Since launching back in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, the Serpentine Gallery’s annual pavilion series has featured work by some of the most noted architects in the industry — from Oscar Niemeyer to SANAA. Today it was announced that controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will be reteaming with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron (his collaborators on the iconic “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing, pictured here) to create this year’s temporary structure. What can we expect to see in Hyde Park? Their vision calls for “a bowl-shaped auditorium carved into the earth and protected by a flat, circular steel roof raised five feet above ground level.” Supporting that roof will be “columns that thematically echo the designs of the previous eleven pavilions,” as well as a “wild card” column reflecting their own contribution.

“As we dig down into the earth we encounter a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables and former foundations,” the trio said in a cryptic statement. “Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the eleven Pavilions built between 2000 and 2011.” Look for the finished product to open to the public in June, when the Serpentine Gallery will host a major exhibition of Yoko Ono’s work. [via ArtsBeat]

1. Last night Jon Stewart stopped by The Colbert Report to sign paperwork that legally makes him the head of Stephen Colbert’s super PAC — a move that will allow the late night host to pursue his “possible candidacy for the president of the United States of South Carolina.” [via Huffington Post]

2. Surprise: There’s another film project about Abraham Lincoln in the works! This one, which will be produced by Ridley Scott, is a documentary based on Bill O’Reilly‘s recent book Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever — source material that, as The Playlist points out, is “so factually inept, the National Parks Service has banned it from being sold at the Ford’s Theater.”

3. Kenneth Branagh will direct Kate Winslet in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a juicy-sounding period drama about a magazine reporter’s relationship with the residents of a Nazi-occupied island off the coast of Normandy. [via Vulture]

4. The Flaming Lips’ next album, which we already knew would feature collaborations with the Plastic Ono Band and Bon Iver, will apparently also include contributions from Nick Cave, Ke$ha, Lykke Li, and Erykah Badu. The LP is set to be released this coming April. [via NME]

5. The Daily reports that, thanks to a multimillion-dollar deal to be the spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company, Paula Deen is about to reveal to the world that she has Type 2 diabetes. Does this mean no more deep-fried Twinkies for breakfast, y’all?

Bonus Buzz: 21 Examples Of Bizarre Furniture

Following John Lennon’s death, Yoko Ono made the Wish Tree — a concept that has roots in Hindu mythology, and played a significant role in her childhood — part of her arty bag of tricks, and has since brought the interactive project to cities around the world. She even has one installed in the Sculpture Garden at the MoMA and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. Now, Ono plans to bring a re-imagined version of the artwork to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the form of 10,000 “wish cards” that will be distributed in locations nationwide. (The initial plan was to have a tree in Zuccotti Park, but that’s impossible due to regulations put in place following the November raid.)

“Part of what makes this project good is that it challenges the perceived notions of art just by being a gesture,” Chris Cobb, an Occupy With Art member and an organizer of the Ono project, told Hyperallergic. “It’s not for sale and the cards are not originals, but multiples. We’ve managed to find a work that is in the same vibe as the movement.”

What do you make of Ono’s collaboration with OWS? We feel cynical asking, but can’t help but wonder: How long before we start seeing these cards crop up for sale on Craigslist? [via ANIMAL]

It’s become damn near impossible to keep track of The Flaming Lips’ endless (and generally delightful) musical experiments, so we wouldn’t blame you for not realizing that they released a four-song EP in collaboration with Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band late last year. Unfortunately, the record — which features the bands’ joint holiday tune “Atlas Eets Christmas” –  was limited to 2,000 glow-in-the-dark vinyl copies and is already sold out. But don’t despair: The folks at Consequence of Sound have unearthed all four tracks on YouTube. Stream them after the jump and tell us what you think in the comments. So far, we’re really digging the ghostly, nine-minute “The Fear Litany.”

