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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.

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Artnet News reports on the rising market for African American painter Bob Thompson, who died at 28 in 1966 but produced thousands of works in a five-year span. His vibrant, narrative paintings—inspired by Old Masters, Greek mythology, and Modernism—have long influenced artists and curators, yet only recently commanded high auction prices. In 2024, all 16 lots offered sold, totaling $4 million, with a record $1.26 million for *Music Lesson* (1962) at Christie’s. The article traces his career from Louisville to Europe, his estate history with dealer Michael Rosenfeld, and current interest from collectors and institutions like the Whitney Museum and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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Adam Lindemann announces the closure of Venus Over Manhattan, the gallery he founded in 2012 after a career as a contemporary art collector and writer. The gallery opened with a show titled "À Rebours," inspired by a novel about a decadent aristocrat, and featured works by Warhol, Hammons, and others—a show that famously saw a Dalí stolen from the wall. Over its 14-year run, Venus Over Manhattan mounted exhibitions including a Maurizio Cattelan show during a market lull, a Calder installation with spotlights and fans, and a show mixing African masterpieces with works by Koons, Prince, and Hirst. Lindemann reflects on the challenges of opening a gallery against advice, the theft that made international news, and the quiet validation he received from artists like David Hammons.

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At a Christie’s New York 21st-century art sale, Marlene Dumas’s painting *Miss January* (1997) sold for $13.6 million with premium, setting a new auction record for the most expensive artwork by a living woman artist. The work, estimated at $12–18 million, narrowly surpassed the previous record of $12.4 million held by Jenny Saville since 2018. Dumas, a 71-year-old South African painter based in Amsterdam, has built a steady market over decades, with her galleries carefully managing her work to avoid speculation.

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Artnet News editors and journalists compiled their annual roundup of the best artworks seen in 2025, highlighting standout pieces from around the world. Among the featured works are Richard Serra's monumental steel sculpture "East-West/West-East" (2014) in the Qatari desert, Emma Ferrer's painting "You Will Return the Evil to Its Steppe (Homage to Josefa de Óbidos)" (2024) shown at New York's Sapar Contemporary, and Kerry James Marshall's "The White Queens of Africa: Colette" (2025) from his retrospective at the Royal Academy of Art. Each artwork is accompanied by a personal reflection from the journalist who encountered it.

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This week's art industry roundup covers major personnel shifts, fair announcements, and institutional news. Phillips named Robert Manley chairman for Modern and contemporary art and Miety Heiden chairman for private sales after the departures of Cheyenne Westphal and Jean-Paul Engelen. Art Basel Paris announced 203 galleries for its October fair at the Grand Palais, while Kiaf Seoul will host 176 exhibitors in September. Tony Karman is stepping down as director of Expo Chicago after 14 years. Pace Gallery added Friedrich Kunath, Galerie Nordenhake signed Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, and Sylvia Kouvali now represents Luigi Zuccheri. Ariel Pittman is launching a new Los Angeles gallery, Official Welcome. The Louvre will return 258 works from Adèle de Rothschild's bequest to the Fondation des Artistes. President Trump dismissed Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet over DEI support, though his authority is questioned. The Centre Pompidou announced a new $240 million outpost in Brazil. The Art Institute of Chicago confirmed director James Rondeau will return after a flight incident. The Pérez Art Museum Miami appointed Karen H. Bechtel as board president. Frieze and Deutsche Bank detailed their 2025 Emerging Curators Fellowship. A rare Gustav Klimt portrait of an African prince was offered for €15 million.

Melvin Edwards, pioneer of Black abstraction, 1937–2026

Melvin Edwards, a pioneering sculptor known for his steel assemblages that explored Black history and experience, has died. He was the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1970. His signature series, Lynch Fragments, began in the 1960s as a response to the civil rights movement and evolved over his lifetime to incorporate references to the Vietnam War and African cultural practices.

