Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union have expressed solidarity with Ahdaf Soueif over the author’s resignation from the British Museum board of trustees over its BP funding and other issues. The letter claims that BP “is allowed to propagate the myth that, without its existence, we would not have access to the collections of our publicly funded museums and galleries.” (more…)

The David Smith Estate has named Jennifer Field its new executive director, as it continues to expand and work on the artist’s catalogue raisonné. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to join the Estate of David Smith in a capacity that draws upon my range of professional and scholarly experiences,” she said in a statement, “yet allows me to focus in a sustained way upon Smith’s remarkable artistic contributions.” (more…)

NADA has announced plans for its first Chicago Invitational, with 35 exhibitors from 19 cities in 11 countries presenting at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel.  (more…)

A group of artists and curators, including Hannah Black, have written a powerful piece in Artforum this week, challenging the artists in this year’s Whitney Biennial regarding their refusal to protest the show over the Whitney’s tacit support of board member Warren Kanders. “A boycott would boost the force of every one of these statements and actions,” the piece reads. “But the art world imagines itself as a limited sphere of intellectual and aesthetic inquiry, where what matters, first and foremost, are inclusion, representation, and discussion. ” (more…)

Artist Leo Villareal has launched the first phase of his Illuminated River Project, which will install lights on the bridges spanning the Thames in London. “It was important for me to make something that felt appropriate and inspired by the life and history of the river, rather than using the bridges as a pedestal for my own ego,” Villareal says. (more…)

Directors at the Tate in London have declared a “climate emergency,” and will immediately set to work reducing the museum’s carbon footprint by 10 percent within the coming four years. “We will interrogate our systems, our values and our programs, and look for ways to become more adaptive and responsible,” the directors said in the announcement. “As an organization that works with living artists, we should respond to and amplify their concerns. And, as our audiences and communities across the world confront climate extinction, so we must shine a spotlight on this critical issue through art.” (more…)

Beijing’s Long March Space will stop participating in art fairs. The gallery plans to “innovate business models and enter a new stage of art market work,” according to an announcement.  (more…)

A piece in the NYT this week charts the damage caused by the fire at Notre Dame, and just how close the cathedral came to collapsing. “There was a feeling that there was something bigger than life at stake,” says Ariel Weil, mayor of the city’s Fourth Arrondissement, “and that Notre-Dame could be lost.” (more…)

“Wolf of Wall Street” producer Joey McFarland has agreed to give up items he says he received as gifts from Low Taek Jho, the man behind the theft of billions of dollars from the Malaysian 1MDB fund, including a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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The Louvre has removed the Sackler name from all of its galleries following protests this month, claiming that the statue of limitations on the donor name rights had expired.  “We protest against this attempt to rewrite history and call on [Director] Jean-Luc Martinez to rectify his statements as soon as possible in order to make official the removal of the Sackler name from the Louvre,” the P.A.I.N. activist group said of the news. (more…)

The Andy Warhol Foundation has given $3.81 million to 41 arts organizations in the United States and Canada for its spring 2019 grant cycle, which will go to support exhibitions, publications, and institutional programming.  Awards include a Barbara Kruger show at the Art Institute of Chicago and shows at the The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. (more…)

The NYT has a piece this week on 25 art works that defined the contemporary era, from Hans Haacke’s MoMA Poll to Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby.  The piece features interviews and comments on the work from a range of artists and critics. (more…)

The Public Art Fund has promoted  Kellie Honeycutt as its deputy director and Daniel S. Palmer as curator. “A key aspect of Public Art Fund culture is to nurture creative talent, and that includes our own extraordinary team. Both Kellie and Daniel are outstanding professionals, leaders in our field, and wonderful colleagues,” says Chief Curator and Director Nicholas Baume. “As we continue to embrace new opportunities to fulfill our mission, I’m excited to further our collaboration in their new roles.” (more…)

