A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Building a Miniature Model of New York City. Then, It Went Viral

A truck driver named Joe Macken spent 21 years building a massive, 50-by-27-foot miniature model of New York City from humble materials like balsa wood and cardboard. His daughter's suggestion to post it on TikTok led to the project going viral, which subsequently caught the attention of the Museum of the City of New York. The museum has now mounted a dedicated exhibition, "He Built This City: Joe Macken's Model," featuring the sprawling 1:2400-scale creation.

The History of the Brontë Sisters Portrait

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The only undisputed portrait of the Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—is currently gaining renewed attention as it tours Asia in a major exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery, London. Painted in 1834 by their brother Branwell Brontë when he was just 17, the work serves as a rare visual record of the literary icons. The painting's profile has been further elevated by a 'Brontë renaissance' in popular culture, including Emerald Fennell’s recent film adaptation of Wuthering Heights and upcoming television projects.

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German installation artist Henrike Naumann has passed away at the age of 41 following a battle with cancer. At the time of her death, Naumann was preparing for the pinnacle of her career: representing Germany at the upcoming 61st Venice Biennale. The German pavilion organizers have confirmed that they will work closely with her studio team to realize her finalized artistic vision for the exhibition as planned this May.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced that the rooftop of the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in Manhattan will open for free public tours starting in June. The initiative, part of a $6 million improvement project, will allow visitors to access the cupola directly beneath the building's iconic 25-foot-tall gilded statue, Civic Fate, and enjoy panoramic views of the city.

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The National Labor Relations Board has accused Snøhetta, a prominent New York-based architecture firm, of illegally firing eight employees who supported a 2023 unionization campaign. The NLRB complaint alleges that managers tracked union supporters and improperly questioned staff about their sympathies, while Snøhetta denies the claims, attributing layoffs to business pressures predating the union drive. Separately, Singapore Art Week is spotlighting women artists from Southeast Asia, with the launch of Krystina Lyon's book "You Are Seen" and the National Gallery Singapore exhibition "Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise." Other news includes the death of Artforum founding editor Philip Leider at 96, LANZA chosen for the Serpentine Pavilion, and a Louvre heist caught on newly released footage.

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Marie Antoinette, the final queen of France, is the subject of a blockbuster exhibition titled "Marie Antoinette Style" at London's V&A museum, running through March 22. The show highlights her boldly modern taste, her patronage of women artists like Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Anne Vallayer-Coster, and her role as the first French queen to own and redecorate her own palace, the Petit Trianon. The article details how she used her influence to secure Vigée Le Brun's admission to the Académie Royale and pressured the Louvre to exhibit Vallayer-Coster's work, while also exploring how her extravagant spending earned her the epithet "Madame Déficit" and contributed to her downfall during the French Revolution.

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The British Museum has announced a major 2026 exhibition titled "Samurai" that will trace the 1,000-year history of Japan's warrior class. Spanning armor, woodblock prints, paintings, clothing, ceramics, and contemporary media, the show brings together 280 objects from the museum's own collection and international lenders. Highlights include a 17th-century suit of armor recently acquired by the museum, a portrait of envoy Mancio Itō by Domenico Tintoretto, and works by Katsushika Hokusai. The exhibition also examines the modern myth of the samurai as shaped by film, manga, and video games such as Akira Kurosawa's movies and Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

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MoMA PS1 has announced details for the 2026 edition of Greater New York, its quinquennial survey of art made in and around New York City, coinciding with the institution's 50th anniversary. Unlike previous editions that brought in outside curators, this iteration will be organized entirely by PS1's in-house curatorial team, led by director Connie Butler, chief curator Ruba Katrib, and associate curators Jody Graf and Elena Ketelsen González, with support from assistant curator Kari Rittenbach, curatorial assistant Sheldon Gooch, and curatorial coordinator Andrea Sánchez. The exhibition, featuring more than 50 artists, opens on April 16, 2026, though a specific theme has yet to be announced.

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Hundreds of staff at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) voted to form a union, LACMA United, in association with AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36, calling for higher wages, better benefits, and greater transparency. LACMA leadership declined to voluntarily recognize the union, opting instead for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election, which is currently paused due to the federal government shutdown, effectively delaying the unionization effort. The union has filed with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), asserting its status as public sector employees.