Robert Therrien Estate Leaves Gagosian for David Zwirner, Olney Gleason Now Represents Jill Magid, and More: Industry Moves for May 6, 2026

The ARTnews article reports a series of significant gallery representation changes and industry moves in the art world as of May 6, 2026. Key shifts include the Robert Therrien Estate leaving Gagosian for David Zwirner, Olney Gleason now representing Jill Magid, and several other artists—Tianyue Zhong, Africanus Okokon, Seung Ah Paik, Khalif Tahir Thompson—joining or switching galleries. Miriam Machado has been named director of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum. The article also notes the rising costs and commercial realities of staging exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, including a Christie's selling show at Palazzo Ca' Dario.

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Liliana Angulo Cortés, the trailblazing director of the Museo Nacional de Colombia, has died at age 51. As the first Afro-Colombian artist to lead the historic institution, she was instrumental in diversifying the museum's collection and shifting its focus toward colonial remembrance and the representation of Black and Indigenous communities. Meanwhile, major art centers in Beirut, including the Sursock Museum and the Beirut Art Center, have suspended operations due to escalating regional conflict and airstrikes.

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The VIP opening of Frieze Los Angeles at Santa Monica Airport saw a surge of high-value transactions and heavy foot traffic from both local and international collectors. Major galleries reported multi-million dollar sales within the first few hours, including a $2.8 million work by Njideka Akunyili Crosby at David Zwirner and a sold-out booth of Conny Maier paintings at Hauser & Wirth. Dealers described the atmosphere as a "frenzy," noting that sales figures in some cases already tripled their performance at previous major fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Seyni Awa Camara, a Diola sculptor from Bignona, Senegal, known for her totemic clay sculptures of stacked human bodies, has died. Her work, steeped in spirituality and inspired by a ram's horn she called a 'genie,' gained international recognition after being discovered by anthropologist Michèle Odeyé-Finzi and introduced to Europe by gallerist André Magnin. Despite her global following—including fans like Pharrell Williams and Louise Bourgeois—Camara remained largely unknown in her home country, relying on foreign buyers to sustain her practice.

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V. Joy Simmons, a Los Angeles-based physician and longtime art collector, opened her Baldwin Hills home to ARTnews for a tour of her extensive collection. The house features over 150 objects, including stained-glass windows by Varnette Honeywood and Joyce Dudnick, a site-specific column installation by Lauren Halsey, and works by Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Kerry James Marshall, Mark Bradford, Kehinde Wiley, and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others. Simmons began collecting in the 1970s with a $50 lithograph by Catlett and has since built a collection that spans generations of Black artists, often juxtaposing older and younger artists in her displays.

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A new two-volume collection of Okwui Enwezor's writings, titled "Okwui Enwezor: Selected Writings, Volume 1: Toward a New African Art Discourse" and "Volume 2: Curating the Postcolonial Condition," has been published by Duke University Press in 2025, edited by Terry Smith. Spanning over a thousand pages and covering the years 1994 to 2019, the collection gathers Enwezor's catalog essays, exhibition reviews, and analyses, tracing his evolution as a poet, writer, curator, theorist, educator, and museum director who died in 2019 at age 56.

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ARTnews sent correspondents Daniel Cassady and George Nelson to cover the social scene at Art Basel, documenting their experiences across three nights of parties, dinners, and cocktail hours. Cassady's journey was marred by travel delays, but he eventually attended a dinner hosted by Thaddaeus Ropac at Safran Zunft, a garden party by Sean Kelly Gallery, and a late-night gathering organized by multiple galleries. Nelson arrived smoothly and joined Cassady for drinks, noting the challenges of street noise and cabbage smells near their Airbnb.

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Frieze has announced the exhibitor lists for its two concurrent October fairs in London: Frieze London and Frieze Masters, which will run from October 15 to 19 in Regent's Park. Frieze London will feature around 160 galleries, including blue-chip names like Gagosian, Pace, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner, alongside 58 London-based galleries. Frieze Masters, with some 120 exhibitors, will be the first edition under the direction of Emanuela Tarizzo. Curated sections include Artist-to-Artist at Frieze London, where artists nominate peers, and Spotlight at Frieze Masters, organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver. Frieze Sculpture, curated by Fatoş Üstek, will run from September 17 to November 2 in the English Gardens.

