Cecily Brown: ‘I was too shy to talk to all these super cool kids like Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst’

Cecily Brown is preparing for her first major museum exhibition in her native London at the Serpentine Gallery, titled 'Picture Making'. The show features new and old paintings, monotypes, and drawings inspired by Kensington Gardens, marking a significant return for the artist who left for New York in the 1990s. Despite her commercial success with Gagosian and inclusion in major museums, she expresses nervousness about the critical reception.

frieze london preview 2025

The 23rd edition of Frieze London opens next Wednesday with its VIP preview in Regent's Park, featuring 168 galleries from 43 countries. The fair arrives amid a subdued art market, with dealers favoring conservative, recognizable works by established names rather than betting on younger artists. Notable presentations include Modern Art showing Sanya Kantarovsky's stoneware sculptures, Lehmann Maupin presenting Do Ho Suh's translucent installations, and Gagosian featuring Lauren Halsey's sculptural tribute to South Central Los Angeles. Hauser & Wirth highlights rising star George Rouy alongside other artists, while White Cube focuses on the natural world with works by Marguerite Humeau, Howardena Pindell, and Sara Flores.

Go Time! Gagosian Christens New Madison Avenue Space With Duchamp Readymades

Larry Gagosian is set to inaugurate a newly overhauled ground-floor gallery at 980 Madison Avenue on April 25, marking a major expansion within his long-time New York headquarters. The debut exhibition features the iconic readymades of Marcel Duchamp, including a rare version of 'Bicycle Wheel' and 'Fountain.' This move follows a period of uncertainty for the dealer after Bloomberg Philanthropies acquired the building, prompting Gagosian to invest significant resources into securing and transforming the street-level space.

Gagosian to Open New Upper East Side Gallery with a Duchamp Show, a Rarity in a Commercial Setting

Gagosian is set to inaugurate a new ground-floor gallery space at 980 Madison Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with a major exhibition of Marcel Duchamp opening April 25. The show features rare replicas of the artist’s most famous readymades, including the 1964 versions of 'Fountain' and 'Bicycle Wheel,' the latter of which is noted as the only version not currently held by a museum. The exhibition returns Duchamp to the same building where he showed with Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in 1965 and coincides with a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

can slimmed down expo chicago still throw weight around

The 15th edition of Expo Chicago, scheduled for April 9–12, marks a significant transition as the fair's first outing under new director Kate Sierzputowski and its third since being acquired by Frieze. The upcoming edition features a streamlined roster of approximately 130 galleries, a 25 percent decrease from previous years. While blue-chip giants like Gagosian and Zwirner are absent, the fair maintains a strong lineup including Karma, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, and local mainstays like Monique Meloche, complemented by satellite events and a high-profile benefit directed by Maurizio Cattelan.

art basel paris 2

Art Basel Paris is undergoing a major transformation for its third edition, officially rebranding from 'Paris+ par Art Basel' and moving into the newly renovated Grand Palais. The historic venue, fresh from a $500 million restoration, allows the fair to expand its footprint by 26 percent, hosting 194 galleries compared to last year's 154. The move includes the opening of the ornate balconies for emerging galleries and a new sector called Premise, signaling the fair's transition from a successful 'preamble' to a permanent fixture in the French capital.

More Than 300 Yayoi Kusama Works Take Over a German Museum

The Museum Ludwig in Cologne has launched a major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama's work to mark its 50th anniversary. The exhibition features over 300 pieces, including sculptures, paintings, and installations, and spans her entire career from a childhood drawing to a newly commissioned Infinity Room. It also debuts several works in a museum setting and spreads beyond the gallery walls to the museum's roof.

Blink and You’ll Miss It! 3 New York Shows With Painfully Short Runs

Blink and You’ll Miss It! 3 New York Shows With Painfully Short Runs

Three notable New York gallery exhibitions are operating on exceptionally short timelines, defying the current standard of month-long runs. These include "Ryan Foerster: Going Green" at Kerry Schuss Gallery, a presentation of Robert Mnuchin's collection at Mnuchin Gallery, and a show by the Japanese artist collective ME at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, each on view for only a matter of days.

