Officials in Washington, D.C. are looking to incorporate more diverse historical monuments into the city’s fabric, Art News reports, with legislation proposing new monuments to historically resonant women and people of color.  “This legislation aims to properly recognize and honor remarkable persons who left indelible marks on society: men, women, and migrants,” says Kenyan McDuffie, the councilmember. “These bills aim to channel an important dialogue carrying around our country to reconcile symbols and monuments that have often complicated, and in some cases blatantly racist, history behind them.” (more…)

The Shed will recognize its employees’ union voluntarily, Artforum reports.  “The Shed fully supports our talented and hard-working visitor experience staff in their decision to organize,” says Maryann Jordan, the institution’s chief operating officer. “We welcome UAW Local 2110 and anticipate forging a constructive relationship with their representatives as we have done with the several other unions already in place at The Shed.” (more…)

A Florida court has put a temporary block on a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room at the center of the controversy around dealer Inigo Philbrick, preventing the work from leaving Miami-Dade County.  “Without an injunction, FAP [Fine Art Partners] will lose the ability to be made whole because it will lose a unique, one-of-a-kind work,” says Valerie R. Manno, a judge in Miami-Dade County’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, wrote in the temporary injunction issued on Wednesday. “An injunction will allow FAP to litigate its case without fear that the Kusama will disappear into the night.” (more…)

New York ’s Department of Cultural Affairs is overseeing partnerships between ten nonprofit arts organizations and city agencies to create programming on a range of civic and social issues including homelessness, workers’ rights, and climate change. “We are thrilled that DREAMing Out Loud has been renewed for a second year and will continue to help young writers find their voices, readers and careers in publishing,” says NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment commissioner Anne del Castillo. “New York is the ultimate city of immigrants, and we’re fighting every day to make the creative economy accessible to all.” (more…)

Pace Gallery has announced the calendar for the first full year of its performance series, Pace Live, including a fundraiser to benefit restoration of Nina Simone’s North Carolina home.  “The proviso is that whoever we invite has a connection to the legacy and work of Nina Simone, which pretty much includes everyone,” says Mark Beasley, who organized the series. (more…)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s CEO, Timothy Rub, apologized to gathered attendees at a “town hall” style meeting this week, leaving some unsatisfied. “I hoped for strong policy statements that empower staff, like, ‘This is how we will respond consistently to reports of harassment,’ ” says Sarah Shaw, a museum educator. (more…)

The New York Times has a piece on the Benin Bronzes, and the attempts to have the works repatriated from the UK.  “I want people to be able to understand their past and see who we were,” says Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo State in Benin. (more…)

The Swiss-born, New York-based artist Tobias Madison has pled guilty to charges of domestic assault, Art Newspaper reports.“The People believe that each of the charged crimes in this case, and their underlying facts as articulated in the criminal complaint, can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Assistant District Attorney Kirstie Raffan. (more…)

Brooklyn gallery Koenig & Clinton is closing Art New reports. Dealers Leo Koenig and Margaret Liu Clinton said in a statement that they “remain grateful to the many: artists, collaborators, colleagues, critics, and patrons that enriched the gallery’s mission of organizing museum-quality exhibitions that were made accessible to so many publics.” (more…)

German art dealer, collector and socialite Angela Gulbenkian is facing a lawsuit over the sale of a Warhol print on behalf of its owner and allegedly keeping the profits. “The dispute lies in whether [the adviser] and Gulbenkian had the authority to sell the picture,” says Chris Marinello, the chief executive of Art Recovery Group. (more…)

The latest round of coveted United States Artists Grants have been announced, including Nari Ward and Cameron Rowland. “Artists like Cameron [Rowland] and Martine [Syms] are winning a lot of things at the same time,” organization president Deana Haggag says, “We’re just trying to give a chance to have some sense of spaciousness, and young people, in particular, don’t know the first thing [they] would do with a lump sum. We’ve seen it make a pretty big difference for artists in that stage.” (more…)