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The Centre Pompidou in Paris has opened "Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance 1950–2000," a landmark exhibition featuring 350 works by 150 largely underrecognized Black artists active in postwar Paris. The show includes paintings, sculptures, films, photographs, and archival materials, highlighting artists such as Georges Coran, Ed Clark, Beauford Delaney, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, and Ming Smith, and explores themes of Afro-Atlantic abstraction, Surrealism, anti-colonial activism, and jazz's influence on visual art.

East Africa meets Western Europe as Michael Armitage takes on Venice's Palazzo Grassi

The artist Michael Armitage opens a monographic exhibition titled 'The Promise of Change' at Venice's Palazzo Grassi, featuring 46 large paintings and nearly 100 sketches that survey his past decade of work. At 42, Armitage is the youngest artist to receive a solo show at the palazzo, which is owned by François Pinault and has previously hosted Albert Oehlen, Luc Tuymans, and Marlene Dumas. The exhibition highlights Armitage's fusion of East African and Western European artistic influences, drawing on his upbringing in Kenya and his training at London's Byam Shaw School of Art, the Slade, and the Royal Academy.

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This week's art industry news covers major auction results, gallery changes, and restitution developments. At Christie's Old Masters evening sale in London, Canaletto's "The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" set a new auction record for the artist at £31.9 million ($43.9 million), leading the sale to a total of £60.8 million. Sotheby's Old Masters evening sale brought in £14.5 million, with three new records including Diana de Rosa's "Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist" selling for £317,500. A rare early watercolor by Man Ray, "Nude Playing Musical Instrument" (1913), resurfaced after decades and will be auctioned at Dreweatts. In gallery news, Blum gallery laid off most of its staff and plans to cease brick-and-mortar operations, while Waddington Custot announced a new Paris space, and Company Gallery hired Subhas Kim Kandasamy as executive director. White Cube now represents Firenze Lai, and JD Malat Gallery launched a new initiative for UAE artists. In restitution, the Netherlands returned 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, transferred two Benin works to the Oba of Benin.

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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.

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Spring 2025 in New York City brings a dense calendar of art fairs, headlined by Frieze New York at The Shed (May 7–11) with over 65 galleries from 25 countries, and Independent at Spring Studios (May 8–11) which this year surpasses Frieze in size with 85 exhibitors. Other notable fairs include the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair celebrating its 10th year with a focus on the Caribbean diaspora, the experimental SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and NADA New York featuring 120 galleries and a spotlight on Texas and Mexico. The guide also mentions newer showcases like Esther II and Conductor, offering a comprehensive overview for collectors and art enthusiasts navigating the city's art week.

Backflips, boulders and dancing dogs: the images that shaped art photography – in pictures

A new exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum, titled "Photography as a Way of Life," celebrates the photographers who helped establish art photography as a serious movement from the 1940s to the 1970s. The show features works by Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, and others, including images by Ming Smith, Donna-Lee Phillips, and Walter Chappell. The exhibition runs until September 7 and highlights how these educators and artists transformed photography's role in both the art world and higher education.

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John P. Axelrod, a prominent art collector and retired lawyer, was killed in a hit-and-run incident on January 3 in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood while walking his dog. The suspect, William Haney, 42, allegedly drove onto a pedestrian mall and struck Axelrod before fleeing; he has been charged with murder and animal cruelty. Axelrod, 79, was a longtime collector of American painting, African American and Latin American art, and decorative arts, and was listed on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list from 1997 to 2000.

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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has failed to secure loans from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana for its upcoming Wifredo Lam retrospective, “When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream.” The Havana museum declined to lend works due to fears that artworks entering the United States could be seized by a US court as part of claims by Cuban exiles and others seeking compensation for property confiscated during the Cuban Revolution. The exhibition, curated by MoMA director Christophe Cherix and Latin American art curator Beverly Adams, will feature 150 artworks from the Afro-Cuban Surrealist’s life, including several rediscovered pieces, but without the Cuban museum’s contributions.

