Irked by skyrocketing art prices—like last month’s sale of a Gerhard Richter for $34.2 million—critic Jerry Saltz put out an open call last winter: Make a fake Richter, Ryman, or Hirst, and he’d buy it for $155. Stanley Casselman delivered.

Santiago Sierra says he created the “world’s largest graffiti” in Algeria last month. With Artifariti and Frente Polisario, he carved the letters S.O.S. —1.7 km high and 5 km long—into the earth near camps where Sahrawi refugees have struggled since the 1970s.

Bad at Sports digs up a copy of Dan Greenburg’s 1969 book Porno-Graphics: The Shame of Our Museums, an interactive book that covers up nudity in great artwork, allowing readers to pull a lever to expose flesh in art like Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase.

For his next work, Christo plans to create a flat-topped pyramid in Abu Dhabi out of 410,000 oil barrels. Taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza, the $340M Mastaba will be the world’s largest and most expensive permanent sculpture.

Richard Serra’s Shift (1970-72), built in a farmer’s field north of Toronto, likely won’t be protected under the Ontario Heritage Act, but its location on private property begs the question: how much can the public do to save it?

In advance of Black Friday strikes and protests at Walmart stores, an email hoax has targeted the Arkansas museum founded by Sam Walton’s heir. The email falsely said Crystal Bridges would be closed Friday in solidarity with striking workers.

A Mark Rothko painting vandalized at Tate Modern in October could take 18 months to repair. “The ink from the pen [of Wlodzimierz Umaniec] has bled all the way through the canvas causing a deep wound, not a superficial graze,” says the BBC’s Will Gompertz.

This “unexpected double history of banking and the art world” starts with Hirst: Made from $23.6M in stones, the full $100M value of his famed skull comes in the making. It “applies the technique of a leveraged buyout not only to a work of art but as a work of art.”

Trevor Paglen’s The Last Pictures heads into space Tuesday aboard the Echostar XVI satellite. His project—discussed in our series Lowercase P: Artists & Politics—includes 100 photos of our culture. Watch the launch live at 1:15 pm EST/12:15 CST.