March 24, 2015: El Greco Painting Stolen by Nazis Is Returned & Ai Weiwei Receives Amnesty International’s Human Rights Award

Opening

In New York … “Group Show: Disposable” opens at Con Artist Collective.

In London … “Francis Bacon: FB55” opens at Institute of Contemporary Arts.

In Paris … “The lynx knows no boundaries,” with works by Fernando Calhau, Joana Escoval, Otelo Fabião, Ângela Ferreira, André Figueiredo, Carla Filipe, Igor Jesus, Musa paradisiaca, Oficina Arara, and Diogo Pimentão, opens at Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard.

In Berlin … “Otto Piene” opens at ARNDT | Berlin.

In Milan … Julia Fullerton-Batten opens at MC2 Gallery.

Today’s Notable News

El Greco’s Portrait of a Gentleman (1570) has been returned to its rightful owners, heirs of the Viennese industrialist Julius Priester, after having been looted—along with the rest of Priester’s collection—by the Nazis in Vienna during WWII and having subsequently made its way through several international art dealers. (via The Art Newspaper)

Portrait of a Young Girl (1620–23), which was believed to be painted by a follower of Rubens when it was deaccessioned from the Met and sold at Sotheby’s in 2013, has now been deemed an authentic Rubens work by the director of Antwerp’s Rubenshuis museum, where it will soon go on long-term display. (via The Art Newspaper)

In tandem with folksinger Joan Baez, Ai Weiwei has been granted Amnesty International’s 2015 human rights award for his commitment to political critique, which led to his 2011 detainment by the Chinese government and the subsequent ban on his leaving the country, and which inspires renewed ardor in championing freedom of expression. (via ARTnews)

The incendiary sculpture in the Barcelona museum exhibition we reported on yesterday is still making waves—the museum’s director, Bartomeu Marí, has now stepped down, after dismissing two of the show’s curators. (via The Art Newspaper)

Art critic Jerry Saltz has burned his MoMA press pass (and documented it on Twitter and Instagram), quite literally adding fuel to the fire of his recent, very vocal disapproval of Klaus Biesenbach’s Björk exhibition at the museum. (via The Observer)

The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced that it will award a $40,000 grant to LACMA in order to fund a touring exhibition on Sri Lankan art that is anticipated to open in 2019. The grant is one among several awarded to California institutions, together amounting to some $1.4 million. (via the LA Times)

The eight winners of Canada’s Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts have been announced and include Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Micah Lexier. (via CBC News)

Best of Instagram

Via @whitneymuseum: “#NewWhitney sneak peek: You can see Jonathan Borofsky’s Running People at 2,616,216 from the West Side Highway & Hudson River Greenway. [Photo by Nic Lehoux]”