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The Studio Museum in Harlem will open its new building on Saturday, November 15, with a Community Day celebration, after being closed since 2018. Designed by Adjaye Associates, the 82,000-square-foot, seven-story structure features 14,000 square feet of exhibition space, expanded studios for its Artist-in-Residence program, and dedicated education areas. The reopening includes four exhibitions, two site-specific commissions, and reinstallations of iconic works, including a survey of Tom Lloyd, the subject of the museum's first exhibition in 1968. The museum has also updated its hours and admission policies, offering free entry on Sundays.

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Yinka Shonibare, the London-based British-Nigerian artist, established the nonprofit Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation in Nigeria in 2019 to address the lack of artistic infrastructure in Lagos. The foundation, which grew out of his earlier Guest Projects initiative in London, operates two facilities: the G.A.S. Lagos Residency and the G.A.S. Farm House in Ijebu, Ogun State. It hosts residencies and programs supporting artists and curators from Africa and beyond, and launched the G.A.S. Fellowship Award in 2022. The article highlights the experience of 2024 fellow Amanda Iheme, an architecture photographer who expanded her practice during her residency. Shonibare funds the foundation partly from his own art sales, and the piece notes his recent major exhibitions, including at the Venice Biennale and Serpentine Galleries, as well as his current show at Fondation H in Madagascar.

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Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroonian-born curator appointed to lead the 2026 Venice Biennale, has died unexpectedly at age 57. The Venice Biennale announced her passing on Saturday, describing her as a figure of “passion, intellectual rigor, and vision.” Her husband, Philippe Mall, stated that a recently diagnosed cancer was the cause of death in a hospital in Basel, Switzerland. Kouoh had served as executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town since 2019, and was the second African-born curator to lead the Venice Biennale.

A renewed focus on rigour and connection at Expo Chicago

The 2026 edition of Expo Chicago marks a strategic shift under the leadership of new director Kate Sierzputowski, featuring a leaner roster of 130 galleries at Navy Pier. The fair has introduced a more spacious layout and a new curatorial role, filled by Essence Harden, to deepen institutional ties and scholarly rigor. Notable participants include local mainstays like Monique Meloche Gallery and Gray, alongside international exhibitors from South Korea, South Africa, and Nigeria, as well as high-profile New York newcomers like Karma.

Art Industry News: November 1, 2021

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The global art landscape is undergoing significant shifts, from the cultural erasure facing Afghan artists under Taliban rule to a surge in grassroots restitution efforts led by organizations like the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign. Meanwhile, major institutional moves include the appointment of Julieta González as artistic director of Brazil’s Inhotim and the opening of the Nesr Art Foundation in Luanda, Angola, which aims to bolster the local contemporary art scene through residencies and private collection displays.

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The Brooklyn Museum has opened "Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit," a major solo exhibition dedicated to the pioneering American photographer Consuelo Kanaga (1894–1978). The show features nearly 200 works drawn from the museum's extensive collection of 2,000 negatives and 340 prints, gifted by Kanaga's third husband, artist Wallace Putnam. Kanaga, one of the nation's first women photojournalists, is celebrated for her socially conscious images capturing labor activists, the poor, and African Americans under Jim Crow laws, as well as cityscapes, portraits, and still lifes. The exhibition is organized with Madrid's Fundación MAPFRE and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and curated by Drew Sawyer, formerly of the Brooklyn Museum and now at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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The Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI) has released the first online tranche of the Romare Bearden Catalogue Raisonné Project, covering over 200 works from 1964 to 1969—a pivotal period when Bearden honed his signature collage style. The free digital publication fills a long-standing gap for the canonical Black American artist, who died in 1988, and includes works verified by an anonymous committee of experts, with a verified icon for examined pieces.