To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. Good morning! An inside look at the realization of Koyo Kouoh’s Venice Biennale. A Chicago judge has sentenced a man to 23 years for an art-backed cryptocurrency scam.  A Renoir painting once owned by the Duchess of Alba will return to Spain. The Headlines THE SHOW MUST GO ON. Ahead of the opening of the 2026 Venice Biennale next week, the New York Times takes an inside look at how its central exhibition, “In Minor Keys” is being put together without its curator, Koyo Kouoh, who died last May from liver cancer. Her husband, Philippe Mall , who recalled her saying that curating the Biennale had been her dream, expected it to be canceled. But Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco reached out to Mall and Djibril Schmed, Kouoh’s son from a prior relationship, asking to continue. They agreed, and the exhibition will open to the public on May 9, executed by the team of advisers she had assembled and decided on the artist list before her death. Schmed felt it should go on because Kouoh was working …

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. Good morning! Emails between Venice Biennale organizers and the Russian Pavilion commissioner reveal plans to close the latter pavilion to the public after the vernissage. Matthew Goudeau has become San Francisco’s first executive director of arts and culture.  Republicans argue the attack at the press gala on Saturday justifies President Trump’s planned White House ballroom. The Headlines RUSSIA ROW. The organizers of Venice Biennale and the Russian Pavilion commissioner discussed plans to open the latter’s exhibition during the Biennale’s vernissage and then close it to the public once the international exhibition debuts on May 9, according to multiple reports in Italian media. The “reduced” participation appears to have been a solution for complying with European sanctions that prohibit financial support or direct collaboration with state-backed Russian entities, according to Italian media Open, which first published emails between the Biennale Foundation president Pietrangelo Buttafucoco, Biennale general director Andrea Del Mercato, and Russian Pavilion commissioner Anastasia Karneeva. Those messages outline a project to have Russian artists perform in the pavilion from May 5–8 and then install multimedia documentation …

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. Good morning! A Canadian tourist was killed, and others injured in a shooting atop Mexico’s ancient Teotihuacán Pyramid of the Moon. The grandson of Diego Rivera, Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera, has gifted over 150,000 items to Mexico’s Museo Anahuacalli.  A papyrus fragment of Homer’s Iliad was found inside an ancient Egyptian mummy, marking the first discovery of its kind.  The Headlines TRAGEDY IN TEOTIHUACÁN. A Canadian woman was killed in a shooting Monday atop the ancient Teotihuacán Pyramid of the Moon, just outside Mexico City, reports the New York Times. In addition to the slain tourist, several other visitors from the United States, Brazil, and Colombia, including two children, were wounded when a man opened fire at the popular UNESCO World Heritage Site. He then killed himself. “What happened today in Teotihuacán pains us deeply,” said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on social media. The incident has raised security concerns ahead of this summer’s World Cup, when the ancient site will also play host to an immersive night show, according to the BBC. Related Articles ALL IN THE …