– Big Bambú Triumphs in Venice: Blogging from Venice, star New York Times critic Roberta Smith has already found a highlight of the week: Mike and Doug Starn's "Big Bambú," the duo's loose, monumental construction of bamboo rods that was such a hit on the rooftop of the Met. In Venice, she writes, the work rises "in a fragile Babel-like spiral above the roofs of the Dorsoduro" (it's at Casa Artom, next door to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, until June 15). The bamboo mass compares favorably, in Smith's mind, to the "trophy art" being showcased at Francois Pinault's Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogona. [NYT] 

– Daylight Robbery at Marianne Boesky: A thief brazenly made off with "Black Ink" by modernist master Franz Kline when it was on view at Chelsea's Marianne Boesky Gallery last month. His daring scheme to steal the $225,000 AbEx painting? Walking into the space in the late afternoon, stuffing it into a bag, and then walking out without the staff noticing. A suspect was later identified by security camera footage and picked up by the police on a charge of felony grand larceny. [NYPost]

View Slideshow:

– Taking the High Line to Oklahoma: After two years of leading the High Line's remarkable art program, the elevated park's curator Lauren Ross
— that's right, the High Line may be the only public park in the world
with a curator — has announced that she is departing this summer to
become the Nancy E. Meinig Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the
Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ross has used the High Line as a place to stage outdoor displays of work by Demetrius Oliver and Kim Beck, and will unveil new projects by Sarah Sze and Julianne Swartz before leaving, as well as a recreation of Trisha Brown's iconic "Roof Piece." [Press Release] 

– The World's Greatest Horse Artist?: First came Cooper the Cat Photographer, now, meet Napoleon,
the painter horse. This four-year-old black stallion — a pure-bred
Dutch Friesian — has been selling his acrylic-on-canvas works for
anywhere between €3,300-6,000. Holding the brush in his mouth, the steed
paints on top of strange photographic images (think, monkey dressed in
human clothes) prepared by a pal of the owner of the four-legged artist,
one two-legged artist named Sergio Caballero. The animal-human art duo now has a show at Barcelona's Mutt gallery titled, "Abstraction in the Stable." According to Caballero, it's "sort of de Kooning in style." [Telegraph]

– Hong Kong Rising: Robust results at its Asian sales have Christie's crowing that Hong Kong is the next capital of the art market: "There will be a point when Hong Kong is on the level of London and New York.... let's say something between five and 10 years perhaps," says the house's managing director in Asia, Jonathan Stone. There are a few dissenting expert voices, however, who say that high estimates have already become perilously unrealistic. [Reuters]

– Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Picks Construction Monitor: The upcoming Middle Eastern museum, which recently came under fire for poor worker conditions in violation of UAE labor laws on its construction site, has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to serve as independent monitors of the situation. [Artforum] 

– "Chinese Take Out" Art: Artist Jason Bailor Losh has asked Chinatown restaurants to loan him objects and artworks from their dining establishments, which he has now placed on display at Art in General's Walker Street gallery, offering the eateries new works of art in exchange. "They're culturally relevant and they have a significance to the locations and they mean something to those locations," says Losh of the items he's gathered together. "It could be about feng shui, it could be about bringing prosperity to their businesses, and as an average viewer and attendee of these restaurants, we just walk by. We see things and we don't pay attention to it." [NY1]

– Decreasing Prices for Top Artists?: When it comes to auction house results, the Times reports that although Warhol's fame has lasted a lot longer than 15 minutes, other big sellers from the past 20 years are starting to decline in value. Demand is falling faster than the gavel for artist Francesco Clemente, whose painting "Parabola" sold for a third of its estimated price in March. Jeffrey Deitch chimes in, "The reputation of even the greatest figures like Picasso are in flux." [NYT]

– Italian Bank as Art Patron: Financiers looking to collect no longer have to leave the building, now that a Milanese branch of Italian bank UniCredit has begun staging exhibitions of young contemporary artists. As the former president of the Italian Banking Association's cultural commission, Guido Palamenghi Crispi, puts it, "All banks are close to culture and art." Just in time for the Venice Biennale, the bank is also awarding its first UniCredit Venice Award to an artist representing his or her country in the Biennale. [NYT] 

– MFA Boston Still Sprucing Up: The much praised "Art of the Americas Wing" at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is still filling in the gaps of its six-month-old permanent collection. The museum wants to focus on improving its holdings of both modern art and works by artists of color. "[The wing] is not sitting still," curator Kelly L'Ecuyer explains. "We have to deal with rotations, loans, and flurries of offers." [Boston.com]

– Studio Museum Nabs Mellon Grant: The Studio Museum in Harlem is the recipient of a three-year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with which the art institution will finance its curatorial program. [Artforum] 

– What's in a Name?: Titling an artwork has not always been an activity left to the artist. Daniel Grant explains why greats like "Whistler's Mother," "Lavender Mist," and "Olympia" were all named by third parties after their creation. [WSJ]