Ai Weiwei has opened a series of new exhibitions in Beijing, signaling a relaxation of the capital’s ban on the showing the artist, while foreign travel is still off limits.  “The decision-making process is opaque. I can only speculate that the authorities realize that they have created a situation that, sooner or later, has to be resolved,” says John Tancock, a longtime collaborator of Ai’s and an adviser to Chambers Fine Art. (more…)

Harlem’s Studio Museum has announced plans for a new, $122 million building, designed by David Adjaye, on West 125th Street.  “We have outgrown the space,” says Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden. “Our program and our audience require us to answer those demands.” (more…)

Critic and Educator Nicolas Bourriaud has been dismissed from his post as the director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts by Fleur Pellerin, French minister of culture, following a lengthy exchange over the direction of the school.  “Dear friends, the Minister [of Culture] has just fired me ‘for reasons related to a change of direction’ of her politics,” Bourriaud wrote on Facebook.  “Not a single factual argument in the course of a forty-five-minute discussion.” (more…)

Jeff Koons is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as the artist prepares to open his traveling retrospective at the Guggenheim Bilbao this month, and his views on critiques of his work as trophies for multi-millionaires.  “It happens to everybody – the work is held by someone who doesn’t even particularly enjoy the work, and just has it stored in some warehouse and will sit there for 20 years,” he says.  “Or someone doesn’t understand it physically, and their motivations are just to show that they have the power to purchase. There’s not much you can do; that’s about educating people, and the way you can educate them is through your art. And I try to educate people about materialism through my work. I try to show them real visual luxury.” (more…)

Santa Cecilia de Montserrat monastery received Irish-American painter, Sean Scully’s generous donation of 22 of his artworks for permanent installation. His brightly colored paintings of block and bands, along with red, ocher, and blue stained glass and frescos, will complete the restoration of this 1,000 years old monastery. “ This is the most significant exhibition probably I’ve ever done” said the internationally established artist; “ This is going to be there for 1,000 years”. Scully’s intention of “adding a little joy to the chapel” grew incrementally as the importance of this exhibition grew with each piece he adds to the installation.

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The New York Times travels to the Havana Biennial this week, and notes the arrest of artist Tania Bruguera during the event, following the artist’s live reading of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, an event that cast something of a pall over the first Biennial legally accessible to American visitors. (more…)

Damien Hirst has installed his large-scale work, Charity, outside of the Gherkin tower in London this week, a nearly 25-foot high statue of a young girl in a leg brace, holding a vandalized collection tin.  “Charity is an iconic piece of art. It is also a symbol of changing attitudes to disability over the past 50 years, since collection boxes like the one depicted in this sculpture were seen on high streets across the country,” says Alan Gosschalk, fundraising director at Scope, the British disability charity that once used the collection tins depicted in Hirst’s work. (more…)

Marina Abramovic is in The Guardian this week, reviewing her plans for her own funeral, to take place in the three cities she lived longest: New York, Amsterdam and Belgrade.  “I want to have three Marinas,” she says. “Of course, one is real and two fake because you can’t have three bodies.” (more…)

Manchester’s Whitworth Museum has been awarded the UK’s annual “Museum of the Year” award, recognizing the institution’s impressive new expansion project, unveiled this past February. (more…)

A group of cleaners protesting Sotheby’s low sick pay rates have been suspended from their posts, following their public demonstration during the auction house’s London sales last week.  “[A service rep] stopped them at the entrance and said ‘give me your passes, you’re no longer welcome at Sotheby’s – we’ve been instructed by Sotheby’s to not allow you on site’” says Petros Elia, the cleaner’s union general secretary. “Our argument is that Sotheby’s is massively, extremely wealthy company. Contractual sick-pay is not a crazy thing.” (more…)

The Tom Bradley terminal at LAX has launched a series of new arts commissions this week, including works by Mark Bradford, Pae White and Ball-Nogues Studio.  “We imagined this space as a kind of reprieve or garden where people could rest their minds as they moved through the building,” says Benjamin Ball of Ball-Nogues. “The project is meant to be seen from a variety of angles.” (more…)

John Waters is the subject of a profile in The Guardian this week, as the filmmaker-turned-artist prepares to open a show of his work in London, and discussing his aims towards his most recent body of work.  “I wanted to be the most despised person imaginable, like I was when I started.  I built a career out of it. I wasn’t hated by the people I wanted to like my work – I was hated by the people it was bait for,” he says.    (more…)

