Bits: 12.14.09

Mobile Matrix by Gabriel Orozco, a modified whale skeleton on view in his MoMA mid-career survey

• American architect Christophe Cornubert's "CO2 Cube," now on view in Copenhagen, is a glowing video cube displaying artwork and newscasts. But its size is what's most important: At 19,683 cubic feet, it represents one metric ton -- the amount of carbon dioxide the average citizen of an industrialized country releases each month.

• In moving testimony at Copenhagen, Ian Fry from the Polynesian nation of Tuvalu told delegates of his frustration that real action on climate change is held up by a few American senators: "The fate of my country rests in your hands."

• RIP Larry Sultan: The California photographer died after struggling with cancer at age 63.

• RIP Robert Heft: He designed the 50-star American flag... as part of a high school project in 1958.

• RIP Giorgio Carbone: "After convincing his Seborgan neighbors [on the Italian Riviera] of their true significance, [he] was elected prince in 1963. He gracefully accepted the informal title of His Tremendousness, and was elected prince for life in 1995 by a vote of 304 to 4. Voters then ratified Seborga’s independence, which, by the prince’s interpretation, it already had."

• Hiroshi Sunairi's Tree Project -- featuring plants grown from seeds of trees that survived the bombing in Hiroshima -- is on view at the Horticultural Society of New York through Feb. 12. Here's my interview with him.

• After a preview at Art Basel Miami Beach, Tamra Davis' documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child heads to Sundance next month for its world premiere. It features a long interview with Basquiat shot just before his death at age 27 in 1988.

• Here's who's in the 2010 Whitney Biennial.