Andrea Lissoni the senior curator at Tate Modern, will take over as director at the Haus der Kunst, taking over for the late Okwui Enwezor. “We have found a convincing personality who is willing to and can face the challenges of the Haus der Kunst in the field of tension between international radiance and local embedding,” says Bernd Sibler, the art minister in the state of Bavaria. (more…)

Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping, a provocative and challenging practitioner who often brought forth taboo subjects in China, has passed away at 65. His death was confirmed by Gladstone Gallery. The artist’s work recently encountered controversy in New York, when his 1993 work Theater of the World was altered to remove animals preying on each other from the inside of the work. “Huang doesn’t give a damn,” said Kamel Mennour. “Sometimes I’ll point out important clients to him, but it makes no difference. He never goes to openings or parties, never reads magazines. He wears the same pants and shoes every day. He’s just obsessively focused on his work.” (more…)

On November 11 in New York Christie’s will sell Umberto Boccioni’s iconic sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, estimated at $3,800,000-4,500,000. “In his brief life, Boccioni reimagined time, space and movement in three dimensions,” says Max Carter, International Director, Head of Department, Impressionist and Modern Art at the auction house. “Where other works of art are rooted in the past, Unique Forms of Continuity of Space—Boccioni’s greatest achievement and one of the most important sculptures of the 20th century—was, is and will always be the future.” (more…)

A piece in the NYT looks at the friendship between Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas, and how the pair’s shared interests and styles helped usher in a new era of art. “Degas was surrounded by Americans,” says historian Nancy Mowll Mathews. “He was someone who liked having people like him. He got them interested in his ideas. Cassatt was one of many who came into the Impressionist circle through Degas.”  (more…)

A newly discovered painting by Rembrandt will go on view for the first time at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, The Guardian reports. “In his early paintings, prints and drawings we find a young artist exploring his own style, grappling with technical difficulties and making mistakes. But his progress is remarkable and the works in this exhibition demonstrate an amazing development from year to year,” says Christopher Brown, a former Ashmolean director and co-curator of the show. (more…)

Environmental protestors from Extinction Rebellion coated themselves with fake oil at the National Portrait Gallery this week, in protest against the museum’s sponsorship by BP. “Who will there be left to see, who will there be left to paint, if we have no earth and no people?” a protestor said during the action. “We cannot be artists on a dead planet. Oil means the end, but art means the beginning.” (more…)

Volta Art Fair has been purchased by Ramsay Fairs, the group that owns the Affordable Art Fair and Pulse, the Financial Times reports. The new owners will work “to invest more in marketing and the fair experience,” according to a statement. (more…)

Hildegard Bachert, an art dealer focused on German and Austrian modernism, has died at age 98.  Bachert was a tireless advocate for the often challenging subject matter of the work she sold, once saying: “We don’t do pretty pictures—our art is tough. If we have people who come in saying, ‘I’m looking for a picture that works over my fireplace,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t help you.’” (more…)

A Keith Haring mural is being cut out of the stairwell of Grace House, a Catholic youth center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and prepared for auction, causing some to decry its removal. “When new kids came to that building and they saw all that stuff, they said, ‘Oh my god, this is Keith Haring. Is this real?’” says former director Gary Mallon. (more…)

Hollywood exec Ron Meyer has filed a $10m lawsuit against two art dealers he claims sold him a forged Mark Rothko. “Ron Meyer is probably Hollywood’s best liked person. The people he’s quietly helped are legion,” says lawyer Bertram Fields. “It’s a shame that Ron, of all people, should have been stuck with an expensive but fake painting.  We’ll try to right that wrong.” (more…)

A pair of protests were staged at MoMA the past few days, with groups disrupting the opening this morning over Steven Tananbaum’s position as trustee, and his company’s holding of $2.5 billion in debt from Puerto Rico, which is currently facing government austerity, as well as a protest this past weekend over alleged museum ties to Fidelity Investments, which has stakes in GEO Group and CoreCivic, two private-prison companies. (more…)

