The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York has elected Jon C. Iwata as chair of its board of trustees. “I so look forward to working with Jon in his new role as chair, building upon his work to date with museum branding and audience-building to position Cooper Hewitt as the platform for all things design,” says museum director Caroline Baumann. “I extend a warm welcome to Crystal who brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge in design, global business and branding, technology, and philanthropy.”

(more…)

Tom Finklepearl has left his post as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.  “With my great colleagues at the agency, fellow commissioners across City government, and terrific support from the Mayor and the First Lady, we’ve been able to make record investments in our city’s cultural community,” Finkelpearl said in his statement. “We’ve insisted that a more diverse cultural workforce will make stronger cultural institutions. We’ve infused hundreds of millions of dollars in the cultural sector, with a focus on getting more of it to historically underserved areas. And we’ve brought the arts into City government itself, trusting artists to help creatively address civic issues.” (more…)

Doris Salcedo has been named winner of the $1 million Nomura Art Award, the first-ever edition of the award from the company, which will now be given annually to one artist. “Producing projects capable of honoring the experience of victims of violence requires a large investment in time and organization, sometimes with many collaborators,” she said. “Because of this award, I am now able to move ahead much more quickly than I had expected with a project that is important to me, and that I hope will touch many people.” (more…)

The U.S. Justice Department has struck a deal with financier Jho Low, in which it will recover over $1 billion taken from the 1MDB in investment fund.  “We were pleased to help negotiate this historic resolution in order to preserve the tremendous value of assets involved,” says Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey said in a statement. “It is one of the largest civil forfeiture settlements in U.S. history and represents a voluntary return of each and every asset claimed by DOJ.” (more…)

The city of Paris is preparing to construct a temporary venue to host exhibitions and events while the Grand Palais undergoes its three-year renovation. “We are going to work with Unesco run by Audrey Azoulay [the former French culture minister], which is one of Paris’s most beautiful and little-known buildings. It was designed by Marcel Breuer, Bernard Zehrfuss and Pier Luigi Nervi and houses the best work by Takis [Aeolian Signals, 1993],” says Culture Chief Chris Dercon. (more…)

LACMA and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai have teamed up with Qatar Museums (QM) in Doha as part of a new arts collaboration and exchange, which will develop exhibitions and curatorial projects between institutions. “Together, we are experimenting with new and innovative ways to share the collections and programs from Lacma, Yuz, and QM with a larger global audience,” LACMA Director Michael Govan said in a statement.  (more…)

An unsigned painting discovered in a French chateau have led to speculations that the work is a depiction ofItalian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, painted by Leonardo da Vinci. “Just because it says so in the archives does not mean it’s true” cautions Anne Gerardot of the local archives office. (more…)

A nearly identical copy of Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi has been placed on view on at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin, Italy.  The copy was painted by painted by the German-Turkish artist Taner Ceylan. “Re-creating another Salvator Mundi in a slightly different size gave me the opportunity to dive into the technical qualities and spiritual layers of this controversial painting,” the artist said. “This was not easy. This process of painting gave me the chance to come very close to the Renaissance era.” (more…)

Artist Hito Steyerl has lodged a protest against the German government’s support and sale of arms to Turkey, calling for all institutions receiving state funds to no longer show her work. “I am sick of my work being deployed to detract attention from the German state’s tacit agreement with displacement, ethnic cleansing, and warfare, and to lend it an aura of tolerance and inclusivity,” she said in a recent performance. (more…)

Critic Christopher Knight of the LA Times has called out the Desert X Biennial’s partnership with Saudi Arabia as “morally corrupt” in a new piece for the paper. “A diverse cosmopolitan culture cannot function without free expression,” he writes.  “In Saudi Arabia, however, apostasy is punishable by death. Unless artists are willing to make their host’s state control of expression an explicit subject of their work, those who participate cannot escape compromise from the polluted context.” (more…)

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles has named Sandra Jackson-Dumont, current chairman of education and public programs at the Met as its new director and CEO. “We want the Lucas Museum to be a vital resource for our community and we believe Sandra will help us achieve that goal,” says founder George Lucas. (more…)

Fashion designer Marc Jacobs will have a number of works from his collection on sale at Sotheby’s in New York next month, as the designer looks towards a new era in his journey as a collector. “I’m not Marie Kondo,” he says. “I didn’t decide everything must go. I thought about my role as an art collector…and I just felt it’s time to give myself this window to start again.” (more…)

