Collector Ronald Lauder has made a significant gift of arms and armor to The Met, Art News reports. “When I began thinking about where I wanted my collection to ultimately be displayed, it was only fitting that it would all come back to The Met,” he said. “Just as I have learned and continue to learn at The Met, I know that this collection will educate future generations about this important period in our history.” (more…)

A massive party, standing in for the usual Art Basel revelry and held at the Nautilus Hotel in Miami Beach was raided this week for defiance of Covid-19 procedures. “The police showed up at 8:15 p.m. and literally raided the place and forced everyone to leave,” said one guest. (more…)

Creative Capital has announced a round of 35 new grants totaling $1.75 million in funds.  “We are thrilled to honor these brilliant artists and the powerful, boundary-pushing work that they are creating,” says Leslie Singer, Creative Capital’s interim executive director. “We look forward to seeing these projects grow to make their mark on the world, in spite of the tremendous challenges this year has posed for so many artists.” (more…)

A piece in the Washington Post charts the blowback over the Baltimore Museum of Art’s attempted sale of works from its collection. “There’s one thing the Baltimore episode made clear: Even the most noble of causes, including paying the mostly minority guards a living wage and improving access for the community, can’t be funded by monetizing the collection,” says one insider. (more…)

In an effort to mitigate financial damage caused by the pandemic, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London will remain closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, likely through 2022. “It will take two to three years to get a reasonable recovery, but it could even be five years to reach the pre-Covid highs,” says Tim Reeve, the V&A’s deputy director. “Consumer confidence about busy, enclosed spaces will take a long time to recover.” (more…)

Christie’s and Sotheby’s have been ordered to reveal dealings with the late Jeffrey Epstein, including all dealings and correspondences. (more…)

Arguments have begun in a pair of Supreme Court cases that could drastically change the U.S.’s policies on Nazi-looted art from WWII. “Just imagine there’s a campaign of genocide and as part of that there’s an effort to take all the property including jewelry, art and even the extraction of gold teeth,” said Clarence Thomas. “You could go down the list of the awful things that were done.” (more…)

Museums in Seoul are shuttering again as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the city.  The nation’s health minister has called the city a “covid war zone.” (more…)

A mural on the wall of the restaurant at Tate Britain has been deemed offensive, and will likely lead to the restaurant’s closure. The mural was criticized for racist depictions of non-Europeans.  The museum’s trustees have not been satisfied with explanations of the work by the museum. (more…)

Dia Chelsea will reopen in April, the NYT reports. “From the beginning, we’ve been trying to do this in an economical fashion and really not overextend,” says director, Jessica Morgan.  (more…)

Artist Titus Kaphar has an interview this week on CBS News, discussing his work and recent show at Gagosian. “I think the paintings do speak to those different kinds of disappearance that happens to young Black children, that is the violence against them by police, that is being poisoned by the water in our communities, Flint, that is natural disasters that the country hasn’t come up and really completely finished resolving and repairing yet,” he says. (more…)

An artist group called The Most Famous Artist has taken credit for the monoliths installed in Utah and California this past month. “I am not able to say much because of legalities of the original installation,” says group member Matty Mo. “I can say we are well known for stunts of this nature and at this time we are offering authentic art objects through monoliths-as-a-service. I cannot issue additional images at this time, but I can promise more on this in the coming days and weeks.” (more…)

An investigation into Dutch Museum restitution policies has found that the restitution review panel in the country too frequently sides with the institutions which hold the works in question. “If it’s looted art and there’s an heir, the interests of the museum shouldn’t be taken into account,” Jacob Kohnstamm, a lawyer who led the panel that wrote the report. “We’re trying to strive for justice.” (more…)

The Supreme Court will consider a case over whether the heirs of Jewish art dealers can sue to recover works and/or compensation for looted works, a case concerning forced sale and the question of whether works are recoverable. “The Nazi regime stripped German Jews of the protection of the rule of law from the moment Hitler took power and declared explicitly that Jews were not ‘German.’” says Boston attorney Nicholas O’Donnell. (more…)

Frieze has taken gallery space in London’s Mayfair District. “We can confirm that Frieze is planning to take a lease on 9 and 9a Cork Street, subject to obtaining all relevant permissions, with a view to create a space for ambitious exhibition projects. Further updates and information will be available in the forthcoming months,” a spokesperson says. (more…)

In a new study, an AI algorithm capable of creating Chinese landscape paintings fooled human evaluators over 50% of the time.  Princeton student Alice Xue’s work on whether a machine could pass a Visual Turing Test showed that machines are now able to create works able to fool evaluators over half the time. (more…)

Tracey Emin has an interview in the Art Newspaper this week, as she discusses her recently opened shows and challenging 2020. “I think when I was younger, I had more of a blind ambition,” she says. “Now I haven’t got that at all. I just need to do the things I want to do.”  (more…)

Artist Christoph Büchel is being pressured by the Venice Biennale to return the sunken boat he exhibited at last year’s Venice Biennale in memory of the drowned migrants who died onboard. “Starting in November 2019, we have repeatedly asked Christoph Büchel and his gallery Hauser & Wirth, to respect the commitment the artist made to return [the boat] to its owner, the municipality of Augusta in Sicily, which loaned it to Büchel,” the Venice Biennale said in a statement. (more…)

The Tate has announced plans to cut around 12% of its workforce, amounting to around 120 full-time positions, in order to survive the economic impact of the pandemic. “We hope that this voluntary process will help us make these significant savings, but we cannot rule out having to move to compulsory redundancy in 2021 to meet the necessary level of reductions. If so, we will protect as many jobs as possible and ensure that no area of the workforce is unfairly hit harder than any other,” says director Maria Balshaw. (more…)

A young boy thrown from a viewing platform at the Tate Modern can now walk, CNN reports. “Despite everything, he continues to make efforts and progress: he begins to walk with a tetrapod cane while we hold him by the back of the coat for balance,” the boy’s family says. (more…)

A piece in Art News this week charts former banker David Schrader’s impact on Sotheby’s private sales division. “He knows a lot about the art world and a lot about business,” says Pace CEO Marc Glimcher. “When someone like that enters the art world, it can be a disaster. But for him it was not. He is great to work with.” (more…)

A series of collaborative works by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns created for a window display at Bergdorf Goodman will head to auction at Christie’s, Art Market Monitor reports. (more…)

Sarah McBride, the newly elected state senator for Delaware, and the highest ranking openly transgender elected official in the country, has an interview in Art Newspaper this week, where she speaks on her experiences as a trustee at the Delaware Art Museum. “The arts were an integral part of my self-discovery, my journey toward authenticity,” she says. “It was in the performing arts that I was able to explore my identity, my gender, different experiences and emotions.” (more…)

Art News reviews rumors that Frieze is planning an art fair edition in Seoul, South Korea, as local vendors clamor to get an upper hand on any potential announcements. “We are always looking at potential new opportunities and have a great relationship with the Korean galleries, institutions, and collectors,” said a Frieze spokesperson. “Anything is possible, but there’s nothing to report at this stage.” (more…)