“This high-profile intercontinental spread has made Heatherwick all but ubiquitous. It has also earned him a heavy dose of suspicion mixed with contempt, both from critics and the public. His name is often used as something of a synonym for everything that’s wrong with contemporary urban design.” – CityLab

Seriously – are we surprised? A first-of-its-kind study analyzes the race and gender of the artists represented in the permanent collections of 18 major American art museums, and finds that three-quarters of them are white men. Women represent only 12.6 percent of this elite group, and African-Americans of any gender only 1.2 percent. – Pacific Standard

“The first tribunal devoted exclusively to art disputes, the Court of Arbitration for Art (CAfA), will open for business 1 April in the Hague. … Instead of judges unfamiliar with evaluating scientific evidence of authenticity or selling an artwork on a handshake and an invoice, CAfA’s arbitrators will be experienced art lawyers who understand expert evidence and market practice. … CAfA will hear disputes ranging from authenticity and fraud to contract and copyright, and proceedings can occur anywhere.” – The Art Newspaper

Just a couple of days after the National Portrait Gallery in London announced that it was turning down £1 million from the family whose company makes OxyContin, the Tate announced that, while it would not remove the Sackler name from any existing gifts, “in the present circumstances we do not think it right to seek or accept further donations from the Sacklers.” – The Art Newspaper

Art schools that commit to The MFA Fair by representing recent alumni in their first outing as professional artists are clearly endorsing the idea that “the market” is the dominant way for artists to make a living. This is misleading at best and completely irresponsible at worst. – Hyperallergic

This development reflects broader trends in the retail industry, where high-street shops are disappearing as more and more sales take place online. According to figures from Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, the ranks of e-shoppers are constantly swelling—about 80% of consumers in the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden purchase goods online.  – The Art Newspaper

“Three grandchildren of Greta Moll, the muse depicted in the portrait, had argued that the painting was taken in violation of international law and demanded that the National Gallery pay $30 million in compensation for the painting or return it. But last September, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York affirmed a lower-court decision that the National Gallery and Britain were immune from the jurisdiction of US courts,” and the Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal. – The Art Newspaper

“Set to be handed over for the first time this October in Shanghai, the Nomura Art Award will give a single contemporary artist with an established body of work the funds to ‘support an ambitious new project that the winner did not previously have the means to realize,’ as the announcement puts it.” – Artsy

The developer of Hudson Yards temporarily christened Thomas Heatherwick’s big bronze stack of stairways The Vessel, but — just as 30 St Mary Axe in London is “the Gherkin” and Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park is “the Bean” (whether Norman Foster and Anish Kapoor like it or not) — New York’s new selfie-attraction is now “the Shawarma.” – Slate

The “Statue of Unity,” which is actually of independence leader Vallabhbhai Patel and is currently the world’s tallest statue, was completed last fall, and more are on the way: a statue of the 17th-century warrior-king Shivaji in Mumbai, and enormous images of the Hindu god Rama and the 19th-century holy man Swami Vivekananda in Ayodhya. Why? A desire to stand out on the world stage, sure, but even more because of the Hindu nationalism of Narendra Modi’s government. – Apollo

Even as I stood amid the morning rush at the Prado’s entrance, scanning a floor plan with the nearly 120 galleries I would navigate, I never expected I’d be in the museum for seven hours. In fact, I envisioned myself home by 2 p.m., enjoying some leftover albondigas(meatballs) and a siesta before making the school run to fetch my kids at 4 p.m. – The New York Times

At a holiday party in 2017 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, an inebriated Michael Rohana allegedly broke off and pocketed the thumb of one of the 2,000-year-old Chinese terracotta warriors on display there at the time; FBI investigators found it in his home desk drawer a few weeks later. Now his public defenders are using some inventive arguments to get his charges reduced: that Rohana was too drunk to intend to steal the thumb, that the thumb wasn’t worth enough to qualify for the charges, that the Institute was, at the time of the incident, not a museum but “an after-hours nightclub.” – The Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, NJ)

“London’s National Portrait Gallery has decided against accepting a £1m grant from the Sackler Trust, following growing controversy over the damaging medical impact of OxyContin, a drug produced by the family’s pharmaceutical company.” – The Art Newspaper

