The strikes over the National Gallery in London’s plans to privatize its workforce are continuing this week, with artist Ryan Gander joining the protestors outside the museum.  The current protests have requested a delay in any decision to privatize until after the national elections on May 7th. (more…)

Bloomberg takes a look at the difficulties behind financing large-scale art projects, including the issues often facing galleries when it comes to selling the completed pieces, focusing the study on artist Alice Aycock’s public installation on Park Ave.  “It’s a long-term financial investment,” says Aycock’s gallerist, Thomas Schulte. “One work by Aycock cost $350,000 alone in production costs, and took over a year to make, and in that particular case we needed another year to sell it.” (more…)

Tate Modern Director Chris Dercon will leave the museum to head up Berlin’s experimental theatre landmark, the Volksbühne in 2017, The Guardian reports.  “Chris Dercon is helping to open Tate Modern to a wider world and more diverse audiences through his support for a more international programme, photography, live performance and film,” says Tate head Nicolas Serota. “We look forward to working with him on the opening of the new Tate Modern and until he takes up his appointment in Berlin in 2017.” (more…)

The Financial Times profiles Iranian artist Shirin Neshat as she prepares to open a career retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and Baku, Azerbaijan.  “As an Iranian in exile, she has always been very articulate about the idea of a condition of diaspora and, with that, the complexity of feeling connected to a culture, but living outside it,” says Director Melissa Chiu. “It’s a very personal approach to history, through Shirin’s own eyes.” (more…)

The Midnight Moment video art screenings in New York will continue this May, with the showing of Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests on the immense video billboards of Times Square.  The screen tests on view will feature a variety of Factory regulars, including Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag and Lou Reed. (more…)

Printed Matter is leaving its current space at 195 Tenth Avenue, which is has occupied for the last 10 years, and moving to a new, two-level space at the corner of Eleventh Avenue and 26th Street this September, the organization announced this week.  The new building will double its current space, and will allow a more diverse series of events to be held on-site.  “Printed Matter’s new location will provide us with the much-needed space to facilitate our many different programs and services,” says Printed Matter Board Chair Philip Aarons. “In the past 10 years we’ve more than doubled in size as an organization, and it has become clear that we have simply out-grown our current space. We are thrilled by the prospects and opportunities our new home will provide in the fulfillment and furthering of our mission.” (more…)

James Meyer, the former assistant to Jasper Johns convicted of stealing and plotting to sell works from the artist’s studio, has been sentenced to over a year in prison.  “I am truly devastated that I destroyed the close relationship that I had with the man who was my mentor, employer and friend since I was 21-years-old,” Meyer said in court. (more…)

The fully realized design proposals for the Guggenheim Helsinki are set to be unveiled at the Kunsthalle Helsinki today, marking the next step in the museum’s proposed expansion to Finland.  “We hope this exhibition and its programs will inspire the Finnish public to engage with the possibilities of a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki, and to think about the potential of a prominent site on their waterfront,” says Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong. (more…)

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at this year’s Venice Biennale will go to Ghanian artist El Anatsui.  “The Golden Lion Award acknowledges not just his recent successes internationally, but also his artistic influence amongst two generations of artists working in West Africa,” says Biennale Director Paolo Baratta. “It is also an acknowledgment of the sustained, crucial work he has done as an artist, mentor and teacher for the past forty-five years.” (more…)

Christo has announced a new project aiming to create long immense, yellow fabric walkways spanning Lake Iseo in Lombardy, Italy.  The work will be the artist’s largest since his 2005 piece in New York’s Central Park, and the first since the death of his wife Jeanne-Claude. (more…)

The Institut Giacometti, the foundation museum dedicated to the life and work of Alberto Giacometti, is set to open next year in Paris, featuring a meticulous recreation of the artist’s small, 270 square-foot studio.  The opening of the museum is the result of settled disputes over the estate of the artist, as brokered by Institut head Catherine Grenier, former deputy director of the Centre Pompidou.  “When I got here a year ago,” Grenier says, “this foundation was not at all well known, for one essential reason: It was closed to the public. My priority is to make its activities and its extraordinary collection accessible.” (more…)

Artist Thomas Houseago is the latest artist to install a major large-scale commission at Rockefeller Center this week, as his immense Masks installation finishes completion this week for a Tuesday unveiling.  “It’s so risky, and it’s so terrifying,” Houseago said. “Hopefully kids will enjoy walking in it. And maybe one of those kids will think about being an artist, and that would be fabulous. That’s always the dream, that you give people that space to wonder.” (more…)

