Federal prosecutors have recommended a prison sentence of up to three years for dealer Mary Boone over her tax evasion chargers, saying she deliberately defrauded the government with false tax returns that had her withholding up to $3 million. “Boone was the sole architect and beneficiary of this tax fraud scheme and, contrary to her assertions now, engaged in it out of pure greed — to line her own pockets by cheating the system,” the prosecutors wrote. (more…)

Kanye West has reportedly donated $10 million to James Turrell’s Roden Crater project, the Wall Street Journal reports. West said he wanted the project to be “experienced and enjoyed for eternity.” (more…)

Pace Gallery will represent Lynda Benglis, Art News reports. “She experiments, innovates, and stretches the limits of materials—often challenging how they’ve previously been used or understood,” says Marc Glimcher, Pace’s president and CEO. “And these innovations didn’t stop in the ’60s and ’70s, she’s continued to push materials further throughout her career; recently with her fountain works, she has even found a way to create form with water, an inherently formless material.”

(more…)

Maria Magdalena Ludewig the cocurator and director of Germany’s Wiesbaden Biennale, has died after a fatal injury in the Canary Islands, Artforum reports. “She has . . . pushed us beyond borders and has always been the good spirit of all her artists,” says Uwe Eric Laufenberg, director of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. “It has left traces in all of us that are indelible.” (more…)

The New York Times has a piece on the divorce between mega-collectors David and Libbie Mugrabi, and the ripples it has left across the art world.   “We were a team,” Ms. Mugrabi says. “We were partners at home and in business, with kids, everything. So whatever is the right thing, if that’s a little amount or a big amount, that’s what I want.” (more…)

Germany will launch a 100th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Bauhaus this year, featuring museum openings, exhibitions and parties across the country, Art Newspaper reports.  (more…)

The Prix Marcel Duchamp, the annual French award that carries a €35,000 purse, has revealed its shortlist for 2019, with a winner to be announced at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in October.  Nominees include Eric Baudelaire, Katinka Bock, Marguerite Humeau, and Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille. (more…)

New Museum staff is making efforts to unionize, making the move public after several months of planning and deliberation. “Forming a union will enable us, as well as future New Museum employees, to effectively advocate for changes in staff conditions that will make the New Museum a stronger and more sustainable institution,” the group said in a statement. “We believe in the New Museum and its mission; we want it to succeed. But we also recognize a need for critical changes at this moment in the museum’s growth.” (more…)

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac has appointed Kyu Jin Hwang as its associate director for Asia, part of gallery plans to more aggressively target Asian collectors.  “I am absolutely delighted to join Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, whose team I had the pleasure of working with in my previous roles, having been drawn to the outstanding artists represented by the gallery,” Hwang said in a statement. (more…)

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has announced its 2019 artist residencies in New Orleans, where each participant will receive a private studio space as well as access to programming at the center. “We look forward to engaging with our artists-in-residence and to seeing the exciting and unexpected ways the space and time can impact their work,” says Foundation CEO Christa Blatchford.  (more…)

The Andy Warhol Foundation will give $100,000 to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian for a traveling Oscar Howe retrospective, ending an eight-year funding ban originally installed after the Smithsonian removed a David Wojnarowicz work from a show in 2010.  “We believe that the ban has had its intended effect of promoting freedom of artistic expression at the national level,” says Foundation head Joel Wachs. “The Smithsonian has also demonstrated a strong track record of highlighting underrepresented artists over the past eight years, which aligns well with the foundation’s core values. While Wojnarowicz and Howe were very different artists working in different circumstances, both fiercely advocated for the visibility and inclusion of marginalized perspectives in contemporary art discourse.” (more…)

London’s National Gallery will send Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and 60 other paintings on a tour of two Japanese Museums next year in celebration of the Tokyo Olympics. “By sharing the treasures from our world-leading museums and galleries, we can promote the very best of Britain to the globe,” says Jeremy Wright, the UK’s Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. (more…)