Josef Helfenstein, the Director of Houston’s Menil Collection for the past 12 years, is leaving his position to head the Kunstmuseum Basel, the New York Times reports.  “It’s a very hard decision for me to leave the Menil – I love this institution enormously,” Helfenstein says. “I think we have accomplished a lot, so it was kind of a natural moment.” (more…)

The London Underground has announced a year-long series of artist commissions in the newest iteration of its ongoing arts patronage, including video work from Liam Gillick, and new design commissions from Giles Round and Design Work.  “Gillick has taken his camera, picking out features of the Victoria Line in an unfolding narrative,” says Eleanor Pinfield, the head of Art on the Underground. (more…)

A series of six new public commissions spearheaded by Norman Rosenthal, former head of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, have been announced for Embassy Gardens, the site of the new U.S. Embassy in London.  “Each show is a germ of an idea that could become a museum exhibition,” Rosenthal says. “They are all shows I have dreamt of doing.” (more…)

The New York Times notes the increasing popularity of Athens as a destination for artists in the wake of the country’s financial hardships, noting the increased affordability of studios and opportunities to show work in the city while commenting on the complex financial exchanges the country is currently involved in.  “I realized it would be much more useful to have an artistic platform in a city like Athens than another European city,” says Greek curator Iliana Fokianaki. “The crisis kind of boosted our energy to do more things, rather than flee the country.” (more…)

The Washington Post notes two American museums battling in court to prevent works claimed as Nazi-loot from returning to the families who claim them as rightfully theirs.  “I find it outrageous, and I’m embarrassed,” says Oklahoma state Rep. Paul Wesselhoft of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, one of the museums refusing to return a work. “With this artwork, we have definitive proof that it was stolen. We have copies of the Nazi documents. As an Oklahoman, I think it’s a moral outrage.” (more…)

Damien Hirst is the subject of a lengthy profile in The Guardian this week, exploring his often overlooked role in curating and presenting the work of the YBA’s in their early years, and his soon to open London gallery.  “I’ve always wanted a gallery like Saatchi, the original Boundary Road,” he says. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal looks at the life of Alma Mahler, the brash lover of some of Austria’s most noted artists during the turn of the twentieth century, who inspired both staunch admiration and loathing from the European art world.  Having married Walter Gropius,  Gustav Mahler, and writer Franz Werfel, she also counted a number of artists, including Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka, among her many lovers. (more…)

An article in Barron’s this week notes the number of fake artworks in the marketplace today, and precautions collectors may take to prevent acquiring such works, including a set time frame for independent evaluation of a work before money changes hands.  “It’s an effective way to assess the good faith of the gallery or dealer,” says James Martin, a trusted researcher who worked for years researching and evaluating claims of faked art. “And if they won’t agree to that, you have to scratch your head and ask why.” (more…)

Doug Aitken has launched another iteration of his Station to Station project at London’s Barbican Center, bringing his vast multimedia project to bear on the British capital.  “It will be amazing to see Station to Station come to life in London in such a unique, multi-arts environment as the Barbican,” Aitken says.  “This is a living exhibition with artists of all mediums, creating unique works and unpredictable encounters every day.” (more…)

Frieze London has announced its list of projects for its October opening in Regent’s Park, including pieces by castillo/corrales, Lutz Bacher, and Thea Djordjadze among others.  Projects range from Jeremy Herbert’s planned subterranean cavern beneath the fair, to Djordjadze’s reinterpretation of the massive plants that inspired many of Henri Mattisse’s famous cut-out works.   (more…)

The Whitney has announced new officers for its Board of Trustees, appointing Neil G. Bluhm and Laurie M. Tisch as co-chairs, while Richard M. DeMartini will act as president.  “I am grateful for the immense contributions of these devoted individuals and thank them with all my heart for ushering the Whitney into a new era, particularly Bob Hurst who chaired the capital campaign, which made the new building possible,” says President Adam Weinberg. (more…)

The Financial Times charts the ambitious efforts and long time frame for bringing an artist’s Catalog Raisonné to fruition, the effects this effort can often have on an artist’s market, and the resulting disputes over authenticity of works that may occur as a result.  “The authentication of individual works clearly belongs in the purview of the individual author or foundation,” says Deborah Aaronson, Phaidon’s group publisher, who just published the final volume in Andy Warhol’s Catalog Raisonné. “Authentication is clearly a huge issue with Warhol, so it’s not our policy to get caught up with those things.” (more…)