Monday's Art Notes

_--Snow covers a sculpture near the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Heavy snowfall blanketed large portions of the East Coast this weekend. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.)_ * The sale of contemporary art "was down 75 percent this year":http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121803793.html at the major auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's. * A much cheaper way to own your share of contemporary art will be within reach for iPhone users. A German software engineer has teamed up with an art dealer to offer "a new mobile art gallery iPhone application.":http://www.artreview.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1474022:BlogPost:923303 * Book thievery abounds in the current recession, "writes Margo Rabb":http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/books/review/Rabb-t.html in an essay for the New York Times. * In more bad news for the bookstore: Next month Laredo, Texas, "may become the largest city in America without a single bookstore":http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/6781294.html, when its last one is slated to close.