President Obama has a wonderful, versatile voice, and it's a shame that it's wasted on things like convincing Democrats to cut Social Security. Luckily, musician and Something Awful forum poster Dan Warren has spent four years making sure that Obama's voice doesn't go to waste—cutting and editing snippets from the audio recording of his book Dreams From My Father into a... well, we're not sure. Performance piece? Spoken word recording?

A well-dressed man walked into a San Francisco art gallery, took a $200,000 Picasso drawing off the wall, and walked out of the gallery and escaped in a waiting cab. Was that part of the plan or did we just find the least lucky cab driver/accessory to theft ever?

Kyle McDonald, an artist, installed software that would grab pictures of people's faces while they used a public computer. It's sorta creepy and invasive, but also gives a look at how weird you look when you're on the computer. [Gizmodo]

Well-known American artist Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr., best known for his large-scale abstract paintings that often looked like scribbles, has died. He was 83.

Artist (and comedian) Charlotte Young made this hilarious video that mocks not only herself but all the art school dropouts of the world. Her "artist's statement" uses the vocabulary and buzzwords of the traditional artist's statement, but she has cleverly put subtitles across the bottom of the screen to let us know what she's really talking about.

Two and a half months after his imprisonment on charges of tax evasion, internationally-renowned artist Ai Weiwei was released by Chinese authorities because (according to state news agency Xinhua) "of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from" (likely diabetes or hypertension).

A public monument to the Soviet Armed Forces in Sofia, Bulgaria was vandalized spectacularly over the weekend. The statues of the Second World War soldiers were painted to resemble such candy-colored figures of capitalist iconography as Superman, Ronald McDonald, Santa Claus, Captain America and The Joker. The spray-painted writing beneath it says the hack now puts the statue "in step with the times!"

A new science study has proven that babies, like teenage girls who just got back from visiting their cousins in Europe, really love Picasso.

James Franco found some time in his packed schedule for his most recent snobby art project: a photo exhibit at the Venice Biennial. It features pictures of models Agyness Deyn, Natalia Bonifacci, and Imogen Poots dressed up to look like James Dean.

Don't you just love this new batch of Republican governors? This may be the first crop to produce two governors who've pissed people off by removing paintings of the poor in their first months in office. First there was Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who took down a large labor mural because it gave businessmen the willies. Now our old pal from Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, has removed a painting of poor, homeless, minority kids from his mansion, because he preferred some painting of an old bald eagle instead.

Sucks to be a graffiti artist these days. (Not really, it's AWESOME.) On the one hand, you have the art world fawning over you more than ever, and you're in all types of museum shows and you have contracts to design sneakers and corporate America is absolutely dying to harvest a little bit of your coolness. On the other hand, you're in jail.

Last August, Tad Friend wrote an excellent article in the New Yorker about the spectacularly bizarre life of downtown New York scenester John Lurie, focusing on his weird on-again, off-again friendship with an artist named John Perry, portrayed as a moody and dangerous figure who ended up stalking Lurie and making threats against his life.

Artist Jorge Colombo draws street scenes in New York using only his finger and the iPhone "Brushes" app. You might have seen his work on the cover of the New Yorker last year. In honor of his upcoming book of images of the Big Apple, here are some of his coolest cityscapes. We only wish our fingers could be so nimble.

A federal judge has denied tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill's request for an injunction barring The Hangover 2 from opening because the studio didn't ask him for the rights to use Mike Tyson's face tattoo, which Whitmill designed and copyrighted. He still has a "strong likelihood of success" in eventually winning his case, though, according to the judge.

A new study finds that men who participate in "cultural activities" — either as creators or audience members — are happier those who don't. (The effect is less pronounced in women: "Men seemed to get more of a percieved health benefit from being involved in different receptive cultural activites than women did," study author Koenraad Cuypers told LiveScience.) Is there truth to this? Well, I am very cultured — I know all the art, like the one with Jesus (?), and the one that's just one color (white, I think, or black?) — and I am very, very happy. So... yes. [dons monocle] [LiveScience]

Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and ambassador to China, is already a Serious Presidential Candidate, according to something we wrote a few hours ago. Do you have any questions about this mysterious man that no one's heard of? Well five minutes at the website of Horizon PAC, Huntsman's campaign-in-waiting, should clear all of that up, since it features several vague, poem-ish musings on life and politics that don't even mention Huntsman's name.

Italian artist Oliviero Rainaldi recently unveiled a new bronze sculpture of Pope John Paul II outside the main train station in Rome. Quite an honor for an artist, we'd imagine. But the Vatican has decided to piss on Rainaldi's parade, saying the sculpture looks nothing like John Paul II (we're guessing Rainaldi wasn't going for the detailed wax figure look, but who knows, right?).

Pop music thingamajig Lady Gaga published her first V magazine column and boy is she trying to school readers. Not only do they get a lesson on how she came up with her "Born This Way" video, but also a lecture on art, fashion, and literature.

Gaze upon this painting—Le Grande Odalisque ("The Big Odalisque"), by the French artist Ingres. What do you think? Is it as fun as looking at your boyfriend? No? It doesn't matter what you think! Your brain loves it.

Yarn and stitching artist Inge Jacobsen has painstakingly rendered two covers of Vogue using just yarn. Impressive! She better hope Vogue editrix Anna Wintour doesn't file suit for copyright infringement: After all, she couldn't like them too much given they're so arts and craftsy! But if I saw one of these on the side of a tote bag on Etsy, I'd so buy it. Click on the image above to expand. [via Today and Tomorrow]