Monster Mash: Guggenheim’s Abu Dhabi project; Ai Weiwei’s Taiwan show

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Jeopardy: The future of the planned Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi appears uncertain after a company working on the project dropped plans to award a major construction contract. (Associated Press, via NPR)

Sending a message: The Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan is set to host an exhibit dedicated to artist Ai Weiwei. (Agence France-Presse)

Free money: The Duke Foundation has created the nation’s biggest artist-grant program. (Los Angeles Times)

Makeover: Minnesota Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley has taken up ballet in an effort to transform his body. (Minnesota Star Tribune)

Romeo and Ethel, the pirate’s daughter: Tom Stoppard will write a stage adaptation of the 1998 film ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ for which he shared a screenwriting Oscar. (Variety)

Bad sign: The Philadelphia Museum of Art has purchased a 19th century Charles Willson Peale painting from the troubled Atwater Kent Museum. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Masterpiece: A landscape painting by Gustav Klimt that was stolen by the Nazis is expected to fetch more than $25 million at auction next month. (Reuters)

Arrested: Police in New York took a young man into custody after he climbed a 40-foot-tall steel sculpture close to the Occupy Wall Street encampment and demanded the resignation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (Associated Press, via Wall Street Journal)

Backup plans: Kentucky Opera may have to use two pianists and a harpsichord for an upcoming production instead of members of the Louisville Orchestra due to the orchestra musicians’ lack of a contract. (Louisville Courier-Journal)

Unpopular: Hungarians rallied against the appointment of far-rightists to direct a Budapest theater. (Agence France-Presse)

And in the L.A. Times: A review of ‘Kings of the Dance’ at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

-- David Ng