Writer Louis Menand is in this week’s issue of The New Yorker, reviewing the recent restoration of Mark Rothko’s Harvard Murals using a specially designed lighting system, and the small crowd that gathers each day to watch as the murals’ lights are turned off.  “You can still see the bones of the murals, the formal architecture—Rothko’s floating blocks, made to resemble portals in these pieces—but the glow is gone,” he writes.  “As one observer put it, when the lights go off, comedy turns into tragedy.” (more…)

London’s Hayward Gallery has commissioned a major commission from artist Carsten Höller for the artist’s upcoming retrospective, Decision, inviting the artist to design a pair of slides for installation on the outside of its facade.  “Decision will ask visitors to make choices, but also, more importantly, to embrace a kind of double vision that takes in competing points of view, and embodies what Höller calls a state of ‘active uncertainty’ – a frame of mind conducive to entertaining new possibilities.” says Ralph Rugoff, the gallery director. (more…)

Pace Gallery has announced an ambitious architectural expansion for its 540 West 25th Street location in New York, turning the building into an 8 floor gallery and office complex with 60,000 square feet of space.  “The last ten years have seen incredible changes in the art world as creative communities from different parts of the world have started to connect. Now it’s time for the art galleries to change too. This new building gives us the chance to reimagine what we are all about and that’s exactly what we plan to do,” says President Marc Glimcher. (more…)

A survey by Art Newspaper shows that almost one third of US Museum solo shows go to artists represented by just one of the top five galleries worldwide: Marian Goodman, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, or Pace.  “Curators are abdicating and delegating their responsibilities to more adventurous gallerists who, aside from the profit motive and in some respects because of it, seem in many cases to be bolder and more curious than their institutional counterparts,” says Robert Storr, the dean of the Yale University School of Art. (more…)

In the wake of the controversy over its canceled Hermann Nitsch show, Mexico City’s Museo Jumex has appointed Julieta González as chief curator and interim director, replacing the departed Patrick Charpenel.  “Although Patrick is now moving on, the bonds between him and Museo Jumex are indissoluble,” said Jumex heir Eugenio López Alonso. “I am certain we will have the opportunity to collaborate with him in the future.” (more…)

The thieves behind the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum have been identified, according to a report by Breitbart.  The career criminals George Reissfelder and Lenny DiMuzio were named as the perpetrators by anonymous sources within the FBI, which had recently been reinvestigating the case.  Reissfelder had previously been represented by Senator John Kerry during his days of private defense practice for a murder conviction, which was overturned.  “I don’t know if those paintings ended up on eBay,” Kerry once joked, “but they’re not on my wall!” (more…)

Tate Britain director Penelope Curtis will leave her position at the museum after five years at the helm of the museum that have been marked by criticism and occasionally turbulent personnel changes.  She will move to be the first international director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.  “I want to keep all that is good about the museum, which I admire deeply, while developing ways in which it can make more of its context and position,” she says, “especially in relation to the neighboring Modern Art Centre, and more widely.” (more…)

Lynda Benglis sits down with John Baldessari in this month’s issue of Interview magazine for an exchange in which the two artists compare working styles, mutual inspirations and their shared interest in hybrid forms of art making.  “I think I started doing the [paint] pouring because I couldn’t pour wax on the floor and make it work, and I wasn’t interested in straight canvases,” Benglis said.  “I had made these sort of popsicle-stick paintings that were limited in format. But I was mocking the whole issue of figure ground.” (more…)

Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the director of Vienna’s Albertina Museum, has publicly called for a time limit Nazi-loot restitution claims for work held in public collections  “The international community should decide on a sensible time frame of 20 or 30 years from now,” Schröder argues. “If we don’t set a time limit of around 100 years after the end of the Second World War, then we should ask ourselves why claims regarding crimes committed during the First World War should not still be valid; why we don’t argue anymore about the consequences of the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian war, and why we don’t claim restitution of works of art that have been stolen during previous wars?” (more…)

The Guggenheim has appointed two new trustees to its board this week, Artforum reports.  Valentino D. Carlotti, a Senior Partner at Goldman Sachs, and private investor David Shuman will join the museum leadership, both of whom have worked with the museum in the past as collectors and supporters of recent acquisitions. (more…)

A Munich court ruled in favor of the Kunstmuseum Bern’s claim to the trove of Cornelius Gurlitt this past week, rejecting the suit by Gurlitt’s cousin Uta Werner.  Even so, the situation remains mostly unresolved, as the Task Force appointed to sort the provenance of the works have only returned a handful of findings, and several works are already under legal contention. (more…)

