lutz bacher retrospective oslo brussels

The article reviews the first posthumous retrospective of the elusive artist Lutz Bacher, titled "Burning the Days," at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo. Bacher, who died in 2019 and whose real name was never revealed, is known for her use of found photographs and a pseudonym that led many to mistake her for a German man. The exhibition opens with her work "The Lee Harvey Oswald Interview" (1976–78), in which she discusses photography and perception by using Oswald as a stand-in, and includes other pieces such as "Jackie & Me" (1989) and "Men at War" (1975), all exploring how images and narratives produce meaning.

adrien brody art eden gallery

Actor Adrien Brody debuted a new exhibition titled "Made in America" at Eden Gallery in New York, featuring paintings that incorporate pop culture icons like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Marilyn Monroe alongside collage elements and text. The show has garnered significant media attention, including a profile in the New York Times and praise from Cultured and Interview magazine, partly fueled by the sale of one of Brody's paintings for $425,000 at the amfAR Cannes Gala. However, the art press, including Artnet News, has been highly critical, with ARTnews reviewer Alex Greenberger describing the works as ugly, derivative, and lacking nuance.

chicago gallery weekend dealers artists collaborate

Luke Agada, a Nigerian painter who completed his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023, chose to remain in Chicago rather than move to New York or Los Angeles, citing the city's balance of opportunities. He opened his solo exhibition "To Translate Is to Move Across" at Monique Meloche Gallery during the third edition of Chicago Exhibition Weekend (CXW), a four-day event involving over 70 galleries, talks, studio visits, and a tennis mixer. CXW was founded by Abby Pucker of the consultancy firm Gertie and co-organized with Expo Chicago, expanding this year to include the Chicago Architecture Biennial and a curated exhibition of conceptual art.

judy chicago pussy riot nadya tolakonnikova artwashing

A group of 50 artists and cultural figures has sent a letter to Judy Chicago and Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova, accusing them of “artwashing” for their collaborative exhibition “What If Women Ruled the World?” scheduled to open September 25 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The letter calls for the exhibition’s cancellation, arguing that it is hypocritical to present a feminist show at an Israeli institution while Israel’s military actions in Gaza have killed over 28,000 women and girls since October 2023, according to UN Women. Tolokonnikova has stated she is not involved in decisions about the work’s current venue, while museum director Tania Coen-Uzzielli rejected the idea that canceling exhibitions is a meaningful response to the conflict.

new york fair 2025 new buyers sales

Independent 20th Century, a New York art fair held September 4–7 at Casa Cipriani, reported that 74% of buyers were new clients of participating dealers, with 100 works sold—up from 87 in 2024. The highest sale was Ilya Kabakov's *Colourful Noise #2* for $650,000 at Galerie Brigitte Schenk, a 65% increase over last year's top sale. Nine of 30 exhibitors sold out their booths, and institutions acquired 18 works, compared to three in 2024. The fair also announced its 2026 edition will move to Sotheby's new headquarters in the Breuer building, marking a first-of-its-kind collaboration between a contemporary art fair and an auction house.

palestinian artist samia halabys market rise to continue this fall

Palestinian American artist Samia Halaby has experienced a dramatic surge in market value and institutional recognition over the past decade, with eight of her top 10 auction results occurring in the last three years. A Christie's sale in May 2025 saw her 2013 painting *Water Lilies* sell for $138,600, more than triple its 2020 result, while her 1974 work *Mediterranean #279* set her current auction record at £400,000 ($534,000) in 2020. Her first US museum survey opened in 2024 at Michigan State University's Eli and Edyth Broad Art Museum, and her work has been shown at MoMA, Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou, which acquired a piece last year.

solange pessoa brazilian sculptor aspen art museum glasgow

Brazilian sculptor Solange Pessoa is the subject of a solo exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum, featuring her evolving installation *Bags – Aspen version* (1994–2025). The work, originally created in 1994, consists of burlap sacks filled with organic materials such as coffee beans, seeds, feathers, dried peppers, and records by Brazilian musicians, arranged in towers on a dirt-covered floor. Pessoa, who has long been based in Belo Horizonte, has recreated the piece in various locations over three decades, and this iteration marks one of her few solo museum shows outside Brazil.

