Morning Links: Black Mountain College Edition

Here are more details on the death of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed al-Thani, who died suddenly earlier this month at the age of 48. [The New York Times]

Members of The National and Arcade Fire are paying tribute to John Cage and Merce Cunningham’s Black Mountain College at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. [The Wall Street Journal]

“Two Spanish artists have turned down hefty cash prizes in protest against the government’s arts policies.” (They’re not so happy about Spain’s lack of funding for culture, basically.) [Artforum]

Amanda Cruz has been named the executive director of the Phoenix Art Museum. [azcentral]

Galleries naturally factor into Michael Kimmelman’s portrait of post-Wall Berlin: “‘It’s only unpaid internships,’ [a woman who writes about the difficulties of finding a job] said. ‘Berlin now has 300 galleries, but they hardly make money. You get here, then reality sets in.'” [The New York Times]

Here’s an interview with Frederick Wiseman pegged to his new documentary National Gallery, which is about just that: “For ‘National Gallery,’ he said, ‘I had the sense from the start that the art was the subject, that that was more interesting than whatever bureaucratic politics there are.'”[The New York Times]

Man who graffitied graffiti receives five years probation: “A California man who pleaded guilty to defacing two murals believed to have been created by the mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy was sentenced to five years’ probation Monday.” [Associated Press]