Famed Modigliani scholar Marc Restellini is preparing to open a new location for his Paris-based private museum, Pinacothèque, in Singapore this summer.  The $24 million site will open with a show focusing on Cleopatra, and will include a free “heritage gallery.”  “In Paris, a lot of our income comes from ticketing,” Restellini says. “We have more than one million visitors a year. In Singapore, we have to develop other processes of income.”  (more…)

The New York Times notes the growing trends at major museums towards including experimental and contemporary choreography among its programming, noting both the cultural and practical benefits for an institution.  “Live performance encourages audiences to be more frequent visitors to your building,” says Sam Miller, president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. “In terms of being responsive to what artists are doing today and bringing in a more diverse audience, it makes sense.” (more…)

Abraham Cruzvillegas, the Mexican artist who fashions sculptures and situational works out of reclaimed materials, has accepted an offer from the Tate Modern to take part in its Turbine Hall commission.  “His work reflects Tate’s deep interest in showing truly ground-breaking international art,”  says director Chris Dercon. (more…)

For the first time, Italy has launched an international search for directors to some of its most important museums, among them the Uffizi in Florence, the Galleria Borghese in Rome and the Accademia in Venice.  The move is seen as an attempt for major Italian institutions to get closer in line to international counterparts like The Louvre.  “It’s a giant leap ahead,” Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister.  “Italian museums should be more dynamic. They should have more bookshops, more restaurants. They should be attractive and have more multimedia.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles artist Daniel Arsham, and his legion of high-profile fans and collectors, among them Usher and Jay-Z.  “I couldn’t tell you how it happened,” Mr. Arsham says of his popularity. “I work with a lot of people who aren’t famous, too. And in some cases, it’s been the celebrities who gravitate towards me.” (more…)

The Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris is focusing on expanding its collection of photography, the Art Newspaper reports, earmarking over â‚¬100,000 a year to increase the size of its holdings in the upcoming years.   (more…)

Following a notable expansion project that boosted its gallery size from 800 square feet to 1,800, James Fuentes Gallery is opening a 400 square foot “project space” inside its space titled Allen & Eldridge.  “Because we’re starting a new chapter with the gallery, with the new space,” Fuentes says, “it just seemed like a really great juncture to try and incorporate some new voices into the program and have the ability to present these intimate exhibitions by great and interesting young artists.”  The space opens tonight with a show of work from Edward Shenk and Victor Vaughn’s ongoing series of King of the Hill inspired pieces. (more…)

In a recent discussion during the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos, noted economist and NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini has called for more rigid regulation of the art market.  Roubini is known for predicting the explosion of the US subprime housing market, and noted the art world’s frequent anonymity among buyers as one contributor to the ongoing use of the market to launder money.  “While art looks as if it is all about beauty, as a business it is full of shady stuff,” he said. “We should correct it or it will be undermined over time.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on the criminal case in Spain between the city of Barcelona and the daughters of wealthy industrialist Julio Muñoz Ramonet, who stand accused of stealing over 352 paintings and drawings, as well as tapestries and other works from the collector’s home when he donated them to the city.  “We’re talking about a quantity and a quality of missing works of art that could probably fill a first-class museum,” says Marc Molins, a criminal lawyer representing the city. (more…)

Artist Luc Tuymans has been convicted of copyright infringement in Belgium for his 2011 work A Belgian Politician, featuring a cropped image of politician Jean-Marie Dedecker.  Tuymans plans to appeal the case.  “Like many contemporary artists, the work of Luc Tuymans is based on existing images,” says Tuymans’s lawyer, Michaël De Vroey.  “How can an artist challenge the world with his works if he cannot use images of this world?” (more…)

The Wildenstein & Company art gallery is suing the nation of Qatar, after the nation reneged on its agreement to purchase the gallery’s Upper East Side location for the record price of $90 million.  “The purchase of the property, and its record price, came under review in Doha, where there was a reluctance to be seen as profligate,” the lawsuit states. (more…)