maria helena vieira da silva venice retrospective

A major survey of Portuguese French artist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908–92) is on view at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice through September 15, before traveling to the Guggenheim Bilbao. The exhibition highlights her maze-like abstractions, which feature vibrant tile-like squares and interwoven lines, and includes works from her World War II–era figurative period, such as *The Disaster* (1942). The show follows a traveling exhibition in Marseille and Dijon (2022–2023) and her inclusion in the Centre Pompidou’s 2021 “Women in Abstraction” exhibition, signaling a resurgence of interest in her work.

toyin ojih odutola

Toyin Ojih Odutola is presenting two major solo exhibitions simultaneously—one at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York and one at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin—marking a pivotal moment in her career. The New York show, titled "Ilé Oriaku," features recent works that build on themes from her 2024 Kunsthalle Basel exhibition and the Nigerian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, incorporating personal loss, ancestral memory, and layered storytelling. The artist describes a need for freedom and resists tidy conclusions, instead embracing flux and experimentation.

maja ruznic site santa fe

Artist Maja Ruznic has created a suite of large, luminous canvases responding to early 20th-century paintings glorifying Spanish colonization at the St. Francis Auditorium in the New Mexico Museum of Art, as part of the 12th Site Santa Fe International. The exhibition, curated by Cecelia Alemani and titled "Once Within a Time," opened last week. Ruznic, a Bosnian war refugee living in Placitas, New Mexico, confronts the problematic history depicted by artist Donald Beauregard, who died at 29 before completing the commission, which was later finished by uncredited artists Carlos Vierra and Kenneth Chapman.

30 portraits of queen elizabeth ii

On September 9, 2015, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning monarch in British history, surpassing Queen Victoria. To mark the occasion, the Royal Collection opened a photography exhibition titled “Long to Reign over Us,” featuring posed portraits and casual family shots of the Queen. Artnet News compiled 30 favorite photos and paintings of the monarch, including works by Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, and royal photographer Mark Stewart, highlighting her decades-long reign and her ease in front of the camera.

mildred thompson retrospective ica miami

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Miami has opened "Mildred Thompson: Frequencies," the first comprehensive retrospective of the late artist Mildred Thompson (1936–2003). Spanning five decades, the exhibition brings together 49 works—including wood assemblages, monochromatic prints, and oversized triptychs—sourced from the artist's estate and Galerie Lelong & Co. It traces Thompson's career as she moved between the United States and Germany, highlighting her stylistic evolution and her deep engagement with abstraction, science, and spirituality. The show follows earlier focused presentations like "Against the Grain" (2018) at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the 2017 "Magnetic Fields" exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

frick john singer sargent painting

The Frick Collection in New York, which recently reopened after a major expansion, does not own a single painting by John Singer Sargent, despite founder Henry Clay Frick's admiration for the artist. Sargent declined Frick's request for a portrait commission late in his career, and after Frick's death, his daughter Helen Clay Frick turned down an opportunity to purchase Sargent's iconic portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw in 1922 because the museum's trustees were undecided about the institution's future. The painting now resides at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. However, the Frick will receive a study for Sargent's famous 'Madame X' as part of a promised gift from collectors Elizabeth and Jean-Marie Eveillard.

abstract artist rosemarie beck van doren waxter

Rosemarie Beck, a once-promising abstract painter celebrated in the 1940s and 1950s by the Whitney Museum and mentored by Robert Motherwell, abandoned abstraction in 1958 to pursue figuration. Despite early success and shows at prestigious venues like the Stable Gallery, her shift to mythological and literary themes caused her to fade from art historical memory. A new exhibition, "Rosemarie Beck: Earthly Paradise," at Van Doren Waxter in New York, showcases over 25 figurative works from 1959 to 2000, marking a major reappraisal of her career.

el greco paint drippings art industry news jun 20

This week's art industry roundup covers a range of developments: a new wave of younger, deliberate collectors is reshaping the art market, as reported from Art Basel; the Independent art fair will relocate to Pier 36 in New York in 2026; Riga Contemporary, a new fair, launches in Latvia; and the inaugural Arrival art fair took place in North Adams, Massachusetts. In auctions, seven never-before-seen Picasso ceramic plates sold in Geneva for nearly double their estimate, while a Giacometti sculpture made the top 10 sales list. Galleries news includes Nara Roesler now representing Asuka Anastasia Ogawa, a new gallery called Open Studio opening in New York, and Andrew Edlin Gallery relocating. In museums, a government watchdog found the Trump Administration broke the law by withholding funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and UC Irvine and the Orange County Museum of Art plan to merge. A legal battle over an El Greco painting withdrawn from Christie's auction is advancing, with the owner revealed as Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.

