1. NYPD Detains Activists for Anti-Koch Light Graffiti at the Met
Not everyone was overjoyed with the opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s revamped David H. Koch Plaza. Activist artists descended on the festivities, casting spells on billionaire David Koch—a known Tea Party supporter and climate change denier—while others projected anti-Koch slogans on the museum’s facade, earning the ire of the NYPD, as Ben Davis reported.

2. Paris’s Biennale des Antiquaires Dazzles
After a rocky patch that saw the president of its parent organization ousted, the Biennale des Antiquaires got back on track, and Coline Milliard was on the scene at the Grand Palais to take in all the brisk business being done.

3. Germany’s Top 25 Fall Gallery Shows
With Berlin Art Week coming up, Alexander Forbes’s guide to the biggest gallery shows in Germany this season—which spans Martin Kippenberger at Berlin’s Capitain Petzel to Frances Stark at Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Cologne—is invaluable.

4. Judge’s Surprise Decision Lets Rothko Flipper Off the Hook
After a jury seemingly decided in favor of Dallas collector Marguerite Hoffman in her case against New York mogul David Martinez, over a $31.4 million Mark Rothko painting, a judge reversed the decision, adding another chapter to a long-running legal battle that Eileen Kinsella elucidated.

5. ArtRio Attracts International Heavyweights and Niche Galleries Alike
The Brazilian fair ArtRio showed signs of having achieved maturity and global prominence, Rozalia Jovanovic reported. A healthy mix of mega-galleries like David Zwirner and White Cube mixing it up with outfits like Y Gallery and Johannes Vogt focussing on emerging artists.

Nicholas Kirkwood, Pumps (Spring/Summer 2013).
Photo: Jay Zukerkorn. Courtesy of Nicholas Kirkwood.

6. “Killer Heels” Has Pretty Shoes and Brains To Boot
Though many expected another beautiful but mindless fashion show, the Brooklyn Museum’s new blockbuster “Killer Heels” proved to be a thought-provoking engagement with one of our culture’s favorite fetish objects, Cait Munro reported.

7. Tate’s JMW Turner Blockbuster Dazzles
Tate’s new exhibition devoted to JMW Turner’s late works makes a convincing case that the painter was not actually mentally unstable in the last years of his life, as many critics have claimed when dismissing his paintings from that period, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso reported.

8. Artist Gives Johannesburg’s Decrepit Landmarks a Neon Pink Makeover
Columbia-born, New York–based activist artist Yazmany Arboleda was in Johannesburg this summer, leading a team of guerrilla muralists in clandestine paint-bombings of the city’s crumbling landmarks. The project is intended to highlight the sorry state of the city’s architectural patrimony, as the artist told Eileen Kinsella.

9. Spanish Galleries Unite to Weather Funding Cuts
Art dealers all around Spain are banding together and pooling their resources following news that the federal government is cutting by 41 percent an annual fund intended to help them do business internationally, as Lorena Muñoz-Alonso reported.

10. Miley Cyrus Makes Erotic Sculptures
And last but not least (well, maybe it is last and least), as part of New York Fashion Week divisive pop star Miley Cyrus opened an exhibition in SoHo of colorful assemblage sculptures, Sarah Cascone reported. “I just sit around and smoke weed anyway,” Cyrus said, “so I might as well sit around, smoke weed, and do something. And this is me doing something. I love it.”