– Censor This!: Jerry Saltz makes a great point regardingthe Smithsonian censorship controversy. Given the "Greek vase made in the shape of a fully erect male member complete with curly pubic hair; aheaddress effigy of a female with legs spread and vulva visible; Lorenzo Lotto's painting of an ecstatic woman caressing her own breasts,squeezing flower petals between her legs, and being urinated on by a small child," etc., "any public funding to the Met should be curtailed until all of these items have been looked into and removed." Aside from agreeing with this modest proposal, we would love to go on Jerry Saltz's Pervy Met Treasure Hunt. [NYM] 

– Auld Lang Syne: Putting aside the "fuzzy math" that makes it nigh impossible to judge how good or bad the art market today really is, Michael Kimmelman asks the question of the hour:"Is there a culture specific to this recession, as there was to the Depression…. Something memorable and distinct that will define the age?"The 1970s, after all, "produced darkling riches across the board" and is now seen as a high-water mark of 20th century art, with crises economic and geopolitical (Vietnam) inspiring "artful responses." But according to the Times critic-at-large, today's art world — "having become almost entirely an extension of the fashion and entertainment industries" — is largely about "escapism," even if it has become so fragmented and "atomized" through globalization that is "impossible to generalize about." [NYT]

– Mind the Gap: Roberta Smith notes that 2010 was the year of participatory art and women artists, but mainly it was a time of spooky art-world affluence that seemed divorced from reality, and "there are growing signs that the second shoe has yet to drop." [NYT]

– Yow: Holland Cotter's best and worst of 2010 art list is seriously harsh, often with the clarifying rage of righteous indignation... but a little unnecessarily ad hominem with Jennifer Rubell. The critic really doesn't like it when people play with their food, apparently. [NYT]  

– Knightfall on 2010: It's interesting how this year's crop of year-end reflections on the state of the art world are by and large overtly political, with the economy looming as large as the art itself. Christopher Knight's, for instance, reminds that "there can be no vibrant democratic system without a flourishing middle-class." As for the art, it "feels oddly like it's in a state of suspended animation right now," experiencing a period of "if not artistic drift, then a collective holding of the culture's breath as a cycle turns." [LAT]

–Christopher Hawthorne's 2010 Architecture Picks: The critic's best and worstarchitectural projects of the year. [LAT]

– Finders, Suers:Remember Rick Norsigian, the California man who claims to have found a trove of glass-plate negatives by Ansel Adams at a garage sale, only to have the photographer's Trust call them inauthentic, and a woman attribute them to her Uncle Earl. Well, now Norsigian is suing the AdamsTrust's managing trustee for going on CNN and calling Norsigian and hisallies a "bunch of crooks" employing Joseph Goebbels's "big lie" Nazi propaganda strategy. The suit also alleges civil conspiracy involving a prominent Adams photo archive. [NYT]

– Los Angeles MOCA Elects New Board Member: Daniel S. Loeb, the CEO of the $4.5 billion hedge fund Third Point LLC is now one of ten trustees on the museum's board. Along with his wife Margaret Munzer Loeb, Daniel S. Loeb has collected a wide array of art, including work by Ed Ruscha, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, Hannah Wilke, and Sigmar Polke. He has sat on the painting and sculpture committee at the Whitney and has served among the American Patrons of the Tate. [artforum]

– Angry Art in Pakistan: Following the "Hanging Fire" show at New York's Asia Society last year, a new show of contemporary art from Pakistan has popped up inKarachi, where the country's political themes — rife with outrage over civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes — come more to the fore. A "Flying Rug" reads "To hell with Uncle Sam," and violent imagery pervades. [NYT]

– Tough Times in Japan: "It's really hard for young Japanese artists to survive," these days thanks to a dearth of active contemporary art collectors in Japan — a result of the fact that "the Japanese economy is still controlled by elderly people who don't spend that kind of money on art." While this "feeble demand" is crushing the country's art scene, it also means that "international collectors of Japanese artworks can find bargains resembling those in China more than adecade ago," according to the Wall Street Journal. [WSJ] 

–Wrapping Up China: Fashion icon Diane Von Furstenburg not only dreams of taking China by storm — "I'd like to sell every Chinese a T-shirt," she told the Times —she made it a New Year's resolution. As part of this campaign, she has teamed up with the Pace Gallery to debut an exhibition at the art dealership's sprawling Beijing outpost that will recount the history of her famed 1970s wrap dress alongside impressionistic "portraits" of the designer by some of China's leading contemporary artists, from Zhang Huan to Hai Bo. The show is set to open this April at Pace's 798 District space. [NYT]

– Art Windfall for Berlin: Art collectors Heiner and Ulla Pietzsch have donated 150 artworks to the city of Berlin, with the hope that the mainly Surrealist and Ab-Ex pieces by the likes of Max Ernst, Rothko, Dali, Magritte, and Pollock would shore up deficiencies in these areas in public museums. "We know this closes a painful gap in the Nationalgalerie's collection," the couple said in a statement. [Bloomberg]

– Taking the Cake: Ninety-year-old confection painter Wayne Thiebaud has joined Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Robert Graham on California's "Hall of Fame," which now lists 65 "legendary people who embody California’s innovative spirit and have made their mark on history." [LAT]

– Happy New Year! Love, Artists: This new 365-day "perpetual calendar" book features 365 contemporary artists, each of whom created an artwork in 24 hours to fill half a page. Holiday present idea? While "The Open Daybook" doesn't fit in a stocking, "it's a $45 art book you're supposed to write in,” says photographer Mike Slack. (The Moment)

–RIP Don Van Vliet: The notoriously eccentric Dadaist musician who recorded a dozen albums under the name Captain Beefheart (most famously the 1969 "Trout Mask Replica") before entering seclusion to concentrate on his painting in 1982 has died at 69. Van Vliet is represented by Michael Werner Gallery, and his art could be seen it its booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. [NYT]

– Old Lady Artists Are So In Right Now: "Old age among female artists and writers is the new chic, as increased longevity trumps the time-worn complaint that after 50 a woman is socially and professionally invisible," Jackie Wullschlager writes in the Financial Times. For one thing, there's the delightful biography of Alice Neel. "The belated triumphs of [Louise] Bourgeois, [Paula] Rego and [Yayoi] Kusama show that the tortoise is as likely to win as the hare," she continues. "Will these be the grandes dames of mid-21st century art?" [FT]

– No Restitution This Time: A Rubens painting of the Virgin Mary, once looted by Nazis, is set to stay in Britain, after a ruling by the parliament's Spoliation Advisory Panel. London's Courtauld Institute will retain ownership of "The Coronation of the Virgin," after a long dispute to whether the original Jewish owner had been forced to sell the work. The Courtald won its case that the original owner sold his collection based on a "cold financial calculation" and not based on Nazi aggression. [Guardian]

– VIDEO OF THE DAY: David Wojnarowicz "A Fire in My Belly" from PPOW Gallery on Vimeo.