Roundup: Zaha Hadid wins major prize, Dismaland reborn as refugee center, Frank Gehry’s river plan

Zaha Hadid takes a venerated architectural prize in England. Pope Francis blesses art in Philadelphia. And Banksy’s Dismaland to take on another life in France. Plus, Steve Martin puts on his curator hat at the Hammer, Laurie Anderson stages an experimental work about Guantanamo in New York, and the tensions between Frank Gehry and various L.A. River groups gets ever more tense. Want to know what’s happening in the worlds of art and architecture? Here’s the Roundup:

— Zaha Hadid has become the first woman to be awarded the RIBA Gold Medal, a prestigious architectural prize given annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Sort of related: Hadid recently walked out of a BBC radio interview after the host asked inaccurate questions regarding the architect’s Qatar stadium, among other projects.

— Artist Anish Kapoor, whose Versailles installation has been marred by anti-Semitic graffiti, has covered the offending scrawl in gold leaf.

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— The pope blesses a work of contemporary art in Philadelphia.

— Banksy’s Dismaland will be dismantled and the materials will be recycled as a refugee shelter in the French port of Calais.

— There’s an interesting piece by Julia Halperin in the Art Newspaper on how museums seem to be generally surprised that they need to pay performers to stage live works.

— Fourteen Los Angeles murals will be receiving some TLC courtesy of the Citywide Mural Program. Plus, in Orange County, Irvine Valley College just restored and rededicated its 40-foot-long Emigdio Vasquez mural.

— A rich collector wanted an impressive installation by an artist for a museum show. The artist didn’t deliver. Naturally, there are lawsuits. Writer Greg Allen breaks down what happened in the case of collector Bert Kreuk and artist Danh Vo.

— Comedian and art collector Steve Martin is now a curator — of a show of paintings by Canadian Lawren Harris at the Hammer Museum.

— A very moving essay by Laurie Anderson on working with a former Guantanamo prisoner as part of a new work she will be staging in New York next month.

— Fusion has a wonderful photo essay by Walter Thompson-Hernandez on the “Blaxicans” of L.A. — Angelenos born of black and Mexican parents.

— Wired has a muy macho profile of the latest starchitect to be working at the World Trade Center site in Manhattan: Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, who is designing a headquarters for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire there.

— The reviews continue to trickle in on the new Broad museum in downtown Los Angeles: the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl generally likes the place (“snazzy new museum of excellent contemporary art”), Curbed architecture critic Alexandra Lange describes the building as the perfect Instagram structure since its exterior is so unyielding, Rainey Knudson of Glasstire is surprised to find herself liking it and Catherine Wagley of L.A. Weekly looks at the museum as part of Broad’s complicated philanthropic history, concluding that “it’s too early to know what the Broad Museum will contribute to L.A. cultural life.”

— Plus, things the Broad looks like, a very necessary Photoshop compendium. (I like the image of the meshy man shorts.)

— “Façadomy,” or how buildings such as the Broad and the Petersen Automotive Museum are getting their fancy, rippling skins.

— Washington Post architecture critic Philip Kennicott discusses the Frank Gehry retrospective at LACMA, helpfully comparing the architect’s work to music: “Among the striking things about the vast body of work gathered here is how it interrelates rather like symphonies and string quartets are often intertwined in a composer’s oeuvre.”

— In related news: The starchitect’s role in the L.A. River restoration is turning into an adolescent tell-him-to-stop-touching-me contretemps, with Gehry looking not very good. (“Tell them to grow up,” he says of advocates of the river in the New York Times.) A recent editorial by the Los Angeles Times suggested that Gehry’s presence could help the river revitalization project, especially when it comes to fundraising. But Hadley Arnold, of the Arid Lands Institute, which studied water issues around the Southwest, says that in secretly appointing Gehry to the project, the city has chosen star power over building an effective team.

— Why the glassy, airy California homes of developer Joseph Eichler have become so popular.

— Benjamin Sutton went to Expo Milano so you don’t have to. He describes it as nine circles of hell, complete with live pigs and lady carrots.

— Somebody please stage a surrealist dinner party like the one held by the Rothschild banking family in 1972.

— And last but not least: “Grand Theft Auto” remade in real life by a bunch of Russian guys (warning: It contains strong profanity). This should be entered as a short in the Academy Awards.

Find me on El Tweeter @cmonstah.

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