– Shark Food: In a very special "Lunch with the FT," the usually press shy Larry Gagosian sits down for a chunk of swordfish, references Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent," tries to get the journalist drunk, and talks about his new Paris gallery. "I'm a kinda lowbrow guy," he tells the paper. "I couldn't put it better than Woody Allen does, 'Just give me a good game and a good beer.' I'm just like the next guy.' [Financial Times]

– Michael Govan Goes Native: The Dia alum, who has led the Los Angeles County Museum of Artsince 2006, has renewed his contract, meaning he will lead theinstitution through 2016. He tells the Los Angeles Times that he is"starting to feel a sense of great loyalty to this city and awillingness to be here in the long term." We'll see how he feels aboutthat when he is offered a choice New York directorship.[LAT]

– Franc Criticism: Spending half as much as last year, the French state spent $280,000 (or 200,000 euros, not francs) on eight works of art for its national collection at FIAC, by Katinka Bock, Ricardo Brey, Ryan Gander, Nathan Hylden, Klara Kristalova, Jean-Luc Moulene, Stephane Thidet, and John Wood. [AFP]

– Law Enforcement Storms the Met: Officers from the FBI, the NYPD, the Secret Service, and other agencies are making visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to hone their skills of perception. "Often, they see things that art historians don’t always notice," says one instructor. For instance, one says of a painting, “The female sitting up on top actually has her hands behind her, and it almost looks like she was handcuffed.” [CBS]

– "Architecture Is Such a Tough Business": Touring a school she's building in a hard-bitten London neighborhood, RiBA Prize winner Zaha Hadid praised concrete for the way it makes her building look "unfinished," and uses a "Devil Wears Prada"-like fashion analogy for why more money often needs to be spent on architecture than initially planned. "The manufacturing cost is one cost, and the real cost is another," she says. [Bloomberg] 

– Hold the Phone! It's Tony Shafrazi: No stranger to controversy himself, the art dealer and onetime "Guernica"-tagger was matched up by Interview magazine to discusses Christy Turlington and the beauty of Tehran with his old friend Naomi Campbell in this months' issue, which also features thesupermodel cuddled up with a bloodied corpse. [Interview]

– The Limits of Landmark Laws: JP Morgan Chase has begun dismantling a site-specific Bertoriasculpture — a 70-foot screen composed of 800 bronze plates — that resides in their landmark-protected Gordon Bunshaft building on Fifth Avenue,upsetting those who see the building and the sculpture as inextricablylinked. Unfortunately, landmark legislation does not cover art.[NYT]

– Brothers in Sales: Antique-dealing siblings William and Robert Roland turn New York auctioneers tomorrow, puttingover 352 lots up for sale at their Greenwich Village location.[Lindsay Pollock]

– Anime Goes Opera: A production in the style of Japanese animation hit the European stage this Saturday in Paris,featuring Japanese celebrities, musicians, one of the biggestproducers in Japan, and, of course, futuristically dressed mangacharacters with big eyes and wild hair. Takashi Murakami was not involved.[AFP]

– Curator as "Canary in a Coalmine"?: New Museum curator Laura Hoptman has been accused ofpromoting her friends' art, but she is also known for having an eye for the new. In her return to MoMA, it seems she'll have a powerful say in what art the museum buys for its career-making collection.[Observer]