Performance Space New York has announced a radical, artist-led restructuring process.  “The artists have received keys to the spaces, have moved into our business offices, and will move into our theaters next month. … Our total annual production budget is at the artists’ full disposal to pay themselves a wage and develop their programmatic platforms,” reads a letter signed by executive artistic director Jenny Schlenzka and Sarah Michelson, a celebrated choreographer leading the artist-led cohort in a project called “02020.” (more…)

Artist Ann Hirsch saw videos of hers removed from Vimeo this week, only to be reinstated a few hours later.  The works were originally removed over content the site said could “sexually stimulate” viewers.  “For everyone talking about feminism and #MeToo and the rediscovery of women artists, it’s frustrating,” she says. “They’re also forgetting about the people making work now and their voices are being lost. It’s happening now to me and so many other women.” (more…)

The latest edition of the Made in L.A. Biennial has announced its artist list for this year, including Kahlil Joseph and the late Nicola L. as well as Aria Dean and Jill Mulleady. (more…)

Patrick van Maris is leaving his position as president of The European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf) at the end of May, Art Newspaper reports.  “I am proud of the changes accomplished together,” he says of his work with the fair. (more…)

CNN has a piece this week on the business behind removing and selling street art murals, and the legality that drives who can remove and sell a piece. “Generally, when you purchase a building, you own the fixtures within the building, whether they’re ceiling fans or [a] fine art mural painting on a wall,” says Paul Cossu, a partner at legal firm Pryor Cashman and part of the firm’s art law group. “Of course, what an owner can do with a fine art mural after acquiring the building will depend, in part, on whether the mural is protected by the Visual Artists Rights Act.” (more…)

Two men have confessed to stealing the Gustav Klimt recently discovered in the wall of a Piacenza gallery, as well as to returning the work. “They said they returned the painting four years ago,” says Guido Gulieri, the pair’s lawyer. “But we don’t yet know the details of how it came to be [in the recess] and what exactly happened to the painting in the intervening years. They had confessed before but were not believed.” (more…)

The inaugural edition of Desert X AlUla in Saudi Arabia has announced its artist list, including work by Lita Albuquerque, Wael Shawky, Superflex, and more. This edition of the event has earned strong condemnation for its part in the country’s push to rebrand itself as open and free after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  “Unless artists are willing to make their host’s state control of expression an explicit subject of their work, those who participate cannot escape compromise from the polluted context,” says critic Christopher Knight. (more…)

UK Universities are reporting a 28.5% drop over the past decade in Art History class enrollment, Art Newspaper reports. “It is important that we do not lose sight of the humanities which are absorbing and important areas of study and can also lead to excellent career options,” says Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. (more…)

Collector Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos, gets a profile in the NYT this week, detailing her global holdings in property and art, and underscoring how she maneuvered her proximity to power to build her global empire. “We have there some situations of money laundering, some of them of doing business with herself,” Hélder Pitta Grós, Angola’s attorney general, said in an interview. (more…)

Ai Weiwei has a piece in The Guardian this week, discussing his recent move to the UK, and the racism he experienced while living in Berlin. “In Britain they are colonial. They are polite at least,” he says. “But in Germany, they don’t have this politeness. They would say in Germany you have to speak German. They have been very rude in daily situations. They deeply don’t like foreigners.” (more…)

Simone Leigh will head to Hauser & Wirth, Art News reports. “We are delighted and honored to have started working with Simone at the end of last year,” says Cristopher Canizares, a partner at Hauser & Wirth. “Hers is a powerful, profound, original voice, and we are looking forward to her first exhibition with the gallery in London in the fall during Frieze.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal looks at the opening of The Momentary, a multidisciplinary arts space that is set inside a former Kraft cheese factory, and which serves as a satellite to the nearby Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. “We would love to create an art place…that talks about living artists, that doesn’t feel like a museum at all,” says director Lieven Bertels. (more…)

A major work by artist Joseph Wright of Derby, Two Boys with a Bladder (1769-70), will leave the UK for the J. Paul Getty Museum after a buyer was unable to be found. “We look forward to sharing this spectacular painting with our visitors and scholars in the context of our other 18th-century collections,” says director Timothy Potts. (more…)