5 cultural destinations that tell the story of los angeles

Los Angeles boasts a dense museum landscape that reflects the city's unique architectural history and commitment to contemporary art. This guide highlights five essential cultural destinations, including The Broad, which houses the expansive postwar collection of Eli and Edythe Broad within its innovative 'veil and vault' architecture, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, a UNESCO World Heritage site that pioneered California's indoor-outdoor living aesthetic.

victoria dugger freak flag

Artist Victoria Dugger has launched her third solo exhibition, "Freak Flags," at Sargent’s Daughters in New York. The show features six mixed-media works that reimagine the American flag through a maximalist, Southern Gothic lens, utilizing materials like gingham, glitter, nipple tassels, and barbed wire. Drawing inspiration from Jasper Johns’s iconic flag paintings, Dugger’s versions replace traditional colors with hot pinks and bright greens, with several displayed upside down to signal national distress.

Somerset's Unlikely Contemporary Art Scene Is a Welcome Departure From the UK's London-Centric Thinking

somersets unlikely contemporary art scene is a welcome departure from the uks london centric thinking

Hauser & Wirth's Somerset gallery, established in 2014 in the rural town of Bruton, has transformed the local area into a significant contemporary art destination. The gallery complex, featuring exhibition spaces, a restaurant, meadow, and educational programs, has catalyzed gentrification and attracted other galleries, trendy hotels, and high-end amenities to a formerly unremarkable settlement.

larry gagosian jasper johns interview

Larry Gagosian has opened a major exhibition of Jasper Johns's crosshatch paintings from 1973 to 1983 at his Upper East Side gallery in New York. In a forthcoming Gagosian Quarterly interview, Gagosian explains his motivation simply: he wanted to look at the works. The show features key pieces including all six versions of "Between the Clock and the Bed" (1981), borrowed from top-tier collectors and museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Gallery of Art. Gagosian recounts first encountering the crosshatch paintings in 1976 at Leo Castelli's gallery, before he had met Johns, through his connections with Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

what defined 2025 curators pick the years best art

Several international curators and museum directors, including Connie Butler of MoMA PS1, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Julieta Gonzalez of the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Madeleine Grynsztejn of MCA Chicago, selected artworks that they believe define 2025. Highlights include Ayoung Kim's video installation 'Delivery Dancer’s Arc: 0º Receiver' (2024), Beeple's 'Regular Animals' premiered at Art Basel Miami Beach, and Kerry James Marshall's painting 'Haul' (2025) from his retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts. Julieta Gonzalez also pointed to a broader constellation of practices emphasizing collectivity, ecological thinking, and Indigenous cosmologies rather than a single emblematic work.

jeff koons porcelain series gagosian

Jeff Koons has returned to Gagosian in New York with his "Porcelain Series," on view through February 28, 2026, marking his first exhibition with the gallery after four years with Pace. The show features hyper-polished porcelain sculptures and paintings that reference historical European porcelain workshops such as Sèvres, Meissen, and KPM Berlin, as well as 16th-century prints. Koons discusses the high-low dialogue of porcelain, its ties to readymade objects and Duchamp, and his use of advanced scanning and fabrication techniques to transform humble figurines into luxury art.

gagosian jasper johns crosshatch survey 2026

Gagosian Gallery, in collaboration with Castelli Gallery, will present a landmark survey of Jasper Johns's crosshatched paintings at its 980 Madison Avenue flagship from January 22 to March 14, 2026. The exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the series' debut in 1976 and includes rarely seen works from 1973 to 1983, lent by major museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Broad, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, as well as from Johns's personal collection. Key works include pieces from the "Corpse and Mirror" series, "Weeping Women" (1975), "Dancers on a Plane" (1980–81), and all six "Between the Clock and the Bed" paintings (1981–83).

