Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith has canceled an appearance at an investment conference in Saudi Arabia after the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, Bloomberg reports.  The news comes as Saudi Arabia faces mounting pressure over the journalist’s disappearance.  (more…)

The Night Watch by Rembrandt will undergo public restoration at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Guardian reports. “It will be carried out under the eyes of the world, and people will be able to follow the conservation wherever they are, whenever they want,” says director Taco Dibbets. (more…)

The British Museum is launching a new initiative designed to push back against perceptions that the expanse of its collection is looted works. “There are a lot of partial histories and they tend to focus on the colonial aspect of the collecting so you have a bunch of people who tend to be quite angry and upset,” Dr Sushma Jansari, the curator of the Asian ethnographic and South Asia collections says. (more…)

The NYT has a piece on the ambitious renovation plans of the Judd Foundation, including a makeover of its Marfa headquarters.  “We were left with a lot of direction, and it’s just taking a long time to extend and finish it all,” his daughter Rainer Judd says. (more…)

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has awarded the Carnegie International Prizes to both Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, who received the Carnegie Prize, and Postcommodity, who was awarded the Fine Prize.   (more…)

Jeff Koons’s monumental public sculpture Bouquet of Tulips will officially be installed in the gardens of the Petit Palais, Art News reports. The work will be privately financed, but “public money will be used for the maintenance of the work,” according to Paris’s deputy mayor, Chirstophe Girard. (more…)

Roya Sachs, the new curator of Lever House, gets a profile in the NYT this week, and speaks on her vision for immersive, challenging works in the iconic space. “All the exhibitions I do I try to create that emotional-physical-mental reaction,” she says, referring particularly to her early exposure to artist Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project piece at The Tate. (more…)

Art Newspaper reviews the recent defense of a body of Instagram works by Richard Prince, including quotes and testimony from art world professionals like New Museum director Lisa Phillips. “An image need not be altered to be transformed into a new work of art” she said of Prince’s long practice of appropriation. (more…)

Banksy’s Girl with Balloon, which destroyed  itself London last week during the Sotheby’s auction, has officially been sold under a new name and identitication: Love is in the Bin (2018).  The work has reportedly been authenticated by Banksy’s authentication body, Pest Control.  (more…)

Leonardo da Vinci’s disputed Salvator Mundi is authentic, according to a leading expert on the artist. “I am convinced, for reasons I won’t go in to, that when people said it was because of doubts about the attribution, that’s not right,” says Martin Kemp. (more…)

Storm King Art Center is adding a new permanent work to its collection, a piece by Sarah Sze. “I wanted to do something potentially radical in form,” she says of her work, Fallen Sky. “Something that was much more interwoven, intertwined — that imitates nature rather than marks it.” (more…)

The For Freedoms project gets a profile in Art Newspaper this week, as it launches its large-scale installation of billboard-based artworks around the U.S. “The 21st-century museum is a place for dialogue, and it can be perhaps a place where, mediated through art, some of the tensions around that dialogue might fall away more easily,” says Matthew McLendon, the director of the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. (more…)

Ai Weiwei is profiled in The Guardian this week, as he opens a trio of exhibitions in Los Angeles. “I cannot accept anything which is not precise, or I feel ashamed,” he says. (more…)

An investigation project has uncovered 170 works in Dutch museums stolen from Jewish families by the Nazi regime, including a painting in the royal collection, The Guardian reports. “This research is important to do justice to history. A museum can only show an piece of art properly if the story and history behind the object is clear, says Chris Janssen, a spokesman for Museale Verwervingen. (more…)

Francis Bacon’s Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing (1969) previously in the collection of S.I. Newhouse will go to Christie’s New York on November 15 for its postwar and contemporary art evening sale. The piece is estimated at $14 million to $18 million. “It is an honor for Christie’s to present Francis Bacon’s remarkable Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing from the Collection of S.I. Newhouse,” says Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti. “This consummate canvas by Bacon is a wonderful representation of Mr. Newhouse’s extraordinary eye for quality, that has been constantly reflected throughout his entire art collection.” (more…)

Art Dubai has named its new international director, Chloe Vaitsou, formerly the head of audience development for Frieze Fairs. “Art Dubai has been the catalyst for the growth of the region’s art scene over the past decade. I’m excited by Art Dubai’s plans to grow the brand internationally and I hope my international experience will support these ambitions,” Vaitsou says.  (more…)

The Studio Museum in Harlem has launched a new initiative, “Find Art Here,” which places reproductions of works from its collection at public schools, libraries, and service centers in Harlem. “‘Find Art Here’ renews and deepens our relationships in one of the best ways possible, by bringing our collection into the lives of our neighbors, right where they are,” says Studio Museum director Thelma Golden. “We have always been a point of contact between extraordinary artists of African descent and the Harlem communities that we’re proud to serve.” (more…)

Maria Seferian will take the helm of the MOCA Board in LA, taking the place of Maurice Marciano and Lilly Tartikoff Karatz.  She previously  served as interim director of the museum from the fall of 2013 into the spring 2014. (more…)

Late collect Peggy Cooper Cafritz’s holdings of African American art will be donated to Duke Ellington School of the Arts in D.C. and the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Washington Post reports. “She was always very clear that her collection was not only important to her, but it had to live beyond her,” says artist and Duke Ellington alum Hank Willis Thomas. (more…)

Julian Schnabel is interviewed in the New York Times this week as he opens a show of his works shown alongside pieces from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay. “At a certain moment the museum said: ‘You can’t have this or that painting,’ so I said ‘I can’t do it,’ ” he says. “I thought, if I can’t pick the paintings, there’s no reason for me to say that I picked the paintings.” (more…)

Mickalene Thomas is interviewed in Harper’s Bazaar this week, sitting down with Kimberly Drew to speak on diversity, representation and practice. “I think it’s important for us to see ourselves continually,” she says. “When you see yourself, that gives you a sense of power, of ownership and validation.”  (more…)

The city of Chicago’s decision to sell a mural by Kerry James Marshall in order to fund improvements to its library branch has met with controversy, including a critique by Marshall himself.  “Considering that only last year Mayor [Rahm] Emanuel and Commissioner [of the Department of Cultural Affairs Mark] Kelly dedicated another mural I designed downtown for which I was asked to accept one dollar, you could say the City of Big Shoulders has wrung every bit of value they could from the fruits of my labor,” he says. (more…)

Julia Turner will become the Arts Editor at the LA Times. “Los Angeles is where entertainment, culture and technology intersect in interesting and exciting ways,” says Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine. “Julia is a versatile and experienced editor who will work with our journalists to capture, criticize and have a conversation about everything from literature to emerging business models.” (more…)

Art Newspaper has a piece this week on Anni Albers, and her work in the field of textiles. “Painting is applied on to something,” she writes in one text. “Sculpture uses a given material… [Weaving] is closest to architecture because it is a building-up out of a single element, building a whole out of single elements.”