Louis Vuitton revives Keith Haring collaboration at lavish New York show

Louis Vuitton staged a lavish fashion show at the Frick Collection in New York, reviving a collaboration with the estate of artist Keith Haring. The collection, designed by Nicolas Ghesquière, featured Haring's signature motifs on classic LV handbags and was presented in the museum's marble galleries. The event also marked a three-year sponsorship deal, with Louis Vuitton funding exhibitions, public access, and a curatorial position at the Frick, including rebranded free entry evenings as Louis Vuitton Free Fridays.

The Contemporary Art Destinations Gallerists and Artists Have on Their Radar

WWD asked top international gallerists, collectors, and artists to name the cities they find most exciting for contemporary art. Karen and Christian Boros recommend Naples and the Amalfi Coast, highlighting galleries like Galleria Giangiacomo Rossetti, Thomas Dane Gallery, and Lia Rumma, as well as Fondazione Morra Greco and Le Sirenuse hotel. Daniel Arsham points to Sugar Beach in St. Lucia for its large contemporary sculpture collection. Jean-Michel Othoniel champions South Korea, citing Seoul's Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Kukje Gallery, and the Kiaf Seoul fair, plus the city of Busan. Emma Lavigne of the Pinault Collection names Venice, especially during the Biennale Arte di Venezia, as an essential destination.

Dansaekhwa has taken over the modern art world. But the story of how that happened is up for debate.

The article examines the global rise of Dansaekhwa, a Korean monochrome painting style that has achieved record auction prices and widespread collector interest over the past decade. It traces key milestones, including two pivotal 2014 exhibitions at Kukje Gallery in Seoul and Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, and the surge in auction prices for artists like Kim Whan-ki, Park Seo-bo, and Chung Sang-hwa, culminating in a $13 million sale in 2019.

Ren Light Pan Dramatizes the Dilemma of the Trans Artist.

Ren Light Pan, a transgender artist working in a tiny New York studio, creates striking duotone images using a self-invented process involving ink, water, heat lamps, and transparent film. Her recent works center on the classical figure of Sleeping Hermaphroditus, a marble Roman copy of an ancient Greek bronze, which she reproduces from a photograph that includes spectators' legs. Pan's method, which she developed to circumvent perfectionist tendencies, involves suspending a primed canvas over a mixture of ink and water, then applying heat to transfer the image over one to two hours. She has also made works based on her own body, though she has abandoned the durational performance aspect since transitioning.

Pappi Corsicato's film on photographer Claudio Abate, which recounts the artistic ferment of Rome between the 1960s and 1990s, is now on RaiPlay

È su RaiPlay il film di Pappi Corsicato sul fotografo Claudio Abate che racconta il fermento artistico di Roma tra gli Anni ’60 e ‘90

RaiPlay has released a new documentary film by Pappi Corsicato titled "Claudio Abate. L’obiettivo nell’arte" (2026), which pays tribute to the late photographer Claudio Abate (1943–2017). The film weaves together interviews, archival materials, and footage from Istituto Luce to chronicle Abate's life and work, focusing on his role documenting the vibrant Roman art scene from the 1960s through the 1990s. It highlights his collaborations with key figures such as Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fabio Sargentini, and the artists of the Pastificio Cerere school, capturing seminal performances, happenings, and installations that defined Arte Povera and other avant-garde movements.

Steven Soderbergh, the Colors of Money

Steven Soderbergh, les couleurs de l’argent

Steven Soderbergh's new film "The Christophers" (2025) is a sharp, chamber-piece drama about art, inheritance, and money. The story follows Julian Skar, a former art superstar from the 1970s now living in seclusion and earning a living by caricaturing himself on social media. His children, Barnaby and Sally, eager to maximize their future inheritance, hire a repentant forger named Lori Butler to secretly complete Julian's unfinished masterpiece, an eight-portrait series titled "The Christophers." The film explores the complex relationships that develop between the four characters in a labyrinthine London house, written in the style of a lively theatrical play.

How Tasmania became one of the world’s most exciting art destinations

Helen Ochyra reports on how Tasmania, particularly Hobart, has emerged as a leading global art destination, driven largely by MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). The privately funded museum, founded by art collector David Walsh, recently opened a $100 million AUD wing housing a towering concrete amphitheatre by German artist Anselm Kiefer. Beyond MONA, Hobart hosts the provocative winter festival Dark Mofo, the science-and-culture Beaker Street Festival, and the inaugural Island Readers & Writers Festival, cementing its reputation for cutting-edge arts and culture.

The Forgotten of Art: The Story of Artist Valeria Alberti

I dimenticati dell’arte. La storia dell’artista Valeria Alberti

Valeria Alberti (1930-2011), a courageous, rebellious, and nonconformist Italian artist, had a brief but intense career before disappearing from the art world. Recent research by scholar Manuel Barrese reconstructs her trajectory as the only woman in a circle of artists and intellectuals around poet Emilio Villa and the Galleria Appia Antica. Alberti debuted in 1957 alongside Alberto Sartoris, collaborated with ceramist Mario Molli, and created painted panels for the transatlantic liners Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. She exhibited at Galleria Ferro di Cavallo and Galleria Azimuth, and received Piero Manzoni's Certificate of Authenticity No. 26 in 1961. Her later work included geometric metal sculptures, but she ultimately vanished from the art scene.

Two Venezuelan boys in a forest full of vultures: Silvana Trevale’s best photograph

Silvana Trevale recounts the story behind her photograph of two Venezuelan brothers on a beach in Playa Medina, taken in 2018. The image, captured on a Mamiya camera during a goodbye trip with friends who were about to leave the country, shows the boys returning from a fishing trip with their father. Trevale, who left Venezuela in the mid-2010s to study at Huddersfield University, describes the surreal setting of a beach with Japanese forest grass and vultures, and how the photograph became the starting point for her decade-long project "Venezuelan Youth."

The mural project honouring the Black cultural heritage of Rio de Janeiro – photo essay

Two Black men, Pedro Rajão and Fernando Sawaya, created the NegroMuro (BlackWall) mural project in Rio de Janeiro in 2018 to address the severe underrepresentation of Black figures in the city's public monuments. Of Rio's roughly 360 statues and busts, fewer than 10% depict Black people. The project now comprises 80 murals across the city, portraying about 120 Black individuals—including writer Machado de Assis, activist Lélia Gonzalez, and musician Luiz Melodia—on walls of schools, museums, train stations, and private homes. The murals are concentrated in the less touristy north zone, deliberately focusing on underserved neighborhoods. The project was recently recognized by law as part of Rio's intangible cultural heritage.

Provincial Cosmos. Interview with Serena Fineschi, the artist who turned off all the lights of Siena

Provincia Cosmica. Intervista a Serena Fineschi, l’artista che ha spento tutte le luci di Siena

Serena Fineschi, an artist from Siena, Italy, discusses her return to her hometown after twelve years abroad, primarily in Brussels. She reflects on her public art projects, including one where she turned off all the city's lights for three minutes without warning, and another titled "Assistere il buio." The interview explores how her time in Belgium reshaped her artistic vision, shifting her perspective from the golden light of Siena to the sharp contrasts of northern light.