New York State Representative Nydia Velazquez has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to ease student debt for those working in the arts by $10,000.  “Those working in the arts and related fields make invaluable contributions to New York City and to our entire nation,” said Velázquez. “Individuals that dedicate themselves to these professions enrich our culture and my bill would provide many of them with relief from mounting student loan debt.”  (more…)

François Pinault and architect Tadao Ando are teaming up to convert Paris’s Bourse de commerce into a massive art museum, The Guardian reports.  The new exhibition site will serve as a permanent home for the luxury goods magnate’s â‚¬1.25 billion art collection.  “These are tumultuous times in Europe – the recurring terrorist incidents and the UK withdrawal from the EU have fueled anxiety over what the future holds, and countries and people alike seem unsure of their own identities,” Ando said of the project, hoping that it might “renew hope in the future.” (more…)

The Guardian takes a tour of the Centro Botin in Santander, Spain this week, the recently completed art gallery designed by Renzo Piano, which has already earned praise for its daring architectural design, levitating 20 feet above ground on a series of slender pillars.  “From the very beginning, I wanted the building to fly,” Piano says of his design. (more…)

Artist Ai Weiwei is featured in a podcast with the New Yorker’s David Remnick this week, as the artist reflects on his recent projects in the United States and Europe, and his political agency in both China and abroad.  “The whole thing is so ridiculous,” he says of the Chinese government’s seizing of his passport. “Right after I got my passport I left because they said I was free… I want to test them, to make them know I am not afraid.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on the string of closures for small and mid-size galleries in New York, and the challenges dealers are facing as the market leaves less and less room for younger artists. “I really feel like I’m not doing some of the things I love most — it’s just a very different business at this level,” says Candice Madey of On Stellar Rays, which just closed its doors in favor of a project-focused operational structure. “I’ve missed more of the spontaneity and the openness.” (more…)

The Financial Times profiles a group of galleries expanding to unfamiliar locales and cities in an attempt to break the mold of how art galleries do business in the 21st Century, focusing on projects like Thomas Dane’s new exhibition space in Naples.  “Everything we try to do is artist-led, and artists absolutely love Naples,” Dane writes.  “I wanted to offer them a different and interesting space, rather than just expanding. And I feel it will give them and myself more freedom to do what we want, rather than, say, in New York.” (more…)

Julia Joern, a partner at David Zwirner Gallery and a major voice in the gallery’s communications and publishing departments, is leaving the gallery due to health reasons, the Art News reports.  “In a field where a great deal of business is still conducted in a very old-fashioned way, Julia has been a relentless innovator and pioneer, and in the process has created the very blueprint for all the marketing efforts that are now necessary to effectively run and grow a large-scale, international art gallery,” David Zwirner himself wrote in an all-staff email last week. (more…)

In a timely announcement during New York’s Gay Pride weekend, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that artist Anthony Goicolea has been tapped to design the first official monument to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, which will be installed in Hudson River Park. “It feels like there are certain shapes and patterns that are encoded in our DNA as humans that transcend any particular culture and speak to how we are unified in the larger scheme,” the artist says. “I wanted to create a space that feels familiar, even though it is new.” (more…)

An altarpiece by Jacopo Tintoretto, formerly owned by David Bowie, will return to Venice for the 2019 Biennale, the Art Newspaper reports, after Belgian researchers discovered an underdrawing implying the work was created earlier than previously thought.  The show in Venice will serve as a “unique opportunity to show the Flemish masters to the world in the place where—more than any other—they drew inspiration from their Italian colleagues and from the classical legacy,” according to Ben Weyts, Belgium’s minister for tourism. (more…)

The Tate Modern has announced plans to stage the largest ever UK retrospective of the work of Amedeo Modigliani, The Guardian reports.  The exhibition will compile a wide view of the artist’s work, exploring his personal life and relationships to other artists of the era alongside his substantial body of paintings and sculpture. (more…)

A series of Antony Gormley sculptures on Crosby Beach outside Liverpool have been vandalized with brightly colored graffiti, The Guardian reports. “We want everyone to enjoy and interact with the impressive Antony Gormley statues on Crosby beach, which are synonymous with Sefton,” a spokesman says. “However, following this incident, we have been contacted directly by Mr Gormley with a view of removing these permanent decorations which we will now look into.” (more…)

