Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Arkansas is soon to announce a major series of acquisitions filling major holes in its collection of American art, the New York Times reports.  Pieces recently acquired include Jasper Johns’s Flag, which was purchased last fall for $36 million, the record-setting Georgia O’Keefe work Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1, as well as four works by Louise Bourgeois, estimated at a combined $35 million to $40 million.  “Bourgeois is really important to 20th century art and yet she has not received the entire due that she deserves,” says Margaret C. Conrads, museum director of curatorial affairs. (more…)

Following widespread protests, the Frick is expected to cancel a planned expansion that would have eliminated a rare piece of landscape architecture.  “It just became clear to us that it wasn’t going to work,” says an anonymous museum official.  “It won’t be the best plan, but we will go back and prioritize.  There was just a number of voices out there and we heard them.” (more…)

The Tate is receiving an additional £6 million in funding from the British Government this year, earmarked to help fund the operations at the Tate Modern.  “Late last year the government in principle committed to an uplift in grant-in-aid to support the running of the new Tate Modern,” a Museum spokesman confirms. (more…)

Roni Horn, Gold Field (1980-82), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Taking over the Punta Della Dogana for the dizzying months of the Biennale is Slip of the Tongue, a Danh Vo curated exhibition in collaboration with Palazzo Grassi and The Pinault Collection.  Slip of the Tongue features the work of 35 artists, including pieces from Felix Gonzalez- Torres, Andres Serrano, David Hammons, Sigmar Polke, David Wojnarowicz and the curator himself.  Working in conjunction with a large number of artists, the artist-run show is a first for the exhibition space. (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art has announced plans for a major retrospective focused on the work of Donald Judd, set to open in 2017, organized by Chief Curator Ann Temkin.  “Half a century after Judd established himself as a leading figure of his time, his legacy demands to be considered anew,” said Ms. Temkin. “The show will cover the entire arc of Judd’s career, including not only quintessential objects from the 1960s and 1970s, but also works made before he arrived at his iconic formal vocabulary, and selections from the remarkable developments of the 1980s.” (more…)

Pasternak, via New York Times

Following 20 years serving as President and Artistic Director of New York City’s prolific non-profit arts org Creative Time, Anne Pasternak will take over as President of the Brooklyn Museum, taking the helm from the recently departed Arnold Lehman, who had worked almost as long in the position. (more…)

The Whitney Museum has launched a new program for emerging and young artists, giving them access to the spaces of the new downtown location to put on their first U.S. solo exhibitions.  The first artists selected for the project are New York-based artists Jared Madere and Rachel Rose, as well as Qatari-American writer and artist Sophia Al-Maria.   (more…)

NPR has a profile on painter Elaine de Kooning (wife of Willem de Kooning) this week, focusing on the artist’s interest in portraiture as a retrospective of her work opens at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., including her famous depiction of John F. Kennedy.  “The idea of a man who happens to be president of the United States — well, that’s already, right there, he’s bigger than life,” de Kooning said in 1976. “I was scampering up and down the ladder to do this painting.” (more…)

With Dasha Zhukova’s Garage Center for Contemporary Art set to open on June 12th in Moscow, the museum has released a video offering a preview of both its impressive architecture and its world-class collection, including a colorful mural unearthed during renovations of the site, previously a Soviet-era restaurant.   (more…)

Painter Zeng Fanzhi is the subject of a video profile on Nowness this week, shot in Paris and exploring his work and stance towards creating.  “An artist should follow his heart, create, then keep moving,” he says.  “If you keep repeating yourself than that’s a waste of the artistic life.” (more…)

Cy Twombly, Paesaggio (1986), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Undeniably one the greatest artists of 20th century, Cy Twombly‘s work is currently on display at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery in Venice, offering an in-depth look at the American artist, and his long residence in Italy.  Combining work from Twombly’s last series produced in 2011, an early painting on wood from 1951, and sculptural work from late in his career, this show delivers on its promise of a look at the artist’s career, while avoiding the demands of an exhaustive survey of his practice.  (more…)

William Pope L., Trinket (Installation View), via MOCA

Inside the MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary building in Downtown Los Angeles, an immensely oversized American flag endlessly flutters in a synthetic breeze, held aloft by a series of industrial grade cooling fans.  The breeze is intense, and the force exerted on the delicate stitching holding the iconic stars and stripes together is gradually tearing apart, a powerful metaphor in a time when the nation is riddled by high levels of police brutality, harsh military involvement overseas and increasingly vitriolic partisanship. (more…)

A protest last Friday over labor rights at its Abu Dhabi construction site led the Guggenheim Museum to close early last Friday.  Protestors threw pamphlets over the museum’s iconic spiraling walkway, and unfurled a banner saying “Meet Workers’ Demands Now” on the ground floor, forcing the museum to shut its doors. “We share their concerns about worker welfare in the Gulf Region, but these kinds of disruptive activities run counter to our objective of building the cooperation and good will necessary to further change on an extremely complex geopolitical issue,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

