Edvard Munch's 1895 crayon drawing "The Scream" sold for $119.9 million Wednesday night, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

Remember that book Fucking James Franco? Its editor Sean Joseph Patrick Carney sent in the following video of James Franco screen printing a version of the book cover. Franco giggles in it, and it's actually kind of endearing — also to be expected, since James Franco is screen printing the words "Fucking James Franco." Maybe he's got a good sense of humor about being (and having sex with) James Franco after all. James Franco.

In celebration of Earth Day, performance artist Alison Knowles is making a really big salad. While the video above is from the Tate Gallery in London, Knowles' salad-making piece is currently being performed at the Chelsea Market Passage on the High Line.

The "Painter of Light" might be dead, but his legacy lives on in kitschy paintings of Jesus kicking it with bald eagles. (No idea if this is an actual Kinkade piece. Would not be surprised.)

Cork-stopped terrarium necklace Zooey Deschanel is the subject of this piece of art, drawn by Gawker reader Emily Hillburg. "its not a tip, but i am an artist, and i wanted to send this piece i made to you, because i thought you'd appreciate it," she writes.

Thomas Kinkade, the so-called "Painter of Light," died on Friday at the age of 54. Kinkade purported to be "America's most-collected living artist," which makes sense given the unverifiable (but frequently cited) claim that one in twenty American homes have a Thomas Kinkade piece.

"Musical Phenominal Whitney- The light of Christ shines upon Whitney Houston and she is new again and at peace," writes artist Jeffry Lynne Hawk. "I felt so moved to draw this picture of Whitney in the hands of Jesus to make a statement that God can forgive all those who turn to him. Whitney was once a beautiful song bird who lost her way, but will sing again for her Father in Heaven." This 18" x 24" pastel can be yours for only $300.00.

Do you love the High Line but wish it had a more palpable element of danger? Artist and balloon animal enthusiast Jeff Koons is here to help.

Behold, "One Nation Under Socialism," a new masterpiece from America's Da Vinci, Jon McNaughton. (Previously best known for that one painting of Obama stepping on the constitution.) With it, McNaughton carries on in the tradition of some the 20th century's finest figurative artists. Buy two — one for now, and one to trade when Nobama hands control of the country over to the Black Panthers. [Jon McNaughton]

San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum has launched a lovely exhibition in honor of the Jewish holiday Tu B'Shevat, or New Year for the Trees. One component of the exhibition includes a wishing tree that encourages people to write out and hang their wishes on the branches.

Remember Roger Ebert's infamous assertion that video games can never be art? Well, nyah, nyah, Roger — the Smithsonian American Art Museum has unveiled its latest exhibit "The Art of Video Games."

Famed slut and Missouri native Rush Limbaugh is set to be honored with a bronze statue at the Missouri state Capitol, House Speaker Steven Tilley confirmed yesterday.

Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin's hometown, is currently embroiled in some deep genitalia controversy. A vagina sculpture, or rather a sculpture resembling a vagina, has been placed in front of Wasilla High School and not everyone is happy about it.

Behold the deeply, deeply unsettling (and NSFW) stop-motion videography of artist Monica Cook (NO RELATION AT ALL WHATSOEVER), featuring animatronic-looking sweaty weirdos giving birth to horrible misshapen babies with outsized genitalia and then turning into werewolves. The video is from March; Cook has a new show at Postmasters Art Gallery in New York featuring, in the words of Animal NY's Marina Galperina, "humanoid, cave-dwelling monkeys, loving in efflorescent goo, conceiving, birthing, mothering, and dying… all while you can see their insides working through their transparent, ripping skin. It's all shiny fluid and dripping flesh, sequins, pipes, teeth and peeled glittered bones." It's also "very touching," she says. Sweet dreams.

Like any plutocrat worth his salt, Mitt Romney makes sure to get all painted up in portrait form every few years.

Long story short, British artist Damien Hirst has been doing these "spot paintings" for a while—they are, literally, paintings of spots; also, technically they are "done" by his assistants—and now he's retrieved them all from collectors and distributed them among 11 Gagosian Galleries in eight countries, and is offering a free art to anyone who goes and sees every single spot painting. In all eight countries. So this is officially a "thing," because it is [whatever word adequately communicates an aggravated eye roll], and since we have nothing of value to say about it really, we will defer to Sister Wendy's spiritual successor Hennessy Youngman, who previously taught us so much about poststructuralism and relational aesthetics on his wonderful show Art Thoughtz.

Everyone's a critic! Especially Carmen Tisch of Denver, who really does not like abstract expressionist Clyfford Still very much, and expressed that displeasure by punching his painting "1957-J no.2." And also rubbing her butt on it.

Helen Frankenthaler, the great abstract painter (and legendary party-thrower) died today "after a long illness." She was 83. Frankenthaler's big abstract paintings—made by staining canvas with thin paint—were among the best-known of the "second generation" of abstract expressionism. And even if you don't like them (which, hey, whatever, "art"), you will probably appreciate this story from the Times obit:

Steve Jobs could fairly be remembered as either a madman or as a business deity. If this seven-foot-tall, 485-pound bronze statue out of Hungary is any indication, he'll be worshipped as the latter rather than mocked as the former.

There is only one accepted portrait of Jane Austen, sketched by her sister in 1810, in which the author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice looks to be extremely pissed off. But Austen scholar Dr. Paula Byrne, who is working on a definitive biography due out some time in 2013, has discovered a portrait in auction, and thinks there is an excellent possibility that the woman in it daintily holding a quill and staring out a window pensively — which, coincidently, is precisely how I look at this exact moment — could be Austen herself.