Round-Up: ‘Crapstraction,’ divining chickens, Francis Bacon in drag

Soccer chickens, design and violence, data in culture, and the conflict over development at Bergamot Station. It’s all in this week’s Round-Up:

- Should data drive decisions about culture? Absolutely not, says just about everybody (except Eli Broad).

- Not a moment too soon: Looks like the Assembly will give the California Arts Council a raise.

- If development doesn’t kill it, it looks like the infighting will: the case of Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station.

- “This work is decorator-friendly, especially in a contemporary apartment or house. It feels ‘cerebral’ and looks hip in ways that flatter collectors even as it offers no insight into anything at all.” Jerry Saltz on the new “Crapstraction.” The slideshow for this is pretty hilarious.

- Sort of related: Jed Perl says that art criticism needs to strap on a pair and have an opinion already.

- L.A. artist Sterling Ruby has a fashion line.

- Happy 30th anniversary to the Guerrilla Girls!

- Sculptor Louise Bourgeois’ New York apartment remains virtually untouched after her death in 2010.

- Benjamin Sutton at Artnet has a great selection of art industry insanity, including the real estate phenomenon of “individually-curated” condos.

- New York Magazine has a long, intriguing story about controversial fashion photographer Terry Richardson, and whether his risqué photographic tactics have crossed the line into harassment and sexual abuse.

- From the annals of stock photography: Women eating salad is out. Leaning in is in.

- Francis Bacon in drag…looks kinda like Cindy Sherman. (Artnet.)

- Poet Marisela Norte pays tribute to Union Station.

- Disciplinary architecture: on homeless spikes and curved benches and other urban design elements that make cities inhospitable to the homeless. Pairs well with this photo essay about anti-skateboard architecture.

- MoMA design curator Paola Antonelli has launched a highly intriguing new blog devoted to design and violence that includes posts about things like hacked protest objects. (Whoa!) Which brought to mind this absolutely fantastic segment on KCRW’s DnA that discussed the design of guns.

- Is the State Department trying to move away from building embassies that look like bunkers? I sure hope so.

- Considering ways to save Houston’s Astrodome.

- Excavating in tattoo parlors and subway stations: archeology in Mexico City is turning up all kinds of wonders related to the city’s Aztec past. (@nate_berg)

- In the Mojave, the Navy is doing an inventory of one of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs in the Western Hemisphere.

- Obligatory World Cup-related link: the Univision Radio morning show “El Bueno, La Mala y El Feo” claims to have a chicken that will divine winners in soccer matches (with its own Twitter handle). Too bad the chicken couldn’t predict the station’s ratings scandal.