Artist Phil Collins has pulled his work from a show at MoMA PS1 in solidarity with protests against mass incarceration. “This decision is an expression of solidarity with the millions of human beings currently held in cages in U.S. prisons and jails, with their communities and loved ones, and with friends, colleagues, organizers, and campaign groups working tirelessly to call out, resist, and counter the social violence perpetuated by the prison system,” he said in a statement. (more…)

Director Martin Scorcese discusses a project he never realized during the 1980’s in the most recent episode of the Director’s Guild podcast, a biopic based on the life of Amedeo Modigliani.  “It never came off,” he says. “I couldn’t get the financing in the 1980s. Then he went with [directors Brian] De Palma and [Sidney] Lumet, so it’s a whole other thing.” (more…)

The Guardian has a piece this week on the fires threatening the Getty in LA, and how the museum now prepares for the possibility of a nearby blaze. “We think about fire prevention 24/7,” says Communications VP Lisa Lapin. (more…)

Pace has hired Amelia Redgrift as the gallery’s first senior director of global communications and content, marking its own attempts to enter the world of editorial. “Through direct access to artists and in-depth research projects, Pace’s curators—alongside the gallery’s longstanding directors—have become experts on the program and are in some cases the living authority on individuals within the roster,” she says. “We want to leverage this knowledge base to produce engaging editorial with and on behalf of our artists.” (more…)

Marina Abramovic gets an interview in The Believer this week, speaking on her work and her experience of Slavic culture in her home country and abroad. “Don’t have nostalgia. Don’t ever look the past. We only have to live in present and for future,” she says. “Especially if you’re an artist—you grow up there with restrictions, then you come somewhere else and there’s no restrictions and you become kind of lost because you don’t know how to deal with freedom.” (more…)

A long-running lawsuit over cardboard frames on a Martin Kippenberger triptych has ended after an LA court rejected an almost $100 milllion bad faith claim against insurance company XL Specialty.  “I think what you are looking at here is an attempt to use an insurance policy like an ATM machine,” says defense lawyer Gregory Michael MacGregor. (more…)

MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary space is set for a re-imagination, with a focus on performances and installation, as well as “festival-like open events such as conventions, summits, readings, idea fairs, concerts, screenings, dance, as well as group, family, and community oriented activities.” “We can at once pay homage to uniqueness of MOCA’s foundation and the routes of the building as The Temporary Contemporary, while also pivoting towards the future and providing a space for cutting-edge contemporary art,” Klaus Biesenbach says. (more…)

A painting recently attributed as a work by Cimabue sold this week in France for $26.8 million, with gallerist Fabrizio Moretti winning the work. “I bought it on behalf of two collectors,” he said of the purchase. “It’s one of the most important old master discoveries in the last 15 years. Cimabue is the beginning of everything. He started modern art. When I held the picture in my hands, I almost cried.” (more…)

Gallerist Ronald Feldman, an early champion of artists like Joseph Beuys and Chris Burden, has left his position as director of his gallery for health reasons. “He is so passionate about championing ideas-based work, and advancing and creating platforms for artists that truly engage with the widest range of social issues and political causes in our world,” says his son, Mark Feldman. “He supported artists who were really groundbreaking and willing to take risks.” (more…)

The influential Shane Campbell Gallery in Chicago is closing, Art News reports. “After 18 years as art dealers, we’re retiring,” the gallery announced in a statement online. “It’s voluntary and positive and we’re ready to take on fun and creative projects whatever they might be.” (more…)

Charles F. Stewart has been named the new CEO of Sotheby’s, with Tad Smith taking a role as senior adviser, Art News reports. “I have known him for many years and have been impressed by his appetite for innovation, taking smart risks, and challenging the status quo,” says Sotheby’s new owner Patrick Drahi. “He has a proven record of driving growth and is ideally positioned to create value for Sotheby’s clients and our outstanding team.” (more…)

A series of paintings of drag queens and trans women by Andy Warhol will go on view next year at Tate Modern, The Guardian reports.  “I had heard there might be these paintings in existence and I met the people who own them now and I went to visit them and it was quite the most remarkable thing,” says Gregor Muir, a Tate director and co-curator. “They were mostly in storage and it was just very beautiful and exciting to pull out these paintings and handle them and start to look through each and every work.” (more…)