Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has inspired an “old-fashioned bodice ripper romance,” Tréy Sager’s Fires of Siberia, due out as an e-book June 1. The hook: It’s published by Badlands Unlimited, contemporary artist Paul Chan’s publishing venture.

Hirshhorn Museum Director Richard Koshalek has resigned after an inconclusive board vote over an inflatable architectural pavilion for the museum. He reportedly didn’t feel his vision, both for “the Bubble” and for the museum, had support.

Paul Schimmel, who resigned as chief curator at MOCA last year, is getting into the gallery biz: He’ll be heading up a new LA branch of Hauser Wirth (& Schimmel). Expect shows that “feel more museum-like in terms of scale, scholarship and complexity.”

In the new issue of e-flux journal, artists Martha Rosler and Hito Steyerl respond to “International Art English,” Alix Rule and David Levine’s discussion-provoking essay on contemporary art’s penchant for artspeak.

Ai Weiwei has released the first single from the metal album The Divine Comedy (due 6/22), along with the Christopher Doyle-directed video “Dumbass.” With music by Zuoxiao Zuzhou, the song served as “a kind of self-therapy,” the dissident artist says.

The new Palestinian Museum scheduled to open in Birzeit next year, is only political, says curator Jack Persekian, “in the sense that it provides spaces and opportunities for Palestinians to shape their own historical narrative and to engage with it.”

For a new show in Hong Kong, Ai Weiwei has created a map of China using 1,815 cans of baby formula. After six children died from melamine-tainted milk in China in 2008, many on the mainland have turned to Hong Kong in search of new sources of milk powder.

In curating the 2013 Venice Biennale, Massimiliano Gioni isn’t creating an “anti-Biennale,” as Francesco Bonami put it. With The Encyclopedic Palace, he’s aiming for “a temporary museum more than simply a show that captures the supposed zeitgeist.”

Our friends at Creative Time Reports have posted an open call for original photography of public spaces—whether Zuccotti Park, Tahrir Square, or Oscar Grant Plaza—before, during, or after major political events or social struggles.