Lawrence Abu Hamdan has won the 2016 Nam June Paik Prize, given each year by the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany.  Abu Hamdan’s work investigated the shooting of Palestinian teenagers by the Israeli army, and the attempts by soldiers to cover up the noise of the killings.  “In his installation [earshot] he has created an open space in which we can focus with precision on his subject, its means of representation and on our own role as viewers,” the jury wrote in a statement. “The topic of the representation of violence is of great contemporary relevance, and the artist encourages us to debate key moral issues in a different way.” (more…)

The New York Times visits Mark di Suvero in his Astoria studio complex for a tour of the expansive location, which includes gallery spaces, several studios, and even several living spaces for artists to stay.  The article also profiles the artist’s ongoing engagement with the neighborhood around his complex, which he built and developed with the help of neighborhood residents.   (more…)

Mary Boone is fighting back in her feud with Alec Baldwin this week, accusing the actor of attempted tax fraud in the purchase of a Ross Bleckner piece.  Baldwin had previously had the work shipped to California upon purchase, before sending it back to his New York apartment, a move Boone describes as an attempt to avoid New York sales tax.  “I respectfully submit that Baldwin cannot connive an elaborate scheme to evade sales taxes and yet claim that there are any circumstances under which he is entitled to punitive or exemplary damages in connection with the same transaction,” she said in a sworn affidavit. (more…)

Herzog de Meuron has won the contract to design Berlin’s Museum of the 20th Century with a low, squat design that many have likened to a train station or farmers’ market.  “A riding school? A station? A depot? All these associations are correct,” says the architect Jacques Herzog, emphasizing the space’s shared intent as a site for activity and community. (more…)

London mayor Sadiq Khan is pushing for more affordable studio space for artists in the city’s increasingly expensive real estate market, and establishing the “Creative Land Trust” to provide loans to artists looking to secure space.  “Culture is in the DNA of the capital but we cannot be complacent,” Khan says. “As property prices rise and new areas of the city grow, artists are finding themselves unable to put down roots here. I am committed to improving access to dedicated, affordable workspace so that the next generation of creatives are given the extra support they require to flourish.” (more…)

The New York Times takes a deeper exploration of the Frans Haals forgery that had convinced experts at the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum, and which was recently discovered as a falsely attributed canvas.  “The ones who have researched it until now are good researchers, but they’re not familiar with the handwriting of Frans Hals, so to speak, so that’s an extra reason to be careful,” says Martin Bijl, a Dutch Masters restoration professional. (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports on the damage done last year to the British Museum’s Townley Venus, one of its most treasured holdings.  The statue had its thumb knocked off by caterers last December, but was subject to an extensive restoration before going back on view.  “We have taken steps to ensure it does not happen again. Any staff who are involved in managing or invigilating events have gone through retraining on the protection of objects before and during events,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

Billionaire David M. Rubenstein will head the Smithsonian Institution board, the Washington Post reports.  “I love the museums, and I love the learning. It keeps me young,” Rubenstein says.  “I don’t play golf. I don’t drink alcohol, so I’m not going to bars.  At this point in my life, I only do the things I want to do. This isn’t work. This is pleasurable.” (more…)

A group of protestors were arrested outside Art Institute of Chicago on Monday after blockading Michigan Avenue in protest over one trustee’s alleged complicity in cuts to higher education funding.  The activity called on trustee Kenneth Griffin to “push for free, fully funded public higher education, funded by taxes on corporations and the rich.” (more…)

Artist Derrick Adams has won this year’s Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, a $50,000 award.  The award is given each year since since 2006, to “an African-American artist of great innovation and promise.” (more…)

Pipilotti Rist speaks to Artforum this week, as the artist’s opens her New Museum survey, Pixel Forest.  “Pixel Forest is, in a way, reconciling daily and nightly lights with our synapses and inner feelings; I try to bring a poetic order,” she says. “It’s a very emotional, intuitive work that converges both the technological and the biological.” (more…)

The New York Times has a lengthy piece on Miri Regev, Israel’s Culture Minister, and the rift she has created between the state and its left-leaning creative class.  “There’s a new group on the right that says: We’re unwilling to bow our heads any longer,” she says. “We’re unwilling to let the left decide for us if we’re in charge.” (more…)

