The next round of Guggenheim Fellowships have been awarded to 168 scholars, artists, and writers, Art News reports. “Each year since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has bet everything on the individual, and we’re thrilled to continue to do so with this wonderfully talented and diverse group,” says Edward Hirsch, the foundation’s president. “It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.” (more…)

Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco was detained by customs officials and turned away from Havana this week, as she traveled to the city’s Biennial.  “I heard one of the immigration officials refer to me as an ‘inadmissible,’ ” Fusco said in a statement. “I’m not a live plant, cheese, a narcotic, or a pornographic publication, but expressing critical views of repressive measures carried out against artists constitutes grounds for barring my entry to Cuba.” (more…)

The European Council has passed new rules to prevent trafficking in cultural goods, including a requirement for import licenses on artifacts more than 250 years old. The new regulations are designed for “the effective protection against illicit trade in cultural goods and against their loss or destruction” and “the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering through the sale of pillaged cultural goods to buyers in the union.” (more…)

Art Basel will commission artists for a series “interventions around the topic of the fair as a marketplace and as a historical site for exchange, trade, and competition, addressing the production, circulation, mediation, and consumption of contemporary art in a global world,” Art News reports. The project celebrates the fair’s 50th anniversary and will be curated by Kasper König.  (more…)

Venice Biennale curator Ralph Rugoff gets the profile treatment in the NYT this week, as the opening days of the event draw close. “Bigger isn’t always better,” he says. “The exhibition format doesn’t always lend itself to gargantuan scale, in general. Do you want to see movies that are 20 hours long? Compared to a normal exhibition, that’s what a Biennale is like.” (more…)

The Venice Biennale has named its five members international jury for awards and recognition, with Stephanie Rosenthal of the Gropius Bau serving as jury president.  (more…)

The Mike Kelley Foundation in Los Angeles has named 10 recipients of its 2019 Artist Project Grants, totaling $400,000 going to local groups. “This year’s recipients of the Artist Project Grants exemplify the innovation, rigor, and daring that the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts supports,” says Mary Clare Stevens, executive director of the Mike Kelley Foundation. “There is such depth and breadth to Los Angeles’s artistic and curatorial practices, and it’s an honor to help realize these adventurous projects.”

(more…)

This year’s edition of Performa has announced its first rounnd of commissions, featuring work by Ed Atkins, Nairy Baghramian and Korakrit Arunanondchai, and will focus on the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus. “I’ve always found it fascinating that most exhibitions [about the Bauhaus] are from an architecture point of view,” says Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg. “At Performa, we go at it from the perspective that it was the first art school to have a performance workshop at its heart.” (more…)

The UK art market is showing signs of recovery as exports of art increased last year by  5.5% to £5.1bn, while global imports rose by more than 20% to £2.1bn. The sales also note a decline in sales to Switzerland, as the country sheds its anonymous banking laws.  “Switzerland has dropped its banking secrecy laws and that means an end to anonymity, so companies can no longer conceal their ultimate beneficiaries,” says an anonymous Swiss dealer. (more…)

A version of Nicole Eisenman’s Founttain will be installed in Boston’s Fens, Art News reports, following the work’s popularity during its previous install at Skulptur Projekte Munster.  “I’m happy to know the fountain will be situated in a place where people are likely to hang out and enjoy some leisure time,” Eisenman said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing kids climbing on the sculptures and this piece integrating into the fabric of life in the Fens.” (more…)

(more…)

The Whitney Museum of American Art  has acquired 300 artworks over the past six months, including work by Barbara Hammer, Simone Leigh, and Ed Clark, many of whom enter the collection for the first time. “We’re thrilled that many of our recent acquisitions, particularly by artists new to the collection, arose through our reenergized emerging artist program,” says Scott Rothkopf, the senior deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney. “This continues our historical commitment to acquiring works by contemporary artists directly from our groundbreaking exhibitions and allows us to extend our dialogue with these artists as stewards of their work.” (more…)