The Art Newspaper recaps the previous year of art auctions, citing Christie’s auction total at $6.8 billion, maintaining at $800 million lead over Sotheby’s, which wrapped the year with a $6 billion tally, both of which are records for the auction houses.  However, the article also notes that Christie’s is likely to appear much further ahead when the figures for private sales are announced for both houses.  “We’ve doubled our eCommerce sales, nearly 20% of our business was private sales. We are not an auction house anymore,” says Christie’s President Jussi Pylkkänen. (more…)

Sara Raza has been appointed the new Guggenheim curator for the Middle East and North Africa, and will continue the museum’s UBS Map initiative, the museum announced this week.  “Her work will complement and extend the research that the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi curatorial team is undertaking,” says Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong. (more…)

The Tate Britain has announced plans for a major retrospective focused on the work of Barbara Hepworth, which will feature a set of photograms from the artist’s archives, made by silhouetting the artist’s head against photo-reactive paper.  “It is a very beautiful thing in the flesh,” says Sophie Bowness, the artist’s granddaughter. (more…)

Artist Loris Gréaud, who is represented by Pace Gallery and Yvon Lambert opened an exhibition at Dallas Contemporary this weekend, which was attacked by a group of vandals some speculate were sent by the artist himself.  “About 90 minutes in, it was stormed by 25 individuals who proceeded to destroy the exhibition,” one witness told the New York Post. (more…)

The Corning Glass Museum in Upstate New York has reportedly acquired a number of contemporary art works heavily relying on glass as part of its new $64 million wing construction.  Works from Roni Horn, Klaus Moje, Ayala Serfaty, Jeroen Verhoeven and Fred Wilson will be included in the new space, among others. (more…)

Preparations are already underway for the second edition of Los Angeles’s Pacific Standard Time exhibition in 2017, which will focus specifically on Latin American art, and which is turning to South and Central American arts institutions for leadership in planning the event.  “By nature, the breadth of this topic requires bringing in more people. With PST: LA/LA, we thought we had the unique opportunity to strengthen the connections between research communities in Los Angeles and Latin America,” says Joan Weinstein, deputy director of the Getty Foundation. (more…)

Artist Jane Wilson, whose work frequently explored the rich colors and hues of the midwest skyline, has passed away at the age of 90 in New York City.  “The way she increasingly translated natural events — seasons of the year, times of day or night or conditions of weather — into barely representational, hovering substances of color and light is the miracle of the artist’s later work,” says Whitney Museum curator Elisabeth Sussman. (more…)

The Still House Group will open a new space at 3 Howard Street this week, where the group will be presenting programming and gallery exhibitions for the next year, as announced by the collective earlier today.  The space, fittingly titled Howard St, opens Saturday night with a show of new work by Brendan Lynch.   (more…)

A recent article in Vanity Fair reports on the increased competition for visitors between The Met and MoMA, as the former museum begins a new emphasis on modernist and contemporary projects, and ambitious expansion projects at both institutions.  “The Met is upwardly mobile at the moment and it’s doing everything it can to be more modern and more varied in what it has to offer, without vulgarizing things,” says Picasso biographer John Richardson. “And MoMA, an institution that I revere, is in a period of going slightly down in everybody’s estimation.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper has published a profile on Wolfgang Gurlitt this week, a cousin of the late Cornelius Gurlitt, and an avid art dealer who sold a sizable number of works to the Austrian city of Linz. Much of the collection’s provenance remains shady or undocumented, and investigations are still underway. (more…)

Musician PJ Harvey is embarking on a public art project, recording her next album in a see-through glass enclosure that allows the public an intimate look into the meticulous process of crafting an album.  “You have to go through dull moments to get to the goods,” Harvey says. (more…)

The Met has announced its next artist for the museum’s ongoing site-specific rooftop installation series, commissioning French conceptualist Pierre Huyghe to create a new piece looking out on Central Park.  “Pierre loves the fact that the park is full of animals,” says associate curator Ian Alteveer. (more…)

The New York Times reports on Larry’s List, the Hong Kong-based agency that compiles comprehensive profiles on collectors around the world.  Its first published report, has placed 8,000 to 10,000 collectors worldwide shopping at major fairs like Art Basel.  “Collectors are much more influential than they were 20 years ago and that influence is increasing,” says founder Magnus Resch . “More collectors are opening their own spaces and taking a leading role in museums, influencing the direction they take. They’re also pushing up the auction prices of their favorite artists.” (more…)