Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Arkansas is soon to announce a major series of acquisitions filling major holes in its collection of American art, the New York Times reports.  Pieces recently acquired include Jasper Johns’s Flag, which was purchased last fall for $36 million, the record-setting Georgia O’Keefe work Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1, as well as four works by Louise Bourgeois, estimated at a combined $35 million to $40 million.  “Bourgeois is really important to 20th century art and yet she has not received the entire due that she deserves,” says Margaret C. Conrads, museum director of curatorial affairs. (more…)

Following widespread protests, the Frick is expected to cancel a planned expansion that would have eliminated a rare piece of landscape architecture.  “It just became clear to us that it wasn’t going to work,” says an anonymous museum official.  “It won’t be the best plan, but we will go back and prioritize.  There was just a number of voices out there and we heard them.” (more…)

Bloomberg profiles a pair of former Sotheby’s employees, Marlies Verhoeven and Daisy Peat, who are launching a start-up “offering uniquely privileged access to every aspect of the art world.”  The company, called The Cultivist, already boasts Marina Abramovic and Rashid Johnson as founding members, and includes an impressive list of museum memberships and VIP access to major art events as part of its annual $2,500 fee.  Offering counterpoint, the publication notes the dissonance between providing “access” and catering to collectors, a distinction that overshadows much of the “privilege” the art world is so often critiqued for. (more…)

Iranian artist Atena Farghadani has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for her works depicting national politicians as monkeys and goats as protest over plans to outlaw voluntary sterilisation and restrict access to contraception.  “Atena Farghadani has effectively been punished for her cartoons with a sentence that is itself a gross caricature of justice,” says Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director for  Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa. (more…)

The Art Loss Register, widely considered the authoritative body on looted and missing artworks, is currently involved in a trio of cases involving disputes on works’ provenance claimed by the register to be authentic which were actually contested.  “It’s incredibly frustrating because it doesn’t matter what you do,” says one anonymous figure affected by the cases. “You do everything you can to check a painting is clean, and it’s useless. How can you protect yourself? You can’t.” (more…)

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh has stated his fears that more art is missing from the Boston Public Library collection following the disappearance of two prints valued at $600,000.  “I think the lack of security with these two prints and (more) … really, really concerns me greatly that there’s other things missing,” Walsh said in an appearance on Boston Herald Radio. (more…)

Chicago artist Theaster Gates is planning his first public installation work in the UK, a “sound sanctuary” that will look to be installed in a disused church in central Bristol.  “We are looking at a number of different sites of historical importance, but Theaster is particularly interested in sound,” says Claire Doherty, the director of Situations, a UK non-profit sponsoring the project. “We need to get scheduled monument consent [to use the church], so it may change.”  (more…)

Established artists and classic masterworks are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs of eager art flippers, Bloomberg reports, pointing in particular to a Francis Picabia that saw a massive 220% gain in price in less than six months.  “Because art is seen as an asset class, the more rapid turnover is considered encouraging. There’s a whole new generation of collectors who are playing the art market,” says Frances Beatty, VP at Richard L. Feigen & Co. (more…)

Last night’s Party in the Garden at MoMA was marked by vocal protests from museum staff, following museum proposals to reduce health care coverage during ongoing contract negotiations.  “A lot of us here are professionals,” says Luke Baker, an architecture and design curatorial assistant. “We’ve got master’s degrees. You know, we’re here for the long haul. We really want to make sure that working here, and giving as much as we give to the museum, that this is a tenable position for us and that we’re able to stay here.” (more…)

Thomas Houseago, Masks (Pentagon) (2015), via Art Observed

This summer, Rockefeller Center has launched a continuation of its partnership with the Public Art Fund, opening a new public work by British-born, Los Angeles-based artist Thomas Houseago.  The work, titled simply as Masks (Pentagon), the artist continues an investigation of spatial interactions that has defined his work over recent years. (more…)

Jasper Johns’s Foundation for Contemporary Arts has opened a new project space, Other Room, next to its Meatpacking District Offices, providing space for curated shows focused on young and emerging artists.  “We’re not really set up to be a gallery—we have regular office hours except for the occasional Saturday—but the idea was to do something artist-centric,” says executive director Stacy Stark. (more…)

Richard Serra was awarded last night with The Insignia of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, the highest honor in France, recognizing the artist’s long history of work in the nation, and his contributions to the development of contemporary art both in France and abroad.   (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles the recently closed Off Biennale Budapest, a response to the right-leaning Hungarian Government’s interference in the selection and promotion of the city’s arts institutions.  “Cultural institutions are losing their autonomous position,” warns Tijana Stepanović, one of the event’s lead curators. (more…)

The Tate is receiving an additional £6 million in funding from the British Government this year, earmarked to help fund the operations at the Tate Modern.  “Late last year the government in principle committed to an uplift in grant-in-aid to support the running of the new Tate Modern,” a Museum spokesman confirms. (more…)

