Collectors Manfred and Ingrid Rotert have donated their collection of one hundred and fifty works by Joseph Beuys to the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History in Münster, a major gift consisting of many of the artist’s small-scale “multiples” and film reels. “We were never so ambitious to own everything made by Beuys, but from our first purchase on, we knew: That’s it,” Rotert said. (more…)

Yasuaki Ishizaka has been appointed chairman & managing director for Sotheby’s Japan, Art News reports. “We are delighted to welcome Aki back to Sotheby’s,” says Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby’s Asia. “Not only is Aki an art world veteran with over three decades in the field, he also has extensive experience in both auction and private sales businesses.”  (more…)

France is developing a new “culture pass” app, which will aim to improve access to arts and culture for young people across the country.  “No cultural or artistic offering will be excluded,” says France’s culture minister, Françoise Nyssen. Every organization active in the cultural arena will be welcome on the pass – public or private, physical or virtual.” (more…)

Zona Maco’s sister fairs, Zona Maco Salón and Zona Maco Foto will return this month  after cancellations last September over the earthquake that ripped through Mexico City. The fairs open tomorrow, August 22nd. (more…)

A visitor to an Anish Kapoor show at the Serralves museum in Porto was injured after falling into one of the artist’s works, an 8-foot deep hole titled Descent into Limbo. The visitor is believed to have slipped and fell, although an investigation is still underway.  (more…)

The New Yorker has a piece this week on Alex Katz, and his impressive influence on the field of painting, despite remaining relatively overlooked by the art market’s blue-chip buyers.  “I never fit in,” he says. “I’m not a Pop artist, and people can’t see my work as realistic, either.” (more…)

New Met Museum Head Max Hollein gets a profile in Vogue, exploring his leadership style and vision for the storied institution. “Max likes to run things,” Dede Wilsey, the main patron of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco says. “He’s always way ahead of everybody in his thinking. So if he’s decided this is going to work at the Met, he’s figured out how it’s going to work.” (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has hired dealer Andrew Fabricant after his departure from rival Richard Gray Gallery. “Gagosian’s global platform and broad embrace of both historical and contemporary artists was inspirational and important to me in this decision,” Fabricant said in the statement. “The gallery’s international profile has influenced and informed the tastes and interests of both a seasoned and new generation of collectors.” (more…)

Research into the current state of the arts in Berlin shows that the city’s artists face frequent challenges of poverty, gender pay gaps and minuscule pensions.  “Most of the numbers were expected, but I was alarmed by how low the pension expectancy of artists actually is,” says researcher Hergen Wöbken. (more…)

MoMA Local 2110 union has reached an agreement for a new contract with management at the institution. “We attribute the museum’s retractions in no small part to the dedicated efforts and perseverance of our members, who have spent months volunteering their time to our activism and turning out in record numbers to participate in collective actions, as well as to the resounding vocal support from our colleagues, friends, and the public at large,” says Maida Rosenstein, the president of United Auto Workers Local 2110. (more…)

Peter Paul Rubens’s The Massacre of the Innocents will travel to the Rubenshuis museum in Antwerp this fall from the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Newspaper reports.  The painting, last sold in 2002 for £49.5 million, will be a part of research projects during its loan. “We can imagine with disbelief that he painted as much as he did within that relatively small space over a relatively short period of time… He establishes what is arguably the most productive artistic studio of all time to date in that space,” says Sasha Suda, the AGO’s curator of European art. (more…)

Nicole Eisenman and Anton Kern, have agreed to significantly reduce the price for the fountain sculpture requested by the City of Münster, putting the city’s fundraising efforts much closer to completion. “We wanted the bulk of the funding to come from Münster citizens,” says dealer Maria Galen, who has led the push for the sculpture. “But we have also applied to some foundations, and we don’t yet know what we will get. We are very confident.” (more…)

Artist Jamie Isenstein has withdrawn her work from a summer group exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery following criticism of what some deem inadequate critique of racist subject matter.  The show, which aimed to address Peter Sellers’s film The Party (in which the lead actor wears brown face), drew criticism from artists Ajay Kurian and Vijay Masharani for failing to fully address the racist framework of the film.  “I realized that if I expect the show to address racism, I also have to address it. I should have thought longer about my assumption that other artists would do it for me,” Isenstein said. (more…)

