Wall Street's masters of the universe may be fixated on a government bailout/handout, but Russian oligarchs have picked up their slack in buying up the world's priciest houses, dating supermodels and amassing all the Faberge eggs and Damien Hirsts the global art market can offer. The director of London's Gagosian Gallery says that buyers from Russia and the former Soviet Union now make up nearly half of Gagosian's total sales worldwide. Maybe it's time for Larry to start brushing up on his Russian? [Bloomberg]

The winners of the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge have been announced, and you can check them all out at NewScientist.com, like the one on the left which won the Photography competition and depicts "a community of microscopic diatoms - unicellular algae with a peculiar glass-like cell wall—attached to a marine invertebrate. Some more stunning selections after the jump.

Damn it, Banksy. Five works by the mysterious street artist are up for sale in London this weekend. Although he endorses a group that authenticates his works, he hates it when they're removed from their street settings and won't confirm if any such pieces are his. The sale will go ahead anyway. Bit of a gamble for those bidding! [BBC]

So, um, here is a portrait collage of famous famous person Paris Hilton, crafted entirely out of old pornographic magazines (like Under the Mattress Monthly and Behind the Old Record Collection In a Manila Envelope In the Downstairs Rec Room Quarterly). It is the work of the artist Jonathan Yeo, who has done portraiture of many other famous folks. According to Fox News, via The Superficial: "Yeo was offering Hilton proceeds from the sale of the posters as a 'lighthearted' gesture because the hotel heiress has said she didn't receive any money from the notorious 2004 sex video that starred her and then-boyfriend Rick Salomon." Nice. Click for larger.

Betelnut is a stimulant popular in parts of Asia. You chew it and get a mild high (although it turns your teeth black and gives you cancer). In Taiwan, sexy babes called "Betelnut girls" sell it from brightly-lit booths. This weekend, though, an artist named Annamarie Ho is recreating a betelnut kiosk here in NYC. So if you're walking on Cleveland Place just south of Kenmare Street and you see this woman sitting in her panties behind a neon sign, and you're wondering why it looks like you've suddenly landed in Amsterdam's red light district, well, now you know. [Betelnut 2008 via BoingBoing]

If you're stressed out about losing your job or not being able to pay your mortgage, you may want to take a lesson from Kathy Fuld, the wife of Lehman CEO Dick Fuld and the man who will forever be known as man who led the firm into bankruptcy. According to art dealers, Kathy has put a set of Abstract Expressionist drawings worth some $20 million up for auction. She didn't waste any time either: Christie's announced the November 12th sale of the drawings just four days after Lehman went bankrupt. The Fulds aren't exactly in the poorhouse—Dick took home $35 million last year—but Kathy's a sensible gal and replenishing the coffers isn't the worst idea in the world when you have a large estate in Greenwich and mortgages on a $20 million Park Avenue co-op and $13 million Florida beach house.

Anonymous guerrilla street artist Banksy's dealer (his art dealer) Steve Lazarides is opening up a pop-up gallery in New York, reports the Sun. The space is on the Bowery, of course, as part of the quest to turn it into doucheland like the rest of downtown. Banksy's work isn't to appear in the exhibit... but is it scheduled to appear in the surrounding streets?Street art resembling Banksy's has been popping up in Lower Manhattan in the last week:

Yes, there really is a "prayer booth" on the corner of 59th Street and Second Avenue. Perfect timing, too! [Animal NY]

Tacky interior design cliches—like lampshades fashioned out of human flesh, umbrella stands made from bones, solidified organ paperweights—are so over. So it's refreshing to see, in the austere pages of InTouch magazine, that pretend rock star Dave Navarro is celebrated for his more subdued and updated design aesthetic, which includes artwork by John Wayne Gacy. Gacy, you'll recall, is that charming fella who dressed like a clown and brutally raped and murdered 30 young men and boys back in the 1970's, burying their bodies under his house. Killer! Click for larger. [via Gigglesugar]