One of the top museum officials in the Italian city of Turin has resigned following a public spat with the city’s mayor.  Patrizia Asproni, the head of the Turin Museum Foundation, stepped down after the city’s populist mayor, Chiara Appendino, publicly criticized her over the failure to secure a Manet exhibition.  The feud underscores growing uncertainty over support for the arts in the city, as Appendino’s stance towards the city’s institutions continues to garner criticism.  “It is a terrible thing that the mayor wants to decide which exhibitions go to museums,” Asproni says. “I think this [calling for my resignation] was a political move because of course I arrived with the previous mayor and he asked me to build the culture of the town and I said: ‘Yes, of course, why not?’” (more…)

Ulay is interviewed in The Observer this week, discussing his 1976 piece There’s a Criminal Touch to Art, in which he entered New National Gallery in Berlin and stole a painting by Carl Spitzweg.  “I made a statement that this was a demonstrative action, not a theft in the traditional sense,” he says, referring to the work as a “protest action, first of all against the institutionalization of art, secondarily about discrimination against foreign workers.” (more…)

Miami-Dade College has been legally ordered to pay the legal fees for art dealer Gary Nader following litigation over Nader’s failed attempts to build a cultural center at the school’s campus.  Nader alleged that the school had conspired with another bidder in the attempt to redevelop a parking lot in downtown Miami that resulted in his failed attempt to build a museum. (more…)

The Walton Family has offered a challenge grant of up to $900,000 to the Smithsonian to fund the digitization of the museum archives.  “The task of digitizing the archives’ vast collections for broad accessibility requires a dedicated team of experts and time,” director Kate Haw said. “This challenge grant from the distinguished Walton Family Foundation allows us to expand both our technical and staff capacities to ramp up our pace beyond what we could have imagined.” (more…)

Mayor Gallery in London has filed a lawsuit against the publishers of the Agnes Martin catalogue raisonné, and the committee responsible for authenticating her works, claiming that 13 works left out of the book, and held by its clients, have been rendered worthless.  “When I read the complaint, I failed to see a legal claim. I’d never seen a legal complaint without a claim, until now. I compare it to an opera without music,” says Aaron Richard Golub, the lawyer representing the authentication committee.   (more…)

Galerie Perrotin will open a new space in Tokyo in the Spring of 2017, the gallery announced this week.  The space will be located in the Roppongi neighborhood, on the ground floor of the Piramide Building, and is currently covered by wallpaper designed by French artist Pierre Le-Tan, reimagining works by the gallery’s artists. (more…)

The New York Times has a piece this week on the pervasive presence and threat of dust towards the works in the MoMA galleries, the focus of a new new audio guide work by artist Nina Katchadourian.  “I like coming at the big things by what‘s immediate and observable to me,” the artist says. (more…)

Art Basel has announced the exhibitor list for the 2017 edition of its Hong Kong art fair, bringing a group of 187 galleries to the Hong Kong Convention Center.   (more…)

Paula Cooper is featured in the New York Times this week, as the paper spotlights her impact on the New York art world, and her pioneering approach to running a gallery, including her opening of the first gallery south of Houston during the 1970’s.  “I went because that’s where the artists were,” she says. (more…)

William Eggleston is profiled in the New York Times this month, as the artist reflects back on his work and his studious sense of the photographic image.  “I know they’re there, the angles and compositions,” Eggleston says. “Every little minute thing works with every other one there. All of these images are composed. They’re little paintings to me.” (more…)

Steve Cohen’s art collecting gets a spotlight in Fortune this week, as the Hedge Fund Manager shares his vision and strategies on acquiring works.  “I am purely from the gut,” he says. “And I know right away. If it stays in my brain—let’s say I go see a picture, if I keep thinking about it, I know it’s something I like. If I forget about it, then I know, couldn’t care less.” (more…)

The New York Times has a profile on Mark Leckey this week, as the artist opens his exhibition at MoMA PS1, and considers his place in the modern art world.  “Art is changing — I don’t know if what I’m doing feels like it belongs to an older era, one older white man having a show,” he says. “The idea of celebrated artists is being rightly questioned. So to do a show like this, though it comes with all this excitement and energy, at the same time, it might already be — not archaic — but belong to the past.” (more…)