The organizers of this year’s Documenta 14 are expanding the exhibition to a satellite exhibition in Luanda, Angola, where they will show a series of works by artists of African descent. “The last decade or so has seen the increased prominence of artists from Africa exhibiting across the contemporary artistic platform in the West,” says Congolese collector Sindika Dokolo, who is helping to fund the project. “I am delighted to help in initiating this opportunity of showing the African artists being exhibited in Documenta 14 for the first time on the continent.” (more…)

The Guardian charts Nicholas Serota’s impact on the Tate during his tenure as its leader, and the challenges the institution faces in the years ahead as it seeks to continue the momentum he created.  “Beginning to get the momentum going, to turn the battleship – that was the most difficult thing,” he says of his efforts. (more…)

The Albright-Knox in Buffalo has unveiled its major expansion plans, funded by a $42.5 million donation by billionaire Jeffrey Gundlach, which will see the museum expanding underground and out over its current sculpture garden. “At the present time we are able to show about 2.5 percent of our collection. We have hundreds of masterpieces literally in storage at all times, we are not able to share them with the public. A key question we have been challenging ourselves and our architects with is where should we build,” Janne Siren, director of the museum, said. (more…)

The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art is scrambling after nearly its entire staff resigned this week in protest over working conditions, the New York Times reports.  “How many organizations expect employees to work for 10- to 12-hour shifts without even a single 15-minute break,” says Nora Lupi, the former visitor services and membership manager. “How many institutions expect someone who makes less than $14/hr to be on call 24/7 for operational, managerial and executive assistant demands?” (more…)

The UK is preparing an online catalogue of its entire collection of publicly owned sculpture, the Art Newspaper reports.  The project will be headed up by Art UK, which led a similar effort in digitizing the nation’s collection of paintings in recent years.  The project is expected to be completed by 2020.  (more…)

Arthur Brand, the Dutch private investigator working on locating works from the the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist has stated that he believes some works are in the hands of former IRA members, the Daily Mail reports, and is confident he can bring at least some of the works home. “Former IRA sources have told me or people that I know that there has been talk about these paintings for years within the IRA,” he says.   (more…)

A report by non-profit group Americans for the Arts has figures claiming that the revenue generated nationwide by arts funding sits at $166.3 billion.  “Arts and cultural organizations are valued members of the business community. They employ people locally, purchase goods and services from within the community, are members of their Chambers of Commerce, and promote their regions,” the report reads.   (more…)

The New York Times writes on Jeff Koons’s bouquet of flowers sculpture for Paris, intended as a gift to the city in the wake of terrorist attacks, and on the strings attached to the gift that have complicated its installation process. “They presented this bouquet as a symbolic present to Paris, but then we realized it wasn’t exactly a present, since France had to pay to install it,” says art critic Isabel Pasquier. “Whether you appreciate his art or not, Jeff Koons is a businessman, and we quickly understood that he was offering Paris to himself as a present.” (more…)

Reports on a drop in UK lottery sales bodes poorly for arts funding in the country, as the total sales for the past year drop by £55 million.  “Given the current climate of economic uncertainty and increasing competition from the gambling sector, we expect 2017/18 to be equally, if not more, challenging for the National Lottery,” says Camelot (the UK Lottery operator) Chairman Jo Taylor. (more…)

Documenta is planning a permanent “Documenta Institute” in the city of Kassel, which will serve as a research center and events site.  The site is planned as a way to “keep alive the concept and experience of Documenta in the years between exhibitions,” according to a statement by the city.  (more…)

US scholar Kenneth Wayne is preparing an addition to the Amedeo Modigliani catalogue raisonné.  The work will complement Ambrogio Ceroni’s catalogue raisonné, first published in 1958.  “We plan to publish a supplement to Ceroni by 2020 with around 50 works,” Wayne says.

(more…)

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has offered to turn over Jean-Michel Basquiat and Pablo Picasso works given to him by Malaysian financier and art collector Jho Low, works which were believed to be purchased with funds from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).  The account, full of government money, was spent on personal excesses and extravagant gifts. (more…)

Three New York men have been charged with selling counterfeited Damien Hirst dot paintings online for more than $400,000, The Guardian reports. “The art market’s demand for limited editions can lead to fake pieces with little value,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.  “In this case, the alleged fraud went beyond plain imitation, and the defendants are charged with deceiving a multitude of buyers into purchasing counterfeit art that was falsely passed off as genuine.” (more…)