– No, It's Not the End of the World: "Frankenstorm," the Eurocrisis, Election 2012... With all the crazy things happening in the world, you might be forgiven for wondering, "What if the Mayans were right?" Well, the Houston Museum of Natural Science is out to put your mind at rest with its new show, "Maya 2012 Prophecy Becomes History," which aims to discredit the widely publicized theory that the ancient civilization predicted the end of humanity on December 21, 2012. “Most of the Maya scholars think it comes from the Christian West where the whole idea of doomsday and apocalypse is an important part of Christianity,” anthropologist Rebecca Storey says. “It’s mostly outsiders that have made that link that somehow the end of a time cycle can be a time of destruction.” [WaPo]

– Matthew Barney Creates Floating Tribute to Norman Mailer: For the last six months, artist Matthew Barney has been holed up in a Long Island City warehouse painstakingly reconstructing a model of Norman Mailer's brownstone apartment for his latest epic project, a video called "River of Fundament." To create the long-gestating work, Barney has been filming the apartment floating atop a barge against strangely beautiful backdrops sporadically for the last five years. (Last week, it set off down the East River.) Loosely based on Mailer's 1983 Novel "River of Fundament," the film features Paul Giamatti, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Mailer's own son John. [WSJ]

– Ai Weiwei's "Gangnam Style" Censored: Last week Ai Weiwei uploaded his parody of the viral music video sensation "Gangnam Style" to YouTube, quickly garnering tens of thousands of hits and, just as quickly, earning the ire of the Chinese censors, who banned the clip. Ai evidently anticipated the move: He titled the work "Cao Ni Ma," which translates to "Grass Mud Horse," an expression used to evade censors that means "fuck your mother." (See our VIDEO OF THE DAY, below.) [CNN]

– Striking Workers Form Picket Line Outside British Museum: More than 60 members of the British Museum's cleaning and facilities management staff are striking to protest the proposed privatization of their services. They fear their working conditions, pay, and positions could be at risk if the museum goes ahead with a proposal to outsource next year. Currently, the museum employs a combination of in-house facilities managers and workers from two private companies. If negotiations are unsuccessful, strikers are planning a second action on November 5. [ARTINFO UK]

– Les Cahiers d'Art Relaunches: The influential art review Les Cahiers d'Art relaunched last week after more than 40 years out of print. The magazine was revived by Swedish collector and entrepreneur Staffan Ahrenberg, who purchased it from its former owners and installed former Art Basel director Sam Keller and omnipresent curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as editors. The first issue features Ellsworth Kelly, Cyprien Gaillard, and others. As in the past, it won't carry advertising or have a regular publishing schedule. [FT]

– Ronnie Wood's Ex-Wife Gets Even With Auction: Jo Wood, the ex-wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, marked the collapse of her 24-year marriage by auctioning off some of the couple's most personal belongings. The sale, held at Beverly Hills-based firm Julien's Auctions, included a pair of 19-century bronze chandeliers (sold for £2,300), the couple's four-poster mahogany bed, and a nude portrait of Jo Wood painted by her ex. A spokesman for the musician said he was "staggered" at some of the intimate items being offered up for sale and "shocked" that the auction was being presented as a joint effort. [Telegraph] 

– Art Basel Shakes Up Leadership: In advance of its 2013 debut in Hong Kong, art fair producer Art Basel is shaking up its leadership structure. Marc Spiegler will take on an expanded role as Art Basel's director, overseeing the development of its three shows in Basel, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong. Annette Schönholzer will take on a new role as director of new initiatives, while Magnus Renfrew, the former director of Art HK, will continue as Asia director. The company is also seeking a new director of resources and finance. All four will form an executive committee chaired by Spiegler. [Press Release]

– Swiss Offer Bunkers as Possible Freeports: While newer tax havens like Hong Kong and Singapore create purpose-built freeports to attract auction houses and collectors, Switzerland's government has offered up a series of half-century-old military bunkers that could be retrofitted as art storage facilities by anyone willing to pay the 386,000 Swiss Franc ($417,000) price tag. (The spaces are an alternative to the stuffed Geneva freeports.) "It really depends [on] what they do with the space rather than the space itself," said Art Fund Association president Enrique Liberman. "If you expand the number of warehouses a lot of the risks inherent to storing art might be mitigated, because they won't be so overcrowded." [Reuters]

– LACMA Gala Brings Big Names and Bucks: Saturday's Art+Film gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in honor of late filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and L.A. artist Ed Ruscha not only brought the museum $3.5 million (or a net gain of $1.85 million for the night), but also a large sampling of the city's celebrities, including Jane Fonda, Cameron Diaz, Amy Adams, Robert Pattinson, Jack Nicholson, and artists including Barbara Kruger, Doug Aitken, and street artist Retna. "For me, Kubrick was the Beatles," Steven Spielberg said at the event. "Kubrick was all four of the Beatles." [LAT]

– Obscure Picasso Plates Turn Up in Uzbekistan: A new exhibition at the State Arts Museum in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, features a dozen ceramic artworks by Pablo Picasso that have been in storage at the museum since they were first shown there in the 1960s, though virtually nobody at the institution knew of their existence. The artworks were first owned by Picasso's friend and fellow painter Fernand Léger and his wife Nadya, and the latter gifted their collection to Soviet museums after her husband died in 1955. [BBC]

– Friends May Mar Your Museum Experience: How much museumgoers know about art makes little difference in how they engage with exhibits, according to a study by German cultural scholar Martin Tröndle. His research, conducted by using electronics to measure which items caught visitors' attention and how they were emotionally affected, also suggests that solitary visitors typically spend more time looking at art and that they experienced more emotions than visitors who toured with a group. [NYT]