Museum Minutes

• Kurt Andersen interviews Thomas Hoving, former Met museum director, about the antiquities shakedown in California: "This could be the steroids of art museums." [Studio 360]

• Rem Koolhaas is tapped to redo the Hermitage's displays. The starchitect designed the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Vegas in 2001. [Bloomberg]

• The Air and Space Museum lands $15 million for a new wing, seeks lift. [Washington Post]

• The Schuylerville, NY, Museum of Irons is forced to close. Outsider collection by "Iron Man" George DeMers included washboards, washing machines and other unique items. [Anaba]

• Also down the tubes is the American Sanitary Plumbing Museum in Worcester, Mass. The family-owned collection had interest from the Smithsonian, but has gone to the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors of Greater Boston instead. [Worcester Telegram]

• Closer to home, the Chelsea Art Museum fights to stay alive, and the former Dia Chelsea goes condo. [NY Post, NY Observer]

• Lastly, while not exactly museum-related, Harper's looks at G.W. Bush's favorite painting, a Western oil called "A Charge to Keep," and the amusing and illuminating difference between the President's interpretation and the painter's original intent. [Harper's]