Scientists find new penguin with yellow eyes!

Some penguins make paintings.

^{A photograph by Rita Leistner of a woman in Iraq.}

At UW's Odegaard Library.

This photograph is part of the exhibition Unembedded, with 60 images by four independent photojournalists in Iraq. Oddly, I feel like I've posted this before, but when I search for it nothing comes up. Is it just that I've seen this type of picture so many times? Do you have this same feeling? Is it still hard to look at?

(Also, I realize it's dark out in Seattle and this is a dark photograph. I'll try to dig up something nice for you to look at.)

Most museum web sites do not list their entire known history of exhibitions, but the new Henry Art Gallery site does, all the way back to 1927, the gallery's first year.

That year brought Persian art from the collection of the Persian Chargé d'Affaires at Washington, Dr. Ali Kuli Khan. There are no photographs. But included in his collection, reportedly, was a copy of the Koran written on a scroll of 12 yards of narrow silk paper to be worn in a lacquered case as a bracelet—"a sort of theological wrist watch," among many other things.

You can lose a few hours in that archive.

Now the embattled Los Angeles MOCA is considering folding itself into LACMA, which would mean closing its doors and sending its collection and some selected staff over to the county museum on Wilshire.

Christopher Knight calls this idea "total armageddon." He has an open letter in today's LAT lacerating the MOCA board for making this mess and then refusing to clean it up:

And if what I've been hearing is true, I have just one question: Are you freakin' kidding me? What on Earth do you think you're doing?

The point he raises is central to the lives of nonprofits in this tough economy: Trustees, are you paying attention? Because THAT'S YOUR JOB.

Unemployment: At a 16-year high.

Uninvited: Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter are going in (to Zimbabwe). (Meanwhile, South Africa to cut aid to Zimbabwe.)

Unconstitutional?: California court to take up Prop 8.

'It's Never Been This Bad': $5 billion budget gap projected right here in Washington. (Guess that settles that question from earlier this week.)

Arizona Governor for Homeland Security Head?: Nobody's confirming yet. (Via TPM, with links to Tom Daschle's complications and John Kerry's ascension to Joe Biden's old role on Senate Foreign Relations.)

Embryo Adoption: Through the Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell.

WaMu's Bankrupt Parent Company: Hiring!

Old Auto-Industry Friend Replaced as Head of Energy and Commerce: By an environmentalist.

Put This Execution on Your Calendar: December 3, Walla Walla Department of Corrections.

In Kitty News: Cat escapes from hospital, may be headed to Ballard.

It's World Philosophy Day!: So think.

Google's New Photo Gallery: The amazing collection of Life magazine. Go straight to the gallery here.

National Book Awards Handed Out: Winners include author of The Hemingses of Monticello. (Via ArtsJournal.)

Strong Stock: Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter survives her driver's heart attack on the Autobahn. (Via ArtsJournal.)

Madonna: Divorce to go through tomorrow.

Built Like A Tank: Hugh Jackman, People's hottest. Jezebel's hottest 'everyday men,' including a smoldering photograph of Rahm Emanuel, here.

Your moment of All My Churen by Kalup Linzy.

Here's a really nice interview with Richard Renaldi, who made a series of photographs by asking strangers to touch each other.

(Thanks, tipper Scott!)

Jenny Saville (b. 1970)
Strategy, 1994
oil on three canvas panels
108 x 250 1/2 inches overall
The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica

CLICK ON IT!

^{Ross Sawyers's Untitled (Blue Sky) (2007), 35 by 52 inches, photograph}

I don't think this piece is there, but Sawyers has several pieces worth checking out at SAM Gallery right now.

The reason I chose this one for this morning is because it's so Hopperesque. SAM's Hopper show opened this past weekend; Lindy West is reviewing it in next week's paper.

^{This is a terrible reproduction of Jenny Saville's 21 by 9 foot triptych Strategy, but it was the only one I could find quickly. For a better view, go here.}

Weird, though not unexpected, stuff is going on in Los Angeles.

MOCA, the downtown museum with a terrific collection (if not enough room to show it in) and a terrific program of talked-about, serious shows (most recently, WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, now at Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Murakami-Vuitton-bag-store exhibition) is in big financial trouble. The museum may even have to look into some kind of merger.

Meanwhile, less than a year after the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum—an appendage on the side of Los Angeles County Museum of Art supported by LA supercollector Eli Broad—that same supercollector is announcing he's opening his own contemporary art museum. People saw a Broad museum coming, sure, but already? And the timing of the Broad announcement in the New York Times on the same day as the LAT story about the fragility of LA's leading contemporary art museum—well, it's quite a news day.

I can't pretend to know what Los Angeles should or even could do. I can say that I've loved the brainy heft of MOCA, a place that also feels open, accessible, and even playful. On a visit to the private Broad Foundation earlier this year I was also stunned by the strength and secrecy of its collection. The headquarters are in an unmarked, elegant building near the beach in Santa Monica, and access is only granted to people who get permission, usually artists, writers, or academics. I had a tour from the thoroughly marvelous thinker Ed Schad, and I imagine that anyone who's gone through there has the same response: This work should be seen by the public. Which is what the Broads are trying to do by opening a museum of their own.

It wasn't just the slick, headlining stuff they put up at BCAM: The Foundation Collection includes new Gursky giganto-graphs, a room full of Stephan Balkenhol's woodsy figures, a complete set of the Bechers' Typology of Water Towers, an entire Franz Ackermann installation, great Paul Pfeiffers, big Cecily Browns and Jenny Savilles (which are rarely seen, since I think she works pretty slowly—and it is worth plane fare to LA to see Saville's enormous triptych Strategy from 1994), delicate Ellen Gallaghers, some really nice Mark Tansey. Much of the collection is online here.

I'm excited for a Broad museum, but worried for MOCA.

Seattle's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and SDOT is looking for an artist to do a residency inside one of the Fremont Bridge towers in summer 2009. Details on the jump.

Goes up at the U.N. It's not exactly the Sistine ceiling.

^{Marie Watt's The Ballad of Ira Hayes (2008); reclaimed wool, thread, hand-sewn; 31 1/2 by 30 1/4 inches}

At Greg Kucera. (Gallery site here.)

The story of Ira Hayes here. Johnny Cash's Ballad of Ira Hayes performance here.