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German artist Gerhard Richter has opened a major monographic exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, titled simply “Gerhard Richter.” The show features approximately 270 artworks, making it nearly three times larger than his 2020 retrospective at the Met Breuer in New York. Curated by former Tate director Nicholas Serota and Dieter Schwarz, former director of Zurich’s Kunstmuseum Winterthur, the exhibition is arranged chronologically to trace the evolution of Richter’s diverse oeuvre—from photo paintings and abstractions to Strip artworks and recent drawings. Highlights include early works like *Tisch (Table)* (1962), his first photo painting, and *Verkündigung nach Tizian (Annunciation after Titian)* (1973), created after his Venice Biennale debut.

frieze new york 2025 preview

Frieze New York 2025 is set to take place at the Shed in Manhattan, bringing together over 65 contemporary art galleries from more than 25 countries. The fair coincides with major institutional shows at the Guggenheim, Whitney Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the recent reopening of the Frick Collection after a $220 million renovation. Notable galleries include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace, and David Zwirner, alongside international dealers like Goodman Gallery and Kurimanzutto. The Focus section, curated by Lumi Tan, features 12 young galleries. On the eve of the fair, Frieze itself was sold by Endeavor to former CEO Ari Emanuel for a reported $200 million.

dan nadel sixties surreal whitney robert crumb interview

Dan Nadel, a curator recently hired by the Whitney Museum as curator of prints and drawings, is opening a new exhibition titled "Sixties Surreal" that aims to rewrite the history of 1960s art. The show, co-curated with Laura Phipps, Scott Rothkopf, and Elisabeth Sussman, features a wide range of artists from Luis Jimenez to Shigeko Kubota, alongside canonical figures like Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusama. Nadel, known for championing marginalized and alternative figures in American art, previously curated "What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present" at the Rhode Island School of Design and a Gertrude Abercrombie exhibition at Karma gallery. He is also the author of a recent biography of Robert Crumb.

kerry james marshall royal academy exhibition new paintings

Kerry James Marshall, a leading American painter, has debuted a new series of paintings as part of his survey exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The works, featured in a section titled “Africa Revisited,” examine the involvement of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade, a topic Marshall says is often ignored because it complicates simplistic narratives of good versus evil. One painting, *Abduction of Olaudah and His Sister* (2023), depicts the kidnapping of 18th-century writer Olaudah Equiano, while three others—*Outbound*, *Haul*, and *Cove* (all 2025)—show Black figures actively participating in the slave trade. Marshall’s earlier Middle Passage works from the 1990s are also on view.

upstate art weekend major new york event collectors

The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) launched with a party at Assembly in Kingston, New York, founded by Helen Toomer in 2020. The festival has grown from 23 participants to 158 across 6,000 square miles, reflecting the pandemic-era exodus of artists and collectors from New York City to the Hudson Valley region. The event featured a fundraiser for abortion-rights nonprofit Noise for Now and drew a diverse crowd of attendees.

hamad butt whitechapel damien hirst

Hamad Butt, a Young British Artist (YBA) whose career was cut short by AIDS in 1994, is finally receiving a retrospective at Whitechapel Gallery in London, titled “Apprehensions,” on view until September 7. The exhibition highlights Butt’s bio-art installation *Transmission* (1990), which features live flies feeding on sugar paper texts about contagion, alongside glass books lit by ultraviolet lamps. The show reassesses Butt’s subtle, layered work in contrast to the more famous YBAs like Damien Hirst, who debuted a strikingly similar fly piece, *A Thousand Years* (1990), shortly after Butt’s work was first exhibited.

art basel dealers recall early days

Art Basel dealers recall the fair's early days, from its founding in 1970 by Swiss dealers Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner, and Balz Hilt to its evolution into a global powerhouse with editions in Hong Kong, Miami Beach, Paris, and soon Qatar. Veterans like David Fleiss of Galerie 1900-2000, Thaddaeus Ropac, Iwan Wirth of Hauser & Wirth, and Dominique Lévy of Lévy Gorvy Dayan share personal anecdotes, including chaotic customs incidents, childhood memories, and the fair's shift from a Eurocentric gathering to the world's premier art fair.

bts fan art show seoul

A new exhibition titled "Presence in Absence: The Art of BTS Chapter 2" opens at Taxa Seoul on June 21, featuring 20 fan artists from around the world whose works celebrate the K-pop group BTS. Curated by Jieun Seo and Yvette Wohn of 25th Hour Collective, the show includes artworks created between 2022 and 2025, a period when BTS members were fulfilling mandatory military service, leading fans to channel their devotion into creative expression. The exhibition highlights diverse styles and media, from solo portraits to surreal scenes, reflecting the global reach of BTS fandom.

