The German government has approved a 9% increase in federal arts money, reaching a total budget of €1.8bn. Additional funding has been earmarked for preserving and protecting heritage buildings, archive materials and memorial sites.  (more…)

Cheim & Read is leaving Chelsea, and will move uptown to start  a “private practice, concentrating on the secondary market, ​sculpture​ commissions​ and special projects,” according to a statement by the gallery.  (more…)

The New York Times spotlights the new Swiss Institute space on St. Marks Place. “The ability to engage with such a vibrant, high-traffic neighborhood is unprecedented for S.I.,” says director Simon Castets. “There are many schools, cultural and community organizations in the neighborhood, as well as an incredible history of art making and experimentation.” (more…)

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has approved the Frick Museum’s expansion plan, capping a years-long effort that saw four different proposals. “They recognized the strength of the plan to upgrade the building to ensure the long term vibrancy of the Frick,” said Ian Wardropper, the Frick’s director. “The public process can be painful, but we listened and I think the project is better because of that.” (more…)

A piece in Bloomberg this week charts the challenges around stealing fine art, delving into the factors making art theft a far less profitable field than many imagined. “Criminals don’t understand that, because their knowledge of art crime is based on fiction and films,” says Noah Charney, a scholar and author. (more…)

Bloomberg has a piece this week on the fortune of the Roche family, whose wealth built on the cough syrup Sirolin, and the art collection held by the family, has become one of the city of Basel’s arts cornerstones. “I learned how to collect with the family collection,” collector Maja Hoffmann, who has been on the board of the family collection for decades, says. “This I’ve continued to do for all these years.” (more…)

Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery has announced a new design for its expansion that would spare the 1962 building by Buffalo-born architect Gordon Bunshaft. “You see a tip of an iceberg, and there are a lot of complexities and contradictions underneath that tip,” says Albright-Knox Director Janne Sirén. “But this is one of those special moments for us.” (more…)

Artist Olafur Eliasson is partnering with Swedish furniture retailer Ikea to produce a series of sustainable electrical systems and projects, based around the artist’s Little Sun project.  “Little Sun makes solar energy tangible and your world a little bit more sustainable,” Olafur said. “We are excited to collaborate with IKEA, raising awareness for energy access and the need for global togetherness. Together, we want to connect the world by sharing the power of the sun with everyone.” (more…)

The Art Dealers Association of America has added five new members: Honor Fraser Gallery, Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Jessica Silverman Gallery, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, and Venus Over Manhattan. “It is especially exciting to expand the Association’s representation on the West Coast and add to the range of dynamic programming, expertise, and connoisseurship of our membership across the country,” says Andrew Schoelkopf, the president of the ADAA.

Read more at Art News

More protests have raised challenges to the Frick’s new expansion plan, the New York Times reports, as preservationists have challenged the sincerity of alternative construction models for the museum. “The plan would destroy or irrevocably alter many historic elements of the Frick Collection, including the landmarked Russell Page Garden and renowned Music Room,” the Stop Irresponsible Frick Development coalition said in a statement. “The public has not been given a fair opportunity to provide feedback on the harmful proposal, and alternate plans that have been submitted have only been partially considered.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor has filed a lawsuit against the NRA, citing copyright infringement over the organization’s usage of a photo of his Cloud Gate sculpture in a recent ad campaign. “These sadly are times in which it is urgent for us all, in whatever way we can, to stand up to the dark and aggressive forces in society that seek, out of fear and hatred, to lead us backward into a primitive, paranoid, and defensive worldview,” Kapoor says. (more…)

The Whitney is preparing to open a major exhibition on the work of Andy Warhol, the first Warhol retrospective organized by a United States museum since 1989. “Warhol was a myth when he was alive, and he’s even more of a myth now,” says Donna De Salvo, deputy director and senior curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. “To humanize Warhol and get people to actually look at what he made is not as easy as it might sound.” (more…)

Jennifer Y. Chi has left her position as chief curator and deputy director of the Brooklyn Museum after less than a year, the Art News reports. “The museum is grateful to Dr. Chi for her efforts in pursuing departmental restructuring, refining curatorial processes, and highlighting the museum’s extraordinary collections, and we wish her well,” a spokesperson said. (more…)

The Art Newspaper spotlights the recent market explosion for Adrian Ghenie, charting the artist’s skyrocketing popularity and equally high auction prices. “Adrian is an extremely talented painter and manages to engender the feeling of something rather than explicitly outlining exactly what it is,” says curator Jane Neal.

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Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art has announced its new expansion, the Watershed, unveiling the 15,000 square-foot space last week.  “We always knew, when we built the ICA, that there were going to be buildings that came up around and behind it,” says ICA director Jill Medvedow.  “As we began to think about an expansion, we started to think about the ways in which we could welcome more and more people into the ICA community, how to expand the circle, how to grow our audience, how to create extraordinary encounters with works of art. It seemed like an important and perfect spot.” (more…)

Lucian Freud, Portrait on a White Cover (2002-2003), via Sotheby’s

Following up on a set of sales that can best be described as unsteady last week, the London auction houses return again today for a trio of sales that will once again test the market strength for the upper echelons of the Post-War and Contemporary segment.  Taking over the British capital for the last bout of auctions before a long summer recess, this set of sales should see an attempt to overcome sluggish interest and achieve a strong closing note for the first half of the year. (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit in which artist Jeff Koons’s studio was charged with “non-delivery.” “Although the Gallery has met all of its obligations under the Purchase Agreements, Mr. Tananbaum now claims that he has the right to walk away because the artist is purportedly taking too long to create the Works and Mr. Tananbaum is not prepared to ‘wait’ any longer,” the motion reads.  (more…)

Alberto Giacometti’s Paris studio has reopened as part of the Giacometti Foundation’s campus. “When I first saw everything in storage, it was fantastic, like a little time capsule,” says Catherine Grenier, the director of the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti.  (more…)

The Art Newspaper looks at the thriving popularity of the work of Kerry James Marshall, after a record-breaking auction price drove new interest in his work, and a rampant demand for pieces, including those about to go on view at a show at David Zwirner’s London location. “We might not even keep a waiting list for the exhibition,” Zwirner says. “It’s going to be very hard to get a painting from that show, that’s for sure.” (more…)

Theaster Gates made a statement on supporting young artists in remarks last night at a party in Basel, asking collectors to support young artists making and selling their work. “You guys, I know that I’m the byproduct of people saying yes when they didn’t know me, saying yes at my potential and the possibility of the thing,” he said. “Throwing small dinners with me with five people that has turned into dinners for 200. I’m just grateful.” (more…)

A piece in Art Newspaper this week asks if arts awards really carry many of the benefits for winners that they claim, looking at a range of examples including a recent protest by a group of artists nominated for Germany’s Berlin Nationalgalerie Prize. “There is an unspoken assumption that the participants are likely to be remunerated by the market as a result of being nominated for or winning the prize,” the artists nominated for this prize said in an open statement. “We know that this is not always the case. The logic of artists working for exposure feeds directly into the normalization of the unregulated pay structures ubiquitous in the art field.” (more…)

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The Freelands Foundation in London has issued a report on gender disparity in British Art, noting continued challenges to gender disparity and representation in the field. “Female artists are still under-represented in the art world in 2017 despite outnumbering men studying in art school,” the foundation reports.   (more…)

The Baltimore Museum of Art and SFMOMA art organizing a show dedicated to the works of Joan Mitchell, Art News reports. “The time is right for a thoughtful reconsideration of Mitchell’s work and her impact on postwar painting on both sides of the Atlantic,” says Neal Benezra, the director of SFMOMA. (more…)