Round-Up: Drink your art, tweet your novel, make Gaudi a saint

A museum continues to grow in Gaza in the middle of a conflict, a bunch of Germans made liquor out of an old sculpture (and it’s art!), an attempt to canonize a Catalan architect, the labor behind art and architecture, and a cult sci-fi flick that touches on the economic politics of the U.S./Mexico border is making a comeback. All this and so much more in Wednesday’s Round-Up:

— Let’s start with the bad news: former L.A. County Museum of Art Director Andrea Rich has died. The UCLA administrator brought financial rigor to the institution as its leader from 1995 to 2005, though she faced criticism for being an art-world outsider.

— Construction on the Palestinean Museum in the West Bank continues despite the conflict. (Artnet)

— And since it’s already all over your Facebook: The Gaza conflict has reared its head in the New York art world.

— An association in Spain is trying to get architect Antoní Gaudí canonized. He inspired more than a century of construction at his iconic Sagrada Familia church, which is still unfinished.

— Miracles needed: For museums, managing surging crowds has become increasingly challenging.

— Cue the gag reflex: A bunch of artists in Germany made (and drank) schnapps crafted from the remnants of a 30-year-old Joseph Beuys sculpture made out of fat. Apparently it tasted like Parmesan cheese.

— The tycoon behind the South Korean ferry disaster was a frustrated photographer. He was also a cult leader. (This story is EPIC.)

— Hyperallergic picks apart Jeff Koons’ appearance on Charlie Rose.

— From the annals of art and popular culture weirdness: Brian Droitcour looks at Yelp reviews of museums and the state of art criticism today.

— And since we’re talking about digital culture: The Atlantic has a good profile of Paola Antonelli, the curator at the Museum of Modern Art who has put things like Pac-Man in the museum’s permanent collection. (Rhizome)

— Plus: The future of reading, it seems, will involve video (and other multimedia distractions).

— The Internet echo chamber strikes again: artist Cory Arcangel makes a book about people tweeting about working on their novel. All we have to do is tweet about it to make the circle complete.

— Not digital in the least: Medieval graffiti in English churches.

— Now, onto the issue of labor in the universe of culture: The drudgery of art assistant work is nowhere near as heinous as the drudgery of being an underpaid laborer on a piece of Zaha Hadid starchitecture in Qatar. (ArtInfo)

— George Lucas has picked some interesting architects, including Chicago’s Jeanne Gang, to design his new museum. More deets about who will design what can be found on Curbed Chicago. My curiosity has been piqued.

— Two words: Baby Metal.

— Not Baby Metal, but still pretty darn rad: 10 Latino and Latin American films to screen on Netflix.

— Speaking of which, Alex Rivera’s cult flick “Sleep Dealer,” which purees sci-fi and U.S./Mexico immigration issues, will soon be streaming on one of various digital outlets. Excited about this one.

— L.A. has mud people, an only-in-California version of the Asaro Mud Men of New Guinea.

— A reissue of “Rich and Poor,” photographer Jim Goldberg’s 1980s book about life on either side of the economic divide.

— A good way to end: messing around on Tumblr (find me @cmonstah), I came across this photo essay that Dana Lixenberg shot of the inhabitants of the Imperial Courts public houses in Watts in 1983. It’s pretty terrific.

Twitter: @cmonstah