Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule May 25, 2026 visibility 14 link 19 artists, 6 galleries

U.K. Arts Center Lands Seismic $122.4M Gift

The Sainsbury Centre near Norwich, England, has received a landmark gift of £91.2 million ($122.4 million) from Lord David Sainsbury through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation. In other news, Art Basel has appointed Wassan Al-Khudhairi as artistic director for its 2027 Qatar edition; Christie's led New York's spring auction season with $1.3 billion, driven by the S.I. Newhouse collection; Sotheby's brought in $737 million; Phillips rebounded with $115.2 million; and Bonhams achieved $22 million. Pace now represents the Constantin Brancusi Estate, Yinka Shonibare joined Mennour, and several other gallery and museum appointments were announced, including Clarissa Morales as COO of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and new interim leadership at Dallas Contemporary. The Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt will inherit Henrike Naumann's estate, Dubai announced a new Museum of Digital Art, and the Centre Pompidou partnered with Chanel.

newspaper Artnet News open_in_new Read original

article news schedule May 23, 2026 visibility 15 link 20 artists, 4 galleries

Gabrielle Goliath, Richard Avedon, “Chicken Linda”

Hyperallergic editor-in-chief Hakim Bishara reflects on skipping the New York art fairs and a record-breaking $181 million Jackson Pollock sale at Christie's, instead focusing on a profile of pioneering performance artist Linda Montano (now 84) who welcomed a contributor in a chicken costume, and Gabrielle Goliath's exhibition "Elegy" which was banned from South Africa's Venice pavilion by the culture minister but is now on view in a church. The newsletter also announces Hyperallergic's New York Press Club journalism award for Noah Fischer's comic "A Prospect Heights Ghost Story," supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and rounds up other art news including a $1 billion Christie's sale, a Billie Holiday monument commission, and public sculptures by Sarah Lucas, Roberto Lugo, and Kyle Goen.

newspaper Hyperallergic open_in_new Read original

article news schedule May 22, 2026 visibility 8 link 6 artists

What am I bid for a blown-up van? The bizarre art auction aiming to build an eco power station in Reform-held Clacton

Artists Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn are auctioning off their work from the past 15 years this Saturday to raise at least £250,000 for a community-led renewable power station in Clacton, the constituency of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. The auction, which will be conducted by former YBA Gavin Turk, includes a gold Ford Transit van wreckage containing fake banknotes that the pair blew up in 2019 as part of their film *Bank Job*, now reconstituted as a mobile sculpture. An online auction runs until 31 May, but currently only £750 has been raised.

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original

article news schedule May 22, 2026 visibility 8 link 10 artists

New York auctions, James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain, Edvard Munch—podcast

This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' covers three major stories: the spring auction results in New York, which saw record prices for works by Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brancusi, and Mark Rothko; the opening of the largest James McNeill Whistler exhibition in Europe in over 30 years at Tate Britain in London, which will later travel to the Van Gogh Museum and The Mesdag Collection in the Netherlands; and a feature on Edvard Munch's 1922 frieze from the Freia Chocolate Factory, currently on loan to the Munch museum in Oslo for the exhibition 'Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory.'

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

article news schedule May 23, 2026 visibility 5

Fraudster trying to sell fake ancient statues to Sotheby’s foiled over bogus invoices

A fraudster named Andrew Crowley, 46, attempted to sell fake ancient statues to Sotheby's, claiming they were inherited from his grandfather. The items—three Cycladic figures and one Anatolian stargazer statuette—were valued at up to £680,000 if genuine. However, the scheme unraveled when forensic analysis revealed that the accompanying invoices, purportedly typed in 1976, were produced using printing methods invented in 2001. Sotheby's experts also spotted spelling errors. Crowley received a two-year suspended sentence after admitting to making a false representation to the auction house.

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original