In a surprise move, MoMA opened its doors on its newly renovated space a day early, offering free admission all Sunday.  “We decided to celebrate with visitors from New York and around the world by offering free admission to all on Sunday, one day before we officially open the new MoMA on October 21. Come and celebrate with us!” a MoMA spokesperson said in an email. (more…)

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Shirin Neshat has some choice words about the Trump administration in an interview with Art Newspaper this week, as she opens a major retrospective at The Broad. “For me, the demon lives on both sides,” she says. “This US government is looking more and more like the Iranian government every day. I am cornered on both sides in a way, maybe not so badly yet in the US. At the moment the sanctions are killing Iran­â€”not just the government but the people too—and they are desperately trying to find a solution. And then in the US, my God—it is just going to hell. There are such profound problems: corruption, healthcare, education, the issue of poverty. ” (more…)

Artist Sharona Franklin is accusing Gucci of ripping off the style and techniques in her work, after the artist was approached and signed an NDA for the company. “I gave them my full name, and then after that I never heard from them again,” she says, noting that she has suffered from multiple chronic illnesses that have caused issues with employers in the past. “I lost so many opportunities in the past by disclosing my disability to employers.”  (more…)

Reversing a prior ruling, an Italian court has ruled that da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man to Paris for the massive Louvre exhibition set to open soon.  The last ruling stated that the work was too fragile to travel. (more…)

The Centre Pompidou is planning an “art factory” in the suburb of Massy, with 237,000 square feet for storage and exhibition space.  The space is estimate to  cost around €50 million, or about $55.6 million, to build.  The space will also hold works from the Musée National Picasso-Paris. (more…)

Former Institute of Contemporary Art Miami head Ellen Salpeter will take on leadership of Westbeth Artists’ Housing, a New York–based nonprofit providing affordable housing and studio spaces to artists, Art News reports.  “It’s a nice time to reflect on its story, which is pretty extraordinary, but it also offers us an opportunity to look forward to the next phase of Westbeth and position us as a resource for a future generation of artists,” she says. “I think we have a fundamental role in keeping cultural producers in New York.” (more…)

New York officials are threatening to cuts to funding for the art storage and handling company UOVO over “aggressive and coercive tactics” to prevent its workers from unionizing. “Immediately cease and desist your campaign of intimidation and misinformation against your employees,” reads a letter to UOVO chairman Steve Guttman from New York state senator Julia Salazar. (more…)

Chinese-French artist Sanyu’s Five Nudes will go on sale at Christie’s Hong Kong, with a record-setting presale estimate of HKD 250 million, or about $33 million. (more…)

Following Desert X’s partnership with Saudi Arabia on its next exhibition, an early donor for the project, The MaddocksBrown Foundation will withdraw funding.  “It’s like inviting Hitler to a tea party in 1943 — I see a simile here,” says artist Ed Ruscha. “I see Saudi Arabia as being in desperate need of cultural legitimacy, and this is a way to move the spotlight away from their other problems.” (more…)

The Louvre is putting the finishing touches on a virtual reality tour that focuses on the Mona Lisa as it prepares its landmark show on Leonardo Da Vinci. “She is seated, and spectators will be facing her like a conversation, face to face,” says Dominique de Font-Réaulx, the Louvre’s director of mediation and cultural programming. (more…)

A piece in the NYT recognizes the German art center Z.K.M. in Karlsruhe, which has a reputation for spotting new and dynamic creative ideas, and which was an early supporter and collector of visual art.  “No other institution has a track record of really looking at the medium in depth,” says Christiane Paul, a media studies professor at the New School. (more…)

Nick Cave gets a profile in the NYT this week, part of a series celebrating “The Greats,” and discusses his career, including the construction of his first sound suit after the 1992 Rodney King beating.  “I felt like my identity and who I was as a human being was up for question. I felt like that could have been me,” he says. “Once that incident occurred, I was existing very differently in the world. So many things were going through my head: How do I exist in a place that sees me as a threat?” (more…)