Martin Puryear has been confirmed as the representative for the United States at the 2019 Venice Biennale, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Madison Square Park Conservancy announced today. “Martin Puryear confronts contemporary issues as a maker of objects in the studio,” says exhibition curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport, the deputy director and senior curator of the Madison Square Park Conservancy. “For more than five decades, Puryear has created a body of work distinguished by a complex visual vocabulary and deeply-considered meaning.” (more…)

The BBC profiles Tate Liverpool this week, and the impact that the institution has had on the city. “Coming from the Left, my idea of economic regeneration was to do with factories and shipyards – the idea that art could be an economic driver didn’t figure for me. But, looking back, that was out of date,” says comedian Alexei Sayle of the museum’s birth. “I would never have guessed that tourism, looking at things and shopping could have become economic drivers, but they have. (more…)

The Kassel state prosecutor’s office has dropped an investigation into misuse of funds by the management of the 2017 edition of Documenta, Art Newspaper reports. “The mere fact that some projects don’t comply with the tastes of some observers or—in their view—are not suited to the goal of promoting the event, doesn’t meet the conditions for criminal breach of trust,” the prosecutor said. (more…)

Maria Alyokhina, one of three founding members of Pussy Riot, has snuck across the border to reach the UK, following her prevention of leaving Russia by border guards. “Pussy Riot founder Maria refused to be captive and silenced,” the group said in a statement. “She was absolutely determined to perform the show and will be there in person to join her band mates to share her story.” (more…)

The List project has been put back up on view in Liverpool after it was torn down last month.  The work documents the 34,361 names of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants who have died trying to get to Europe since 1993.  “The site continues to be a target but we are doing everything we can to ensure that The List is presented for the remainder of Liverpool Biennial 2018, so that more people have the opportunity to come into contact with it,” a spokesperson says. (more…)

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has acquired its first-ever performance artwork: Tino Sehgal’s This You. “For more than a decade the Hirshhorn has demonstrated a unique commitment to the acquisition and presentation of experimental and new media works,” says director Melissa Chiu. “Tino enters the collection at a significant moment, providing fresh insight and further strengthening the museum’s dialogue around contemporary performance.” (more…)

As a string of galleries in Los Angeles leave the Boyle Heights area, the LA Times spotlights the upcoming challenges the area will face from redevelopment plans and rezoning that will bring new market-rate developments in the area. “It’s all market-rate development,”Isela Gracian, president of the East L.A. Community Corp. (ELACC), a nonprofit advocacy group and housing developer based in Boyle Heights. “It’s going through without any affordable housing.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has accused Chinese authorities of demolishing his studio with no prior warning, leaving many works damaged.  “Works were damaged due to the unannounced attack on the studio,” he said in a statement. “There was no caution taken. However, compared to the memories which have been lost, compared to a society which has never established trust in the social order, a trust in the rule of law, or a trust in any kind of unity in defending the rights of its people, what has been lost at my studio is insignificant, and I don’t even care. There are profoundly deeper and wider ruins in this deteriorating society where the human condition has never been respected.” (more…)

Darren Bader is featured in the New York Times this week, spotlighting his unique artistic practice and his investigation of the lines of just where art lies.  “Contemporary art is by its very nature kind of a tenuous proposition and category,” he says. “I always sense these fault lines, and perhaps I’m overly sensitive to it — perhaps paranoid, I don’t know.”  (more…)

The British Museum is returning a selection of items to Iraq, items taken from the country following the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003. “It’s a real historic event that happened this morning,” says archaeologist Sebastien Rey.  (more…)

The continued negotiations between the MoMA Employees Union and the museum boiled over into a demonstration today, as many gathered in the museum lobby to call for better work standards and pay. “MoMA’s extraordinary staff are the best in the world,” the museum has previously said in a statement. “We are committed to working with the Local 2110 to reach an agreement that will keep our community of dedicated staff and the museum on a path of financial stability and future growth.” (more…)