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The editor's letter for the 2025 ARTnews Top 200 Collectors issue recounts a cinematic moment at Art Week Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, where a government-affiliated collector described their role as "everyone and no one," reflecting the behind-the-scenes, museum-focused art acquisitions under Vision 2030. The issue features a report by Melissa Gronlund on the Gulf art scene, noting that Saudi Arabia is prioritizing museums and noncommercial programming before an independent market can emerge, while private collectors and foundations are also gaining ground. The article also highlights the cooling art market in Europe and the US, with collector Christen Sveaas criticizing blue-chip galleries for over-commercial pricing strategies.

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Martin Beck has created a new body of artwork inspired by the *Environments* series of LPs, which debuted in 1969 and featured long-duration nature sounds and aural abstractions. The works are on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, through October 5, and include wall works, video, and an exhibition design that explores how the records were marketed as lifestyle accessories and productivity aids. Beck first encountered the series through a friend's lecture at Columbia University and became fascinated by its blend of utopian vision and commercial hype.

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The Thomas Kinkade Family Foundation has publicly condemned the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for using Kinkade's painting *Morning Pledge* in a July 1 social media post on X that included the phrase “Protect the Homeland.” The foundation stated it did not authorize the use of the artwork and that the post promotes division and xenophobia, which is antithetical to its mission. It has requested the post's removal and is consulting legal counsel. This follows similar complaints from artist Morgan Weistling, whose painting *New Life in A New Land* was used by DHS without permission, and criticism over DHS's use of John Gast's *American Progress* (1872), owned by the Autry Museum of the American West.

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President Donald Trump signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on July 4, which includes a provision requiring the Smithsonian Institution to transfer a space vehicle—widely understood to be the space shuttle Discovery—to NASA. The shuttle has been displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, since 2012. The move must be completed by January 4, 2027, and $85 million has been allocated for planning, transportation, and a new exhibition facility in Houston. The provision originated from the "Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act" introduced by Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, after their state lost the original competition to host Discovery.

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Wesley M. LePatner, a newly elected trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was among four people killed by a gunman in a Midtown office building on Monday. LePatner was a senior managing director at Blackstone, where she served as global head of its Core+ Real Estate division and CEO of the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust. She had just been elected to the Met’s board in February and was previously a member of the Met’s Friends of European Paintings group.

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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has acquired and put on display a capsule from the demolished Nagakin Capsule Tower in Tokyo. The capsule, designated A1305, is the centerpiece of a year-long exhibition titled "The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower," which also includes archival materials such as photographs, models, films, and recordings. The tower, designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972, was a landmark of the Metabolism movement, featuring 140 prefabricated modules. After years of decline, it was demolished in 2022, but 23 capsules were salvaged, with 16 finding homes in institutions including MoMA.

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Los Angeles-based artist and researcher Sandy Rodriguez has opened her most ambitious exhibition to date, "Currents of Resistance," at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, running through August 10. The centerpiece is "Resistance Map of the Gulf of Mexico" (2025), a 94.5-inch amate paper map from her ongoing "Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón" series. Rodriguez creates her own pigments from foraged minerals and botanical specimens, and uses handmade amate bark paper from San Pablito, Mexico, a sacred Mesoamerican material once outlawed during the colonial era. The map layers 500 years of cartographic tradition with historic and contemporary acts of resistance, including the Mixtón War, the Calusa resistance, and modern police violence in New Orleans. For this exhibition, she also introduced ocean water from the Gulf of Mexico to thin her pigments, referencing climate change as ongoing colonial aggression.

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The article examines the use of two iconic minimalist designs—the Vitsœ 620 chair and a Braun wall-mounted hi-fi system—in the Apple TV+ series *Severance*. Both objects were designed by German industrial designer Dieter Rams in the 1960s and appear in the show's dystopian corporate setting, specifically in the lower levels of Lumon Industries where experimental subject Gemma undergoes tests. The production team intentionally selected these pieces to convey themes of power, control, and commerce.

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A group of officials overseeing major UK cultural institutions, including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Gallery, have signed a public letter defending corporate sponsorship. Published in the Financial Times, the letter calls for an end to "relentless negativity" around private sector partnerships and is backed by ten organizations, including the Science Museum Group. It follows protests over Baillie Gifford's sponsorship of literary festivals due to its ties to fossil fuels and Israel, which led nine festivals to end partnerships in 2023.