arrival hotel art fair change the game

A new art fair called Arrival made its debut at the Tourists hotel in North Adams, Massachusetts, featuring 36 exhibitors and attracting curators, collectors, and artists from across the country. The fair, which closed June 15, offered an intimate format with world-class art, deep conversation, and a relaxed atmosphere that included swimming between sales, set against the backdrop of cultural attractions like Mass MOCA, the Clark Art Institute, and the Williams College Museum of Art.

young collector habits

Maurice Mielcarek, a 43-year-old Zurich-based collector, exemplifies a new generation of younger art buyers who prioritize lasting engagement over speculation. At Zurich Art Weekend, he introduced friends to New York artist Travis Boyer, whose velvet paintings Mielcarek has collected for two years. This cohort, mostly in their 30s and 40s, takes a slower, research-driven approach to collecting, often building relationships with artists and galleries before purchasing. They focus on discovery, conceptual works, and supporting artists' visions beyond mere acquisition.

audemars piguet contemporary aspen art museum adrian villar rojas

Audemars Piguet Contemporary (APC) and the Aspen Art Museum have co-commissioned a new sculpture by Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas, titled (Untitled) The Language of the Enemy. The work will debut in November in the Jura Mountains, near APC's hometown in the Vallée de Joux, before traveling to the Aspen Art Museum for a multi-floor exhibition in 2026. The sculpture draws a parallel between paleontology and speculative memory, imagining that an encounter with fossilized dinosaur remains might have sparked the earliest act of art-making. APC curator Audrey Teichmann emphasized the organization's role in supporting the artist through inception, research, fabrication, and project management, as well as providing continuous support for a second exhibition and storage of the work between shows.

nicole wittenberg maison la roche

Nicole Wittenberg's new painting series "Ain't Misbehavin'" is on view at Maison La Roche in Paris through July 19, 2025. The exhibition, a collaboration between Massimo De Carlo and Fondation Le Corbusier, features large floral works that eliminate depth and press blossoms against the picture plane, creating a dialogue with Le Corbusier's purist modernist architecture. Wittenberg, a San Francisco-born artist who studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, has work in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and the Albertina.

olga de amaral appraisal

Art advisor Naomi Baigell recalls that when she managed Prudential's corporate art collection in the late 1980s and 1990s, executives refused to hang textile works by Colombian-born artist Olga de Amaral, preferring abstract paintings instead. Now 93 and still working, Amaral is experiencing a major market and institutional renaissance: the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami is hosting a solo show of her work (through October 12), her pieces are included in MoMA's "Woven Histories" exhibition, and she has been represented by Lisson Gallery since 2019. In 2025, her auction performance has been stellar, with a new record of $1.16 million set in May for *Imagen perdida 27* (1996) at Phillips New York, and total sales of $4.07 million as of June.

the white room gallery east hampton

Kat O’Neill and Andrea McCafferty, founders of the White Room Gallery, moved their business from Bridgehampton to East Hampton in late 2023. The gallery, known for showcasing contemporary art from Pop icons like Andy Warhol to street artists like Banksy, has a busy exhibition calendar year-round, with summer being especially active. Ahead of peak season, O’Neill and McCafferty discussed upcoming shows including “La Femme,” “Every Picture Tells A Story,” and solo exhibits by Nelson De La Nuez and Russell Young, as well as the gallery’s integration into the East Hampton community.

independent picks

The article reviews the Independent art fair, highlighting its curated approach that results in a visually cohesive and easeful experience compared to other fairs. It notes the prevalence of neo-bucolic landscapes and animal paintings by artists like Sameen Agha, Tim Braden, and Lisa Sanditz, as well as delicate abstractions and small ceramic works. Standout pieces include Pope.L's provocative paint-scribbled underwear at Mitchell-Innes and Nash, Rosa Barba's kinetic painting at Vistamare, Ibrahim El-Salahi's silkscreen painting at Vigo Gallery, and works by emerging artists such as Constanza Camila Kramer Garfias and Ada Friedman at Kendra Jayne Patrick Gallery.

