According to initial estimates, six million people visited Christo and Jean-Claude’s Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped during its run this fall. “It was a crazy dream and you have accomplished it, Vladimir [Javacheff, the late artists’ nephew]. We give you infinite thanks,” said President Emmanuel Macron. (more…)

With the announcement that the United States will reopen to international visitors, the NYT looks at the needs of cultural institutions, and the hope that the return of international visitors will help bolster budget shortfalls at a number of venues, galleries and museums. “We’re waiting with arms open,” says Victoria Bailey, the executive director of the Theater Development Fund. (more…)

Arts non-profit Anonymous Was a Woman has announced its largest series of awards recipients this year, providing funding to 14 women in a variety of creative fields. “It is an unexpected honor to finally receive recognition for my work as a painter and sculptor,” says recipient Suzanne Jackson. “I have known about the Anonymous Was A Woman award for years, though I never thought that I would be a recipient. I plan to use the award funds to continue my work exploring new aspects of integrating drawing, painting, and sculptured forms as related to various American relationships to our natural and urban environments.” (more…)

The Vatican will open a new contemporary art space in the papal library. “Our challenge is to strengthen the cultural role of the Vatican in the contemporary world,” says Vatican’s librarian Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça. (more…)

The Vancouver Art Gallery has received a $100 million gift from the Audain Foundation in support of a new building in downtown Vancouver. “The new Vancouver Art Gallery — from its conception and design — will reflect a Coast Salish worldview,” says Vancouver Art Gallery Elder-in-residence and art and design consultant Skwetsimeltxw Willard ‘Buddy’ Joseph.

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A piece in the Art Newspaper notes that in the growing field of NFT art, women make up only 16% of the market.  (more…)

The Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam will soon open The Depot, a large-scale archive and storage site for the museum that will put its full collection on view to the public. “You’ll go through the collection like you would visit a library looking for a book and finding three others,” said Sjarel Ex, the museum’s joint director. “We also decided to take private collectors, to give private collectors opportunities to work with us in the same building. So you see when you go around and you see the floors, you will meet with several collections that enjoy a collaboration with the museum.” (more…)

Alicia Keys and her husband, producer Swizz Beatz, give a tour of their La Jolla, California mansion, and their extensive art collection to Architectural Digest. “The interiors don’t in any way shout; they’re simple and timeless,” says interior designer Kelly Behun. “It was never going to be about trying to upstage the natural surroundings, the architecture, or the art.” (more…)

An official at the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg broke the nose of a visitor this weekend after the guest tried to enter the museum through an exit. “The employee who committed the offense fully admits his guilt and is sorry for his excessively emotional actions,” a statement reads. “He explains it by the general state of nervousness connected to the pandemic and its influence on life, including the museum’s new regime of work.” (more…)

As world leaders meet in Glasgow for the UN Climate Change Conference, Jenny Holzer is projecting the words of activist Greta Thunberg onto the walls of the Tate Modern in London. “If not now, then when,” the piece reads. (more…)

The Whitney will transfer a large collection of Andy Warhol’s cinema works to MoMA as part of an ambitious research effort. “The Whitney’s ongoing efforts to document, research and study Warhol’s remarkable film works—along with the preservation and digitisation initiatives of the MoMA and the Andy Warhol Museum—have brought them to a wider audience,” says Whitney head Adam Weinberg. (more…)

Six people have been arrested in the Spanish city of Valencia over a series of forged works attributed to Goya and other artists. “[The group’s] methods were as simple as placing a small piece of paper over a signature to swap it for another one, reusing both sides of a canvas, and imitating cracked paint by burning the canvas with a blowtorch,” the government said in a statement. (more…)

Jeff Koons gives an interview to Wallpaper magazine this week, as he invites the publication into his home and holds court on a range of subjects. “I started making art as a young kid and would always draw and paint, and I never knew what art was,” he says. “When I was in art school and learned about art history, I started to realize how it connects all the human disciplines. When I graduated from art school and started to really focus on my work, there were moments I would create things that were so powerful to me that they would overtake me physically.” (more…)

The UK is looking into ways of limiting the number of students signing up for education in the arts, a report in the Guardian notes, with an intent on reducing the number of students taking on large loans for historically lower-paying jobs. “They would like to control numbers in specific subjects. The Treasury is particularly obsessed with negative return in creative arts subjects,” says one source. (more…)

A group of artists including Henry Taylor and Peter Doig speak to the New York Times this week about the work of painter Bob Thompson. “I loved Bob’s work right away,” Taylor says. “I think I stumbled on him in a bookstore. I was like, ‘Damn, how come they didn’t tell me?’ It was like a jewel. I was ecstatic. He just hit hard right away.” (more…)

Paula Cooper Gallery now represents the estate of artist, musician and filmmaker Terry Adkins. “It is my profound pleasure to continue collaborating with the Estate of Terry Adkins and to bring the artist’s complex and groundbreaking work to a wider audience,” says partner Alexis Johnson. (more…)

Emma Enderby, currently the Chief Curator at The Shed has been named the new Chief Curator at Haus der Kunst. “After over 6 years in New York City, I am thrilled to be returning to Europe to take on this position at such a salient global center for art,” she says. “I look forward to working with Andrea Lissoni and the team to continue to push the space for interdisciplinary practices at Haus der Kunst, as well as the inventive, open, and prescient program that this institution is renowned for.” (more…)

Artist Lili Reynaud-Dewar has won this year’s Prix Marcel Duchamp, the most prestigious prize in French art.  (more…)

Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie has restituted, and then repurchased a Camille Pissarro piece that its original owners were forced to sell at auction in 1942, the Art Newspaper reports. “This Pissarro painting is an important work for our collection because it marks a significant step towards Impressionist art, which is one of the core holdings of the Alte Nationalgalerie,” says Director Ralph Gleis. “I thank Armand Dorville’s heirs for the trust in this institution shown by this acquisition.” (more…)

Frieze has tapped Patrick Lee as director of its Seoul art fair, which will launch next year. “The groundwork is now in place—art schools, private museums and public museums have come together and gelled at the right time,” he says of Korea’s readiness for a fair of this scale. (more…)

A piece in the NYT this week looks at the ongoing impacts the Covid-19 pandemic has had on British Museums, and forecasts how these setbacks will impact its institutions in the future. “We’re still seeing the impact of the pandemic play out,” says Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, a trade body. “It’s not back to normal at all.” (more…)

A Van Gogh landscape sold under duress before WWII will go to auction this year as part of a restitution settlement by the heirs of its original owner Max Meirowsky. “It is especially moving that Christie’s Restitution has been so deeply involved with this collection,” says Marc Porter, Christie’s Americas chairman. “We have made WW2 period provenance research a hallmark of our expertise, inextricably a part of the art historical framework.” (more…)

Glenn Ligon gets the profile treatment in the NYT this week, as the newspaper visits his Brooklyn studio and talks to the artist about his early life, work, and his early experiments with text and printing. You can’t plan those things,” he says. “The mistake was the fact that the text was getting all smeary until I realized, ‘Oh, smeary text is the thing.’” (more…)

Margo Leavin, a central fixture of LA’s art scene since the 1970’s, has passed away at the age of 85. Leavin was a central figure in the career of many LA artists including John Baldessari, Alexis Smith, and  Allen Ruppersberg.  (more…)