After a lengthy construction period, the new Munch Museum building in Oslo is preparing to open, the Architectural Digest reports. (more…)

The UK has announced that museums will not be able to reopen until Mid-May, a full month after shops and retail galleries.  “It just makes no sense,” says Rebecca Salter, the president of the Royal Academy of Arts . On the 12 April all the retail will open on Piccadilly and our gates will stay shut, I don’t get the logic of it frankly. It just doesn’t feel joined up to me … I’m angry.” (more…)

A piece in the NYT looks at the artists already thinking of the best way to commemorate those lost to the Covid-19 pandemic. “They want to recognize the deaths of those individuals, as well as to express a communal sense of shared loss and shared remembrance,” says geographer Avril Maddrell. (more…)

A major Paris scene painted by Vincent van Gogh and not yet seen in public since 1887 will go on view publicly this year, taking a tour of Europe before selling at Sotheby’s this May. “Very few paintings from Van Gogh’s Montmartre period remain in private hands – most are in the collections of prestigious museums around the world,” says Aurélie Vandevoorde of Sotheby’s. “The appearance on the market of a painting of this calibre, from such an iconic series, undoubtedly marks a major event.” (more…)

Rebecca Ackroyd, Breath Taking (2020), via Peres Projects

Artist Rebecca Ackroyd is interested in the twinned experiences of personal and collective memory, and how we reconcile their dissonance in our lives. Making a nuanced exploration of these ideas in concert with a unique fusion of concept and material, her new show, 100mph, her second exhibition at Peres Projects, Ackroyd architecturally intervenes in the space with semitransparent, plastic dividers, creating pods that isolate both the works and the viewer.  (more…)

A piece in the SCMP looks at the trend of independent curators and gallerists filling abandoned retail spaces with art in Hong Kong.  “You have to go through a lot to get funding, or be noticed by institutions and galleries. But there is this regenerative energy that exists here – we always find a way to work around things,” she says curator Eunice Tsang. (more…)

Jason Moran, Bathing the Room with Blues 3 (2020), via Luhring Augustine

Currently at Luhring Augustine‘s Tribeca exhibition space, the gallery is presenting The Sound Will Tell You, a presentation of new works on paper by artist and pianist Jason Moran, marking the gallery’s second exhibition with the artist. Internationally renowned as a jazz pianist and composer, Moran’s interdisciplinary and often collaborative visual art practice mines the history of music, and its social, cultural, and political subtexts. Here, he returns to a mode of practice that runs between both modes.  (more…)

New research has determined that writing on a version of Edvarrd Munch’s The Scream is by the artist himself. “It’s been examined now very carefully, letter by letter, and word by word, and it’s identical in every way to Munch’s handwriting,” says curator and researcher Mai Britt Guleng. “So there is no more doubt.” (more…)

The Mayor of Amsterdam is asking the Stedelijk to review the case of a Wassily Kandinsky work previously held in the collection of a Jewish family, and to reconsider if the work should be subject to restitution. “The Jewish people were deprived of their possessions, rights, dignity and, in many cases, their lives,” reads an open letter signed by a group including Femke Halsema mayor. “Insofar as something can still be restored of the great injustice done to them, we, as a society, have a moral obligation to act accordingly.” (more…)

Camille Blatrix, Pop-Up (Installation View), via Andrew Kreps

Camille Blatrix marks his first solo show in New York this month with Pop-Up, a strikingly incisive investigation into the modern cultural landscape, and the implied iconographies that come with it, on view via Andrew Kreps at 55 Walker. Mining languages of neoliberalism and capital, Blatrix’s built environment and assembled pieces are a comically incisive exploration of labor, material and culture.  (more…)

A piece in The Telegraph charts the landscape for galleries in London currently, and how they are making plans for the coming years post-Brexit and post-Covid. “We’re just playing a waiting game right now,” David Zwirner director James Green. “Our doors have been shut for all of 2021 so far, and we haven’t had word from the Government as to when that might change.” (more…)

