– Steve Martin Curating Show at the Hammer: Comedian, actor, and collector Steve Martin will co-curate an exhibition devoted to Canadian artist and Group of Seven founder Lawren Harris at the Hammer Museum, along with its deputy director of curatorial affairs, Cindy Burlingham, and the Art Gallery of Ontario's curator of Canadian art, Andrew Hunter. Slated to open in the fall of 2015, it will be the first major Harris exhibition in the U.S. since a show at the Americas Society Art Gallery in New York in 2000. [Globe and Mail]
– NEA Grants for Sze, Walker, MOCA, and More: This year's NEA grants have been announced, with artists, art institutions, and non-profits around the U.S. receiving major boosts in funding. Among them, the Bronx Museum of the Arts got $50,000 to send Sarah Sze's installation for the U.S. pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale on tour; Creative Time received $75,000 to commission a Kara Walker installation at Williamsburg's Domino Sugar Factory; MOCA L.A. received $50,000 to help fund its presentation of the Mike Kelley retrospective currently on view at MOMA PS1; and SFMOMA received $75,000 to mount a major Doug Aitken video trilogy. [NEA]
– Fawcett Warhol Trial Continues: The Ryan O’Neal vs. University of Texas trial over an Andy Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett continues this week with testimonies by two art appraisers and O’Neal himself. While last week an expert valued the work at $12 million, another appraiser, Karen McManus, says it is actually worth $800,000 to $1 million. Meanwhile, O’Neal told the jury that he has a very deep connection to the work. "I talk to it," O'Neal said. "I talk to her. It's her presence. Her presence in my life.” [AP]
– Curator Leaves El Museo del Barrio: More trouble and senior staff departures at El Museo del Barrio as curator Chus Martínez announces her departure. [Artforum, TAN]
– Hopi Masks to Return Home: The Annenberg Foundation will return 24 of the the Hopi masks that were sold at auction in Paris to the tribe. [NYT]
– Sculptor Honors Mandela: Sculptor Ousmane Sow, the first African to ever receive the French Legion of Honor, dedicated it to Nelson Mandela at a ceremony on Wednesday. [Le Monde]
– Ragnar Kjartansson, Sharon Lockhart, Theaster Gates, and Omer Fast are among the ten artists shortlisted for this year's Artes Mundi prize, which comes with £40,000. [BBC]
– Eighty of the 600 artworks seized from former South Korean president Chun Doo-hawn were auctioned in Seoul, bringing a total of $2.43 million. [Yonhap News Agency]
– Art collector and cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder plans to lobby Germany to create a task force of restitution experts and provenance researchers to comb the country's art collections for Nazi loot. [WSJ]
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