The Pérez Art Museum Miami has received $1 million the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation towards the institution’s new Caribbean Cultural Institute. “It’s something that is in our DNA, and we’ve been talking about this for a long time,” says Franklin Sirmans, PAMM’s director. “Now we’re really going to be able to move the dial.”  (more…)

The Rothko Chapel has received $2 million from the Houston Endowment, which will help fund the chapel’s renovation plan. “Houston Endowment envisions Houston as a vibrant community where all people have the opportunity to thrive, and a vibrant community needs a strong arts ecosystem,” says Long Chu, the program officer of the Houston Endowment. “Fulfillment of the master plan will elevate Rothko Chapel’s role as one of Houston’s significant cultural institutions and expand its ability to contribute to Houston’s vibrancy.” (more…)

Artist Ibrahim Mahama is interviewed in The Guardian this week, talking the paper through his recent show at Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery, and his conceptual interests. “Not everything is about Brexit,” he says when asked about the show’s ties to the British vote to leave the EU. “But sure. It’s about Brexit among other things. Ghana is very connected with Britain even now. So why not Brexit?” (more…)

After several years of struggles, Munich’s Haus der Kunst may lay off two-thirds of its part-time or replace jobs with outsourced labor.  The museum has suffered from financial troubles in the past months.  Sources say the layoffs come “because we are aiming for a partial closure rather than a complete closure during the due renovation.”  (more…)

Two chairmen of the Biennale Paris’s vetting committee have resigned over the inclusion of exhibitors targeted by criminal investigations in the fair.  The fair has seen controversies mount since a 2016 investigation over the inclusion of forged works. (more…)

P.P.O.W. Gallery in Manhattan has added painter Hilary Harkness, who joins from the now shuttered Mary Boone.  “She has a very individual voice,” cofounder Wendy Olsoff says. “Her point of view and technique and idiosyncratic style are very much her own… I think a lot of younger women and men don’t know her work and seeing it at our gallery will be eye-opening and exciting.” (more…)

The Tate has announced that more than 5,000 sketches, drawings, and commercial artworks by artist Ithell Colquhoun have been given to it by the National Trust.  “She had very few solo exhibitions … that’s why this collection is so amazing – it is going to be a re-evaluation of her whole career because there is so much in the collection,” says Tate archivist Adrian Glew. (more…)

Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who has been arrested for a number of vandalisms of major Russian sites and government buildings. “The government’s aim is to suppress or neutralize art, to reduce me to a vandal, a madman, a provocateur,” he says, “but the criminal case becomes one of the layers of the artwork, the portal through which you enter and see the mechanisms of power exposed.” (more…)

New York Supreme Court judge has ruled that Pace Gallery founder Arne Glimcher and members of the Agnes Martin catalogue raisonné committee were within their rights to exclude 13 works owned by London art dealer James Mayor from the artist’s catalogue raisonné. “Whether any catalogue raisonné’s inclusion or non-inclusion of an artwork has any bearing on the work’s value has been recognized by New York courts as a function of the art marketplace,” ruled Judge Andrea Masley, “and it is not for the court to determine what the art market should or should not credit as reliable.”  (more…)

Beijing police evicted scores of artists from several studio buildings in the city’s arts district this week. “They are driving us all away on the excuse of cleaning up the underworld,” artist Canon Duan says. “We’re not prepared at all. And no one has explained it to us.”  (more…)

Penske Media Corporation will acquire Art Market Monitor, the online publication of Marion Maneker, who will become editorial director of a holding company overseeing ARTnews and Art in America.  “In the art world, where a significantly fragmented audience spans so many websites, newsletters, and brands, PMC sees the opportunity to augment these exceptional brands with further investments in content and editorial, complemented by robust data and analytic tools, and growing an engaging live media and event business,” says chairman Jay Penske. “This acquisition adds a strong subscription business that expands PMC’s reach and influence in the art vertical.” (more…)