Art critic Ben Davis reflects on the cultural landscape of early 2026, identifying a chaotic aesthetic defined by AI-generated imagery, esoteric Nazi dog whistles, internet trolling, and gaudy luxury, which he calls the "Chaotic Style." He also discusses the muted response to the 2025 Fall of Freedom initiative, the ongoing credibility crisis of liberal institutions over Gaza, and the need for serious AI criticism that moves beyond dismissing it as "slop."
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.
Frieze has announced over 280 exhibitors for its October fairs in London, with around 160 galleries at Frieze London and 120 at Frieze Masters, running concurrently in Regent's Park from October 15 to 19. In auction news, the original Hermès Birkin bag prototype will be sold at Sotheby's Paris on July 10, and Bonhams has appointed Celine Assimon as chief commercial officer. Galleries saw significant moves: Christian Deydier in Paris is closing due to new EU regulations on imported cultural objects, while Carroll Dunham joined Matthew Brown, Cristina Iglesias signed with Hauser and Wirth, and several other artists changed representation. Meanwhile, Tate Liverpool received £12 million in UK government funding plus philanthropic support for its redevelopment, the Royal Academy of Arts named Simon Wallis as its new secretary and chief executive, and the Whitney Museum suspended its Independent Study Program for a year after controversy over censorship of a pro-Palestine performance. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation made three new appointments, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris faces eviction.
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.
Kenny Schachter's article for Artnet News draws a parallel between President Jimmy Carter's 1977 energy-crisis plea to lower thermostats and the current art-market response to Trump-era tariff turmoil. He reports that the spring 2025 auction cycle generated $1.25 billion, continuing a decade-long decline from the 2014 peak, with bidders spending less and big-ticket sellers stuck. Schachter also promotes his own no-reserve auction, "Hoarder #6," scheduled for July 8–17 at Phillips, and critiques Trump's economic policies and crypto ventures, name-dropping Justin Sun as a major holder of $Trump tokens.
Rosemarie Trockel, the elusive German artist known for her wildly varied and conceptually challenging work, is the subject of a rare profile in ARTnews. The article traces her emergence from the 1980s Cologne art scene, where she became notorious for refusing interviews and producing art that defies easy categorization—spanning knitting machines, video, sculpture, and drawing. A key photograph from her teenage years, showing her in a room plastered with celebrity cutouts, is presented as a rare origin story, though its authenticity is left ambiguous. The piece highlights her declared constants of "woman, inconsistency, reaction to fashionable trends" and her insistence that art should remain a process of discovery rather than a vehicle for fixed meaning.
The Metropolitan Opera House is hosting an exhibition titled “Super Duper,” featuring 25 works by nearly as many contemporary artists, cartoonists, and provocateurs, including Roz Chast, Art Spiegelman, Maurizio Cattelan, and Rashid Johnson. The show, commissioned to coincide with the Met Opera's premiere of *The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay*, reimagines superheroes for the 21st century, moving away from capes and spandex toward more grounded, satirical, and human figures. Except for two works by Spiegelman, all pieces were created specifically for the exhibition, which spreads across the opera house's lobbies and foyers.
This week's art roundup from The Guardian features a major exhibition at Towner Eastbourne titled 'Comrades in Art: Artists Against Fascism,' which examines how artists, poets, and intellectuals used their work to resist the rise of extremism in 1930s Europe, drawing on the history of the Artists International Association (AIA). Other highlights include 'Hidden: Photography and Displacement Under the Khmer Rouge' at The Wiener Holocaust Library in London, a show of early Netherlandish drawings at the British Museum, Katharina Grosse's colorful installations at White Cube, and a flower-themed survey at Kettle's Yard. The image of the week is Sylvia Sleigh's 1963 portrait 'The Bridge (Johanna Lawrenson),' part of a new exhibition of the Welsh artist's work. The article also covers news items such as Lydia Ourahmane's Venice Biennale installation, a Holbein portrait mystery, a restored stained-glass window by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, and Anish Kapoor's call to exclude the US from the Venice Biennale due to 'politics of hate.'
The 30th edition of the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Print Fair concluded at New York’s Javits Center, featuring 77 international exhibitors. The fair showcased a vast chronological range of works, from $2 million Edvard Munch prints to contemporary editions priced at $200, attracting a diverse crowd of collectors and institutional buyers.
The 61st Venice Biennale is taking shape as national pavilions announce their participants and curatorial themes for the 2026 edition. Russia has confirmed its return to the Giardini with a multidisciplinary exhibition titled “The Tree is Rooted in the Sky,” following its 2022 withdrawal and the 2024 loan of its pavilion to Bolivia. The upcoming edition, themed “In Minor Keys,” will proceed under the vision of the late curator Koyo Kouoh, who passed away in 2025 after becoming the first African woman appointed to helm the prestigious event.