LACMA Director Michael Govan is in the LA Times this week, defending his decision to embraced reduced exhibition space in the museum’s expansion.  “We were aware that this building project would be not as big as the current space it was replacing because that was a jumbled mess of galleries,” he says. “We were trying to replace the space; it was a replacement project. We already added on 100,000 square feet between [the recent permanent additions] BCAM and the Resnick Pavilion, so we’ve already grown pretty dramatically. What’s happening in this whole conversation is that no one’s seeing the big picture of the 20-year plan.” (more…)

Yinka Shonibare’s piece The British Library has been acquired by Tate, a work that features thousands of batik-bound books celebrating the diversity of the British population.  Shonibare praised the acquisition and the museum’s commitment to “tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time. The British Library is an exploration of the diversity of British identity through a conceptually poetic lens. I look forward to the public engagement with the work.” (more…)

Trustees at The Tate and National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) have renewed links with dealer Anthony d’Offay after accusations of sexual harassment.  “Over a year ago we were made aware of allegations against Anthony d’Offay,” a spokesperson said. “The trustees of Tate and National Galleries of Scotland took appropriate time to consider these, remaining in discussion with the Artist Rooms Foundation. No formal investigation ensued and trustees have since resumed contact with Mr D’Offay, and informed relevant stakeholders accordingly.” (more…)

Art News has a piece on the newly opened Marfa Invitational, a fair in the sleepy Texas arts enclave.  “When you’re in Marfa, it’s really this kind of immersive experience where you have time to look at the works,” says artist and organizer Michael Phelan. “What I wanted to create with the fair is a similar model.” (more…)

For the entire month of June, the Public Art Fund will exhibit artist Félix González-Torres’s first billboard, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. “While the work has been installed in many locations around the world, there is not a time I go by that corner that I don’t imagine the billboard being there,” says Andrea Rosen, the president of the artist’s foundation.  (more…)

Artist Julian Schnabel gives a frank interview in The Guardian this week, as the artist promotes his new directorial effort dedicated to the life of Van Gogh.  “Do you need to know that Caravaggio killed a guy at a tennis match to appreciate his paintings,” he asks at on point. “Have you ever seen a Caravaggio painting? Did it speak to you?  Does knowing he killed someone at a tennis match change what you think about it?” Not really. “Exactly!” he says, triumphantly. (more…)

Cuban artist­-activists will present alternative event during the run of the official Havana Biennial, protesting the recently passed Decree 349, which requires artists to receive approval from the Cuban government before their projects are presented. “It’s evident that Decree 349 is oppressive,” says organizer Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. (more…)

A group of academics and theorists have demanded that the Whitney Museum remove Warren B. Kanders from his position as vice chairman of its board, part of an ongoing campaign against Kanders and his ownership of a defense manufacturing company. “The stakes of the demand to remove Kanders are high and extend far beyond the art world,” the letter reads. “Alongside universities, cultural institutions like the Whitney are among the few spaces in public life today that claim to be devoted to ideals of education, creativity, and dissent beyond the dictates of the market.” (more…)

The European Parliament has called for EU freeports to be closed across the continent following a highly-critical report on tax evasion and money laundering this past week.  The report notes that freeports have become popular “for the storage of substitute assets, including art, precious stones, antiques, gold and wine collections–often on a permanent basis–and financed from unknown sources.” (more…)

Gagosian now represents artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Art News reports.  “It’s such a dream come true,” the artist says. “I mean, just having an art career—period—is a dream come true as far as I’m concerned.” (more…)

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, will no longer accept donations from the Sackler family, Art Newspaper reports, growing an increasingly large list of institutions not accepting funds from the institution.  “In 2002 we were not aware that OxyContin is subject to misuse,” a museum spokesperson says, referring to the last time the museum received funds from the Sacklers. “Returning the donation would also not be an option because we would have to use public funds to do that. We also feel that renaming would be an inappropriate attempt to disguise what happened. It would contradict the fact that we acted in good faith in 2002.” (more…)

Watercolors by William Blake that were sold by a Glasgow bookshop for £50 each and resold at Sotheby’s for over $6m will be shown in a Tate exhibition this autumn, Art Newspaper reports. The watercolors had been thought lost for 165 years before being found in a portfolio at the shop.  (more…)