Metro has an interview with NYU professor and Department of Sanitation anthropologist-in-residence, Robin Nagle. The piece comes on the cusp of “Loaded Out: Making a Museum,” an exhibition Nagle helped curate which focuses on the DSNY's history and its vital role in shaping the city. The exhibit opens tomorrow and will run for a full month, but she mentions this is just the first step in creating a Sanitation Museum.Police and firefighters have museums. Why......

The AP reports on two Picasso paintings that have hung in the MoMA and Guggenheim for decades, and the fight to keep them there. Julius H. Schoeps claims they are the property of his great uncle who was persecuted in Nazi Germany, and has demanded the museums hand over the paintings, "Boy Leading a Horse" (MoMA) and "Le Moulin de la Galette" (Guggenheim). The suit was filed at the District Court in Manhattan. Both museums......

Photo via Hamevugar's Flickr. The Brooklyn Museum housed a Ron Mueck exhibit that we pointed out last year and CubeMe just reported on. The exhibition, now closed, included "about 15 mixed media works on loan from the artist’s collection, major museums, and private collections..that explore the ambiguous relationship between reality and artifice, creating figures that express the contradictions between the real world and the imaginary. The figures seem to be alive: every detail -......

As we mentioned last week, this past Friday Union Hall was host to many a dead creature during the 3rd annual Carnivorous Nights -- presented by the venues Secret Science Club. The creatures and their caretakers came out of the woodwork for the event, below are a two-headed calf, a pope squirrel, a sea rabbit and a fiji mermaid. According to the owners of the calf, called Tango, he's the real deal and they purchased......

As we've mentioned, the Guggenheim is being renovated -- but what's currently going on under all that scaffolding? Now that the museum has been stripped of its paint, it's time to choose order the paint cans. Unfortunately, the Guggenheim isn't sure what color to paint the exterior, because architect Frank Lloyd Wright actually chose a different shade of color for the building - a color that was painted over five years after the museum......

This week, the NY Times has some suggestions for wedding gifts from stores affiliated to museums, reasoning that those stores have wonderful gifts that are appealing to "people who are tired of shopping in the same old places — and might enjoy spending a couple hours in a museum as well." We wholeheartedly agree - when you know the couple well, that is. If you are wedding gift shopping for a couple you're vaguely acquainted......

Did contemporary art and music come together for the first time in New York? The holy (or unholy -- if you're not a Velvet Underground fan) union can be traced back to, where else, Andy Warhol's Factory scene. So why is the Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit being housed all the way in Chicago? The NY Times takes a look at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) show,......

This week NY Mag has a scathing analysis of Thomas Krens' tenure at the Guggenheim, calling the air around the museum during his 17-year reign "distorted and toxic." Writer Jerry Saltz says the museum is beginning to recover only now, two years after Lisa Dennison, who is now leaving to become executive vice president for Sotheby's North America, replaced him when he left to run the Guggenheim Foundation. Krens gets blasted for bungling what......

The Willamette Meteorite may have landed in Oregon in 1902, but the 15.5-ton rock has resided in NYC for the past 101 years. The American Museum of Natural History acquired it in 1906 and it's been on display there ever since. Now a 28-lb chunk of that meteorite is about to be on the auction block, with an expected price tag of $1.3 million (the entire thing was originally purchased for $26,000 prior to being......

MOVIE: The new Hairspray has set up special Sing-A-Long screenings! They begin nationwide today, and there will be three right here in New York. If you don't like rowdy theaters, skip this one! All Weekend // Various Times // Regal Union Sq 14; Clearview Chelsea 9; AMC Empire 42nd 25 MUSIC: Head down to the Seaport for an evening of Billie Holiday tunes. Turntables on the Hudson will be celebrating the release of Billie Holiday......

In 2004, we believed that the Domino Sugar Factory would make for a great museum, à la the Tate Modern. Today the NY Sun reports that a group of Brooklyn artists are calling on the Community Preservation Corporation Resources development company "to change its plans for the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, pushing for the creation of a cultural complex similar to London's Tate Modern art museum." Currently the developer plans on turning the factory......

The NY Times explores what happens to celebrity architects’ drawings, models and telephone logs culled from decades in the design trenches. Hint: They’re for sale. Frank Gehry is the prime starchitect examined in the article. Gehry’s archive includes 30,000 square feet of models, a slide library, a digital archive and 5,000-plus drawings, what someone called a "beast." The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal offered Gehry $1.5 million for papers and drawings related to......

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, also known as the shark in a tank by British artist Damien Hirst, will be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Labor Day, according to the NY Times. The artwork, bought by hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen for $8 million, isn't the exact same one that was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art's Sensation show in 1999 - the shark has......

Times Square has always offered a nice dose of "weird," whether it be in the pre-Giuliani days or its now more Disney-fied incarnation. Now some more strange will be saturating the area, in the form a famous Odditorium. Yes, tourists will be able to see things like locks of Abe Lincoln's hair after having a nice meal at the Olive Garden. Ripley's Believe It Or Not! is back, for a third time, in Times Square.......

