LACMA is selling the Mid-Wilshire home of Michael Govan.  “Due to the ongoing impact of the pandemic, the museum is selling the director’s residence to realize these proceeds,” said a museum spokesperson. “The director will no longer live in housing owned by the museum.” (more…)

The NYT has a profile on artist KAWS, as he prepares to open his major retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, which is already sold out in its first weekend. “His years as a graffiti artist were incredibly important for him, and really formed his artistic vision,” says Eugenie Tsai, the show’s curator. “I think his studio practice is one part of that, but it’s still predicated on showing in public spaces.” (more…)

SFMoMA director Neal Benezra will step down. “What we are announcing is the beginning of a transition,” he says, “not a departure.” (more…)

Actor Riz Ahmed and Chisenhale Gallery curator Sandy Nairne are part of a new commission to diversify London’s public sculptures, the Art Newspaper reports. “For far too long, too many Londoners have felt unrepresented by the statues, street names and building names all around them, and it’s important that we do what we can to ensure our rich and diverse history is celebrated and properly commemorated in our city,” says Mayor Sadiq Khan.  (more…)

The German government’s advisory panel on Nazi-looted art has ruled that the city of Cologne should return an Egon Schiele that was likely sold under duress by Heinrich Rieger, a Jewish Viennese dentist and art collector. “We are relieved that there are now prospects for a fair and just solution with the return of the work to the family,” says Yilmaz Dziewior, the director of the Museum Ludwig. (more…)

The WSJ takes a tour of Annabelle Selldorf’s art-filled home this week, as she reflects on her many projects with galleries, and how it has informed her taste in art. “I’ve worked on art-related projects since early days,” she says. “Art is the thing that stimulates, inspires and informs in ways that sort of activate this part of the brain.” (more…)

A piece in The Guardian this week features snapshots from the organizer of the late Christo, which features a range of meetings and appointments, including several lines like “CALL ANDY WARHOL.” “Christo and Jeanne-Claude also spent quite a bit of time with Andy Warhol. They had lots of friends in common and would lunch or dine together or go to the movies. Christo said he was a very sweet, almost shy in person,” says Lorenza Giovanelli, Christo’s studio manager, friend and confidante. (more…)

The NYT has a piece this week on the number of Florine Stettheimer pieces appearing on the market of late, and the allegations of fake works that have followed in their wake. “The challenge with Stettheimer,” says Christie’s deputy chair Eric Widing, “is so little of her art comes to market that there is a dearth of good pricing data for people to make an assessment.”  (more…)

The Met is considering selling off works from its collection to fund for the collection’s care and current expenses. “This is the time when we need to keep our options open,” says director Max Hollein. “None of us have a full perspective on how the pandemic will play out. It would be inappropriate for us not to consider it, when we’re still in this foggy situation.” (more…)

NBC reports this week on the newly approved National Museum of the American Latino, and the efforts to spearhead funding for getting the museum built, including using funds. already on hand. “We’ll go ahead and do that, but Congress is going to have to appropriate later as we move forward,” says interim director Eduardo Diaz. (more…)

The Netherlands will embark on an ambitious new plan to repatriate artifacts removed from former colonies. “We must treat colonial collections with great sensitivity,” says Ingrid van Engelshoven, the minister of education. “There is no place in the Dutch State Collection for cultural heritage objects that were acquired through theft.” (more…)

Artist Nick Cave has won his court case in Kinderhook, NY over the right to show a massive text piece on the facade of Jack Shainman’s Schoolhouse gallery. Ruling that the words in the piece “were displayed as a political message and art for a temporary period of time and therefore Kinderhook Village Code does not apply to regulate the exhibit as a sign.” (more…)

The Parrish Art Museum has tapped Kelly Taxter as its next director. “We’re at a crucial moment for change in the art world,” she tells the NYT. “And I’m excited to be a part of it. I hope to make the museum relevant year-round, on both a local and global level.” (more…)

The New York Times charts the challenges faced by dealers and arts professionals in the UK as post-Brexit trade restrictions and fees cause increasing challenges to doing business. “Brexit has made the U.K. a faraway country,” says Belgian collector Andre Gordts. “It just makes things extremely difficult, enhancing the trade of bureaucrats and punishing hard-working artists and honest tradesmen in their galleries.” (more…)

French arts institutions have written an open letter to the government asking for permission to reopen.  “For an hour, for a day, for a week or for a month, let us half open our doors, even if we have to close them,” it reads. “We express the wish to be able to take care of visitors now, because it seems essential to us that places of culture can once again offer a sensitive aid to mental well-being to cope with this crisis. Art, like health, helps heal the human soul.” (more…)

A piece in the New York Times notes the varied responses museums in the U.S. surrounding the pandemic, noting some institutions’ prolonged closures while others lobby the government to push for broader reopening. “The decision making has been really erratic,” said Laura Lott, president of the American Alliance of Museums. “There are 50-plus sets of different rules and thousands of museums making different decisions.” (more…)

The Supreme Court has sided with Germany in the Guelph Treasure case, refusing to require the country to return the artifacts under the conditions of the case. “A ‘taking of property’ could be ‘wrongful under international law’ only where a state deprived ‘an alien’ of property,” the Supreme Court said. (more…)

Artist Derek Fordjour has joined David Kordansky Gallery, Art News reports. “He’s created an immediately recognizable iconography and materiality that grapples with complex and urgent themes of identity, race, vulnerability, and grief,” says gallery partner Mike Homer. (more…)

The Spanish government has struck a deal to keep the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Spain, Art Newspaper reports. “The [culture] minister has managed to agree a solid contract lasting 15 years, with the option for the State to purchase the collection at the end of that period. The annual fee is €6.5m a year for a set of paintings and sculptures with a value of €1bn,” the Spanish culture ministry said in a statement. (more…)

Dealer Richard Feigen has passed away at age 90 after contracting Covid-19. Feigen was an early pioneer in Soho before shifting into Old Masters works, where he solidified his reputation as a cunning tastemaker. (more…)

Adam D. Weinberg, Shirin Neshat and more talk in the New York Times this week about how Covid-19 has changed their ways of life, and how they’re working to continue supporting charities and causes during this challenging time. “I miss the serendipity of bumping into people, crossing paths in a spontaneous way,” Weinberg says. “Some of our best conversations used to take place in an elevator or on our way out the door. Those random things that are the fabric of our lives are so greatly diminished.” (more…)

A group of Surrealist pieces held by the artist Man Ray‘s former assistant will head to auction at Christie’s Paris this March.  The collection includes work by the artist as well as from his close friends and collaborators, like Marcel Duchamp. (more…)

Cuban artist Tania Bruguera has been arrested in Havana for her involvement in a protest at the Ministry of Culture this past week.  “Cubans cannot accept that there are artists in prison” the artist said in a statement. (more…)

A group of mayors from ten major US cities have delivered an open a letter to the Biden-Harris administration, pushing for a federal support plan for the arts. “Given what we know about the efficacy of the arts in developing the conditions that are vital to civic healing and unity, social connection and belonging, collective trust and safety, life-long learning, and economic and social justice,” it reads, “it would strengthen our recovery efforts to arm our arts agencies (NEA, NEH, IMLS) with focus and intention in order to serve our most pressing needs while also ensuring that overall arts and culture strategies are incorporated into initiatives within other parts of the administration and across federal departments and national recovery work.” (more…)