Deitch's grand NYC finale, P.S. 1's new virtual studio-visit site, and Interview magazine publisher Peter Brant's private life were among the stories in the week's news. Read on for ArtWeLove’s news digest, now also available in email form—bringing a comprehensive roundup of the week’s art developments to your digital doorstep. If you aren’t signed up, click here. As always, we welcome your feedback at editorial@artwelove.com.

RECESSIONARY GLOOM: LONDON'S ICA FACES CLOSURE & NY STATE TO SLASH ARTS BUDGET (PLUS PETER BRANT MAY LOSE HIS SHIRT)

After an action-packed start to the year—Deitch!—news in the art world has trickled down to its usual January doldrums. So what’s the pressing issue uniting many of the week’s developments? Money, of course. In London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, a critical outlet for cutting-edge work in the British capital, has told its staff that it will have to close this May unless it makes brutal cuts to manage a plunging financial deficit. And in New York State, not-so-beloved Governor David Patterson has proposed a 2010-11 budget that will reduce cultural funding by $9.6 million.

Then, in a story that has bubbled up from the tabloids to a lengthy (and unaccountably ad hominem) exposé in the New York Times, megacollector and Interview magazine publisher Peter Brant seems likely to get a haircut due to his pending divorce with supermodel Stephanie Seymour, since he never asked for a prenup. Other tidbits of note in the article are that Brant says his art collection—which is heavy on Warhol and Koons—has been more profitable than his newsprint empire, that he spends $216,000 per month on his new invitation-only Brant Foundation art center in Connecticut (as well as $30,000 a month on “household supplies”), and that he personally lost $1 billion in the two years of the financial crisis.

RECESSIONARY GLEAM: NEW MONEY'S ON THE WAY

In some good news, however, the National Endowment for the Arts has announced that it will be giving 15 grants of up to $250,000 for new urban art and design projects—from sculpture gardens to art fairs—around the country. And from another, odder munificent corner of the art world, Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk has announced gold-plated jury members for his new $100,000 art prize: recent Venice Biennale curator Daniel Birnbaum, Yale art school dean Robert Storr, brilliant independent curator Okwui Enwezor, and Chinese conceptual artist and vital political force Ai Weiwei.

DEITCH TO CLOSE WITH SHEP FAIREY SHOW, GARDNER MUSEUM UNVEILS NEW PIANO WING & P.S. 1 LAUNCHES VIRTUAL STUDIO VISIT SITE

In architectural news, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston has unveiled plans for its new wing. Designed by Renzo Piano, whose expansion for Chicago’s Art Institute has roundly been hailed as a modern masterpiece, the four-story, $118 million addition will more than double the museum’s size and contain more exhibition space, a music hall, conservation facilities, a café, and other amenities. The coolest thing about Piano’s design? It features a mechanized ceiling that can rise or lower according to the needs of a show.

In New York, a woman who now must be fairly embarrassed accidentally stumbled while on an educational tour of the Met and crashed into Picasso's The Actor, tearing a six-inch gash in the Rose Period painting. The museum says the damage should be repaired in time for the opening of their sprawling Picasso survey in April. (So far there are no other details of the accident, except that the woman was uninjured.) 

Then, on the other side of town, the latest development relating to Jeffrey Deitch's game-changing switcheroo is that his Wooster Street gallery’s last hurrah before being dissolved will be a Shepard Fairey show. Plans are still being worked out for a possible James Franco show in the Long Island City space, which would be a decidedly weird and potentially visionary note to end on. In other Deitch news, art-watchers continue to dissect the implications of his move to take over L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, with smart people, from Jerry Saltz to Ed Winkelman, coming down on the side of cautious optimism and gratitude for what his gallery has done for New York.

Finally, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center and MoMA have announced the winner of their Young Architects program to be the Brooklyn-based Solid Objectives - Idenburg Liu (SO - IL), whose interactive design will be debuted in P.S. 1’s courtyard this June. The Long Island City center has also launched a new virtual online “studio visit” site for up-and-coming artists to post their work, an offering that has already attracted the participation of such notable names as Vadis Turner, William Cordova, Adriana Farmiga, and Ellie Ga.

Related Articles:

"ICA warns staff it could close by May" [via the Guardian]

"New York State Budget Would Cut Arts Funds " [via the New York Times]

"For Richer or for ... Not Quite as Rich" [via the New York Times]

"NEA Offers $250,000 Grants for U.S. Cities That Enhance Arts" [via Bloomberg]

"Jury for the Future Generation Art Prize Announced" [via the New York Times]

"Boston's Gardner Museum Reveals Plans for $118M New Wing" [via artinfo.com]

"Woman Collides With a Picasso" [via the New York Times]

"Deitch’s NYC Finale? Shepard Fairey" [via artinfo.com]

"What is the sin MoCA and Jeffrey Deitch have committed?" [via the Art Newspaper]

"Saltz: Why New York Will Miss Jeffrey Deitch" [via New York magazine]

"MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program Winner Announced" [via artinfo.com]