Column: Roundup: An artist erases the border, subversive graffiti, conflict at San Francisco art museums

An early draft of the King James Bible is uncovered in Europe. UNESCO explores the possibility of sending Blue Helmets to threatened heritage sites. And allegations of financial irregularities at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Plus: what that subversive graffiti on “Homeland” says about Hollywood, the Brooklyn Museum’s hidden PoMo apartment and Monty Python’s deleted animations. It’s all in the Roundup…

— The chief financial officer at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has filed a legal complaint against the group’s president, Dede Wilsey, alleging fiscal impropriety. A statement issued by Wilsey’s personal publicist to the San Francisco Chronicle says the financial transaction in question — a lump sum payment to a city worker assigned to the museum — was legitimate. (Artnet)

— UNESCO has approved a suggestion to have U.N. peacekeepers protect heritage sites such as Palmyra from attacks by Islamic State militants.

— The earliest known draft of the King James Bible is found at the University of Cambridge.

— Hilla Becher, the German photographer who famously chronicled industrial sites with her husband, Bernd, has passed away.

— Artist Ana Teresa Fernandez has “erased” a piece of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Arizona by painting it blue.

— Graffiti artists sneak subversive graffiti into episodes of Showtime’s “Homeland.”

A photograph taken in early June shows Arabic writing that translates to: “Homeland is a watermelon.” Graffiti artists asked to create set dressing for the Showtime series pranked the creators by coming up with nonsensical and subversive slogans.

(Heba Amin / Associated Press)

— TV critic James Poniewozik has an interesting take on the whole brouhaha, exploring the sometimes simple-minded ways Hollywood creates atmosphere: “The tendency to use the signifiers of a culture — clothes, music, street urchins, unfamiliar writing — as a kind of spicy Orientalist soup of otherness.”

— L.A. painter Mark Bradford to produce his largest work to date at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

— Is art the new reserve currency? Marion Maneker thinks so.

— A fascinating piece from Simon Parkin about video games that make games out of art. Plus: A video game inspired by the literature of Haruki Murakami.

— Peter Schjeldahl of the New Yorker says all the Renoir-hating is just a phase.

— One of the wonderful side effects of the Broad museum’s opening is that it brought all kinds of design critics to L.A. to kick the tires. Mark Lamster of the Dallas Morning News gives the Broad a thoughtful going over.

A view of the Broad museum taken from the public plaza, to the southwest, lined with 100-year-old olive trees. The opening of L.A.’s newest institution attracted droves of design writers to the city.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

— Also, there’s this thoughtful piece by Alexandra Lange on the work of Frank Gehry — tied to the release of the new biography of Gehry by Paul Goldberger and the architect’s retrospective at LACMA.

— It turns out that the Brooklyn Museum has a set of wild Postmodern rooms designed by architect Michael Graves (who passed away in March). Put these on display! (Citylab)

— Plus, an interesting look at the Kansas-based fabricator behind the undulating steel of Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall and the Petersen Automotive Museum. (An amazing collision of the high-low.)

— The CEO of L.A.’s Metro says transit agencies should care about gentrification.

— The story of the L.A. residents who are teaming up to buy a mountain — in order to keep it out of the hands of developers.

— Henry David Thoreau was pretty insufferable.

— Terry Gilliam’s deleted animations from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Especially worth it for Gilliam’s acerbic commentary.

— And just in time for Halloween, Christopher Walken reads Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”

Fine me on Twitter @cmonstah.