Things have gone from bad to worse for photographer Annie Leibovitz. The glorified pawn shop (or "art finance firm," as they prefer to be known) that lent Leibovitz boatloads of money against every photo she has ever taken as well as the value of the real estate she owns in the West Village and upstate New York, has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against her. It's accusing her of "boldly deceptive conduct" for not allowing appraisers to come inside her home: "Among other demands in the suit, the company, Art Capital Group, based in Manhattan, is asking the court to order Ms. Leibovitz to allow real estate agents access to her town houses in Greenwich Village so the property can be appraised and prepared for sale to pay back the loans." [NYT]

The sculptor who created the famous "Charging Bull" statue downtown has filed a lawsuit against Random House for putting a photo of the piece on the cover of A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, a new book about Lehman Brothers' collapse. Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor responsible for the work, says Random House didn't have his permission to use a picture. The only problem? Di Modica never had permission to put the statue there in the first place:

Remember how you emailed a friend that trailer for some failed movie? One that by all appearances looked like a total misfire and couldn't get a distributor? Even though thespian powerhouse Nic Cage was the lead? Remember how you laughed?

As if small-town America didn't have its hands full dealing with the death of manufacturing jobs and the crystal meth epidemic, now it has to worry about some money-grubbing Danes demanding payment for big-breasted mermaid statue knockoffs. Where's the outrage?

Basil Wolverton was a devout Christian, an apocalypse aficionado, and MAD magazine's most prominent creator of 1950s grotesquerie. And—now—a fine artist.

Downtown artist Dash Snow died of a heroin overdose last week. The formation of his legacy is well underway. Was he an authentic artist with a tortured soul, or a selfish jerk who left his daughter fatherless?

The New York Times dared to brave the auditions for Bravo's newest foray into, well, giving existentialists like big-dick-owning/hating Jean-Paul Sartre more credence: a reality competition featuring artists making art. What'd they find? Fish, in a neon-lit, jewel-encrusted barrel.

Dash Snow is already being branded an "icon." The downtown sperm-and-whatever-else artist died Monday night of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. And you can already spot the outlines of a Basquiat-esque art world canonization starting to form.

Dash Snow, who died last night at the age of 27, took Polaroids, wrote graffiti, made collages and installations, and jacked off on newspapers (and was aware of how that was perceived). A dozen of his artworks, below.

Multiple sources tell us that Dash Snow—photographer, semen artist, graffiti writer, and embodiment of the downtown NYC scene—has apparently died of a heroin overdose, two years shy of his 30th birthday.

Gawker is reporting that hipster artist/photographer Dash Snow died of a heroin overdose last night, and messages posted to Twitter by some of Snow's friends seem to back it up. There hasn't been official confirmation yet. In the meantime, though, you can read more about Snow here, if you're interested. Update: The Times has confirmed Snow's death. [Gawker, photo via Mister Mort]

Shepard "OBEY Obama" Fairey has pleaded guilty to vandalism charges in Boston, and he's getting off easy. Boston, on the other hand...

A 29 year-old chocolate factory worker in New Jersey died today after falling into an eight-foot-deep vat of melted chocolate. One option for the poor man's cadaver: a mold for chocolates.

Speaking of important Michael Jackson news, pancake-painter-to-the-stars Dan Lacey has some! He painted this moving portrait of "Joe Jackson with a Michael Jackson memorial ticket and a pancake upon his head." Ebay is censoring it!

Things I Did On My July 4th Vacation: hit up The New Museum's Younger Than Jesus exhibition. It's a contemporary art exhibit showcasing only artists born after 1976. It ends today. Here is what I saw, presented without comment.

Opium Magazine is running "The Longest Story Ever Told": it's printed on the cover, then printed over in black ink, which will fade over the course of 1,000 years to reveal the nine-word-long story. We already guessed it:

New York magazine's Hugo Lindgren proves that—with just a few hours in the studio—Moby can transform a scratchy demo of an amateurish ballad into a rejected outtake from some bad Jennifer Grey movie soundtrack. [NY Mag]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art laid off 357 people today. This will save them $10 million—$28,000 per layoff. They still have 2,200 employees. Several uncultured questions:

Thomas "Painter of Darkness" Kinkade, the world's single most objectionable mass-producer of wall-hangings for middle American Baptists, is not just a terrible offender against aesthetics—he's also a crook!