London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has launched a new collection tactic, called “Rapid Response Collecting,” in which the gallery acquires objects and materials as they enter into the public consciousness.  One recent example is a pair of Primark jeans, an emblem of the international trade at the center of the Bangladeshi factory collapse last year.  “Much of the commentary in the media around the Rana Plaza disaster was about international labour laws, building control in Bangladesh and the responsibilities of global corporations and of consumers,” says Corinna Gardner, V&A curator of Rapid Response Collecting.  “But at its heart was a material thing: a pair of jeans that you can buy on any British high street.” (more…)

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…)

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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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…)

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…)

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…)

The New York Times reports on the recently finished renovation of the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which shifted its focus and exhibition strategy to more carefully and chronologically explore the artist’s life.  “It really is a new Warhol; it’s much more about him,” says director Eric Shiner. (more…)

Paris’s Picasso Museum has fired director Anne Baldassari, citing a “gravely deteriorating work environment” during the museum’s continually delayed renovation, as well as “profound suffering in the workplace and a toxic atmosphere.”  The museum’s  reopening has already been pushed back twice, and had seen numerous employees leaving the organization during Baldassari’s tenure.  “There was nothing in the report from the inspector general that surprised us,” said one ministry official. “This had been going on for several years. The truth is that we could not open a museum with all these employees leaving.” (more…)

New York collector Christopher Tsai has announced his intent to found the first Ai Weiwei Museum in his home city, the Art Newspaper reports.  The collector has been inspired by the artist’s output, as well as the proliferation of museums dedicated to the work of a single artist. (more…)

The Financial Times takes an inside look at the recently opened second location of the Long Museum in Shanghai, operated by Director Wang Wei and her husband Liu Yiqian.  “Our idea initially was to have only one museum,” Wang says, “but the government came to us, encouraged us to open another and gave us a discount on the land, on condition that we make a cultural project. I probably would have been happy with one.” (more…)

Artist Marina Abramovic is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing her upcoming retrospective at The Serpentine, where the artist will freely wander the space of the gallery, and will allow visitors to come in and watch her.  “It’s the public and me and nothing else,” she says. “I took the objects away. But the encounter, I’ve never done anything as radical as this. This is as immaterial as you can go.” (more…)

A lost Van Gogh has been discovered by tax collectors in Spain, hidden away in a bank deposit box.  The work, Cypress, Sky and Country, is dated 1889, and has three seals of authenticity.  It was last on view at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum over 50 years ago, and an investigation is underway as to how the work may have found its way into deposit box. (more…)

Joel Kyack, Clever Formal Gestures ≠ Something to Say, via Francois Ghebaly

As the month of May begins in earnest, another edition of Frieze Art Fair’s New York edition prepares to open its doors on Randall’s Island this week, bringing its familiar bounty of events, talks, special programs, competing events and a number of high-profile auctions and openings across Manhattan.

Yayoi Kusama, INFINITY-NETS [AOQBZ], via David Zwirner (more…)

Swoon, Submerged Motherlands (Installation View), via Art Observed

The Brooklyn Museum has just installed a site-specific piece by artist Swoon, entitled Submerged Motherlands. Comprised of a monumental tree and a constructed surrounding environment, the work addresses issues of destruction and renewal in the artist’s signature multimedia approach.

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Sigmar Polke, Untitled (Heron) (1966), via Michael Werner

Presented for the first time in almost twenty years, Sigmar Polke’s works on paper are currently installed at Michael Werner Gallery. Including a number  drawings that have never been exhibited before, Sigmar Polke: Early Works on Paper suggests a distinctive look at the German master’s less known drawings, ink compositions and sketched out ideas, through a collection of nearly a hundred works created by the artist in the 1960’s. (more…)

Gao-Yuan, Ai-Weiwei (2012), all images courtesy Martin-Gropius Bau

Opening on April 3rd at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, and organized by the Berliner Festspiele, is the largest solo show of works by Ai Weiwei ever to be exhibited. Taking up 3,000 square meters in 18 rooms, the installations and sculptures.  Entitled Evidence, the politically driven works from the artist, architect, and amateur politician alludes to the term meaning “proof that will stand up in court.” The works were designed in his studio on the outskirts of Beijing, and many of which were specifically designed for display in the museum’s spacious exhibition halls.

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Kehinde Wiley, via Art Observed

On Wednesday night, the Brooklyn Museum opened the doors for its annual Gala, bringing together a diverse group of artists, collectors and trustees to honor painter Kehinde Wiley, artist Jenny Holzer, and developer Jane Walentas.

Orly Genger, via Art Observed

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The Museum of Modern Art has announced that it will host the first-ever U.S. museum retrospective of works by Robert Gober.  Titled The Heart Is Not a Metaphor, Mr. Gober’s work will be on view beginning in October.  “Robert is totally involved and approaching himself as if he were one of his subjects,” says Ann Temkin, chief curator of painting and sculpture. (more…)

Tauba Auerbach is interviewed in the Evening Standard this week, following the opening of her first solo exhibition in London at the ICA.  “I don’t think beauty and complexity are at odds,” she says.  “I feel that I’m more compelled to spend time with objects that I find seductive. I want to examine them and understand them.” (more…)

Tate Britain head Penelope Curtis is under attack this week by critic Waldemar Januszczak, who has called for the museum director to step down or be replaced, citing low attendance and a series of allegedly poor exhibition plans.  “I first noticed what an appalling exhibition-maker she was when she co-curated the Modern British Sculpture show at the Royal Academy in 2011,” Januszczak wrote. “It was, quite simply, one of the worst exhibitions I have ever seen. Subsequent shows at Tate Britain have continued the trend.” (more…)

A recent installation by Paul McCarthy and Mike Bouchet in Bilbao, Spain has raised the ire of the Guggenheim Museum.  Depicting the museum’s Frank Gehry-designed facade covered in guns as if it was a battleship, Powered A-Hole Spanish Donkey Sport Dick Drink Donkey Dong Dongs Sunscreen Model has drawn a removal notice from the museum, which claims copyright over the museum’s image.  “We believe that the image displayed on the said property includes connotations that discredit this institution, so we urge you to withdraw the said canvas ASAP,” Alba Urresola, the Guggenheim’s associate director of legal and internal control, said in a notice sent to Bouchet’s gallery.  (more…)

This spring, three shows of work by artist Ai Weiwei are opening in London, Berlin and New York, with a major retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, an exhibition at Lisson Gallery in London, and the largest exhibition of the artist’s work to date at the Martin-Gropius Bau in Berlin.  The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum includes the artist’s S.A.C.R.E.D. works, half-sized dioramas depicting his 81-day imprisonment that commanded major critical attention at the Venice Biennale last year.  The exhibitions come with a hope that Chinese tourists may be exposed to Ai’s work outside his own country.   “Because my work is banned from being shown inside China, the only way they can become aware of it is from the outside,” he said. (more…)