The 2022 Venice Biennale will take the title “The Milk of Dreams,” taking its name from work by the writer Leonora Carrington. “Carrington’s stories describe a world set free, brimming with possibilities,” says curator Cecelia Alemani says. “But [the book] is also the allegory of a century that imposed intolerable pressure on the individual, forcing Carrington into a life of exile: locked up in mental hospitals, an eternal object of fascination and desire, yet also a figure of startling power and mystery.”  (more…)

The future of a Keith Haring mural painted in a former nightclub is unclear as the owners plan a demolition to build an elderly care facility. “This painting should stay where it is,” says DJ Cesar de Melero. “First it was in a night club, then a billiard hall, now a care home. Why not?” (more…)

A piece in Art Newspaper details the Italian Carabinieri’s use of drones to prevent theft of cultural and heritage works. Italy is currently reporting a drop in stolen works due to new efforts and to the recent pandemic.  (more…)

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will launch a $125 million plan to help support and aid the arts economy in New York. “The artists whose work helps to sustain us have faced particularly devastating circumstances resulting from unemployment, underemployment, and a lack of predictable paid incomes,” Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement. “It’s critical for the vibrancy of our cities that we recognize that making art is work.” (more…)

The Centre Pompidou is opening its first North American satellite in Jersey City, the NYT reports. “Our idea is to be confronted with what is very different,” says president Serge Lasvignes. “For us, it’s a way to learn — to learn new circumstances, a new way of presenting art, a new way of presenting exhibitions.” (more…)

Artist Bridget Riley gets an interview in the BBC this week, as the artist turns 90. “I held a mirror up to human nature and reported faithfully,” she says. (more…)

Ai Weiwei will open a major show in Lisbon this year, and is making plans to move to the city permanently, the AP reports. “I have a great feeling” he says. “This is a place I’m staying.” (more…)

Art Basel will return this September, the Swiss fair has confirmed, with VIP services that include video tours of the event. “It is a bespoke 1:1 service. The Show Experience Assistant arranges a zoom, or other communication channel depending on the VIP, and helps them view specific works and discover artists and presentations, as well as facilitate introductions to specific galleries,” a spokesperson says. (more…)

Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara was released from a Havana hospital this week following a hunger strike. “After a month in the hands of the beast, we’ll see how things go in the streets to continue the struggle,” he said.  (more…)

Sunjung Kim, head of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, will leave the organization after a labor dispute. “Contrary to the international reputation of Gwangju Biennale, the staff has been suffering from the president’s lack of leadership, the lack of principles and transparency in operations, as well as the abandonment of duty and abuse of authority by the head of the HR team,” a union rep says. (more…)

A new survey of museum directors shows that 15% of museum directors have said there is a significant risk of closing permanently. “The museum field will take years to recover to pre-pandemic levels of staffing, revenue and community engagement,” says Laura Lott, president and chief executive of the American Alliance of Museums. She continues: “far fewer museums than expected are in danger of permanent closure.” (more…)

The Whitney has formally recognized its union, Art News reports. “I do think that the Whitney is genuinely trying to create a community of people that want to be there,” says union leader Karissa Francis. “But a lot of what you think you’re doing right as a company doesn’t work for your employees. Unionizing allows for a reshuffling of priorities for these institutions and [shines] a light on some blind spots that they maybe didn’t even realize they had.” (more…)

Tacita Dean has an interview in The Guardian this week, detailing her recent work and time during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Well, you have all this free time,” she says, “and you think, ‘How am I going to use it? Am I going to be one of these people who makes a drawing every day?’ And of course I wasn’t. I was useless!” (more…)

Sprüth Magers now represents the estate of John Baldessari, the gallery announced this week.“Monika [Sprüth] and I had the unique pleasure of working with John since the late 1980s, and his work has remained a cornerstone of Sprüth Magers’ presentations of cutting-edge international artists for over thirty years, cementing his crucial importance both to our work and to global audiences,” says Philomene Magers. “As we established our Berlin, London and Los Angeles galleries, we regularly presented his ever-evolving and inventive projects.”” (more…)

Brooklyn Museum employees are moving towards a vote on forming a union, adding the institution to a list of museums with ongoing unionization efforts. ““Unionizing is an extension of our existing institutional commitment to nurturing a diverse community of talent,” says Akane Okoshi, a researcher at the museum, said. “Our ability to advance the Brooklyn Museum’s professed institutional goals of creating a more connected, civic, and empathic world is contingent on the passion and labor of workers.” (more…)

Laurence des Cars will become the first female president of The Louvre this year, the New York Times reports. “A great museum must face history, including by looking back at the history of our own institutions,” she says. (more…)

François Pinault gets a profile in the New York Times this week, as he opens his Bourse de Commerce museum in Paris, and reflects on his long patronage of contemporary art.“It’s impossible that we have become so stupid today that there are no human beings alive capable of creating tomorrow’s masterpieces,” he says. (more…)

The estate of Robert Ryman will join David Zwirner, the gallery announced this week. “Ryman, to me, is a singular artist, among the most important of his generation,” Zwirner said in a statement. “I am looking forward to presenting his work in the context of our program.” (more…)

Cuban artists have asked that their works shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana be covered in protest against the arrest of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. A statement reads that the the group is “alarmed by the fact that Luis Manuel has been held incommunicado for more than three weeks, hospitalized against his will, without access to telephone or visits from relatives he is close to, as well as friends, and colleagues.” (more…)

The Canadian National Gallery has received an anonymous $3 million donation to help maintain its pavilion at the Venice Biennale. “The donor wanted the focus to be on Dr. Thomson and Dr. Thomson’s time at the gallery,” said Barbara Stead-Coyle, director of the National Gallery Foundation. “They felt if their name was released the story might become about them.” (more…)

David Zwirner Gallery has launched Platform, an online art sales platform offering work by younger and upcoming artists and smaller galleries following a click to buy model.  “We learned there is a real place in the art world for e-commerce,” Zwirner said in a recent telephone interview. “There is an audience out there we did not know existed. They don’t go to galleries necessarily and they don’t really go to art fairs. They look at things online.” (more…)

The Broad Museum is planning to reopen with a showing of all its collected Basquiat works. “To know they’re going to have them all out is exciting for young people,” says curator and former Broad tour guide A.J. Girard. “Eli should be super-celebrated. He had the works and exhibited the works.” (more…)

Romanian politicians are fighting to curb copyright restrictions on the work of Constantin Brancusi, seeking to place work in the public domain so as to earn the country profit on likenesses and images of the artist’s works. “Although Romania acceded to the European Union in 2007, the legislator also took into account the provisions of [the EU’s 1996 law, including] the existence of the protection period of 70 years, calculated from 1 January of the year following the one when the death of the author occurred,” reads a court filing. (more…)

TEFAF Maastricht has cancelled its 2021 edition, the fair announced the week. “TEFAF is focused on gathering our community of dealers, collectors, and vendors for our signature fair experience in a physical setting as soon as circumstances allow,”  says chairman Hidde van Seggelen. “In the meantime, we are excited to present a new and improved edition of TEFAF Online this September, and look forward to coming together in Maastricht for TEFAF’s 35th anniversary next March.”