The Menil Drawing Collection in Houston has received a massive, 110-work gift from the holdings of two trustees, featuring an impressive collection of works by Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and other mid-Twentieth Century masters.  “I’ve never been a collector with a capital C,” says donor Louisa Stude Sarofim. “It’s just been a matter of looking, and loving art.” (more…)

Icelandic musicians Sigur Ros have announced an ambitious multimedia performance at the Tate Modern’s new building.  The work explores “the past, present and future of Tate Modern, the Bankside building that hosts it in London and its new extension.” (more…)

The New Yorker has an interesting piece on tech start-ups and the art world this week, comparing initial valuations of tech companies to the often abstracted valuations of the art market. “The point of sale, rather than the point of creation, came to take precedence in determining the primary meaning for certain works of art,” says writer and critic James Panero. (more…)

Hauser and Wirth has announced plans to temporarily occupy the former home of Dia Chelsea at 548 West 22nd Street, until the gallery completes construction on its new exhibition complex in the neighborhood.  “We are honored and delighted by the prospect of presenting Hauser and Wirth exhibitions in the birthplace of the West Chelsea arts scene,” the gallery said in a statement. (more…)

An article in the New York Times this week looks at the upcoming market events in Basel and London in the coming weeks, and notes a more nuanced and complex sales picture in response to what many have considered a period of market correction.  “There’s a growing rift between price and value,” says advisor Heather Flow. “In some cases, gallery prices are higher than the levels at which similar works are being flipped,” meaning resales at auction. (more…)

Galerie Perrotin has joined the migration of galleries to the Lower East Side, and will set up shop next year at 130 Orchard Street.  The 25,000-square-foot space echoes moves by other galleries as Chelsea rents continue to rise. (more…)

The New York Times spends a day in the offices of Dominique Lévy, as the dealer prepares for her gallery’s booth at Art Basel next week.  “It’s really your one moment where you can show who you are,” Lévy says. “It’s acutely important for existing relationships, new relationships, the way the art world perceives you.” (more…)

Venus Over Manhattan has named gallery director Anna Furney as a partner in the gallery.  Furney has worked with the space since 2012.   (more…)

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo has tapped Rem Koolhaas’s OMA to design its new campus expansion.  “Over the next year, we will work together to imagine a renewed Albright-Knox for the twenty-first century, one that includes state-of-the-art spaces for special exhibitions and the display of our world-renowned collection,” museum director Janne Sirén says. (more…)

The Louvre has reopened following the massive flooding that swept through Paris last week, causing over €1 billion in damage to the city, and â‚¬1.5 million in lost revenue to the museum itself.   (more…)

Michelangelo Pistoletto has been tapped as the next artist to show at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. “I am very pleased to be presenting a comprehensive show of my work within a place brimming with history, tradition, and craft,” he said of the show, opening this September. “I look forward to seeing my art in an entirely new context.” (more…)

The Atlantic reports on the continued efforts of museums to make their collections more accessible to the blind and those with low vision, including Louvre galleries of replica sculptures for visitors to touch, or the Met’s “Multisensory Met” project.  “We see through our brains, not our eyes,” art historian and museum educator Georgia Krantz says. “The eye is just one of the channels through which sensory information is passed to the brain for processing.” (more…)

Pyotr Pavlensky, the Russian artist who set fire to the doors of Russia’s Federal Security Service headquarters, has walked free, subject only to a fine for the damage, which he refuses to pay.“It does not matter how the trial ended,” he said. “What is important is that we were able to unmask, uncover the truth: the government is founded on the methods of terror.” (more…)

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation has recruited artist and oral historian Alan Nakagawa to aid in its plan to end traffic deaths, approaching language in a way to reinforce shared space and communal perceptions of the roads.  The artist will “will continue this tradition, with a focus on how we can infuse art into design to create safer streets,” according to a statement. (more…)

A commission of U.S. Senators are working on a proposal to make Nazi-looted works easier to recover by their original owners, the New York Times reports.  “It is our moral duty to help those survivors and their families achieve what justice can be found,” said NY Senator Charles E. Schumer. (more…)

The Bronx Museum has delayed an exhibition of Cuban artworks, following concerns by the Cuban government that any works sent to the U.S. for the show may be seized in lieu of claims by American citizens.  There are $7 billion in outstanding claims over property seized by the Castro government during the 1959 revolution, and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) in Havana had expressed concern over the works’ immunity from seizure.  “This is an issue that is going to be very difficult and I don’t see a short-term solution to it,” says Cuban art dealer Ramón Cernuda. “In the current climate, I really don’t see any important museums in the US wanting to convey an image of not caring for or considering valid claims to ownership of art or other claims against the Cuban government. It’s not just the uphill battle of getting the immunity, but the backlash that could come with that.” (more…)

Richard Prince and Gagosian Gallery have once again been named in a copyright infringement lawsuit over a photograph of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious.  Photographer Dennis Morris has filed the lawsuit over a photograph used as the cover of a book by David Dalton. (more…)

A recently authenticated and restored Peter Paul Rubens painting has gone on show at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg this week, after spending over 80 years in storage.  “For many years this Rubens was regarded as a work by the artist’s school,” says museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky. (more…)

Influential Brazilian artist Tunga has passed away from cancer-related causes this week at the age of 64, Art News reports.  The artist, whose work is held in high regard in Brazil as a pioneer of a unique brand of surrealism that transfers aspects of the human form to strange, towering structures and situations, had seen increased prominence in the United States in recent years, in part through the advocacy of his gallery, Luhring Augustine.  “Tunga was a tremendous force both personally and artistically, and was as firmly rooted in Brazilian aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical traditions as he was in their international counterparts,” Luhring Augustine director Donald Johnson-Montenegro said in a statement. “He was both rigorous and curious in his investigations, and he leaves behind a remarkable legacy through a complex and sensual body of work that is equally distinctive and evocative.” (more…)

The University of Iowa is moving forward with a $60 million plan to build a new art museum complex on its Des Moines campus, which will house its collection, including Jackson Pollock’s iconic Mural from 1943.  “This project would bring the art collection back on campus by constructing a new museum building coupled with the renovation of existing space within the UI Main Library,” the construction proposal reads. “Given the importance of access to the collection for students, faculty and the university community, locating a new and permanent facility on or near the main campus core is an important feature of the proposed site.” (more…)

Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains installation in the Las Vegas desert has been vandalized, the city’s local news reports.  “Yes, we are very upset about this vandalism,” says Amanda Horn, the director of communications at the Nevada Museum of Art. “It is something we knew was a risk when we installed an art display on public lands.” (more…)

Martin Creed is interviewed in the NYT this week, as he opens his retrospective at the Park Avenue Armory.  “I feel bad to say I’m an artist, because I don’t really know what art is,” Creed says. “I would say I’m a person who tries to do things and work in a field that is commonly known as art. I try and do things because I find life is difficult and I want to make it better. More bearable.” (more…)

Sotheby’s has added a $40 million Amedeo Modigliani to its upcoming Impressionist and Modern sale this month in London.  The work is a portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne, the artist’s lover during his last years, who committed suicide after his death.   (more…)

A visitor to the SFMoMA this week tripped and fell into a an Andy Warhol Triple Elvis, resulting in the painting’s removal from the gallery for inspection and repairs.  The damage reported to the painting was noted as “minimal,” by conservators. (more…)