Artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby is featured in the Financial Times’s new podcast series “Everything Else,” as she reflects on her work and its relation to her personal life.  “If I had to put it simply I’m interested in capturing a life I know and I’ve lived, the life and stories of a cosmopolitan Nigerian woman,” she says, “and even though I’m using my life to explore it, it’s really something global, as people are making these jumps in culture and space.” (more…)

The Louvre’s attendance is still struggling, as tourists continue to avoid Paris in the wake of the past years’ terrorist attacks.  Total attendance in 2016 is down to 7.3 million, after reaching a record attendance number of 9.3 million only two years ago. (more…)

Germany’s commission on Nazi-looted art has decided that Hanover’s Sprengel Museum should return Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s Marsh Landscape With Red Windmill to the heirs of its original owner.   (more…)

A group of artists and art critics are calling for an “art strike” on inauguration day, asking art institutions and educational facilities to close their doors that day.  “I’m interested in action and protest and people expressing their feelings about this situation that we’re in,” Joan Jonas says. “I’m concerned about minorities, immigrants, corruption and security.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper has a piece on global uncertainty in the art market this week, as departures at top auction houses continue to change the market landscape as a new surge of right wing politics in Europe and the U.S. add to uncertainty.  The piece charts a series of threads, including the battles of Big Data, as contributing to the unstable forecasts for 2017.   (more…)

The Art Newspaper looks inside Trump’s proposed tax plan, and how its update of Ronald Reagan’s changes to laws on tax deductions for charity may harm non-profits and art institutions.  Trump’s plan, which caps deductions, would discourage the wealthy from making large donations to institutions as a way to avoid paying taxes.  “The system as a way of supporting museums as well as hospitals and universities is the envy of all those European countries where support comes from the state,” says Julián Zugazagoitia, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. (more…)

The city of Hull is in the process of installing a massive wind turbine blade created by artist Nayan Kulkarni, and spread across the center of the city.  “Carefully positioned it will force us to drift around its arabesque edges, our sight taking the place of the breeze,” the artist said of the work.  “The twisting wing although inert and at rest in the street, speaks of movement, but not of freedom.” (more…)

The students and staff at Central Saint Martins art school have opened a temporary school at the Tate Modern’s new Switch House building, part of an initiative to persuade the UK government to include art and other creative subjects in the English Baccalaureate.  “The threat to arts education is the umbrella issue underpinning our project this week at Tate Modern,”Alex Schady, the art program head at the school, says.  “Now is a good time to put a spotlight on arts education; it is crucial that the arts are a mainstay of the curriculum, we need daring thinkers from diverse backgrounds. There have been dramatic drops in people taking up art A-level.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Google’s work with its new Tilt Brush, a three-dimensional, virtual reality system artists are invited to experiment with to create immersive digital works.  “You would never want to create an artistic tool with only engineers,” says developer Drew Skillman. “That’s just absurd.” (more…)

President Obama has signed the bill granting immunity to foreign states loaning art works and antiquities to the U.S., a bill that has seen strong support from American art institutions.  “It will help to ensure that foreign government lenders are not discouraged from lending works of art to American museums,” says Christine Anagnos, executive director of the American Association of Art Museum Directors. (more…)

Vanity Fair has a piece on the ongoing battle over the estate of Peggy Guggenheim, and the contentious family relations that underscore the fight for her impressive collection of works.  “It was rather a joke,” the piece quotes Guggenheim on leaving her collection to the Guggenheim Foundation, “since I wasn’t on very good terms with my uncle.” (more…)

The St. Louis Art Museum is facing criticism for its loan of a George Caleb Bingham to serve as the backdrop for Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony.  “We object to the painting’s use as an inaugural backdrop and an implicit endorsement of the Trump presidency and his expressed values of hatred, misogyny, racism and xenophobia,” a petition by art historian Ivy Cooper reads. “We reject the use of the painting to suggest that Trump’s election was truly the ‘verdict of the people,’ when in fact the majority of votes — by a margin of over three million — were cast for Trump’s opponent.” (more…)

Artist Mark Dion is featured as part of the New York Times’ “Show Us Your Wall” series, taking the newspaper on a tour of his Upper Manhattan home and studio, which is filled with antiques, oddities and ephemera the artist has collected over the years, and which makes up a portion of his practice.  “Every weekend, I’m at the flea market,” he says. “Pretty much every day, I stop into thrift shops and antique stores and Goodwills. It’s a long battle to acquire the materials that have the right kind of patina.” (more…)

David Gursky, the president of global development and publisher of Art & Auction for Louise Blouin Media, has left the company, following the layoff of Modern Painters editor-in-chief Scott Indrisek. “It was voluntary,” Gursky told the New York Post. (more…)

Artspace has laid off nearly its entire office, signaling further turbulence in the online art marketplace, and cutting its core team to around 5 members. (more…)

Jonathan Laib, a senior vice president and senior specialist at Christie’s, will leave the auction house to join David Zwirner, the Art News reports.  “I started as an auction specialist and I felt as though my role was changing, and I was becoming more of a private sales dealer,” Laid says. “I was taking the lead on putting together private selling exhibitions, and that experience lead me on a different path.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper notes the continued investment by U.S. Universities in art institutions and museums, as schools see benefits and appeal for having spaces centered around accessible art events.  “We’re seeing significant numbers of students who aren’t arts majors taking more than six of these classes and, for some, it’s causing shifts in their trajectory,” says Matthew Tiews, associate dean for the advancement of the arts at Stanford.  (more…)

The French government has placed an export bar on a recently discovered â‚¬15m Leonardo da Vinci drawing, giving the state 30 months to buy the rare, double-sided piece at market value.  The piece was brought to Tajan auction house unexpectedly by a retired doctor. (more…)

Luhring Augustine is now representing the estate of British painter Jeremy Moon, and will open its first exhibition of the artist’s work this month.  “His use of the grid as a structural device was central to his working method; its rigid organization, yet flexible expandability, allowed him to bracket fields of color in a manner that was exploratory and effectual,” the gallery said in a statement. (more…)

The Art Newspaper looks at the potential for loans between U.S. and Russian museums to resume, both following the recently passed Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, and during the presidency of Donald Trump.  “It is shameful that there are no exhibitions,” says State Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky. (more…)

The Guardian has a piece documenting some of Keith Haring’s most iconic designs scrawled across automobile and motorcycle exteriors.  The artist had done a number of pieces on cars and trucks, including one on a vintage Land Rover, and another on a 1990 BMW Z1.   (more…)

The Marciano Art Foundation will open its doors in Los Angeles this year, the LA Times reports.  “The way I see it, L.A. is probably the major contemporary art center in the world, not just in museums but also — and more importantly — because of all the artists living here and moving to L.A.,” founder Maurice Marciano. “I believe the more museums there will be, the more every museum will be successful in having a lot of visitors because more and more people will come to L.A. to visit them.” (more…)

Kirklees council in West Yorkshire is considering the sale of a Francis Bacon painting from the 1940’s to help keep several museums open.  “I can’t see any value of owning a painting which is stuck in a cellar most of the time. I know recently it has been on tour, but there have been times where it has been in storage for a very long time,” David Sheard, leader of the council, said.  “It is an issue that we need to have an open debate about as it is a problem if it is costing us so much to insure yet we’re not able to display it.” (more…)

An article in the New York Times reflects on the current state of the art market, and notes an increasing number of private sales as collectors seek to avoid commission fees and higher taxes.  “The auction houses have created some huge margins at the midlevel,” says collector Howard Rachofsky. “A lot of that trade is going to migrate to the private side.” (more…)