As the fallout over Brazil’s scandal regarding oil giant Petrobas’s continues, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba is receiving 139 works from the collections of Petrobas heads and other involved parties, including pieces by Salvador Dali and Joan Miró.  The majority of work comes from the collection of Petrobras’ former director of services Renato Duque, who stands accused of siphoning off over $3.8 billion from Petrobras. (more…)

Tracey Emin’s My Bed has gone back on view at the Tate Modern, following the work’s record-setting auction sale last year for £2.2 Million.  “I always admired the honesty of Tracey, but I bought My Bed because it is a metaphor for life, where troubles begin and logics die,” says its new owner, Count Christian Duerckheim. (more…)

Plans for a New York outpost of the Andy Warhol Museum have reportedly been abandoned, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  “Despite the efforts of both the museum and the developers, an internal study of business and other operational considerations led the museum to this decision,” Director Eric Shiner said in a statement. (more…)

Bloomberg Business has published strong praise for the LA outpost of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise this week, calling it “what might be the most interesting gallery in Los Angeles right now.”  The article notes the 356 S. Mission Road location’s laid-back atmosphere and welcoming refreshments, alongside its impressive curatorial vision as major components to its success and inviting nature. (more…)

The Japanese city of Saitama, just north of Tokyo, has announced that will launch its own triennale next year, headed by director Takashi Serizawa, who formerly led nomadic exhibition space P3.  “Cities are not just accumulations of buildings and roads, but rather a composite of human endeavor, history, and culture that develops over time,” says Serizawa.  “I envision the Saitama Triennale as a kind of “soft urbanism” — a social experiment intended to breathe some creativity into the workings of this city, as a nucleus of culture and art.” (more…)

Marianne Boesky is expanding to the Colorado enclave of Aspen, where a group of newly renovated museums, new galleries and pop-ups have made the resort town into a new hotspot for the U.S. arts community.  “Our plan is to be able to invite artists to spend time in Aspen to experience the outdoor life,” Boesky says. (more…)

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation has given a $5 Million gift to Vermont’s Bennington College, which the artist graduated from in 1949.  “Helen‘s education at Bennington was critical to shaping her sensibility as a young artist, nurturing a spirit of risk-taking, experimentation, and inquiry that formed the basis of her creative process,” says Clifford Ross, chairman of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. “The foundation is delighted to be making this gift.”

(more…)

Williams College is receiving an impressive gift of contemporary works from the collection of anti-virus software developer Peter Norton, a trove of 68 works including pieces by Tracy Emin, Allan Ruppersberg, and Christopher Wool, among others. (more…)

The Public Art Fund and Brooklyn Bridge Park will host an exhibition of public works by Danish artist Jeppe Hein this summer, the New York Times reports.  “One of the brilliant things about Jeppe’s work is he can engage you no matter what your background or experience or age in a very direct way,” says chief curator Nicholas Baume. (more…)

The Whitney has announced the details for its first exhibition at its newly completed Meatpacking District location. America Is Hard to See will open on May 1st, showing off the vast new exhibition spaces of the Renzo Piano-designed building, and traces the history of the museum alongside the development of American art in the 20th and early 21st century.  “The game changer is the space,” said Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s chief curator. (more…)

Ed Ruscha is bringing his Cactus Omelette recipe to the Barbican this year, serving up portions of the recipe to festival-goers at London’s installation of Doug Aitken’s Station to Station project.  “It’s essentially an artwork, says curator Leila Hasham. “It’s edible cactus art.” (more…)

Cory Arcangel is interviewed by Dazed this week, as the artist prepares to open his first solo gallery exhibition in Italy.   “Back in the early aughts, Italy was one of those places where it was always very advanced in terms of their understanding of art on the Internet,” Arcangel says.  “I don’t know if people know this but there were a couple of places in the world where people were really excited about the idea that you could make art on the Internet. New York, Eastern Europe, and Italy. I think people forgot about that whole era.” (more…)

The New York Post reports on a recent tour of artist Jeff Koons’s 29th Street New York studio, by painter Alex Gardega, in an article that offers some interesting, and occasionally bleak snapshots from the artist’s high-precision production methods.  “They have lasers printing holes in paper, so they make thousands of pieces of paper with holes in it, and these artists sit all day long and take one stencil, dab paint over it, take the next over that,” he says. “Hundreds of times a day — all for a 5-inch section.” (more…)