5 Under-Recognized Artists Getting Their Due in New York This Season

The article highlights five under-recognized artists whose exhibitions are on view in New York this season, focusing on Domenico Gnoli at Lévy Gorvy Dayan and Raquel Rabinovich at Hutchinson Modern and Contemporary. Gnoli, an Italian painter who died in 1970, is known for his pallid, claustrophobic depictions of everyday subjects, while Rabinovich, who died at 102 in January 2026, created somber minimalist paintings exploring silence and withholding. The piece notes that New York galleries often use the pre-fair period to showcase less prominent artists of great promise.

israeli artist doron langberg addresses atrocities gaza

Israeli artist Doron Langberg is launching his first New York exhibition in seven years at Jeffrey Deitch’s Tribeca gallery, marking a significant shift in his practice. Known primarily for "New Queer Intimism" and domestic portraits, Langberg’s new body of work pivots toward monumental landscapes that grapple with his Jewish identity and the destruction in Gaza. The exhibition features works inspired by his family’s Holocaust history in Ukraine, used as a lens to process current geopolitical violence.

gavin turk ben brown fine arts

British artist Gavin Turk is set to debut a new body of work at Ben Brown Fine Arts in London for his sixth solo exhibition with the gallery, titled "The Escapologist." The exhibition features a series of trompe l’oeil paintings depicting partially open doors set within frames, hung low to create a sculptural, illusionistic effect. Drawing on art historical references ranging from Gerhard Richter’s modernist doors to René Magritte’s surrealist metaphors, the works explore the door as a symbol of the threshold and the psychological tension between anticipation and absence.

7 must see museum shows on view across asia in 2026

Artnet News highlights seven must-see museum exhibitions across Asia in 2026, with a focus on women artists and diverse themes. Key shows include a retrospective of Korean sculptor Kim Yun Shin at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, a posthumous exhibition of Japanese painter Rey Camoy at the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, a manga and fantasy art survey at M+ in Hong Kong, and a solo show by Belgian artist Carsten Höller at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

studio museum in harlem reopening review

The Studio Museum in Harlem has reopened after a seven-year closure in a new building designed by David Adjaye, with Thelma Golden continuing as director and chief curator. The museum has expanded its indoor spaces, replacing a garden with a public staircase called the Stoop, and added a rooftop terrace with city views. Adjaye faced sexual misconduct allegations in 2023, leading to Pascale Sablan taking over the project, though Adjaye remains listed as founder and principal of his firm.

shows to see art basel

Art Basel returns to its Swiss namesake city from June 19 to 22, with VIP previews on June 17 and 18. The article recommends stepping outside the fair to explore top-tier exhibitions across Basel, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's rediscovered painting 'Tanz im Varieté' (1911) at Kunstmuseum Basel, a major survey of Medardo Rosso at the same museum, and a solo show by Thomas Ott at Cartoonmuseum Basel. It also highlights Clearing gallery's off-site project 'Maison Clearing' in a private house with works by over 40 artists.

met revamp african and oceanic galleries

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has unveiled its renovated Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, featuring 1,800 objects from 663 cultures across Africa, Oceania, and the ancient Americas. The $70 million, 12-year project includes Fang masks, ceremonial dance paddles, and 15-foot funerary poles, with a multi-day celebration that featured a sunrise blessing. The wing, named after Nelson Rockefeller's son who disappeared in 1961, opened in 1982 and was revitalized as part of a master plan by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects.