The most-talked-about stories on ARTINFO, July 25-29, 2011:

– Ai Weiwei knows how to stir things up on social media, so the revelation that he had joined Google's new Google+ service was big news — he even posted the list of items confiscated by police from his studio. Meanwhile, an artifact of pre-social-media days by the artist surfaced: a heretofore unpublished 1985 manifesto for Chinese art.

– In London, former Gagosian London gallery director Pilar Ordovas is launching her own sparkling new Savile Row gallery.

– Amsterdam's De Appel art center has initiated a new "crash course" in how to run an art gallery for would-be dealers.

– We had "18 Questions for Kyle DeWoody," who has just launched a new online art commerce Web site Grey Area, along with a Hamptons pop-up shop.

– Ashton Cooper headed to "Singles Night" at MoMA, the relational-aesthetics-experiment-cum-meat-market put on by art group Grand Openings.

– The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is showcasing Helmut Newton's risqué photography.

– Frank Gehry's ultramodern project in Arles, France came to a screeching halt as the French National Commission for Historical Sites and Monuments denied permits for two of the buildings.

– Kyle Chayka inaugurated his new column, "Net Work," by taking a look at Eyebeam's new show, an experiment in guerrilla digital art.

– Guy Laliberté — the man behind Cirque du Soleil — released a new book of photographs he had taken of the Earth during his recent journey into space. And yes, you read that right.

– Ben Davis looked at Vladimir Tatlin's iconic "Monument to the Third International" — a model of the tower is just closing at Chelsea's Tony Shafrazi gallery — reading the meaning of the work against the politics of its day.

– Artist William Powhida opened a somewhat confounding new show at Marlborough, a performance starring an actor playing his double "POWHIDA" (all caps).

– Finally, our IN THE AIR blog reported on the Gwangju Biennale's announcement of a six-person team of international curators for 2012, and Gagosian Rome's plans for a show of Dan Colen's "Trash."