Wednesday’s Art Notes

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei speaks to reporters outside his studio in Beijing on June 23, 2011. Human rights groups and Western officials welcomed the release of Ai Weiwei on bail, but voiced dismay about the conditions and urged Beijing to free other activists. Photo by Peter Parks/ AFP/ Getty Images

Chinese state media reported that artist Ai Weiwei has been released from prison after being detained on April 4 and held for more than two months. Read more at the Rundown.

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The Wall Street Journal published an article on Monday wondering why U.S. museums hadn’t done more to protest the artist’s detention.

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A candlelight vigil had been planned in New York for Thursday at the site of one of Ai Weiwei’s installations, but now the organizers may call it off, via WNYC.

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The Brooklyn Museum cancelled its leg of the ‘Art in the Streets’ exhibit that opened at MOCA in Los Angeles this spring, via The New York Times. The museum claims financial concerns were the cause of the decision.

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A paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science suggests that the first piece of art made in America was a depiction of a mammoth carved into a mammoth bone, created at least 13,000 years ago, via Discovery.

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In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron rejects a parliamentary suggestion to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, via The Guardian. Liberal Democrats suggested it could be a boost to Greece during its financial crisis.

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AFP profiles a convent in Serbia renowned for its sisterhood of religious icon painters.

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Arts charitable giving was up more than 5 percent in 2010, after decreases in both 2008 and 2009, via The Los Angeles Times’ Culture Monster.

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The Onion lobbies for a Pulitzer Prize, via NPR.