Holy Crap! The Virtual LES launched! Words cannot describe, friends (speaking of which, let's be BFFs!). Clearly this is not meant for people who actually frequent the actual Lower East Side, but rather the people who read their blogs. Seeing all the places in creepy second life 3-D is pure Twilight Zone stuff. Highlights so far, while briefly browsing around the site are that you can shop at the Virtual American Apparel, attend virtual......

If you're a vintage couture enthusiast, and we imagine there are quite a few in this city, you probably already know about socialite, philanthropist, clotheshorse and fashion maven Nan Kempner - and how trunks of her wardrobe are being sold tomorrow with items going for $25 and up (and way up). The muse for Yves Saint Laurent inspired as much as she collected, and prior to her death in 2005, the 74 year old filled......

The 29th Annual Museum Mile Festival is tomorrow, with more creativity than you can imagine concentrated in a festival on 5th Avenue (from 82nd Street to 105th Street). From the Met to El Museo del Barrio you'll be able to find waived museum admissions. Museo del Barrio director Julian Zugazagoitia tells NY1, “It's the greatest day because all of Fifth Avenue is closed, so that all of the museums can be visited free of charge,......

Expect some changes at the Museum of TV and Radio. Today the museum announced it will not only no longer be referred to as a museum (the word didn't test well with the under-40 crowd!), but that it's throwing the "TV and Radio" out of its moniker for good, too. Good-bye, MTR. Hello, The Paley Center for Media. From the press release:The thirty-one-year-old institution will be renamed The Paley Center for Media to better......

This month, two works by sculptor Richard Serra were brought in to the MoMA - all in preparation for “Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years,” a retrospective exhibiting the artists work, opening next month. Below, you can see how several hundred tons of steel are transported in to the museums sculpture garden. Click here to watch video. NY Mag reports that New York hasn't always accommodated the artist: In 1981, Serra’s notorious Tilted Arc, a 120-foot......

The Sun reports that one of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts' treasured artworks was recently at the NYU Medical Center for a CT scan. Conservator of paintings George Bisacca had the duty of transporting "The Annunciation", a painting by the Sienese master Sassetta from the 15th-century, there to clear up some questions. Mainly the "historical conundrum" about whether "the Met's painting...was originally part of Sassetta's famous, but long ago fragmented, altarpiece from the Franciscan church......

The Summer of Love is back, and taking over New York for a 40th anniversary celebration spanning museums, theaters and screens. The NY Times takes a look at what to expect during this retrospective celebration: The Whitney Museum of American Art is noting the anniversary with “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era,” opening Thursday. The Public Theater, which formed that summer with “Hair,” is staging a hippie-friendly season of Shakespeare in the Park,......

Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, 90% (that's 5.8 billion people) have little or no access to things the rest of us take for granted - with nearly half not having regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% is an exhibit on view at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum through September 23rd, and it focuses on affordable and innovative products not geared towards the 10% getting Crate and......

Workers crammed into small spaces and contending with oppressive heat on the Lower East Side. Thank goodness for the labor movement of the early 20th Century. Or are the very people who commemorate those days enduring the same conditions? The Villager reports that workers at The Lower East Side Tenemant Museum are taking a page out of their own history books and forming a union. Their complaints include extreme temperatures and cramped workspaces. They want......

Anna Wintour, Balenciaga's Nicolas Ghesquière, and Cate Blanchett hosted last night's annual Costume Institute gala, which was a celebration of Paul Poiret, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Poirot was the pioneer in modern fashion, and freed women from petticoats and corsets - though many, even those in attendance last night, aren't familiar with him. Everyone did their best to dress "in the spirit of" the King of Fashion however, including: Mick Jagger, David......

A museum in Texas is looking for cockroaches...and they're offering money. They need about 1,000 "American cockroaches" in order to fill an exhibit "about the wonders of insects that eat decomposing things." Many similar private exhibits are undoubtedly taking place at this very moment in apartments across Manhattan. Reuters reports: They will be part of an exhibit polishing the image of bugs that feed off decaying organic matter and in so doing add to the......

Claude Monet, forger of French impressionism - and artist of choice amongst college girls everywhere, will have over 60 of his masterpieces on view at the Wildenstein & Co. gallery starting tomorrow (and running through June 15th). According to AM New York, the paintings are on loan from approximately 20 different museums and 40 private collections - making this the largest retrospective of Monet's work in New York in over 30 years. Three works......

You may have noticed that the Guggenheim Museum has been shrouded in mesh netting lately, and it makes sense the museum would be undergoing some facade/maintenance work. The NY Times, though, has this amazing graphic showing the cracks in the museum's walls. The Guggenheim explains the restoration online (and with podcast- MP3) and also has an exhibit about "Restoring a Masterpiece." Don't worry, though - the Times reports the structure is "structurally sound." And......

Across the East River, those with more distaff artistic sensibilities can visit the newly opened Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art that has become a permanent addition to the Brooklyn Museum.The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is an exhibition and education facility dedicated to feminist art—its past, present, and future. Among the most ambitious, influential, and enduring artistic movements to emerge in the late twentieth century, feminist art has played a......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Grease: You're the One That I Want (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNBC 4) This fakeality show finally ends tonight. Masterpiece Theatre - Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13) Helen Mirren stars in one of her best roles – Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. Despite being on PBS, the Prime Suspect series do tend to be a bit bowlderized from the British original thanks......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......