A rare, inscribed lithograph by Vincent van Gogh, 'At Eternity's Gate,' resides in the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. The work, one of only seven surviving examples, was acquired in 1975 by Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the Shah of Iran, for the museum. It passed through notable hands, including those of US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, before arriving in Tehran just before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Artist Amy Sherald has been named one of TIME magazine’s 2026 Women of the Year, a distinction honoring her leadership and commitment to equity. The recognition follows Sherald's high-profile decision to withdraw her solo exhibition, "American Sublime," from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., after the institution attempted to censor or alter the presentation of her painting 'Trans Forming Liberty' (2024) due to political pressure. The Baltimore Museum of Art subsequently stepped in to host the show, where it has since shattered all-time attendance records for the institution.
A senior curator and two collections committee volunteers have resigned from the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) after the institution voted against acquiring a new slideshow work by artist Nan Goldin. The purchase was rejected by an 11-9 vote, with some committee members finding Goldin's November 2024 speech denouncing Israel's attacks on Gaza as genocide to be "offensive" and "antisemitic." Goldin had spoken at the Berlin opening of her traveling retrospective, expressing moral outrage and arguing that calling anti-Zionism antisemitic is a false equivalency. The AGO's modern and contemporary curator, John Zeppetelli, stepped down allegedly because of the incident, while the Vancouver Art Gallery and Walker Art Center proceeded with their part of the acquisition.
United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted a video on social media showing off a new tequila bottle, but the backdrop featured a painting from Rashid Johnson's "Anxious Red" series. The artwork, confirmed by Hauser & Wirth as an authentic Johnson piece purchased on the secondary market, sparked criticism online due to the irony of Lutnick—a Trump appointee whose administration has cut public health funding—owning a work born from pandemic-era anxiety. The series originally supported the WHO's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund through a 2020 charity auction, the same organization Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his first day in office.
Artnet News spoke to seven leading curators about how they identify emerging artists who will become the next big names. The curators, including Amy Smith-Stewart of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and iLiana Fokianaki of Kunsthalle Bern, describe their methods: seeking artists who address erased histories, geopolitical contexts, and marginalized perspectives. The article also references a recent debate sparked by Dean Kissick's polemic 'The Painted Protest' in Harper's, which criticized contemporary art for being overly dictated by identity politics, a view countered by curators who affirm their commitment to socially engaged work.
Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has transformed the lakeside terrace of London's Barbican Centre with a monumental textile installation titled "Purple Hibiscus" (2023-24). The work, measuring 6,560 square feet, is made from handcrafted pink and purple fabric adorned with approximately 130 traditional ceremonial robes called batakaris, sourced from communities in Tamale, Ghana. Mahama collaborated with a network of local women weavers and employed around 1,000 workers to produce the piece over seven months, using Tamale's Alui Mahama sports stadium as a workspace. The installation is part of the Barbican's exhibition "Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art."
Bénédicte Épinay, president and CEO of Comité Colbert, is organizing 'Hidden Treasures,' an exhibition of French luxury brands at The Shed in New York in late May 2025, timed after Frieze art fair and auction week. The show features 96 French luxury brands, 17 cultural institutions, and six European luxury brands, including Musée du Louvre, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, and Cartier. The initiative is part of a broader cultural diplomacy strategy, following a similar exhibition in Shanghai in 2024 that helped reduce tariffs on cognac. The article also notes shifting luxury market dynamics, with strong US sales growth projected at 8% in 2026, while Europe remains stagnant, and emerging markets like India show new wealthy buyers driving auction house growth.
The 61st edition of the Venice Biennale, the world's oldest and most prestigious art biennial, will open on 9 May 2026 and run through 22 November. The main exhibition follows the curatorial plan of the late Koyo Kouoh, while national pavilions have been announcing their participating artists and organizers. The article provides a comprehensive list of confirmed pavilions so far, including artists such as Genti Korini (Albania), Matías Duville (Argentina), Khaled Sabsabi (Australia), Florentina Holzinger (Austria), Faig Ahmed (Azerbaijan), and many others, with details on venues and organizers.
MCH Group, the parent company of Art Basel, is launching a new global ideas festival called the Futurific Institute in Basel in 2028, backed by billionaires James and Kathryn Murdoch. Art Dubai has postponed its 20th edition due to regional conflict, while several galleries are opening, closing, or changing locations, including Brooke Benington in London and Timothy Taylor in New York. Additionally, Mexico is demanding eBay remove listings for pre-Columbian artifacts, and institutions like the Royal Academy of Arts and MCA Chicago are announcing key leadership changes.
frida kahlo making of an icon
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has launched a major exhibition titled "Frida Kahlo: Making of an Icon," which explores the artist's transformation from a relatively unknown figure during her lifetime into a global cultural phenomenon. Curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez, the show features over 200 objects related to "Frida mania" alongside works by 80 contemporary artists who have been influenced by her legacy. The exhibition traces her life from her childhood in Mexico City and her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera to her emergence as a symbol for various social movements.
At Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, Los Angeles–based gallery Commonwealth and Council is distributing a stack of posters featuring Andrea Fraser's latest project, *Lexicon* (2025). The work reproduces a list of approximately 200 words that have been banned or censored under the Trump administration, originally published in the *New York Times* in March 2025. The list includes terms related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), such as “racial diversity,” “activism,” “women,” and “they/them.” Fraser, known for her institutional critique works like *Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk* (1989), created *Lexicon* as a direct response to executive orders terminating DEI programs and the subsequent preemptive censorship by federal agencies. She describes the project as an affirmation of art's role in fighting censorship, and it is linked to her ongoing research on museum boards and political donations.
The estate of Robert Colescott, the influential American painter who died in 2009, has signed with Gladstone Gallery for representation. Gladstone will debut Colescott's work at Art Basel Miami Beach next month and mount its first solo exhibition for the artist in 2025. Colescott is best known for satirical, large-scale paintings like "George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook" (1975), which critiques the exclusion and caricaturing of Black figures in American history and art. The estate sought new representation after its longtime gallery, Blum, closed this summer. Gladstone senior partner Max Falkenstein said the gallery had long admired Colescott and that the partnership felt like a natural fit given the gallery's focus on identity and politics.
Berlin gallery Société has announced that it now represents Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania, as an artist. Rama, who has been in office since 2013, studied at the Academy of Arts in Tirana, worked as an artist in Paris in the 1990s, and served as Albania's minister of culture before entering politics. His work includes boldly colored ceramic sculptures and abstract works on paper, often created on repurposed official documents during meetings. He previously exhibited at Marian Goodman's Paris space in 2024.
Rosalind Fox Solomon, a photographer known for her piercing black-and-white images of alienation, racism, and marginalization, died in New York at age 95. Her representative, Stephen Bulger Gallery, confirmed her passing. Over nearly six decades, she documented marginalized individuals—from Black Americans in the South to people with AIDS in New York to Palestinians in the West Bank—using a Hasselblad camera. Her work was marked by an empathetic yet distant approach, capturing the inner and outer realities of her subjects without close connection.
Dara Birnbaum, a pioneering video artist known for subverting mainstream media through her re-edited television clips, has died at age 78. Her longtime representative, Marian Goodman Gallery, confirmed her death but did not disclose a cause. Birnbaum rose to prominence in the late 1970s and 1980s by pirating TV programs and resequencing their images to disrupt passive viewing. Her most famous work, *Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman* (1978–79), loops clips of Lynda Carter as the superhero, exposing hidden politics and questioning the show's brand of feminism. The piece is now regarded as a landmark in both feminist art and video art.
Georgian-Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli has died at age 91. He served as the chief artist of the USSR’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and headed Russia’s Academy of Arts, and was a known supporter of Vladimir Putin. His monumental sculptures, favored by Russian elites, were controversial in his native Georgia.
VALIE EXPORT, the pioneering Austrian feminist artist known for her provocative performances centered on the female body, has died at age 85. Born in Linz in 1940, she adopted the name VALIE EXPORT in 1967 and quickly rose to prominence with iconic actions such as *TAP and TOUCH Cinema* (1968) and *Action Pants: Genital Panic* (1968), which challenged passive representations of women. Her work spanned photography, film, and expanded cinema, and she participated in major international exhibitions including documenta 6 and 12, and the Venice Biennale, where she and Maria Lassnig became the first women to represent Austria in 1980.
ArtReview has compiled a running list of national pavilions for the 61st Venice Biennale, running from 9 May to 22 November 2026. The Biennale was set to be curated by Koyo Kouoh, who died on 10 May 2025. Recent announcements include Haitham Al Busafi representing Oman, Genti Korini representing Albania with a three-channel video installation titled 'A Place in The Sun (still)', and Matías Duville representing Argentina with an interactive salt-and-charcoal installation. The Australia Pavilion will feature artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, who were initially dropped due to controversy over Sabsabi's 2007 film 'You' but later reinstated. Florentina Holzinger will represent Austria with a water-themed performance.
Sydney's art scene is energized by the opening of the 25th Biennale of Sydney, titled 'Rememory' and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, which explores histories carried in the body rather than physical monuments. Concurrently, four notable exhibitions across the city engage with similar themes of legacy and history. Kirtika Kain's 'Unkept' at the Chau Chak Wing Museum creates a fictional archive from anti-caste traditions to address Dalit lineage and colonial collection politics, while Ron Mueck's 'Encounter' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales uses hyperreal sculpture to confront contemporary brutality and vulnerability.
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.