gallery weekend berlin 3

Gallery Weekend Berlin took place during the city's spring bloom, featuring exhibitions like Alvaro Urbano's melancholic installation "September and Lions" at ChertLüdde and Pamela Rosenkranz's flesh-toned water bottles at KaDeWe. The event kicked off on May Day and included expanded public tours, artist talks at the Neue Nationalgalerie, and a 24-hour window project. Notable attendees included collector Frédéric de Goldschmidt and celebrity Usher, who collected art. The weekend was marked by a mood of resilience despite political turmoil.

dara birnbaum video artist dead wonder woman

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.

paint drippings art industry news apr 28

This week's art industry roundup covers major developments across art fairs, auction houses, galleries, and museums. At Expo Chicago, emerging artist Auudi Dorsey sold her painting *Rumble* (2025) for $14,000 on opening day at Palo Gallery, while the fair featured 170 exhibitors including 20 from South Korea amid tariff concerns. Vienna Contemporary appointed Abaseh Mirvali as artistic advisor for 2025-2026. Sotheby's was selected by Barbara Gladstone's estate trustees to sell her collection, starting with a May 15 single-owner sale of 12 works estimated at over $12 million. Nine artworks from the Anne and Sid Bass collection head to Christie's New York, and Sotheby's secured a $70 million Alberto Giacometti sculpture for its May 13 evening sale. Philipp Kaiser departed Marian Goodman Gallery after six years. Customs backlogs from President Trump's import policy changes are causing shipping headaches, with DHL halting business-to-consumer shipments over $800 to the U.S. Air de Paris withdrew from Art Basel. Mexico City gallery OMR hired Agustina Ferreyra as director. Angelica Jopling is expanding her London gallery Incubator to New York. Alexander Gray Associates now represents Donald Moffett. In museums, the National Endowment for the Humanities, following DOGE staff cuts, is offering grants up to $600,000 for statues for Trump's National Garden of American Heroes. CCS Bard appointed Lauren Cornell as artistic director and Mariano Lopez Seoane as graduate program director. The New York Academy of Art named Paul R. Provost president. The Artists' Legacy Foundation appointed Daisy Murray Holman executive director. The Speed Art Museum named Diallo Simon-Ponte assistant curator. The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow appointed Daria Kotova director. The Nasher Sculpture Center named Carlos Basualdo director. The Cultural Infrastructure Index reported a 17% drop in completed cultural projects in 2024.

kaws family koming to sfmoma

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will host "KAWS: Family," the first West Coast museum solo exhibition for the artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly). The traveling show, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario, is currently on view at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and will bring KAWS's signature cartoon-like characters—including Companion, BFF, and Chum—to the Bay Area.

georgian russian artist zurab tsereteli has died

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.

duabis alserkal avenue 2025 art dubai

Alserkal Avenue in Dubai's Al Quoz Industrial district has transformed from a cluster of warehouses and auto shops into a major cultural hub, now housing around 90 creative businesses including 17 contemporary art galleries. Founded in 2008 by Emirati patron Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal, the Avenue began with a single gallery, Ayyam, and has since expanded through a $13.6 million investment to replace a marble factory with purpose-built spaces. Key galleries include Carbon 12, The Third Line, and Green Art Gallery. The centerpiece is Concrete, an exhibition hall designed by Rem Koolhaas's OMA, currently hosting Imran Qureshi's solo show 'Vanishing Points,' curated by Nada Raza. Other notable exhibitions include Michael Sailstorfer's 'Air Electric' series at Carbon 12.

No Attitude, Nowhere: Conviction, Zero Meaning

Keine Haltung, nirgends Gesinnung, null Bedeutung

The article critiques the current state of the art world and broader culture, arguing that right-wing calls for depoliticized art are intensifying while the progressive art establishment silently tolerates a culture war that restricts free expression. It uses the 2025 Met Gala as a prime example, describing the event as a heartless display of wealth and power aligned with Trump-era capitalism, where celebrities and artists perform progressive values while participating in a spectacle sponsored by anti-union figures like Jeff Bezos. The author draws on Hannah Arendt's ethics lectures to suggest that moral norms have collapsed overnight, and that the commercial art world now legitimizes anti-democratic tendencies through its silence.

A Launchpad for the Future

"Eine Startrampe für die Zukunft"

The article is a media roundup covering several stories from the art world. It includes an interview with Jeff Koons discussing his artistic process and philosophy, a portrait of artist Jorinde Voigt, a report on the robust Art Düsseldorf fair, a news piece about two valuable Gerhard Richter paintings on loan to a museum, and a review of the new LACMA building's non-linear curatorial approach.