Jean Dubuffet will be the subject of a two floor exhibition at the Acquavella Gallery later this Spring, the New York Times reports.  “A lot of people don’t realize how good he is,” says curator Mark Rosenthal. “We’re hoping this will change that.” (more…)

The Indonesian capital of Jakarta is set to open its first international contemporary art museum, Museum MACAN, in 2017.  It is being funded by businessman and collector Haryanto Adikoesoemo.  “I want the Museum MACAN to develop and advance the understanding of Indonesians about art and the appreciation of art,” he says. “I also want this museum to help cross-pollinate exchanges with Indonesia and the world, to provide a platform for Indonesian art internationally and to bring international art to Indonesia.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Crow diagnoses the symptoms of the market’s “cooling off” this week, pointing to falling oil prices and unsteady stock prices as deleterious to buying confidence.  “We’ve been hoping for a slight correction to bring some sanity to this market,” says Suzanne Gyorgy, head of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory and Finance. “The way prices were climbing, the whole thing was starting to feel artificial.”  (more…)

A survey released this week by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department shows that New York City’s cultural sector fails to match the diversity of the city populace.  “When it comes to making sure that every resident has an equal opportunity to contribute to this extraordinary cultural community, we need to lead by example,” Mayor de Blasio says. “This survey will help us find ways to foster a creative sector that opens doors for every New Yorker, regardless of their background.” (more…)

Erwin Wurm is interviewed in The New York Times this week, as he prepares to open a show of his One Minute Sculptures at the MAK Centre’s Schindler House this week.  “What I like here is the minimal, nearly Japanese structure,” Wurm says. “He was escaping a powerful social structure in Austria, and my work also deals with questions of freedom: freedom of choice, free will, economic dependence.” (more…)

Hauser and Wirth, Massimo de Carlo and Andrea Rosen are partnering together to present a trio of shows focused on the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, organized by artists Roni Horn and Julie Ault. “Our engagement with Gonzalez-Torres’s work focuses on the essence and function of particular forms integral to his practice, distinct from curatorial modes often applied to his work that use a ‘one of these and one of that’ method to present a multiplicity of forms,” the artists said. (more…)

The Tate Modern has set the opening date for its new expansion at June 17th, announcing that its new space will launch with an exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois. (more…)

Thornton Dial, the African American artist whose vivid brand of sculptural abstraction and assemblage earned the artist a place in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art at the Met, passed away this week at the age of 87 in his McCalla, Alabama home.  “I’d never seen any artist’s works,” Mr. Dial said in 1997. “I can’t copy off anybody because it’s something I do my own self.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has pulled his work form exhibitions in Denmark in protest over the country’s controversial new law allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees.  “I am very shocked about yesterday’s news that the Danish government has decided to seize refugees’ private property,” he wrote in an open letter to ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, where he is currently showing work.  “As a result of this regrettable decision, I must withdraw from your exhibition ‘A New Dynasty.Created In China’ to express my protest of the Danish governments’ decision. Please accept my regrets and thank you for your long-term support. I apologize for the inconvenience caused,” the artist wrote.  (more…)

Agnes Gund is expanding her Studio in a School arts education program nationally, founding a Studio Institute to lead arts education initiatives around the country for low income students. (more…)

Christie’s announced its total sales for 2015 this week, tallying a total of $7.4 billion that sees sales down 5 percent from the previous year, although the company also notes that figure as second-highest total in company history.  “You never know going into 2016, because you always start from scratch,” said Stephen Brooks, Christie’s deputy chief executive. “But at the moment we’ve entered the year with the wind in our sails.” (more…)

The Swiss government is investing over $2 million to aid museums in determining the ownership of artworks that may have been stolen by Nazis during WWII.  “Switzerland is one of the first countries that offers financial assistance for provenance research,” said spokesperson Anne Weibel. (more…)

