Ai Weiwei has announced he has started paying back the $1.3 million given by supporters during his tax case. “We have no more options to keep trying. We’ve done what we could, and the court’s decision has been made. So we should repay the money.”

Hurricane Sandy has had a devastating impact on Chelsea’s galleries. While damage has yet to be assessed, most spaces below 25th Street have sustained some flood damage. It will take months for spaces to be repaired, and “all of Chelsea has to be rebuilt.”

How much money did the Getty-funded Pacific Standard Time program pump into the local economy? More than $280 million, according to a report released Nov. 1 by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

“Should public museums be places where political argument happens?” asks Randy Kennedy. “Why is this so rarely the case, especially when compared with politically engaged programming in museums” elsewhere in the world?

New York art dealer Francis Naumann has donated documents from the seminal 1913 Armory Show—which introduced artists like Marcel Duchamp to American audiences—to the Smithsonian. Worth $200K, the papers include a ledger noting every art sale related to the show.

“Suddenly, the press dares to criticise contemporary art,” writes Jacob Willer, and while some of the ire is aimed at artists like Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor, “the most pointed criticism has been directed less at the art than the art market.”

Hand-painted signmaking is alive and well in Minnesota, according to the new book Sign Painters (Princeton Architectural Press), which features locals from Mazeppa’s Mike Meyer to Minneapolis’ Forrest Wozniak (May Day Cafe) and Phil Vandervaart (Hymie’s Records).

NY-based artist Paul Chan says the most interesting thing he did while waiting out Sandy was “field calls and texts asking if I was okay and if I needed help … from New Orleans.” In 2007, he staged Waiting for Godot on the streets of post-Katrina NOLA.

With Hurricane Sandy hammering the East Coast, the American Institute for Conservation is preparing to aid art and historical institutions affected by the superstorm. They’re offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations.