Art Outlook: 28 March

Some of the stories, debates and discussions we’ve spotted this week

Sarah Lucas will represent the UK at next year’s Venice Biennale

The British YBA, whose solo exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery last year gave audiences a taste of things to come, will take over the pavilion in Venice. ‘It’s impolite. Like zest in the art world mix, her work will bring wit and savour to the Biennale,’ remarked the British Council’s director of visual arts Andrea Rose.

Manifesta 10 announces its exhibitors

Manifesta 10 curator Kasper König has announced the participants in this year’s programme, and again defended its decision to stay put in St Petersburg despite the political situation in Russia.

The director of documenta steps down

Bernd Leifeld will step down as director of documenta (a major exhibition in Kassel, which comes round every five years), after 18 years in the post. He will leave on 1 April with ‘weeping eyes’, but the decision was his own.

Cornelius Gurlitt gives back looted work

Cornelius Gurlitt has instructed his legal team to return looted works of art to their previous owners. A portion of his collection is being investigated to ascertain whether any of them were seized or stolen during the Second World War.

Tate returns looted Constable

Gurlitt isn’t the only one returning looted work. The Tate has agreed to restore a Constable painting, Beaching a Boat, Brighton (1824) to its rightful owner after the Spoliation Advisory Panel ruled that it was probably stolen from Hungary during the Nazi era.

Penguin book-burning?

Penguin UK has requested that the artist and comedian Miriam Elia destroy the remaining copies of her satirical book We Go to the Gallery. The publication, which comically mimics a story from the British ‘Peter and Jane’ series, is an uncannily accurate parody of the contemporary gallery experience. There’s no provision in UK copyright law for satire – perhaps it’s time for a change?

Vatican Online

The Vatican Apostolic Library is aiming to make thousands of its manuscripts available online, and has announced that it is working with the Japanese company NTT Data to digitise some 3000 manuscripts over the next four years.

Dealing out praise

Jonathan Jones has written something of a love letter to Larry Gagosian, praising the dealer and his network of galleries for filling the gaps in public gallery programmes. Are dealers starting to get a better reputation?