The NEA announced its latest string of grant recipients this week, with $35.6 million earmarked for a range of projects that “demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation” according to Shelly C. Lowe, the endowment’s chairwoman, and “support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities.” (more…)

The Guardian has a piece this week on the royal collection, and the range of works often received as gifts now worth millions. (more…)

Bernice Rose, an art historian and MoMA curator who was a vocal champion of drawing, and helped its establish its current role in arts study, has died at the age of 87. “She recognized early that for a generation of artists who emerged in the 1960s, the art of drawing knew no boundaries,” says Christophe Cherix, the museum’s chief curator of drawings and prints. (more…)

Renzo Martens and Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) will represent the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale 2024.  (more…)

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (ICA) has appointed Denise Ryner as its Andie B. Laporte Curator. “With her experience working at the intersections of art and academia, Denise brings an exciting perspective and expertise that will enhance the reach, relevance, and impact of ICA’s exhibitions,” says Zoë Ryan, the ICA’s Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director, and Hallie Ringle, ICA’s Brett Sundheim Chief Curator. “On behalf of the ICA Board and staff, I am thrilled to be welcoming her to join our team as we advance our mission as an experimental hub for contemporary art from around the world.” 

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Students and faculty joined a walkout in support of striking RISD workers this week in Providence, Art News reports. The workers’ union is currently in the midst of contract renegotiations. (more…)

The UK has imposed sanctions on Nazem Ahmad, a collector accused of using works from his holdings to finance Hezbollah. “The firm action we have taken today will clamp down on those who are funding international terrorism, strengthening the UK’s economic and national security,” says Treasury minister in the House of Lords, Joanna Penn. (more…)

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Artist Miguel Ángel Payano Jr., who lived in China for over a decade before returning to NY, gets a profile in NYT this week.“I’m a Sinophile,” he says. “I became an artist in China.” (more…)

Cecily Brown gets the profile treatment in The Guardian this week as the artist opens her ambitious Met show. “Like a magpie at work, there’s no hierarchy of sources,” Brown said. “It’s just the feeling of someone who looks at everything, takes what they will when it’s needed, churning it around, and spewing it back out as something else.” (more…)

A Spanish court has sentenced an art collector to prison for selling a set of fake works, including a series of forged works attributed to Edvard Munch and Roy Lichtenstein. (more…)

The Guardian has a piece this week on what it was like to be painted by Alice Neel. “One day Alice said she wanted to paint me and to bring some things I could wear, so I packed a little suitcase and had various costumes,” says artist and sex activist Annie Sprinkle. “I’d just had my labia pierced and I was showing it off, and she really wanted to see that. She picked a leather outfit and I put a feather in my hair.” (more…)

Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation is apparently behind the $4.5 million purchase of a Robert Colescott at Bonhams this month. “This work in particular presents a hopeful and powerful message, and we are pleased that it resonated so strongly with individuals and institutions alike,” says Ralph Taylor, Bonhams’s global head for postwar and contemporary art. (more…)

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has accused Louis Vuitton of reproducing the artist’s work without permission. “It’s important for folks to understand that this wasn’t something we agreed to,” says foundation exec Christa Blatchford. “How did it even happen, is my question. I honestly don’t understand how it happened on their side. I really don’t.”

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A rare pair of floral paintings by Queen Victoria will go to auction next week, expecting prices of £8,000 and £10,000, Art News reports.  (more…)

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz is proposing that the British Museum return one of its ancient Assyrian treasures to Iraq in exchange for the donation of his fourth plinth sculpture to the UK. “As I pondered my gift to the nation of Great Britain, I began to fantasise that it could be attached to a second gift: the return of one of the British Museum’s lamassu to the country of Iraq, to replace what was destroyed by Daesh [or Islamic State],” he writes in an open letter. (more…)

Art News has a piece this week discussing ongoing issues with repatriation at The Met, reviewing some disputed works still on view. “Once you know that someone is acquiring artifacts without looking too closely as a source, the first thing you should do is look deeper,” says Erin Thompson, an associate professor of art crime at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. (more…)

UNESCO is holding programs in Warsaw to help identify looted cultural materials from the Ukraine. “Poland is really a country at the forefront of this work,” Krista Pikkat, UNESCO’s director of culture and emergencies, says. (more…)

The New York Times writes on the revival of artist Robert Whitman’s 1959 happening American Moon at Pace. “I used to try to explain things to myself — what I was doing,” he said. “Then I suddenly realized my ideas and thoughts and rationalizations were nonsense, and I just decided to go with my intuition.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Whitney Museum curator Marcela Guerrero, the first Puerto Ricaan curator at the Museum. “She is at the right place at a time when Latinx art is emerging as a force to be reckoned with,” says Mari Carmen Ramírez, the first curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “We all expect her to contribute to this transformation in a significant way.” (more…)

Clearing Gallery will depart its longtime home in Bushwick for a new space on the Bowery. “There’s nothing wrong with Brooklyn, but there’s more to New York than Brooklyn,” says founder Olivier Babin. “We’re not leaving for a bigger or better space. We’re leaving for a better location.” (more…)

Musician and artist André Heller fabricated a falsely attributed Jean-Michel Basquiat for sale at TEFAF in 2017, Art News reports. “In retrospect, the whole thing is, firstly, a childish prank. Secondly, it is naturally showing off. And thirdly, it is a stupid mixture of fiction and truth,” he says. “Just a private fairy tale.” (more…)

Monica Bonvicini has “paused” her relationship with König Galerie after sexual harassment allegations broke against its founder, Johann König. (more…)

Artist Oscar yi Hou gets the profile treatment in the New York Times this week, as he opens a show at the Brooklyn Museum. “I think by creating symbolic densities, you’re able to invite the viewer to pay more attention to the works,” he says. “I try to honor the opacity of the subject.” (more…)