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[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we'll spend the next two weekends revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published September 28, 2011.] The historically minded artist Mike Stimpson lends a tinge of childhood innocence to legendary moments in a collection that uses LEGOs to recreate famous photos (and one famous painting). By placing the original pictures side-by-side with his versions, he simultaneously pays homage to and updates these classic images, including the soaring Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, the darling kiss in V-J Day Times Square, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In. Page through Stimpson’s playful LEGO remixes after the jump.

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Now that The Flaming Lips have released an EP in the form of a seven-pound gummy skull and put out a 24-hour song called “7 Skies H3″ packaged in an actual human skull, they’ve decided to end 2011 on a more festive, less death-obsessed note. Wayne Coyne and co. have put up a website called Atlas Eets Christmas, where they’re streaming various holiday songs. The most notable of these is a new collaboration with Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, an update of a tune that surfaced in instrumental form in 2007 and is also titled “Atlas Eets Christmas.” Considering that it’s The Flaming Lips and Ono we’re talking about, the track is surprisingly easy on the ears, featuring the requisite seasonal bells and a melody that, despite the intense vocal layering, will remind you of just about every Christmas carol you’ve ever heard. Hear it after the jump. Read More »

A post Jenny Craig (sorry, Jenny) Mariah Carey paid The Rosie Show a visit yesterday. The pop diva opened her talk show appearance by arriving on a giant, suspended disco-glittery moon. This is the same woman who played her own 1995 live performance of “Fantasy” during the birth of her new twins Moroccan and Monroe so they would be born to the sound of applause. (Yes, really.) The singer’s awkward lunar landing calls to mind many celebrity talk show appearances where the stars veered off topic — sometimes avoiding it completely — and humiliated themselves in front of the world with oddball behavior and confusing conversation. Click through to revisit some seriously weird celebrity talk show moments, and let us know who you’d add to the list below. Read More »

Some art is not meant to last; rather, it’s meant to melt, rot, blow away, disintegrate, disappear… We find these works fascinating. Perhaps its their self-destruction mechanism and their brief life-span that makes them so precious, or maybe it’s their curious, ephemeral materials — ice, butter, singed lit candle wax, festering meat. All these works come with an expiration date, leaving behind withered, deflated corpses and puddles. From Peiro Manzoni to David Lynch, take a gander at some of art’s most “temporary” works in their prime moments. Hurry! Time-sensitive stuff here! Read More »

After running features on the childhood photos of both famous writers and rock stars over the past few weeks, it might seem like we’re a bit youth-obsessed at Flavorwire lately. But we promise that that’s not the case. We just think that there’s something fascinating about images of cultural icons snapped long before they’d become household names. It humanizes them a bit. And so, today we turn our focus on the art world — specifically, some of the most influential talents of the past 100 years. Click through to peep photos of everyone from a dashing young Andy Warhol (pictured here) to a breathtakingly adorable baby Yoko Ono.

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A Florida-based artist is railing against Yoko Ono, accusing the wife of the late John Lennon of making the English musician’s artworks “cut-and-paste mashups” by altering them. The Japanese artist and activist has been selling Lennon’s art over the years, raising money for charities. What many people apparently didn’t know is that she’s also been adding color to various pieces, changing their compositions, and pasting “counterfeit John Lennon chop mark/signatures” on them. Not all the images have been tampered with, but four definitely show signs of alteration. The $5,000 Herd Moving seems to be the most changed, taking ” … a giraffe and a rhino from In His Own Write and [multiplying] them, [flipping] them, and [coloring] them, placing three of each figure in a new work also filled with snakes copied from another composition, three identical elephants (evidently taken from yet another composition), and a monkey swinging from a tree.”

Ono has apparently posthumously forged other works in the past. In 2010, she told some “professional people” in regards to one of Lennon’s pieces that they should ” … at least let [her] color it, because John probably would not have minded it if [she] did it.” Is this compromising the authenticity of Lennon’s work, or merely applying an artistic license the late Beatle would have endorsed? Check out a few of the images in question after the jump.

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