Art Newspaper reviews the recent defense of a body of Instagram works by Richard Prince, including quotes and testimony from art world professionals like New Museum director Lisa Phillips. “An image need not be altered to be transformed into a new work of art” she said of Prince’s long practice of appropriation. (more…)

Banksy’s Girl with Balloon, which destroyed  itself London last week during the Sotheby’s auction, has officially been sold under a new name and identitication: Love is in the Bin (2018).  The work has reportedly been authenticated by Banksy’s authentication body, Pest Control.  (more…)

Leonardo da Vinci’s disputed Salvator Mundi is authentic, according to a leading expert on the artist. “I am convinced, for reasons I won’t go in to, that when people said it was because of doubts about the attribution, that’s not right,” says Martin Kemp. (more…)

Storm King Art Center is adding a new permanent work to its collection, a piece by Sarah Sze. “I wanted to do something potentially radical in form,” she says of her work, Fallen Sky. “Something that was much more interwoven, intertwined — that imitates nature rather than marks it.” (more…)

The For Freedoms project gets a profile in Art Newspaper this week, as it launches its large-scale installation of billboard-based artworks around the U.S. “The 21st-century museum is a place for dialogue, and it can be perhaps a place where, mediated through art, some of the tensions around that dialogue might fall away more easily,” says Matthew McLendon, the director of the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. (more…)

Ai Weiwei is profiled in The Guardian this week, as he opens a trio of exhibitions in Los Angeles. “I cannot accept anything which is not precise, or I feel ashamed,” he says. (more…)

An investigation project has uncovered 170 works in Dutch museums stolen from Jewish families by the Nazi regime, including a painting in the royal collection, The Guardian reports. “This research is important to do justice to history. A museum can only show an piece of art properly if the story and history behind the object is clear, says Chris Janssen, a spokesman for Museale Verwervingen. (more…)

Francis Bacon’s Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing (1969) previously in the collection of S.I. Newhouse will go to Christie’s New York on November 15 for its postwar and contemporary art evening sale. The piece is estimated at $14 million to $18 million. “It is an honor for Christie’s to present Francis Bacon’s remarkable Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing from the Collection of S.I. Newhouse,” says Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti. “This consummate canvas by Bacon is a wonderful representation of Mr. Newhouse’s extraordinary eye for quality, that has been constantly reflected throughout his entire art collection.” (more…)

Art Dubai has named its new international director, Chloe Vaitsou, formerly the head of audience development for Frieze Fairs. “Art Dubai has been the catalyst for the growth of the region’s art scene over the past decade. I’m excited by Art Dubai’s plans to grow the brand internationally and I hope my international experience will support these ambitions,” Vaitsou says.  (more…)

The Studio Museum in Harlem has launched a new initiative, “Find Art Here,” which places reproductions of works from its collection at public schools, libraries, and service centers in Harlem. “‘Find Art Here’ renews and deepens our relationships in one of the best ways possible, by bringing our collection into the lives of our neighbors, right where they are,” says Studio Museum director Thelma Golden. “We have always been a point of contact between extraordinary artists of African descent and the Harlem communities that we’re proud to serve.” (more…)

Maria Seferian will take the helm of the MOCA Board in LA, taking the place of Maurice Marciano and Lilly Tartikoff Karatz.  She previously  served as interim director of the museum from the fall of 2013 into the spring 2014. (more…)

Late collect Peggy Cooper Cafritz’s holdings of African American art will be donated to Duke Ellington School of the Arts in D.C. and the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Washington Post reports. “She was always very clear that her collection was not only important to her, but it had to live beyond her,” says artist and Duke Ellington alum Hank Willis Thomas. (more…)

Julian Schnabel is interviewed in the New York Times this week as he opens a show of his works shown alongside pieces from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay. “At a certain moment the museum said: ‘You can’t have this or that painting,’ so I said ‘I can’t do it,’ ” he says. “I thought, if I can’t pick the paintings, there’s no reason for me to say that I picked the paintings.” (more…)

Mickalene Thomas is interviewed in Harper’s Bazaar this week, sitting down with Kimberly Drew to speak on diversity, representation and practice. “I think it’s important for us to see ourselves continually,” she says. “When you see yourself, that gives you a sense of power, of ownership and validation.”  (more…)

The city of Chicago’s decision to sell a mural by Kerry James Marshall in order to fund improvements to its library branch has met with controversy, including a critique by Marshall himself.  “Considering that only last year Mayor [Rahm] Emanuel and Commissioner [of the Department of Cultural Affairs Mark] Kelly dedicated another mural I designed downtown for which I was asked to accept one dollar, you could say the City of Big Shoulders has wrung every bit of value they could from the fruits of my labor,” he says. (more…)

Julia Turner will become the Arts Editor at the LA Times. “Los Angeles is where entertainment, culture and technology intersect in interesting and exciting ways,” says Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine. “Julia is a versatile and experienced editor who will work with our journalists to capture, criticize and have a conversation about everything from literature to emerging business models.” (more…)

Art Newspaper has a piece this week on Anni Albers, and her work in the field of textiles. “Painting is applied on to something,” she writes in one text. “Sculpture uses a given material… [Weaving] is closest to architecture because it is a building-up out of a single element, building a whole out of single elements.”

New York Magazine has a piece on dealer David Killen’s discovery of a series of unauthenticated works he attributes to Willem de Kooning works in a New Jersey storage locker, and his decision to auction them off himself after provenance issues scared auction houses off. “My hope,” Killen says, “is that serious people come to the exhibition, bring their expert with them, and let the expert whisper in their ear, ‘Yeah, they’re real.’ ” (more…)

Landscapes of the Mind: Masterpieces from Tate Britain (1700-1980), a show on view at the Shanghai Museum this year, attracted 615,000 visitors over its 14 week run, making it The Tate’s most popular ever.  (more…)

A Banksy painting “self-destructed” following its sale at Sotheby’s in London this week, after being sold for over £1m. Following the final hammer, an alarm sounded, and the painting began shredding itself as it slid through its frame. “We have not experienced this situation in the past . . . where a painting spontaneously shredded, upon achieving a [near-]record for the artist. We are busily figuring out what this means in an auction context,” says Alex Branczik, senior director at Sotheby’s. (more…)

The Guggenheim has returned an Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting Artillerymen (1915) to the heirs of one of previous owners, art dealer Alfred Flechtheim. The work was shown to have been taken from the family by the Nazis during the Holocaust. (more…)

Frieze London has awarded Blank Projects of Cape Town, South Africa its Focus Stand Prize, while Sprüth Magers took home the fair’s main Stand Prize, while artist Wong Pong was awarded the Camden Arts Centre Emerging Arts Prize.   (more…)

The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder has returned to the walls of Spain’s Museo del Prado, following a lengthy restoration. “The work required a complete cleaning, which was particularly complex because of the thinness of the original layer of paint compared to the thickness of the retouches—a real crust,” says lead conservator Maria Antonia López de Asiain. (more…)

Real estate investor and developer Lawrence B. Benenson has donated Do Ho Suh’s 2003 installation The Perfect Home II to the Brooklyn Museum, Art News reports.  The work re-creates the artist’s former apartment on West 23rd Street in Chelsea. “The work addresses loss and memory on several levels—the personal, the local, and the global—making it an ideal piece to initiate a range of fascinating conversations with our diverse audiences,” says Eugenie Tsai, the Brooklyn Museum’s senior curator of contemporary art. (more…)