Monday's Art Notes

_A person sprays red food dye at the base of the Langjokull glacier to paint a giant polar bear as part of the 350 Earth Project, a series of public art displays, on November 26, 2010. The image, created by artist Bjargey Olafsdottir, is inspired by the Nazca lines of Peru and children's drawings and seeks to highlight diminishing glaciers and the uncertain future polar bears face. Photo by Halldor Kolbeins/ AFP/ Getty Images_ * A French electrician has revealed a collection of 271 artworks by Pablo Picasso that had been previously unknown to the art world, via "The Telegraph":http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8168491/271-Picasso-paintings-discovered-in-Paris.html. Pierre Le Guennec says he received them when he did odd jobs for the artist in the 1970s, but the police initially arrested Le Guennec after the discovery, and Picasso's son Claude is skeptical of Le Guennec's story. * Country singer Willie Nelson, 77, may face jail time after Border Patrol found six ounces of marijuana on his tour bus, via "The Guardian":http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/29/willie-nelson-arrested-cannabis-possession. * The New York Times "describes":http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/arts/design/25murakami.html how Japanese artist Takashi Murakami got ready for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (including performing a Shinto ritual). * In San Francisco, the vandalism of public art works has been rapidly increasing, via the "San Francisco Gate":http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/28/BAIR1GI6QJ.DTL. * The Miami Herald "offers a dispatch":http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/28/1947413/what-is-art-really-worth.html on art as investment from the 2010 Art Basel Miami fair, plus a "look":http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/28/1945283/art-basel-miami-beach-has-boosted.html at the way the fair has better helped to promote art by Latin American artists. * Leslie Nielsen, an actor and comedian whose hilarious deadpan and head of bright white hair distinguished him in films like _Airplane_ and _The Naked Gun_ series, has died at age 84, via "The New York Times":http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/nyregion/29nielsen.html.