Massive renovations to the Pergamon Museum has sent a selection of 73 Hellenistic artworks and artifacts to The Met for a rare exhibition set to open next week.  We lent very, very liberally, “ says Dr. Andreas Scholl, the director of the Staatliche, which oversees the Pergamon. (more…)

The U.S. Senate has voted to ban the importation of any Syrian art and artifacts, following months of delay and debate on U.S. action.  “The lack of action has kept the United States market open to the import of Syrian antiquities, making it a potential source of funding for extremist organizations,” a task force report on the issue reads. (more…)

As the Art Cologne fair opens today in Germany, The Art Newspaper looks at the shadow cast by The Kulturgutschutzgesetz (Cultural Assets Protection Law), which will make the sale and export of high-valued art works from Germany increasingly difficult. (more…)

The Art News notes Christie’s sales announcement for Basquiat’s Untitled (Devil) 1982, a work the publication speculates may smash the artist’s $48.8 million auction record, and which is likely being sold from the collection of Adam Lindemann.   (more…)

Elmgreen and Dragset have been tapped as curators for the 2017 Istanbul Biennial.  “In light of the current global geopolitical situation, in which we’re experiencing a new rise of nationalism, it will be important for us to curate a biennial based on collaborative efforts and processes,” the artists said.  “Collaboration is something that feels natural to us, since we have been working together as an artist duo for more than twenty years. A biennial can be a platform for dialogue, and a format in which diverse opinions, perspectives, and communities can coexist.” (more…)

The National Portrait Gallery in London and the Museu Picasso in Barcelona are co-organizing a show of Picasso portraiture, set to open late this year.  “Picasso is variant to many of the painters in the NPG who were paid to paint historic figures as he painted his entourage without commissions. But there are recurring strategies of classic portraiture in Picasso’s work,” says curator Elizabeth Cowling. “It was my aim to display the different modes of Picasso’s portraits but also their relationship to the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on Magnus this week, a smart-phone app designed to recognize paintings and artists through photographing and analyzing their work with special recognition software.  The app also bundles in price information and data on the artist’s representation and provenance.  “A lot of people are left out of the market who have the potential to buy,” says founder Magnus Resch. “The No. 1 reason for this is the lack of transparency.” (more…)

A pair of monumental Jackson Pollock works will be reunited at the Royal Academy’s landmark show on abstract-expressionism.  “In a sense the time has now come, the monographic displays have been made, now it is time to put it all together,” says Tim Marlow, RA director of exhibitions.  (more…)

Oscar Murillo was deported from Australia last month, after the artist destroyed his British passport in the middle of a flight to Sydney.  The destruction was in protest the privileges afforded certain Western societies.  “The action of destroying the passport was to create a blockage situation, to create the point in which I am no longer that individual,” Murillo told a French journalist.  “I gave a proposal, I went and made a proposal with a curator, and we were both really happy with it. At the same time, I was feeling uncomfortable because, despite the agenda for the biennale, which wanted to propose a strong situation, there seemed to be a lot of conservative attitudes toward allowing an artist to be really freely expressive.” (more…)

Rhizome has announced the participants for this year’s edition of its annual Seven on Seven conference, including artist and lecturer Hito Steyerl collaborating with Grant Olney Passmore, cofounder, Aesthetic Integration; and Miranda July working with writer Paul Ford. (more…)

The Art Newspaper previews next year’s Antarctic Biennale, which will launch next spring with an expedition of artists to the continent, where they will install a series of temporary projects.  “But every two years? Who will go? Do we really have the resources? And even if we do, isn’t our plan just another assault on the last great wilderness? Fear not,” says organizing curator Nadim Samman.  “Ours is a topsy-turvy biennale, so perhaps we will only go once.” (more…)

The New York Times summarizes the recent controversies surrounding art work ownership and provenance in light of the Panama Papers leak, examining the various stories, from the Nahmad/Modigliani seizure, to the massive flip of the Ganz collection in 1997. (more…)

Artist Theaster Gates has been recognized as the recipient of Germany’s Kurt Schwitters Prize this year, an honor which will present the artist with his first exhibition in Germany, held at Hannover’s Sprengel Museum in 2017.   (more…)

The British Museum is considering a new space at London’s Olympic Park, the Art Newspaper reports, just as the Smithsonian Institution also considers a outpost in the East London neighborhood. (more…)

The Brooklyn Museum has incorporated recent protest flyers and art from a protest over affordable housing outside the institution into its current show, Agitprop!, The New York Times reports.  “I’m actively thinking about what might be out there to support affordable housing, live-work spaces for artists and contribute to a kind of community vibrancy,” Anne Pasternak told the paper. “This is not normally a thing that I think most museum directors actively engage in or think about, but because of the conversations I have had with these artists, it is actively on my mind.” (more…)

Swiss authorities have seized a contested Modigliani from the collection of David Nahmad, following the release of documents in the Panama Papers leak last week showing that the work was held by a shell corporation attributed to the family.  The piece is the subject of a restitution claim by the heir of a Jewish art dealer, Oscar Stettiner, and was confiscated by Nazi forces during WWII.   (more…)

The New York Times notes the impressive response to an exhibition of long-duration performance art at Greece’s Benaki Contemporary Museum, which often dwells on concepts of suffering and fear.  “They’re kind of mirroring Greek society through the work,” says critic and gallerist Iliana Fokianaki. “The fact that we’re the scapegoat of Europe, and we are the pariah — these are all emotions most Greeks have.  This frustration is manifested through the work.” (more…)

The leaked documents of Mossack Fonseca may help in identifying the buyer of a $17 million Modigliani, a work seized by Nazis during WWII and under request for return by a Paris art dealer’s estate.  The company holding the work has been shown to be owned by the Nahmad family.  “The main thing is what are the issues in the case, and can the plaintiff prove them?” says lawyer Richard Golub, who represents David Nahmad.  (more…)

The Guardian reports on another art world story hidden within the Panama papers, noting that the record-breaking auction of the Ganz collection in 1997 may have been heavily manipulated by financial speculator Joe Lewis.  A shell company held by Lewis is noted in the leak as buying up all of the most valuable works from this auction six months before the sale, ultimately making a tidy profit through the smashed auction estimate.   (more…)

The students who dropped out of USC’s MFA program last year are holding their own “thesis show” at an alternative space in Los Angeles.  “There was kind of a collective nodding of heads among my peers and people who are still in grad school,” says artist Barnett Cohen. (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced a trio of strong works leading its May Impressionist sale in New York, among them Paul Signac’s Maisons du port, Saint-Tropez, estimated at $8-$12 million.  It is joined by Andreì Derain’s Les Voiles rouges (estimate $15-$20 million) and Maurice de Vlaminck’s Sous-bois($12-$18 million), both from the collection of philanthropist Sarah Campbell Blaffer. (more…)

A pair of Egon Schiele works in the collection of Vienna’s Leopold Museum, looted from the collection of Karl Mayländer by Nazi forces when Mayländer was deported and killed during the Holocaust, will return to his family.  The restitution was announced on Thursday by the Austrian culture minister, Josef Ostermayer. (more…)

London is set to experiment with its first “Art Night,” where museums and galleries will remain open late into the night for wandering visitors this July, just before the city will launch its long-awaited all-night Tube service on weekends.  Confirmed exhibitions include a performance by Joan Jonas, and an installation at the disused Charing Cross station by South Korean artist Koo Jeong-a. (more…)

The Dia Art Foundation has been awarded a $735,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation.  The funding is earmarked for a new archives program, an appointed postdoctoral scholar, and other initiatives. (more…)