Piotr Uklanski, The Nazis (1998), via Art Observed

Currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a retrospective focusing on the work of Polish-born artist Piotr Uklanski, many of which are pulled from the rarely seen Joy of Photography series that the artist executed in the years following his move to the United States following the fall of Communism. (more…)

The Telegraph looks at the growing competition among the world’s wealthiest for high-priced art trophies as status symbols, and notes the growing trend towards the establishment of non-profit foundations and museums as an even more appealing demonstration of wealth.  “Making your collection available to the public, understanding the journey you have been on, your taste,” says Celine Fressart, head of special projects at 1858 Ltd.  “That, really, is the ultimate in bragging rights.” (more…)

This year’s Armenian pavilion at the Venice Biennale will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre of more than one million Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the First World War.  The exhibition, titled Armenity and held on San Lazzaro degli Armeni island (home to the Armenian Catholic Monastery), will feature works by artist Sarkis, and is curated by Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg, who has often worked with the artist.  “It is very important for me to keep the production going, for culture but also to keep the dialogue open,” Sarkis  says.  “We are the link between two pavilions. We are the breath. Whoever thinks otherwise is free to think so, of course.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Prada Foundation’s new Milan arts complex, designed by Rem Koolhaas and serving as the arts foundation’s permanent location.  “After more than 20 years of staging exhibitions around the world, my husband said he thought it was about time we do something permanent in Milan,” Miuccia Prada says. (more…)

David Wojnarowicz, Cal (Factory Face), 1984

The group show is an undeniable part of the New York art world’s summer repertoire, dabbling in different styles and scenes while blending together the works of artists ranging from the young to the historical, emerging to the iconic. Among the early entries into the spring group show calendar is Debris currently on view at James Fuentes Gallery in the Lower East Side. This show is packed with familiar, utilitarian, and recognizable objects, many of which can be easily found in the vibrantly fluid New York urban landscape. (more…)

Marlene Dumas, The Image as Burden (1993) © Marlene Dumas

Currently on view at Tate Modern is Image as Burden, a retrospective looking at the career of the prolific South African painter Marlene Dumas. Adopting its title from an oil on canvas painting in which a male figure is depicted carrying a female figure, the retrospective, considered the most expansive survey of Dumas’ work in Europe so far, sheds a light on the exceptionally subliminal oeuvre of Dumas, who has, for the most part of her career, maintained a humble profile despite the scholarly and commercial recognition her work has achieved globally. (more…)

Online arts auction platform Auctionata has laid off more than half of its employees yesterday, Art Info reports, part of a strategy by the company to focus on cost-efficiency.  Since launching less than three years ago, the company has raised nearly $100 million in capital, including recent funding of almost $50 million. (more…)

The Art Institute of Chicago has received a major donation of contemporary works this week, totaling 42 works valued at over $400 million, including iconic pieces from Andy Warhol, including an Elizabeth Taylor portrait and Mona Lisa Four Times, as well as several “Film Stills” from Cindy Sherman.  “It’s a powerful statement to have a collection of this international stature staying here in Chicago,” says Robert Levy, chairman of the Art Institute’s board. “It’s unbelievably exciting for the Art Institute, for the City of Chicago, for the entire art community of Chicago. It’s all good.” (more…)

The completed Whitney Museum is set to open in a matter of days, and articles in both New York Magazine and the New Yorker are already praising the space for its massive exhibition spaces and intriguing design by architect Renzo Piano.  “The audacity of the building shows that, yes, the Whitney will survive the new era,” writes Jerry Saltz.  “But the better question is whether it has found a way to thrive in it. And, believe it or not, I am in love with what this building represents.” (more…)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is no longer represented by Gagosian Gallery, Artforum reports, a move which ends a partnership first started in 2008.  The organization will now look to Pace Gallery (which represented Rauschenberg later in his career), Thaddaeus Ropac, and São Paulo’s Luisa Strina for worldwide representation.   (more…)

As the Los Angeles County Museum of Art continues its 50th-anniversary acquisitions campaign, the museum announced over $200 million in new art received as “anniversary gifts” to the institution.  A number of the works go on view this week as part of the museum’s “50 for 50: Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA’s Anniversary” exhibition. (more…)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Cain and Abel (2013)

Currently on view at David Zwirner is East of Eden, Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s latest photographic investigation on contemporary humanity and its position within a complexly interwoven cultural setting.  This series reflects diCorcia’s interpretation of a search for equilibrium after the deep impacts of the Financial Crisis in 2007, both during and after the Bush administration. (more…)