The Morgan Library and Museum has completed digitization on its expansive collection of Rembrandt etchings, which will be available online beginning May 22nd.  “Completion of our Rembrandt project is another important milestone in the Morgan’s ongoing commitment to make its collections available to an ever wider audience,” says Director William M. Griswold. “We are extraordinarily pleased to be able to share them with scholars, students, and anyone interested in his art.” (more…)

The Met has made 400,000 public domain images available for free online, part of Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC), a new initiative to increase access to the images for non-commercial uses.  “Through this new, open-access policy, we join a growing number of museums that provide free access to images of art in the public domain,” says Director Thomas P. Campbell.  “I am delighted that digital technology can open the doors to this trove of images from our encyclopedic collection.”   (more…)

Peter Doig, Burger King (1984), all images courtesy Michael Werner Gallery

On view at Michael Werner Gallery in London is a show from Scottish painter Peter Doig that explores his earliest works, even ones from his student days at St. Martin’s College in London, when he was still finding his voice as a painter.  Included alongside some of the artist’s most iconic and important artworks from his first years of widespread success, the show is an intriguing study into Doig’s continually shifting and specific stylistic tendencies.

Peter Doig: Early Works (Installation View)

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The New Museum will launch NEW INC. its new incubator for Art, Design and Technology this summer, and has announced its first wave of technology and entrepreneurial advisors, among them Yancey Strickler (co-founder of Kickstarter), Aaron Koblin (artist and Creative Director at Google Creative Lab), and Lauren Cornell (New Museum Curator, Curator, 2015 Triennial, Digital Projects, and Museum as Hub projects).  The initiative will continue its search for members through the June 6th deadline.“We’re thrilled to have such a phenomenal group advising us,” says NEW INC.’s Lisa Phillips, co-founder of the program alongside Karen Wong. “They embody the kind of innovative thinking and entrepreneurial spirit we plan to foster in the program and, together with an expanded group of mentors, will be an invaluable resource to our community.”

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Kevin Sutherland, the Florida Pastor convicted of trying to sell fraudulent Damien Hirst paintings has been sentenced to six months in jail and five months of probation, the New York Times reports.  “Here he had a choice, and he made the wrong choice,” said Justice Bonnie G. Winter of State Supreme Court. “He could easily have rectified it in the right way.” (more…)

The Met has announced that it will undergo an immense renovation of its Modern Art wing, creating special showcase galleries and room for its expanding collection, especially following the windfall gift of Cubist and Modernist works from the collection of Leonard A. Lauder.  “Leonard’s collection is such a huge missing link between our very strong collections of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and our moderately strong holdings of early-20th-century,” says director Thomas P. Campbell, “that if we reconfigure the galleries, we have the potential to tell the chronological story.” (more…)

Damien Hirst has donated the gilded skeleton of a woolly mammoth, secured inside a steel and glass case, for auction in benefit of non-profit amfAR’s 21st Cinema Against AIDS gala.  “I wanted to play with these ideas of legend, history and science by gilding the skeleton and placing it within a monolithic gold tank,” Hirst said. “It’s such an absolute expression of mortality, but I’ve decorated it to the point where it’s become something else, I’ve pitched everything I can against death to create something more hopeful.” (more…)

The Brooklyn Museum has been given a $5 Million endownment towards its director position from the Leon Levy Foundation.  The gift formally makes Director Arnold L. Lehman the Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum.  “I grew up in Brooklyn,” says gift namesake Shelby White, a founding trustee of the Leon Levy Foundation, “and I remember taking class trips to the museum to look at the Egyptian collection. I didn’t realize, until much later, that it was one of the greatest museums in the world.” (more…)

Nan Goldin, Veils (2011-14), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery

On view at Gagosian Rome is a unique exhibition of works by American photographer Nan Goldin. Entitled Scopophilia, referring to the Greek word that means “love of looking,” or, more specifically, an erotic pleasure that comes from looking at images of the body, the works focus on themes of sex, violence, rapture, despair, and the blurring of gender.

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The New York Times summarizes the disputes in Miami stemming from a proposed move for MOCA North Miami to the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach.  The Museum Board has criticized the city for its failures to keep up the space around the museum, while the city accuses the institution of trying to take away the city’s art.  “The collection belongs to the city, and they are trying to steal it,” Mayor Lucie Tondreau says. (more…)

The Guggenheim Foundation has responded to the lawsuit filed by descendants of Peggy Guggenheim, calling the lawsuit “frivolous” and contradictory.  The original suit criticized the Foundation of using Peggy Guggenheim’s Venice home, donated to house her collection, as the site of numerous outside exhibitions, a charge the Foudation dismisses wholehandedly.  “They insist that no works other than Peggy Guggenheim’s be exhibited in the palazzo or the garden,” the statement says. “Yet between 1999 and 2013, they were instrumental in organising 14 exhibitions of works entirely foreign to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.” (more…)

Jack Shainman Gallery has opened its newest location, a three-floor, converted schoolhouse located in Hudson, NY.  “I just love the building so much—especially its bones,” says Shainman. “We were pleasantly naive when we first took the project on, otherwise, we’d never have done this.” (more…)

A Detroit Judge has issued a decision preventing city creditors from removing art from the walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts for valuation outside the museum.  “The record fails to justify this extraordinary relief,” stated Judge Steven Rhodes after hearing arguments.

