene shot images of Antony Gormley's "Horizon Field" in the mountains of Vorarlberg, Austria [Guardian]