The Art Institute of Chicago has received a cash bequest of thirty-five million dollars from Dorothy Braude Edinburg, the largest single donation of money to the school in its history.  The money will be used to build the school’s collection of Asian art, and to acquire new paintings and drawings.  “We will use this incredible funding to carry Dorothy’s vision forward—to inspire, educate, and delight future generations through the collection and presentation of exceptional art,” says Art Institute president Douglas Druick. (more…)

David Zwirner is reportedly looking for exhibition space in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reports.  “A couple of years ago, we thought we would just come to the art fair. Now, I’m convinced we need a gallery here,” he said. (more…)

The Art News reports from the early days of the Knoedler Gallery trial, noting early testimony and opening arguments from both sides, including an interesting piece of evidence that director Ann Freedman had allegedly traded an authentic Rothko from her personal collection to fraudulent dealer Glafira Rosales for a fake one, and kept it hung in her apartment for 15 years.   (more…)

MoMA has scaled back its ambitious expansion plans for its museum, the New York Times reports, abandoning the “art bay” entrance that would have allowed direct access to galleries from the street, and the fourth floor performance space.  “The goal is to be larger and clearer,” says Ann Temkin, chief curator of paintings and sculpture. “You think these two things might be opposed, but we’re going for both. As you travel through the building, the relationship among galleries is more evident, and the choices for places to go are more obvious.” (more…)

An article in Art Newspaper this week notes a gradual cooling of the art market, but also points to an increasingly competitive market for Modern pieces, as seen in last year’s record-setting sales by Picasso, Gauguin and Modigliani.  “Throughout last year we saw increasingly high sell-through rates in the middle market across categories, including post-war and Impressionist and Modern,” says Christie’s CFO Stephen Brooks. “Christie’s is just as much about a $15m Warhol as a £15,000 chandelier sold in South Kensington.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei has created a series of new works for Paris department store Le Bon Marché, showing a body of work inspired by traditional Chinese “Shan Hai Jing” children’s stories. “This casualness of urban culture is very appealing: It’s not like being in a museum, in a white box — it’s part of a metropolitan landscape — and the people, or audience, are not artgoers,” the artist says. “People experience the art as they go about their day and something unconsciously happens.” (more…)

Marianne Boesky’s temporary project gallery uptown will close its doors this year after a six-year run. The space had been intended as a five year “experiment” by the gallery, but “I loved it so much we signed on for another year,” Boesky said. (more…)

The New York Times takes a look inside the Hebrew Home senior center in Riverdale, which has built a remarkable collection of art from Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Marc Chagall and Alex Katz, among others. “Art is an integral part of life here,” says curator Emily O’Leary. “Because many of them can’t go out to museums,” she said, “the idea was to bring the museum to them.” (more…)

The New York Times takes a look inside 347 West 20th Street, the former home of Louise Bourgeois that has been converted into a museum documenting the artist’s rigorous studio practice. “It has a heart and a soul. People are very moved when they come here,” says former assistant Jerry Gorovoy. (more…)

A selection of previously unpublished diaries by Eric Allden, a close friend of Francis Bacon’s, who writes on the artist’s early years.  “His people live in Ireland, County Kildare, and he told me that when he was 16 he ran away to Paris, but was brought back, though soon after he was permitted to return there,” Allden writes in one passage. (more…)

The Venice Biennale has announced Christine Macel as the Director of the 57th edition of the Italian art exhibition.  Macel, currently the Chief Curator at the Musée national d’art moderne, has worked with Venice in curated the French and Belgian pavilions in past years.  “Her experience in the Department of “Création contemporaine et prospective” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris has long offered her a vantage point rich in potential from which to observe and identify new energies coming from various parts of the world,” says Biennale President Paolo Baratta. (more…)

The art forgery lawsuit between the family of Sotheby’s Chairman Domenico De Sole and Knoedler Gallery’s Ann Freedman is set to begin this week over the sale of a counterfeit Mark Rothko.  “Banking on their unblemished and impeccable reputations, Knoedler and Freedman fraudulently warranted that the work was an authentic Rothko, when they knew or should have known otherwise, lied about their knowledge of the work’s provenance, and hid the true facts,” writes the De Soles lawyer. (more…)