A new man will be in charge at the Guggenheim beginning on November 4th. The board of the museum officially tapped Richard Armstrong, who recently headed up the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as its new director. The Kansas City native and modern architecture fan will take over for the controversial, motorcycle-ridin' Thomas Krens. He also happens to be 6'5, in case you were wondering. [NYT]

Poster Boy is like gentrification: he doesn't stop, you just get used to him. NYC's premier subway ad poster art-vandal continues to implore hipsters to free their minds using little more than an X-acto knife and some glue. And all the cool bloggers still love him. Five of the anonymous kid's latest, greatest works, below:

Elitist street art on Bowery in Manhattan. Click to enlarge. [Thanks Dash]

Last night's auction at Milk Studios featured works by Cindy Sherman, Thurston Moore, Yoko Ono, and DJ Spooky. Announced a graybearded fellow to his friend after the bidding was complete, "I was smoking too much of that fine-ass weed for too many years, and it was cooking my system. I had to go to Paris to detox."

The huge sum of $125 million for animal-loving British artist Damien Hirst's London Sotheby's auction set a new record for a sale of a single artist's work, which should be a relief for the contemporary art market. "Golden Calf," a bull suspended in a tank of formaldehyde, sold for $18 million and also became the highest price of a Hirst sold ever. "The Kingdom," a shark also preserved in formaldehyde, sold for $17 million. But it isn't good news for everyone in the art world. What's really significant about the sale is that Hirst is selling over two hundred of his works to Sotheby's directly. This cuts his dealer completely out of a commission, which may be great money for Hirst and the art market, but is a bad precedent to set for gallerists—all the time they spent supporting young artists, only to be abandoned when they hit big.

American hedge funders might be too nervous to blow millions on contemporary art at the moment, but thank God for the Russians and Arabs. Damien Hirst's auction at Sotheby's in London last night turned out to be a big success notwithstanding the Wall Street meltdown, with 54 new pieces selling for a total of $127 million. [Reuters]

On a day like today, you might imagine that hedge fund moguls would be a little skittish about plunking down a small fortune on a piece of art. Not so much. Damien Hirst's big auction at Sotheby's is taking place in London this evening anyway. [Portfolio]

Society reporter David Patrick Columbia headed over to David and Danielle Ganek's "sprawling apartment" yesterday, which just so happens to be the abode at 740 Park where Jacqueline Bouvier was raised and which the hedge fund titan and contemporary art collector purchased for $19 million a few years back. Columbia was kind enough to post some pictures, too. In the background: A rather creepy mural by Piotr Uklanski of actors portraying Nazis. How, uh, charming. [NYSD]

One hundred or so people finally got to give notorious Vogue editor Anna Wintour a piece of their mind at Fashion Week. Well, via a painting at least. An artist named Geoffrey Raymond (who aims to become "the pre-eminent American portrait painter of the 21st century") painted what he calls "The Annotated Anna" and set it up at Bryant Park this week with a request for people to write a little note to the Devil Wears Prada inspiration. Oh, and you can buy it! (Hear that Anna?) Starting bid on eBay is $3,500. The artist tells us more about his work after the jump.

If you don't feel the spirit of love in the artwork above, your heart is made of stone and your abs are likely flabby. What you see is the actual Valentine's Day present that Dave Zinczenko, editor of Men's Health and the most inspirational American next to Obama, received this year from his girlfriend, the Brit actress Melissa Milne. Eat your heart out, Julia Allison! Ladies, take a moment to soak up the romance of this gift. The painting is a one-of-a-kind special by Kurt Walters, the boyfriend of MH design director George Karabotsos. And the artist finds Dave Z to be a true inspiration: From Kurt Walters' blog:

They're behaving like a newlywed trophy wife whose mansion isn't good enough after less than a year. The museum-on-the-Bowery is already expanding, having just purchased the space next door. [Blackbook]