A mural by Zoo Project in Paris (photograph by Aurélien Michaud, via Flickr)
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Yesterday we noted some things George W. Bush said in connection with his exhibition of paintings that opened today at the Bush Presidential Center in Texas. You can click on that if you’ve ever wondered what Vladimir Putin or Tony Blair would look like as painted by George W. Bush.
Two stolen paintings by Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard, their whereabouts unknown for 40 years, were found by Italian officials in the kitchen of a retiree who claimed to not know their worth, having bought them for $30 in 1975.
Included in the 180 works recovered from Cornelius Gurlitt is an incredibly valuable 1903 Monet painting of Waterloo Bridge in London.
Qatar is giving $135 million to Sudan to support 29 archaeological heritage projects. Meanwhile, three ancient statues were stolen from a northern Sudan museum, following recent coverage of its lack of security.
On March 20, it was ruled by a federal court that Van Gogh’s Night Café (1888) was the property of Yale University rather than the heir of Ivan Morozov, who had it in his art collection when it was seized in 1918 after the Russian Revolution.
A design competition is opening June 4 for the planned Guggenheim museum in Helsinki. Coincidentally, last week we noted an activist group’s fake competition to design an ethical and sustainable Guggenheim in response to alleged labor abuses at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Xavier Veilhan and Galerie Perrotin’s charges of copying against Richard Orlinski were ruled against in France.
Swiss art historian and Kunsthaus Zurich curator Oliver Wick was named as a defendant in the ongoing lawsuit around Knoedler & Company and its sale of forgeries, including those “by” Rothko, a painter on which Wick is an expert.
French street artist Bilal Berreni, aka Zoo Project — best known for his paintings of those lost in Tunisia during the revolution — was found to have been shot in Detroit last July, his body only identified at the end of last month.
The Spanish Steps in Rome (photograph by the author)
Following Italy’s call for assistance from private donors to help preserve its heritage sites, luxury jeweller Bulgari donated €1.5 million ($2,055,000) to renovate the Spanish Steps in Rome.
A 91-year-old man’s collection of thousands of cultural artifacts was seized by the FBI, which is now working to determine where they all came from and if they should be repatriated.
The Israel Antiquities Authority seized 11 ancient stone coffins that were stolen from tombs and planned to be sold.
The Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts was vacated under orders from the New York City Department of Buildings after it was found to be structurally unstable.
Temecula, California, gallery owner Jason White pled guilty to stalking, harassment, and extortion.
Op art sculptor Mon Levinson, known for his experimentation with materials like plexiglass, died at the age of 88.
Ceramicist Don Reitz, whose work that revived salt firing techniques is the Smithsonian, MAD Museum, and MFA Boston, died at the age of 84.
Printmaker Theo Wujcik died in Florida. The artist co-founded the Detroit Lithography Workshop and collaborated with printmaking houses all over the country.
Following attention from the current MoMA Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition, SC Johnson is restoring their 15-story tower designed by the architect in the 1950s.
A bill passed by the US House on March 26 would undermine the power of the Antiquities Act, used by presidents to quickly protect heritage sites. It is now going to the Senate.
The Thomas W. Weisel Family Art Foundation donated over 200 American Indian objects to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis (photograph by the author)
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis — partly housed in the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot — is reopening after a $28 million reconstruction.
The Helmut and Candis Stern Curator of African Art position was set up at the University of Michigan Museum of Art through a $1.5 million endowment gift.
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s main hall is undergoing a renovation scheduled to be finished in 2016, with the support of $30 million from the Boeing Company.
A painting bought at a French flea market was authenticated as a Rubens.
BIG architects are constructing a 61 by 61 foot labyrinth this summer in the hall of the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.
Microbes from Sue the T-rex at the Field Museum in Chicago are journeying to the International Space Station.
