Annie Leibovitz has joined Hauser & Wirth, Art News reports. “Leibovitz has developed an approach to photography that dovetails with—and advances— her medium’s evolution as a force for art-making,” says gallery partner Marc Payot. (more…)

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro has announced that changes to a federal funding for cultural projects will have negligible impact on institutions, leaving museums and organizations breathing a sigh of relief.   (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has announced plans to open its 17th Gallery in Basel, Switzerland, expanding its already massive international footprint.   (more…)

A St. Petersburg court has ruled against the State Russian Museum in a lawsuit against staff, halting a $17 million renovation of its main building, which staff claimed would irreparably harm the site’s heritage. “We were surprised not by the decision of the court, but by the courage and principled professional honesty of judge Irina Vorobyova,” Irina Shalina, an art historian specializing in icons and one of the three plaintiffs, says. (more…)

United Talent Agency has hired Arthur Lewis as creative director of its fine arts group and the UTA Artist Space in Beverly Hills. “As a Los Angeleno and a collector, I’ve witnessed firsthand how important it is for artists to have space to experiment as they embark on ambitious career paths,” Lewis said in a statement. “My vision for UTA is to act as a partner to help realize artists’ dreams, and build toward their futures.” (more…)

A group of staffers are working together to start a union at the Guggenheim Museum, Art News reports, and filed a petition with the institution this past week. “We want a voice at the museum because working conditions have deteriorated,” an anonymous worker at the museum says. “We want to be able to have our concerns taken seriously by management, and after raising them for several years and having them go unanswered, it feels like this is our only route. It’s not one being taken out of malice.” (more…)

A group of artists have written to the director of the National Portrait Gallery, calling for an end to its links with BP. “Either we distance ourselves from one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers and embrace the challenge of decarbonizing, or we continue to give legitimacy to BP and its business activities that are seriously exacerbating the problem,” says Gary Hume. (more…)

Rachel Whiteread has been named a dame of the British Empire, Art News reports, after her many years of groundbreaking work and her 1993 Turner Prize win. (more…)

South Africa’s Goodman Gallery will open a space in London this fall, part of a Cork Street gallery redevelopment. “For a gallery that has championed social justice for over 50 years, I feel it is important to play more of a front line role in shaping the discourse in the UK.” says owner and director Liza Essers. “At this time of heightened nationalist sentiment and populist politics, it’s important to reach beyond one’s own borders and arriving in the UK approaching Brexit is an interesting time.” (more…)

Cindy Sherman gets the profile treatment in The Guardian this week, as she opens a show at London’s National Portrait Gallery. “She’s the director, the producer, the set designer, the costume mistress, and the star as well,” says writer and editor Ingrid Sischy. “In her hands, images aren’t straitjackets but vehicles to show the infinite possibilities of who she could be.” (more…)

Sotheby’s is leading its June London Impressionist and Modern sales with Amadeo Modigliani’s Jeune homme assis, les mains croisées sur les genoux, 1918, with an estimate range of £16-24m.  (more…)

Bonn’s Bundeskunsthalle head Rein Wolfs has been chosen to fill the Stedelijk Museum’s directorship, Art News reports. “I grew up with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam,” Wolfs said, “and I hope to provide the guidance and support needed to lead this museum, with its revolutionary history and fantastic collection, into the future.” (more…)

Joel Silver and Gagosian have settled their court cases over an $8 million Jeff Koons, with the Die Hard ultimately acquiring a 2013–15 Balloon Venus Hohlen Fels sculpture. The pair issued a statement that they were “pleased to have settled their lawsuit in New York state court. The claims and counter claims have been voluntarily dismissed.” (more…)

Miami’s Rubell Family Collection is moving to a 100,000 square foot space in Wynwood, and changing its name to the Rubell Museum.  “We were just looking for storage, and we wound up with this extraordinary space,” Mera Rubell says. “It was just too good to be storage.” (more…)

Kehinde Wiley is profiled in the NYT this week, as he opens his new residency program, Black Rock, in Dakar, Senegal. “An artist can come here and have an experience that is at once about getting work done and about rigor,” he says. “But I think it’s also about being able to just spoil the artist and make them feel like they’re respected as thinkers and as part of the culture.” (more…)

Socialite and philanthropist Dede Wilsey is stepping down from her position as president of the board of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, a position she has held for over 20 years.  “Dede is so much more than a checkbook,” Director Thomas P. Campbell said. “She has a steel-trap memory for things that happened decades ago — she’s an institutional memory vault.”  (more…)

Collector and Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton is reportedly the purchaser of Robert Rauschenberg’s silkscreen work Buffalo II (1964), which sold for a record-setting $88.8 million at Christie’s in New York this past month. The news was broken by reporter Jeremy Hodkin’s newsletter, Canvas.  (more…)

A visitor to the Lázaro Galdiano museum has helped identify a portrait of Rodin, previously attributed as an image of King Leopold II of Belgium. “I got to the last picture and thought I’d misread the caption, because I recognized who it was straight away,” says Luis Pastor, who first identified the painting.  “I love Rodin and have been to the Rodin museum in Paris a lot. I was obsessed with him as a student. I started Googling pictures of Leopold and thought ‘They do look like each other but that’s not Leopold.’” (more…)

A piece in Art News this week notes the increased competition outside the Art Basel fair between mega-galleries, auction houses and other dealers, as powerful figures battle for control of the city’s bustling crowd of art buyers during the week.  The piece profiles the published output and special exhibitions of galleries like Hauser & Wirth and Gagosian during the fair. (more…)

A piece in the Art Newspaper this week charts the ongoing conflicts at the Barnes Foundation, as an auction of material from the institution opens new wounds over the indenture of trust banning sales of works. “They don’t want to deal with what happened last time,” says alumnus Nicholas Tinari. “They’re shifting their mission, and I guess you like to do that as quietly as possible.” (more…)

Gavin Brown’s Enterprise has closed the branch it opened in Chinatown, saying in an email announcement, “We will miss the space and our neighbors.”  (more…)

Marlborough Gallery is planning an expansion in Chelsea, which will consolidate the gallery’s various brands under one roof, Art News reports. “In today’s globalized market, the geographically-specific programming of the individual galleries no longer seems viable,” says Max Levai, who will supervise the new flagship. (more…)

Dr. Carmen Bambach, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has criticized Christie’s for suggesting she had attributed Salvator Mundi to Leonardo Da Vinci. “I have not wanted to answer because I do not want to be listed among people that said ‘yes’ because I wasn’t really asked what I thought about the Salvator Mundi at the time,” she says. “If my name is added to that list, it will be a tacit statement that I agree with the attribution to Leonardo. I do not.” (more…)

Paula Cooper now represents artist and filmmaker Ja’Tovia M. Gary, and will open a solo show there in spring 2020. “Ja’Tovia demonstrates a remarkable and incisive ability to explore ways in which place and time define our bodies and self,” Senior Director Steve Henry said. “Using a broad range of techniques including animation, documentary, and narration, she creates potent, and often unsettling collages of images and sound. We are ecstatic to be working with her.” (more…)