Roundup: Kapoor vandalized (again), USC’s new architectural trove, Mary Ellen Mark’s last pictures

Cultural figures take on Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto over violence. A noted New York art critic passes away. And Anish Kapoor’s naughty Versailles sculptures are horribly vandalized … again. Plus: deconstructing the Cooper Union tuition debacle, a priceless archive of photography lands at USC and Mary Ellen Mark’s view of New Orleans.

— A slew of cultural figures, including filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, comics artist Art Spiegelman, musician Laurie Anderson, and novelists Teju Cole, Francisco Goldman and Margaret Atwood have signed an open letter to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto demanding an investigation into the murder of Mexican journalist Rubén Espinosa.

— R.I.P. John Perreault, the noted Village Voice art critic, known for writing about avant-garde movements such as Minimalism, Land Art and Pattern and Decoration, in approachable, conversational ways.

— An ill-fated building plan. Untrammeled borrowing. A do-nothing board. And the belated involvement of the New York State Attorney General. Felix Salmon outlines everything that went wrong at Cooper Union, the venerable free college that began charging tuition after building a pricey new structure by Thom Mayne. The school will now be monitored by the state attorney general’s office.

— Anish Kapoor’s massive Versailles sculpture, reminiscent of certain lady parts, has been vandalized with anti-Semitic slogans.

— An exhibition in France has unleashed a debate about the ethics of photojournalism.

— LACMA curator Franklin Sirmans, who organized the museum’s ongoing survey of work by Noah Purifoy, is leaving to direct the Pérez Art Museum in Miami. His first tasks: boosting the endowment and filling out the museum’s patchy collection.

— Takashi Murakami likes to collect things — from beer mugs to the sculpture of Anselm Kiefer. Objects from his collection are now on view at the Yokohama Museum of Art in Japan.

— Because the city of Detroit appears not to have enough to do, they are prosecuting street artist Shepard Fairey on counts of malicious destruction.

— Speaking of street artists, there’s a remarkable take-down of Banksy’s Dismaland by Joe Bish on Vice. Essential. (Thanks for the tip, Joey Krebs.)

— USC Libraries has acquired architecture photographer Wayne Thom’s archive. It is a wondrous trove of late modern buildings all over Los Angeles, which Thom shot only with natural light. Gizmodo has more images.

— In the late 1890s, an African choir had photographic portraits taken in London. Those wonderful photos are now coming to light.

— A month before she died, photographer Mary Ellen Mark chronicled the city of New Orleans. As is to be expected, the pictures are pretty darn wonderful. Related: L.A. essayist Lynell George on her return to New Orleans, post-Katrina.

— And because we’re on the subject of photography: Andrew Berardini has a pretty terrific essay about photographer, performer and installation artist A.L. Steiner’s recent show at Blum & Poe.

— The next time you have are tempted to say “I could make that” when looking at a work of art, read this essay by Katherine Brooks.

— Zaha Hadid rilly rilly wants her Tokyo Olympic stadium back. The architect is now teaming up with a Japanese engineering firm to try to regain the commission after it was scrapped for cost overruns.

— Architect Mark Hogan is totally over shipping container housing. Co-sign.

— LA Magazine has published a handy guide to popular L.A. house styles. Missing from the list: Italianate McMansion. (Here’s one of my favorites in Manhattan Beach. So. Many. Columns.)

— L.A. may be late to the bike share game, but apparently what we lack in timeliness we make up in innovation: The system may ultimately be linked to Metro, making it easier to connect with other forms of transportation.

— Al-Jazeera tours the East Side with poet Sesshu Foster, who is at work on a quasi-fictional history of East L.A. with artist Arturo Ernesto Romo-Santillano. Nice piece.

— And last, but not least, your moment of Kevin Spacey and Jimmy Fallon doing impressions. Yes to Spacey doing Christopher Walken trick-or-treating.

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