Kehinde Wiley is profiled in The Guardian this week, as he reflects on his recent work and the impact of his creative project. “The great heroic, often white, male hero dominates the picture plane and becomes larger than life, historic and significant,” he says. “That great historic storytelling of myth-making or propaganda is something we inherit as artists. I wanted to be able to weaponize and translate it into a means of celebrating female presence.” (more…)

The Met achieved record attendance last year, up 5% to 7.36 million visitors, despite challenges the museum faced over its new admission policy.  “Surprisingly, when we made this change, New Yorkers recognized that the Met needed to shore up its revenues to stay healthy, and they increased the amount of money they contribute on each visit,” said Daniel Weiss, chief executive of the museum. (more…)

New York’s anticipated exhibition and performance space The Shed finally has an opening date: April 5th. “We wanted this to be a building that could bring parity across pretty much all art forms,” says Alex Poots, the Shed’s artistic director and chief executive. (more…)

The art dealer Anatole Shagalov is suing New York’s Paul Kasmin Gallery for $8.5 million in damages over the sale of Frank Stella’s La Scienza della Fiacca, of which Shagalov alleges the gallery claimed partial ownership. “The lawsuit will allege that when Paul Kasmin Gallery falsely claimed to own an interest in Shagalov’s painting, it knowingly defamed Shagalov, it negatively impacted the value of the painting itself by baselessly casting doubt on its title, and it interfered with Shagalov’s contractual relations with a key lender,” the dealer’s lawyers said in a statement.  (more…)

Lawyers for dealer Mary Boone, the veteran art dealer facing potential prison time for tax evasion have asked that the judge grant leniency based on her traumatic childhood. “Behind the facade of success and strength lies a fragile and, at times, broken individual,” the lawyers wrote in the filing. (more…)

The British Museum is planning a major retrospective of the print works of Edvard Munch, Art Newspaper reports, making it the UK’s largest exhibition of Munch prints for nearly 50 years. The show will be held in collaboration with the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. (more…)

The Italian Government will block a loan of works by Leonardo da Vinci to the Louvre for an exhibition dedicated to the artist, underscoring the government’s populist turn. “Leonardo is Italian; he only died in France, says Lucia Borgonzoni, the undersecretary for the Italian ministry of culture. “Giving the Louvre all those paintings would mean putting Italy on the margins of a great cultural event.” (more…)

The US Supreme Court will not hear a case over the return of paintings from the Hungarian Government seized during World War II. The family of Baron Mor Lipot Herzog will continue to pursue a case in the United States against three museums and a university in the country. (more…)

Artadia and the Marciano Art Foundation will join together for the Marciano Artadia Award, a $25,000 annual prize for a Los Angeles–based artist.  “Artadia is thrilled to partner with the Marciano Art Foundation. We share a common goal of supporting the diverse Los Angeles artistic ecosystem,” Artadia’s executive director, Carolyn Ramo says. “As L.A. increasingly becomes a city for artists, we are pleased to be recognizing and providing vital funds and validation to the talent found here.” (more…)

The Architectural Digest this week profiles the recent push by Miami’s Aventura Mall to become a major site to view art, with works by Lawrence Weiner and Carsten Höller on view . “We feel we’ve invested wisely,” real-estate developer Jackie Soffer says of the property’s collection.  (more…)

As it celebrates its 200th Birthday this year, Madrid’s Prado Museum and director Miguel Falomir Faus look back on the history and mandate of the institution this week in Art Newspaper, particularly in the years before it earned a degree of autonomy from the Spanish state. “The Prado was sometimes a weapon,” Falomir says, “used by one political party against the other” (more…)

Sean Kelly Gallery in New York has added four new partners; Cecile Panzieri as senior partner and Janine Cirincione, Lauren Kelly and Thomas Kelly (the latter two are his children) as partners. “I’ve built the business to the point where I felt it was a good idea to bring partners in who have a vested interest in furthering the business,” Kelly himself said in a statement. “Two of the newly appointed partners are my children, but all of them are my professional family. I could not be more proud to have such distinguished Partners.” (more…)