Roni Horn, Gold Field (1980-82), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Taking over the Punta Della Dogana for the dizzying months of the Biennale is Slip of the Tongue, a Danh Vo curated exhibition in collaboration with Palazzo Grassi and The Pinault Collection.  Slip of the Tongue features the work of 35 artists, including pieces from Felix Gonzalez- Torres, Andres Serrano, David Hammons, Sigmar Polke, David Wojnarowicz and the curator himself.  Working in conjunction with a large number of artists, the artist-run show is a first for the exhibition space. (more…)

Fotografica, all photos via Sabrina Wirth for Art Observed

Every two years during the first week of May, Bogotá, Colombia launches its Fotografica Bogotá, the biennial photography exhibition now in its 10th edition. “Bogotá is photographic,” says Gilma Suarez, the powerhouse curator and photographer who founded the event.  Indeed, from May 2nd to June 15th, the city turns itself into a public museum, with images of the artwork on display for anyone to enjoy, while hosting concurrent events at universities, galleries, museums, and foundations, also open to the public.  The event gives photography enthusiasts the chance to meet with the exhibiting photographers from around the world to either listen to their lectures or participate in portfolio reviews.  (more…)

Es Gibt Nichts Gutes (Installation View), courtesy of the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin I Paris, photo: def-image.com

For his new exhibition, Es Gibt Nicht Gutes [There Is Not Good], artist Christoph Niemann has taken an incisive route through Germany’s tumultuous history with its creative class during WWII through the framework of author Erich Kästner’s work.  Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Kästner’s work Es gibt nicht Gutes außer: Man tut es [There is not good unless man makes it], Niemann has collaborated with the book’s original publishers to illustrate the book’s re-released edition, with these visual vignettes comprising Galerie Max Hetzler’s exhibition bearing the abbreviated name.

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Aurel Schmidt with a work from New Gods, via Art Observed

Recently, artist Aurel Schmidt launched another entry in her series of unexpected pop-up shows, bringing her uniquely visceral, surrealist drawings to an uninhabited apartment on St. Marks Place downtown.  It was a rough and ready affair, with works installed across the hauntingly empty rooms of the walk-up (one work was mounted near the kitchen sink, while another sat above the laundry machine), and a number of the artist’s friends on hand, making it feel more like a casual gathering than a gallery show.  In one room, guests were treated to an impromptu concert by Devonté Hynes (a.k.a. Blood Orange), while Schmidt welcomed guests and showed them around the space.

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The case surrounding the theft of works from Picasso descendent Catherine Hutin-Blay has taken a new turn, as Art Newspaper reports that more than 60 works could be missing from Hutin-Blay’s Gennevilliers storage facility.  “One thing is for sure,” her lawyer, Anne-Sophie Nardon says, “this case is extremely serious and much bigger that we first thought.” (more…)

Al Jazeera looks at the massive Savitsky collection in Uzbekistan, where tens of thousands of Russian avant-garde masterpieces were salvaged and put on display by artist and founder Igor Savitsy following their censorship in their home country, including long forgotten works by Kandinsky, Chagall, and more.  “Without him, they would have been gone without a trace,” says Marinika Babanazarova, the current director of the Nukus Art Museum where his collection lies.  “These days, he is an authority figure, genius, but at the time they saw him as a weirdo, an absolute nutcase.” (more…)

The retrospective of Vienna Actionist Hermann Nitsch’s work, previously pulled from Mexico City’ s Museo Jumex this past year, has found a new home at Palermo’s Museo Zac.  “Everybody who knows me, knows that I am an animal protector,” says Nitsch, responding to accusations of animal cruelty that some feel were responsible for closing the show.  “From my point of view, factory farming is the biggest crime in our society.”   (more…)

The WSJ looks at the recent focus on algorithms as hot items on the art market, as collectors purchase classic codes and objects emblazoned with famous code.  “It is a whole new dimension we are trying to grapple with,” says Cooper Hewitt curatorial director Cara McCarty. “The art term I keep hearing is code.” (more…)

Marina Picasso is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as she prepares to sell off an extensive collection of her grandfather’s ceramics and paintings, a gesture she feels will help to heal a painful childhood. “Being Picasso’s granddaughter was very hard. I don’t snub the inheritance, not at all, I just want a lighter way to live and to be able to devote myself to my humanitarian work,” she says. “There is absolutely no hatred, no bitterness, no vengeance on my part.”  (more…)

The New York Times looks at the recent trend towards smaller and boutique art fairs, where collectors can experience specially selected works and a more nuanced buying experience. The article focuses particularly on London’s Art15 fair, where a focus on international buyers and new investors has defined it as a leader in the growing market. “We deliberately made it smaller,” says Art15 Director Kate Bryan. “We wanted to create a concentrated, boutique-style event. The demographic of London is changing all the time, and we wanted to respond to that.”  (more…)