First Lady Michelle Obama was on hand Thursday for the opening ceremonies at the Whitney Museum, which opens to the public today, and made remarks praising the vision of the new space.  “Maybe you can discover the next Carmen Herrera, or Archibald Motley, or Edward Hopper, or maybe even the next Barack Obama. That is the power of institutions like the Whitney. They open their doors as wide as possible both to the artists they embrace and to the young people they seek to uplift.” (more…)

Against the backdrop of critical backlash over MoMA’s recent Björk exhibition, The Art Newspaper sits down with Glenn Lowry for a frank and lengthy interview, charting his vision for the museum, and his acknowledgement of issues of overcrowding often leveled on the museum.  “My background is as a historian of Islamic art, so of course I lament the loss of solitude,” Lowry says. “But I am also a pragmatist; solitude is probably gone regardless. Had our attendance grown by 25% or 30%, which is what we figured it would with the 2004 expansion, you would still have had those moments. Will the [next] expansion solve all those problems? No, it’s not going to solve everything, but it will enable us to show a great deal more of our collection and in many different ways.” (more…)

Part of the celebrations surrounding the opening of the Whitney Museum this week, the Empire State building will display colored lighting schemes centered around famous works from the museum collection.  The lighting, which goes live Saturday, is designed by acclaimed designer Mark Brickman.  “We’re dealing with Andy Warhol and Elizabeth Murray and Rothko,” Brickman says of the challenge. “Giants.” (more…)

Lauren Cornell, the Curator of this year’s New Museum Triennial, is interviewed in Dazed this week, reflecting on her origins in experimental film, her work with Rhizome, and her work in addressing gender and sexuality as a curator.  “I think it seems especially hard or frustrating to come up as a young artist now in an art world that seems to think of itself as ‘over’ inequality, while consistently rewarding white men more than anyone else,” she says.  “In this context, it’s important to create spaces for ongoing inequalities to be named and dealt with constructively.” (more…)

Outside the New Whitney Museum, via Art Observed

When the Whitney’s migration downtown was first announced, the anxiety and anticipation over its move away from the Breuer building on 75th and Madison was palpable, to say the least.  But as the initial reviews of the space begin to trickle in, the move downtown seems to have made all of the difference for one of the bastions of American fine arts.  Sure enough, the museum, which opens its Renzo Piano-designed doors to the public on May 1st, has created the conditions for something truly incredible in the Meatpacking District, an effortless, flowing viewing experience that manages to tie the museum’s impressive holdings together with the skylines and scenic views of its iconic hometown.

John Storr, via Art Observed (more…)

The strikes over the National Gallery in London’s plans to privatize its workforce are continuing this week, with artist Ryan Gander joining the protestors outside the museum.  The current protests have requested a delay in any decision to privatize until after the national elections on May 7th. (more…)

The fully realized design proposals for the Guggenheim Helsinki are set to be unveiled at the Kunsthalle Helsinki today, marking the next step in the museum’s proposed expansion to Finland.  “We hope this exhibition and its programs will inspire the Finnish public to engage with the possibilities of a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki, and to think about the potential of a prominent site on their waterfront,” says Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong. (more…)

The Institut Giacometti, the foundation museum dedicated to the life and work of Alberto Giacometti, is set to open next year in Paris, featuring a meticulous recreation of the artist’s small, 270 square-foot studio.  The opening of the museum is the result of settled disputes over the estate of the artist, as brokered by Institut head Catherine Grenier, former deputy director of the Centre Pompidou.  “When I got here a year ago,” Grenier says, “this foundation was not at all well known, for one essential reason: It was closed to the public. My priority is to make its activities and its extraordinary collection accessible.” (more…)

Piotr Uklanski, The Nazis (1998), via Art Observed

Currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a retrospective focusing on the work of Polish-born artist Piotr Uklanski, many of which are pulled from the rarely seen Joy of Photography series that the artist executed in the years following his move to the United States following the fall of Communism. (more…)

The Telegraph looks at the growing competition among the world’s wealthiest for high-priced art trophies as status symbols, and notes the growing trend towards the establishment of non-profit foundations and museums as an even more appealing demonstration of wealth.  “Making your collection available to the public, understanding the journey you have been on, your taste,” says Celine Fressart, head of special projects at 1858 Ltd.  “That, really, is the ultimate in bragging rights.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Prada Foundation’s new Milan arts complex, designed by Rem Koolhaas and serving as the arts foundation’s permanent location.  “After more than 20 years of staging exhibitions around the world, my husband said he thought it was about time we do something permanent in Milan,” Miuccia Prada says. (more…)