Museum Shakeups, Biennale Backlash, and a Louvre Trail

Pace Gallery is making a major cutback. The New York Times, cited by Artnet News, reports the gallery is slashing about 50 artists and estates from a roster of more than 130, and laying off about 50 of its 250 staffers. CEO Marc Glimcher put it starkly: “The art world has changed dramatically over the past decade, and the current gallery model isn’t only broken, it’s unfixable.” Pace says it will focus on around 80 artists going forward, but it hasn’t released a list of who’s out. Artnet noted names that have disappeared from the online roster since early this year, including Keith Coventry, Glenn Kaino, teamLab, and John Gerrard. Pace, founded in 1960 in Boston, maintains spaces across New York, Los Angeles, London, Geneva, Berlin, Seoul, and Tokyo.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is unveiling a huge new expansion this week. According to Artnet News, the Bentonville, Arkansas museum is opening a one hundred fourteen thousand-square-foot addition by Safdie Architects on June 6–7, alongside five acres of landscaped trails and gardens, a stream, and a fifteen thousand-square-foot pond within its 134-acre park. Founder Alice Walton said she’d always insisted Moshe Safdie be the one to do it, even as long-range planning shifted into a faster timeline. New features include an event plaza, a north entrance, and a 40-seat café called Quartz and Honey, set along a new bridge that also adds exhibit space. The expansion brings two new galleries—one for contemporary art and one for temporary exhibitions—plus a Learning and Engagement Hub with studios and artist-in-residence space.

The Museum of Modern Art has named Makeda Best as its new chief curator for photography. Artnet News reports the appointment was announced June 2, filling a role left vacant since Clément Chéroux departed in 2022. Best will start in September and oversee acquisitions, installations, exhibitions, publications, and loan programs. She comes from the Oakland Museum of California, where she has served as deputy director of curatorial affairs since 2023. Best trained as a photographer at CalArts and earned a doctorate in the history of art and architecture from Harvard, with a dissertation on Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner. She previously worked as a photography curator at the Harvard Art Museums and has curated exhibitions including “American Job” at the International Center of Photography. MoMA’s photography collection spans roughly thirty five thousand prints and objects.

In Paris, a storm has forced a delay for JR’s latest public artwork on the Pont Neuf. According to a report citing Euronews, the French artist’s temporary inflatable trompe l’oeil installation, La Caverne du Pont Neuf, was torn during a recent storm, postponing its planned run from June 6 to 28. A project statement dated June 2 says technical experts are assessing what caused the damage and that a new opening date will be set after that assessment. The work is described as a homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1985 project, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, which wrapped the 419-year-old bridge in fabric. A statement on JR’s website says the installation is not funded by government sources and is financed through sales of JR’s works and private support, including Snap Inc., Bloomberg Philanthropies, Paris Aéroport, and Salesforce.

Artist agents are making a noticeable comeback, as the traditional gallery system strains and artists’ careers stretch across more formats. A new report traces how agents predated dealers historically—and argues the model is returning now, partly because many agencies can operate without a physical space and keep overhead low. It notes that Cristopher Canizares left his partner role at Hauser & Wirth to launch an artist management agency called the Artist Legacy Bureau. Other new ventures mentioned include Sensity Studio, launched in London by cultural strategist Dina Mostovaya to promote female artists; Art+Mgmt, founded in Miami by Julia Bassiri; Anne Verhallen’s KUNST Agency working across fashion, art, and music; and Spencer Young, described as an agency-cum-advisory in New York. The piece also profiles Jon Horrocks, formerly of Stephen Friedman Gallery, launching an agency focused on museum partnerships, working with artists including Sarah Ball and Nick Goss, using sliding-scale retainers and commissions.

The Art Newspaper has collected “Venice verdicts” from art world figures reflecting on the 2026 Biennale and its main exhibition, In Minor Keys. Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, describes the show as a “polyphony of propositions,” highlighting a survey of post-war African art with a multi-generational focus on women, naming artists from Werewere Liking to Ranti Bam. She notes Kouoh’s musical metaphor asks audiences to “look and listen” differently, and calls it “peri-spiritual,” imagining art mediating between past and present and the living and the dead. Beatrix Ruf, director of the Hartwig Art Foundation, says In Minor Keys felt “far more ‘major’ than minor,” citing recurring motifs of water and ephemerality and the prominence of performative practices, including Florentina Holzinger for Austria and Miet Warlop for Belgium.

The Louvre heist investigation has now reached Belgium. Artnet News reports it has been nearly eight months since four thieves broke into the Louvre and stole eight French crown jewels valued at €88 million, with at least 11 suspects arrested and five charged, while the jewels’ location remains unknown. A new lead reportedly emerged from suspects’ cell phones, with authorities reviewing calls, contacts, photos, and—per L’Avenir—even dating sites. Euronews reported that photos of the Louvre and its Galerie d’Apollon were found on phones linked to “several suspects from Eastern Europe,” and that records and contacts pointed toward Belgium, where French investigators are allegedly working with local authorities—though both the Belgian federal prosecutor and Paris public prosecutor declined to confirm. The report also notes worries the jewels could be cut up to evade detection, and describes a mistake during escape: Empress Eugénie’s crown was dropped.

More than 100 artists are threatening legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation over the “Visitors’ Lion” awards. According to a new announcement published on e-flux, the dispute centers on the inclusion of Israel and Russia’s national pavilions and on the foundation’s decision to keep certain artists’ names on audience-vote ballots despite requests to be removed. A May 20 letter to the foundation and its president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, is signed by 67 artists from Koyo Kouoh’s exhibition In Minor Keys—among them Laurie Anderson, Alfredo Jaar, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Walid Raad—and by 39 artists representing national pavilions, including Lubaina Himid for Britain and Florentina Holzinger for Austria. The foundation, after the jury resigned, announced “Visitors’ Lions” for the first time. A Biennale spokeswoman told the New York Times the names were included to “guarantee all visitors their freedom of expression,” while adding votes for signatories would not be counted.

In higher education news, a proposed Trump administration rule could sharply reduce enrollment in arts master’s programs. Hyperallergic reports that about 44% of fine and studio arts Master’s programs in the U.S. could lose the ability to enroll students who rely on federal loans under draft guidelines from the Department of Education, first published in April. The proposal would compare alumni income to the median salary of Bachelor’s degree holders ages 25 to 34, and would assess earnings four years after graduation. If two consecutive cohorts in a three-year period fail the test, programs could be cut off from Federal Direct Loans. The New York Times reported the change could lead to steep enrollment drops or closures. The measure has drawn nearly nine thousand public comments. The School of Visual Arts said “success is not solely measured by income,” and commenters raised concerns about how freelance income, including 1099 earnings, would be counted.

A new feature traces the life and work of Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, a painter and obsessive collector of images who became a close friend and collaborator of Carl Jung. Born in London to Dutch parents in 1881, she later moved to Switzerland, studied at Zurich’s School of Applied Arts, and pursued art history at the University of Zurich. In 1909 she married musician Iwan Hermann Fröbe; after moving to Berlin, she endured major tragedies—giving birth to twin daughters in 1915, losing her husband in a plane crash months later, and later having her severely disabled child disappear after Hitler’s rise to power, understood to have been taken and murdered under the Nazi project to “cleanse the race.” Her biographer Riccardo Bernardini says she survived through her “graphic practice,” including screenprints she called “meditation drawings” and sketches described as “visions.” She founded Eranos in 1933 in Ascona-Moscia, Switzerland, and Jung attended its first conference.

That’s the download for today—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for another fast, opinionated scan of the art world’s moving parts… Chinga la migra

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