The Mike Kelley Foundation has announced the 2018 recipients of its Artist Project Grants, including projects by Andrea Fraser at the Hammer Museum and a presentation of work by Rodney McMillian at the Underground Museum. “The grantees this year reflect Los Angeles’s energized and diverse art scene, and underscore the foundation’s commitment to support risk-taking, underseen, and hard-to-fund work,” says Mary Clare Stevens, the foundation’s executive director. (more…)

The New Yorker embarks on a profile of new Met Director Max Hollein, and his string of past appointments in San Francisco and Frankfurt. The piece focuses on Hollein’s experience in both large-scale renovation projects and updating programming to appeal to digital natives.  (more…)

Artist Christo is planning to open a version of his Mastaba sculpture in London, the Guardian reports, featuring an interview with the artist as part of the announcement. “I have no reason to justify myself as an artist. I cannot explain my art. Everything I do professionally is irrational and useless,” he says. “I make things that have no function – except maybe to make pleasure.” (more…)

Max Hollein, currently the director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, will become the 10th director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Times reports. “The museum has the opportunity to be not just an art destination,” Mr. Hollein says, but also “a major provider of understanding and different narratives to a global audience.” (more…)

Cathy Wilkes will represent Great Britain at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Art News reports. Wilkes joins a group of recent exhibitors including Phyllida Barlow (2017), Sarah Lucas (2015) and Jeremy Deller (2013). (more…)

Ousted MOCA curator Helen Molesworth will give the commencement address for UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture this year, the LA Times reports. “It is in the times that are most challenging that we, as artists, must engage the world with our greatest passion, clarity and forward-thinking vision,” says Dean Brett Steele. “To be an artist in an uncertain future, you must be brave, you must be bold, and you must strive for excellence.” (more…)

A rare Peter Paul Rubens oil sketch on paper, Head of an African Man Wearing a Turban, has had an export ban placed upon it by the UK Government, after being offered for sale for upwards of £7.7 million.  “This powerful sketch is not only a stunning example of his work but hugely important as a rare representation of an African man in Europe at this time. I hope that a buyer can be found so that this outstanding item can be kept in the UK for future generations to enjoy,” says arts minister, Michael Ellis.  (more…)

Toronto police are on the hunt for a woman spotting stealing a stone from a Yoko Ono installation at the Gardiner museum.  According to police, the suspect “just picked it up and walked away with” the stone, valued at $17,500. (more…)

The Public Art Fund’s summer season has been announced, including a public project by Erwin Wurm that will feature a bloated bus serving free hot dogs to hungry New Yorkers. Other projects from Tauba Auerbach and B. Wurtz are also slated for the summer months. (more…)

Printed Matter has appointed Sonel Breslav as its new director of fairs and editions, Artforum reports. “We are thrilled to have Sonel taking up the fair leadership—her long commitment to artists’ publishing and experience working closely with artists makes her remarkably well-suited for the role,” Printed Matter’s executive director Max Schumann says. (more…)

Documenta’s newly founded Documenta Institute is looking to hire a group of professors to research the past editions of the fair in Kassel. “This expertise will keep alive the history and success of this global art exhibition outside the actual five-yearly exhibitions themselves,” says Boris Rhein, the Hesse minister for culture and science. “Together with the Documenta archive, the Documenta Institute and its research will turn the 60-year history of the exhibition into a slice of art history.” (more…)

The Frick has announced the latest iteration of expansion plans, designed by the architect Annabelle Selldorf, which keeps the museum’s famed garden as part of its plans. “Gardens are works of art,” says Robert A.M. Stern, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture. “This one is in perfect condition by Russell Page, one of the pre-eminent garden designers of the 20th century, and it should be respected as such. It’s as important as a tapestry or even a painting, and I think the museum is obliged to recognize its importance.” (more…)

