François Pinault and architect Tadao Ando are teaming up to convert Paris’s Bourse de commerce into a massive art museum, The Guardian reports.  The new exhibition site will serve as a permanent home for the luxury goods magnate’s €1.25 billion art collection.  “These are tumultuous times in Europe – the recurring terrorist incidents and the UK withdrawal from the EU have fueled anxiety over what the future holds, and countries and people alike seem unsure of their own identities,” Ando said of the project, hoping that it might “renew hope in the future.”
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The Guardian takes a tour of the Centro Botin in Santander, Spain this week, the recently completed art gallery designed by Renzo Piano, which has already earned praise for its daring architectural design, levitating 20 feet above ground on a series of slender pillars.  “From the very beginning, I wanted the building to fly,” Piano says of his design.
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Artist Ai Weiwei is featured in a podcast with the New Yorker’s David Remnick this week, as the artist reflects on his recent projects in the United States and Europe, and his political agency in both China and abroad.  “The whole thing is so ridiculous,” he says of the Chinese government’s seizing of his passport. “Right after I got my passport I left because they said I was free… I want to test them, to make them know I am not afraid.”
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