When complete, the gallery says the new centre will be home to a collection of contemporary Inuit art unlike any other in the world — and will bring new stories to the forefront. “This is a game-changing museum,” said WAG CEO and director Stephen Borys. – CBC

China now has around 5,000 museums, of which around 1,500 are privately run. Asked why they opened private museums, the collectors canvassed are candid. “It was good for my collection. It is easier to acquire high-quality works as an institution.” – The Art Newspaper

The new mosque, designed by the architects who created the London Eye, isn’t the typical style of mosque in Britain, where the driving force has usually been somewhat utilitarian. This one “is the most determined attempt yet to build in a way that is of its own place and time,” says architecture critic Rowan Moore. – The Observer (UK)

To do that, we first need to go down a rabbit hole of, well, history (recent history). Do we remember this? “In 2013, [the owner] made plans to tear down the building and replace it with condos, as part of a larger ongoing movement to tear down the entire city of New York and replace it with condos. The art community protested, and Wolkoff whitewashed the building overnight, destroying the artwork.” Uff. – AV Club

Though Woman-Ochre will go to the Getty for about 18 months of restoration, and will be shown at the Getty before it returns to Arizona, the painting stolen in 1985, it gets one night of pre-restoration display at the museum where a man and a woman simply walked in, distracted a guard, cut it out of its frame, and then … disappeared. – The Guardian (UK) (Associated Press)

The gallery’s fifth director, Kaywin Feldman thinks that her appointment as the institution’s first woman director broadcasts a commitment to diversity. When she started working in the field 25 years ago, only about 15 percent of museum directors were women; now, according to the AAMD’s 2017 Gender Gap report, 48 percent of museums have female directors—but only 30 percent of museums with annual budgets of $15m and higher, decreasing as budget size increases. Feldman now oversees a museum with a $190m annual operating budget. – The Art Newspaper

Michael Kimmelman: “It gives physical form to a crisis of city leadership, asleep at the wheel through two administrations, and to a pernicious theory of civic welfare that presumes private development is New York’s primary goal, the truest measure of urban vitality and health, with money the city’s only real currency.” – The New York Times

“The culture ministers of Germany’s 16 states agreed to create conditions for the repatriation of artifacts in public collections that were taken ‘in ways that are legally or morally unjustifiable today’ from former colonies, describing their return as ‘an ethical and moral duty.'” – The Art Newspaper

The challenge is bringing the 1955 canvas — an example from de Kooning’s celebrated but also contested “Woman” series, known for their grotesque, even savage renderings of the female nude — back to near-original condition. Ulrich Birkmaier, the Getty Museum’s senior paintings conservator, and Tom Learner, the Getty Conservation Institute’s head of science, have teamed up for the project. They expect the process to take at least a year. – The New York Times

“There is no indication at the site what the figures are or where they might go. There is no indication that a museum is in the offing. Just painted bronze figures in suits and beachwear standing on dirt in West Philly. … As unlikely as it may sound, it appears that the 4700 block of Market Street has been targeted by a somewhat reclusive private foundation — the Daniel Veloric Foundation — as the site for a museum sometime in the future.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

As more corporations and real estate developers across the country turn to murals to hawk their products, controversy follows. In New York City, for instance, Target had to apologize for a mural it installed inside a new store in the East Village. While the mural was designed as an homage to the neighborhood’s history as a home to punk rockers and struggling immigrants alike, it drew criticism for making light of the gentrification that had transformed the neighborhood. – In These Times

In Sotheby’s recent New York Old Master sale, a copy of the Mona Lisa soared past its estimate of $80,000-$100,000 to sell for $1.69m. It seems extraordinary that someone would pay so much for a copy (in fact, that’s probably an auction record for any copy). Then there is the fact that the painting had been offered privately before the auction for considerably less, but with no takers. Some have seen the transaction as suspicious. – The Art Newspaper

“The bona fide version of The Crucifixion, donated to Santa Maria Maddalena church in the small Ligurian town of Castelnuovo Magra more than a century ago, was safely stored away last month as part of a carefully concocted bluff.” – The Guardian

Authorities who accepted street art just a couple of years ago are now whitewashing murals, harassing artists, and having them turned out of their studios. Yet they keep on, painting on everything from fallen chunks of concrete to bicycle taxis to El Paquete, the Cuban “internet” that’s passed from house to house on external hard drives. – Pacific Standard