The Victoria and Albert Museum has opened the conversation the return of Ethiopian treasures looted by British troops in 1868, the Art Newspaper reports, taking a step in the direction of France’s newly open policy towards restitution of looted artifacts. “It behoves an institution like the V&A to reflect on this imperial past, to be open about this history and to interpret that history,” says V&A director, Tristram Hunt. “We should not to be afraid of history, even if it is complicated and challenging. As an institution, we should have the bravery to deal with it.” (more…)

The Condo Gallery Share Program has announced the participants for its 2018 event in Mexico City, the Art News reports. The project will see 22 galleries in the Mexican capital hosting 49 from around the globe.  (more…)

Rikrit Tiravanija has been tapped for the latest flag commission in Creative Time’s Pledge of Allegiance project. The flag is a white version of the American flag with the words “FEAR EATS THE SOUL” emblazoned on its surface.  (more…)

The Met is embarking on an ambitious overhaul of the skylights in its European paintings galleries, the New York Times reports.  “This is all about the light,” says Keith Christiansen, the chairman of the European paintings department.  (more…)

The Art Newspaper publishes piece on the ongoing efforts to cultivate a market for Picasso in Asia, as a major portrait tests the market in Hong Kong this weekend.  “In recent years, most of Picasso’s major portraits and figurative works, in particular those from the 1930s, at auction [worldwide] have gone to private collectors in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong,” says Jasmine Chen, a specialist at Sotheby’s who is at the center of these strategies. (more…)

Sotheby’s is offering a $30 million Jackson Pollock drip painting for its May Post-War and Contemporary Sale in New York, Art Newspaper reports, a work similar to one that set Pollock’s auction record at $58.4m in 2013. “These works come up at auction from time to time, but this one is most akin to the one that made the record price,” Lisa Dennison, chairman of Sotheby’s North and South America, says. “It’s a very full drawing, and it’s one that goes edge to edge, which is what you really look for in Pollock. They’ve been described as having no limits, just edges. He manages to maintain it as a discrete entity, rather than looking like a fragment, but convey the idea of the infinite as well.” (more…)

The Daily Mail does a bit of digging on last year’s sale of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, noting that the high price was the result of a regional bidding war between two parties from the UAE and Qatar vying for the work. “They gave their proxies instructions, saying ‘you can go as high as you want, just make sure you get it,'” an unnamed source says. “It got to $450 million and the Emiratis gave up.” (more…)

The Louvre has rejected calls from France’s Culture Minister to set the Mona Lisa off on a tour of the nation, the Art Newspaper reports. The painting is so fragile that it can no longer be moved, according to museum director Jean-Luc Martinez.  “Doing so could cause irreversible damage.”

Art collector Budi Tek has announced plans to donate his full collection to a new foundation run in partnership with LACMA. “If I share more than a thousand pieces of artworks worth a lot of money, it actually means nothing,” he says. “I’d like to group it together to preserve the legacy, and actually to keep it forever. Then it means something to the world, because the collection’s meant to belong for the world.” (more…)

Creative Time has named Justine Ludwig, former deputy director and chief curator of Dallas Contemporary, as its new director. “I have admired Creative Time, with its commitment to social justice and art within the public sphere, for many years,” she said in a statement. “I believe that art is one of the greatest tools we have access to in creating better communities, and am committed to a Creative Time that stays ahead of the curve and establishes the golden standard for the social impact of creative visions.” (more…)

Christie’s will offer a landmark Brancusi piece, La Jeune fille sophistiquée at its May Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York, a piece which is rumored to be estimated at $70 million. “A daring and exquisite work of art, the Brancusi from The Collection or Elizabeth Stafford represents one of the vanishingly small number of the artist’s bronzes with its original carved base not in a museum collection, says Conor Jordan, Deputy Chairman, Impressionist and Modern Art, New York. “Its appearance on the market will be an exciting event for the world’s foremost collectors of Modern art.” (more…)

London mayor Sadiq Khan has launched a £1 million fund for grassroots arts projects as part of his draft strategy for encouraging arts and cultural development in the city. “I know how difficult it can be for emerging artists and small creative organizations to get quick access to funding to support some amazing grassroots cultural activity in communities around the city,” he says. (more…)