– Munich Art Trove Grows as Gurlitt Goes Free: According to Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Germany is very unlikely to prosecute Munich art hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt retroactively for the Nazi-looted art found in his apartment. In fact, some 300 of the seized artworks will likely be returned to him as early as next week, a development that earned the ire of Dieter Graumann, director of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who said: "After the whole thing was handled over 18 months nearly conspiratorially, the hasty reaction for a general return is certainly also the wrong one." Meanwhile, details and images of several dozen more works from the cache — including pieces by Edvard Munch and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec— were released. The whole situation doesn't surprise World War II veteran and Monuments Men member Harry Ettlinger, though. "I think this is the beginning," Ettlinger said. "It was anticipated by the Monuments Men that I knew that these things were going to come to the surface in the future, and it's happening." [Bloomberg, AFP, NYT, Reuters]
– Lucas Museum Rejected, For Now: It looks like MC Hammer’s vote of confidence just wasn’t enough for George Lucas's museum proposal. The Board of the Presidio Trust in San Francisco has rejected all three finalists’ proposals for a Crissy Field arts institution and has demanded revisions, especially from Lucas’s museum project. Board chairman Nancy Bechtle said the 3,000-square-foot Lucas Cultural Arts Museum plan was "too big" and had an "inappropriate configuration." She also said she wouldn’t be intimated by Lucas’s celebrity supporters. "We have an obligation to San Francisco, not political pressure," she said. "If (Lucas) walks, he walks. We'll take the brunt of the pressure." [SF Chronicle, SFBG]
– Another Banksy for Sale in Miami: A 1,500-pound piece of a Brooklyn building onto which Banksy painted a balloon heart and a car door featuring running horses from the Lower East Side will be on sale at the Art Miami fair during Art Basel Miami Beach. The pieces, which are estimated to be worth about $800,000, will be at the booth of New York dealer Stephan Keszler. Keszler claims that he regularly receives calls from New York property owners offering to sell their Banksys. "It's Banksy mania," he said. [Telegraph]
– Pérez Museum Preps for Launch: The Pérez Art Museum Miami, which will open next month during Art Basel Miami Beach, recently reached the 90-percent mark in its $220-million capital campaign, with a recent flood of donations including funds totaling $8 million and art boosting its holdings. [Miami Herald, South Florida Business Journal, Bloomberg]
– Carnegie Mellon Builds Brooklyn Art and Tech Campus: Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University is planning to build a 16,000-square-foot campus at Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that will focus on projects combining the arts and technology. The Integrative Media Program is due to launch in August 2015. [NYT]
– No Permit for Pawel's Performa Piece: Artist Pawel Althamer's massive sculpture "Queen Mother of Reality," part of his Performa 13 project, was ordered removed from Williamsburg's East River State Park by state officials because the appropriate permits had not been procured. The sculpture was scheduled to be removed Thursday anyway, as the performance art biennial winds down. [DNAinfo]
– Guess Jeans co-founder Georges Marciano is anonymously selling of hundreds of works at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. [TAN]
– Abu Dhabi Art has been shut down after a huge storm caused water leakage in the main building of the fair. [TAN]
– Gagosian now represents Michael Heizer, who will have his debut with the gallery in 2015 on 24th Street. [NYT]
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