Met Director Max Hollein has defended the museum’s ability to deaccession works in a piece on the institution’s online blog this week. “The Museum approaches deaccessioning with the same degree of strategy and deliberation as we apply to acquisitions,” he writes. “Whereas the two activities are not directly coordinated, our curators are always mindful of the effects of both on the profile of the collection.” (more…)

A sculpture by Constantin Brancusi can be removed from Paris’s Montparnasse cemetery following the results of a lawsuit in French court. The work has been disputed for over a decade after several people attempted to sell the work amidst a red-hot market for the artist’s work. (more…)

Paul McCarthy has an interview in the NYT this week, as he reflects on his new work, which mines the recent events surrounding the end of Trump’s presidency, and its relation to the rise of fascist regimes. “What part of the population do you need to create fascism?” he asks. “You don’t need the whole population. For me it was like, yeah, the subject’s problematic, but it’s the subject.”  (more…)

Artist Michael Phelan will open an arts organization in Marfa, Texas this fall, the NYT reports. Phelan has been a resident of the town since 2014. (more…)

Becky Kolsrud, Inscape (Three Graces) (2021), via JTT

Currently on at JTT’s New York exhibition space, Los Angeles painter Becky Kolsrud has assembled a range of new works featuring flattened female figures and opaque landscapes with glowing horizons, a space of 12 works that explore a range of surreal landscapes and interiors, composed from bodies and architectural elements in tandem. Drawing a range of influences from mythology and classical antiquity, the show pulls together a broad selection of iconographies that incorporate these histories into Kolsrud’s own unique world.  (more…)

Damien Hirst has an interview in The Guardian this week, as he opens an outdoor sculpture show in St. Moritz, and reflects on the state of the world. “I like it when people love my art. I like it when people hate my art. I just don’t want them to ignore my art,” he says. (more…)

Artist Maria Eichhorn will represent Germany at next year’s Venice Biennale next year. “In my view there are few artists who address themselves to German history and its impact on the present in as multifaceted and intensive a manner as Maria Eichhorn,” says Yilmaz Dziewior, the curator of the German Pavilion. (more…)

Friend Zone (Installation View), via Half Gallery

Embracing a range of expressive and animated approaches to portraiture and the body, artist Vaughn Spann has put together an expansive show at Half Gallery this month, bringing together a body of 44 works to explore a striking range of ideas and modes of portraiture. (more…)

As London’s National Gallery prepares to celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2024, it is planning a major renovation project, a $34.7-to-$41.7 million (£25-30 million) upgrade of its public-facing amenities. “We are extremely fortunate to have a superb building and a modern classic in the Sainsbury Wing,” says director Dr. Gabriele Finaldi, “one that has more than met its original brief, notably in the practically perfect picture galleries. The dual challenge of a huge increase in visitor numbers and the changing expectations and needs of those visitors over the last 30 years, means we do need to look again at the spaces we have, and in particular the ground floor entrances and amenities.” (more…)

A piece in the BBC looks at how museums are adapting to closure, and how its employees are feeling as museums remain shuttered. “I’ve absolutely loved it,” says James Maclaine, senior fish curator at the Natural History Museum. “Obviously I have missed my colleagues but the peace and quiet has been really nice.” (more…)

Stewart Uoo, used (Installation View), via 47 Canal

Artist Stewart Uoo has opened a show of new works at 47 Canal this month, presenting a body of works unified by their explorations of tension and harmony amidst the bustling landscape of New York City. The works on view, a selection of various materials resembling street-side detritus, are spread across an elevated tableau in the gallery, creating a personified sense of the block as body. (more…)

The NYT takes a tour of Angel Otero’s new studio in Malden-on-Hudson, N.Y., where the artist has taken over a converted church. “I embrace all this history,” he says. “I have always tried to mold my creativity and my lifestyle around moments like this.” (more…)

A Basquiat work is set to sell in Asia for at least $31 million, setting it up to become the most expensive Western work auctioned in Asia. “It is simply a masterpiece,” says Cristian Albu, Christie’s international director of postwar and contemporary art. (more…)