– Andy Warhol's Advice for Kathryn Bigelow: Who can we credit for convincing "Zero Dark Thirty" director Kathryn Bigelow, who attended at the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program in the 1970s, to switch from fine art to film? Andy Warhol, apparently. In a recent cover interview for TIME, Bigelow recalls: "I think I had a conversation with Andy Warhol somewhere in all this, and Andy was saying that there’s something way more populist about film than art — that art’s very elitist, so you’re excluding a large audience." [Vulture]

– Gago and Zwirner Go Head-to-Head for Koons: Larry Gagosian is nothing if not competitive. Only a few months after launching a massive Anselm Kiefer show outside Paris to coincide with Thaddaeus Ropac's own major exhibition of the same artist, he has announced a presentation of new and recent work by Jeff Koons is coming to his 24th Street gallery this May. This just happens to be around the same time David Zwirner will hold its own much-discussed exhibition of the American artist's work in New York. Gagosian also plans to present a monumental steel sculpture by Koons from his new "Antiquity" series at the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht on March 15. [NYT]

– Upstart Rep Moves to Stop Funding Oklahoma Arts: Twenty-three-year-old state representative Josh Cockroft (R-Tecumseh) has introduced a bill to eliminate state funding of the Oklahoma Arts Council (OAC), an organization that receives an annual state subsidy of $4 million and generates some $29 million in tax revenue each year. Cockroft, whose other champion causes include safeguarding Oklahoma residents against federal gun control regulations and a "personhood" amendment to the state's constitution giving fertilized eggs full rights, said in defense of his move against the OAC: "The time has come to set priorities and to exercise spending discipline." [LAT]

– Modigliani Institute Prez Arrested in Forgery Scandal: After a two-year investigation, Italy's art forgery task force has placed Christian Parisot, the president of Rome's Modigliani Institute, and dealer Matteo Vignapiano under house arrest due to their involvement in the sale of allegedly fake works complete with false certificates of authenticity. The authorities also seized a painting, four bronze sculptures, and 13 prints purportedly made by Modigliani but allegedly fake. [TAN]

– New Search Engine for Nazi-Looted Art: The new searchable online database German Sales Catalogs, 1930-1945, a project of the Getty's Provenance Index, brings together more than 2,000 digitized sales catalogues from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and other neighboring or Nazi-occupied countries in the years before and during World War II. The massive database includes records from 35 different institutions including the Kunstbibliothek of Berlin's National Museums and the Heidelberg University Library. [Iris]

– Ice Age Artists Were Pros: Were there professional artists in the Ice Age? According to Jill Cook, a curator at the British Museum — where the exhibition "Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind" opens next week — the answer is yes. "Some of the things we have from digs are a bit rubbish; some of them almost look like apprentice pieces. But the best things are masterpieces and would have taken hundreds of hours to produce," Cook said. "This was a society that valued their producers." [Guardian]

– Christo Hasn't Given Up on "Over the River": The environmental artist's long-planned (and long-delayed) "Over the River" project in Colorado may be on hold pending legal challenges, but 77-year-old Christo and his team are diligently laying the groundwork so he can one day suspend nearly six miles worth of silvery fabric above the Arkansas River. The artist is currently sponsoring the clearing of railroad tracks along the project route and beginning work to mitigate the impact "Over the River" would have on local bighorn sheep. [AP]

– Iconic "Chinese Girl" Painting for Sale: A painting that inspired millions of prints, t-shirts, mugs, and posters —Russian painter Vladimir Tretchikoff's 1950s canvas "Chinese Girl" — is up for sale. Though it may not be exceedingly familiar to American audiences, the work has apparently been described as "the most famous painting in the world." It will hit the auction block as part of Bonhams's South African art sale in central London with a high estimate of £500,000. "Millions of people — perhaps your parents or grandparents — bought a lithograph of this painting, hung it on their wall and admired it for years, if not decades," says writer Boris Gorelik. [Independent] 

– Dutch Reject Nazi Loot Claim: The Dutch government's restitutions committee has turned down all but one of 189 claims filed by heirs of the Jewish art dealers and brothers Nathan and Benjamin Katz seeking the return of works they say their family lost after the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. "Ownership of most of the works has not proved very probable,” the committee said. "During the occupation, the Katz brothers often acted as middlemen and intermediaries for German buyers." Included in the claims were 65 works the brothers sold to museum director Hans Posse that were destined for Adolf Hitler's Fuehrermuseum. The one work that will be returned to the Katz's 21 descendents is Ferdinand Bol's "Man With a High Cap." [Bloomberg]

– IMA to Host Matisse Exhibition: The Indianapolis Museum of Art is gearing up to host a major exhibition of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by Henri Matisse this October. Surprisingly, the lion's share of the 80-piece show will come from the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, which the IMA says has one of the world's most comprehensive collections of Matisse's work. The show will also feature musical performances in the galleries inspired by the artist's jazz portfolio. [AP] 

VIDEO OF THE DAY

A glimpse of Jeff Koons's "Antiquity" series

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