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Marina Abramovic is in The Guardian this week, discussing her techniques in the “Abramovic Method,” as a way of increasing awareness and consciousness while preparing for performances. “It’s very much to do with concentration, and to the borderline of how far we can concentrate on one thing at a time.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles a series of outdoor installations and sculpture projects outside New York City, including Fujiko Nakaya: Veil a new installation by the Japanese artist in which she has surrounded the iconic “Glass House” in New Canaan, CT with a wall of dense mist.  “The house has a kind of timelessness,” says director Henry Urbach, “and of course it’s all about transparency. We are confronting that with something that is ephemeral, constantly changing and often very opaque and mysterious.” (more…)

The New York Times documents a new trend in galleries’ approach to setting up space in Hong Kong: focusing on small exhibition spaces and tighter exhibitions to draw interest while remaining economically flexible.  “We’ll have exhibitions about four or five times a year, but an exhibition can be three works or four works,” says Pace chairman Arne Glimcher of his gallery’s new Hong Kong space. “Or if it’s watercolors or works on paper or small sculptures, it can be 10 works.” (more…)

Martino Gamper, L’Arco della Pace, all images Courtesy of Serpentine Galleries

Following 2009’s Design Real, curated by Konstantin Gricic, Serpentine Galleries is hosting its second major design exhibition. Titled design is a state of mind, the exhibition emphasizes London-based, Italian-born designer Martino Gamper’s curatorial vision with a selection of major design works brought together by the renowned designer. Gamper, reminding viewers of the emotional charge of design works are capable of beyond their mere functionality and surface presentation, aims to underline the multiplicity of perspectives when appreciating design. (more…)

Qingtai Hu at Shanghai, All Images © MCH Messe Schweiz (Basel) AG

After a hectic week, the Art Basel Hong Kong event is winding down, leaving behind it a record of strong sales and high-profile attendees, continuing the fair’s prominent footprint in Hong Kong’s ever-strengthening draw for collectors and artists.  Pi Li and Doryun Chong of the M+ Museum could be seen browsing the works, as well as Uli Sigg, Takashi Murakami and Carsten Nicolai, who had just opened his astounding installation at the International Commerce Center. (more…)

Fifty years after Frank Lloyd Wright unveiled the groundbreaking design for the Guggenheim Museum, museums around the world are embracing dramatic designs for housing their collections, such as the subtle flow of The Curve at the Barbican in London.  “When we first embarked on this, people thought of this space as very awkward and difficult,” said visual arts head Jane Alison. “You don’t see everything at once. Now artists are very keen to be in the Curve and recognize the potential of it.” (more…)

Raymond Pettibon, No Title (Something Approaches There) (2001), via Art Observed

On view at Venus Over Manhattan is the first exhibition ever to focus entirely on Raymond Pettibon’s surfer paintings, comprised of 40 works created over a 28 year period, from 1985 to 2013. The works vary from small-scale India ink pieces to large-scale paintings up to 10 feet wide, and will remain on view through May 17, 2014.

Raymond Pettibon, Are Your Motives Pure?’ Surfers 1985-2013 (Installation View), via Art Observed

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After a number of considerations have been addressed, the takeover of the Corcoran by the National Gallery of Art is set to get underway, with George Washington University also preparing to take over the institution’s art school.  “I think there’s a euphoria that we have a wonderful solution here,” says Corcoran interim director and president Peggy Loar. “The one thing we need to work at is to maintain that synergy between the collections and curators along with the faculty and the students.” (more…)

Vladimir Umanets, the 2012 vandal of Mark Rothko’s mural Black on Maroon, has published an editorial in The Guardian, expressing regret for his actions but remaining committed to the principles of his conceptual practice Yellowism.  “It doesn’t matter how important one believes one’s ideas to be, nor how genuine one’s intentions are,” he writes.  “It is unacceptable to deface someone’s property without permission. What I did was selfish. My act has hurt many art enthusiasts and I deeply regret it.” (more…)

An intrepid thief made off with a piece of a Danh Vo sculpture Thursday, stealing the work from City Hall Park in New York while the work was being installed.  “We can confirm that a small part of the artwork disappeared from the park during installation, and a police investigation is underway,” a representative from the Public Art Fund noted. (more…)

Kara Walker is profiled in the Economist this week, exploring the artist’s current installation at the Domino sugar factory, and the difficulties in keeping the sugar coated works together in various conditions.   “No one works with sugar,” says curator Nato Thompson. “Now we know why.” (more…)