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The Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, New Zealand, removed an artwork by Māori artist Diane Prince after public outcry. The piece, a new version of her 1995 work *Flagging the Future*, featured the New Zealand flag printed with the words “PLEASE WALK ON ME” and was part of a solo show organized by Pātaka Art + Museum. Local resident Ruth Tipu protested by picking up the flag daily, citing distress over the flag being walked on, especially given her grandfather’s service in the Māori Battalion. The museum cited an escalation in hostile discourse as the reason for removal, while affirming support for freedom of expression.

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This excerpt from Tourmaline's forthcoming book "Marsha: the Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson" (Tiny Reparations, May 20) focuses on Marsha P. Johnson's use of hand-sewn banners and textile art as tools of activism and joy within the gay liberation movement. It describes her creation of banners reading "GAY POOOR PEOPLE" and "Gay Love," the latter borrowed by the Hot Peaches theater troupe, and her broader artistic practice spanning acting, performance, fashion, and songwriting. The text also notes artist Tuesday Smilie's 2018 recreation of Johnson's STAR banner for an exhibit at the Rose Art Museum.

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The New Taipei City Art Museum (NTCAM) opened to the public last weekend with fireworks and light installations after nearly eight years of development. Located in Yingge District, about 30 minutes from Taipei, the publicly funded museum cost 3 billion NTD (approximately $93 million) and spans 38 acres. Designed by Taiwanese architect Kris Yao, the 11-story building houses eight exhibition halls, a 500-seat auditorium, a public plaza, and a park for public art. Inaugural director Lai Hsiang-ling outlined the museum's vision to serve local audiences and the arts community while fostering international and regional collaboration. The opening includes the inaugural exhibition featuring the local art collective Xindian Boys and their commission "Don't Worry, Baby," which addresses ecological change, global politics, and artificial intelligence.

These Ghosts. Clémentine Bruno  by Michela Ceruti

Clémentine Bruno’s artistic practice explores the tension between presence and absence, treating the canvas as a site of temporal layers rather than a flat surface for representation. Her work emphasizes the preparatory stages of painting—the laying of gesso and the construction of supports—allowing images to emerge reluctantly through processes of sanding, veiling, and partial erasure. Recent exhibitions, such as "Educational Complex" at Tonus and "Vision of Fading" at Mendes Wood DM, highlight her interest in how institutional structures and memory maps dictate what is retained and what is forgotten.

‘We can all coexist’: artist Es Devlin uses selfies to unite UK in portrait of a nation

Artist Es Devlin has created a new installation at the National Portrait Gallery in London titled 'A National Portrait for the National Portrait Gallery,' made in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture Lab. The work invites people across the UK to upload selfies, which are transformed into charcoal-and-chalk-style portraits using an AI model trained on Devlin's own hand-drawn works. These portraits then appear on a constantly evolving projected carousel, blending and dissolving into one another. Devlin, known for designing visual worlds for Beyoncé, Adele, and the London Olympics closing ceremony, describes the piece as a non-verbal space for coexistence amid national division.

Simply divine: the extraordinary supernatural visions of Francisco de Zurbarán

Francisco de Zurbarán, one of the three great Spanish 17th-century painters alongside Velázquez and Murillo, is finally receiving his first solo exhibition in the UK at the National Gallery in London. The show highlights his distinctive style of religious painting, characterized by stark chiaroscuro, sculptural realism, and a meditative stillness that makes the immaterial seem tangible. Works such as his crucified Christ and The Apparition of Saint Peter to Saint Peter Nolasco exemplify his ability to depict visions and inner spirituality, often commissioned by powerful religious foundations in Seville during the Counter-Reformation.

Spheres of influence: the Bauhaus’s radical female photographers – in pictures

An exhibition titled 'New Woman, New Vision: Women Photographers of the Bauhaus' opens at the Museum of Photography in Berlin. It focuses on the pioneering work of female Bauhaus photographers like Marianne Brandt, Lucia Moholy, and Gertrud Arndt, who used the camera to capture unconventional perspectives and explore artistic freedom during the Weimar Republic.

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Dasha Zhukova, the former fashion designer, magazine publisher, and museum founder, has launched a new real estate development company called Ray. Its first project, Ray Harlem, is a 21-story residential building on Fifth Avenue in Harlem, built in collaboration with the National Black Theatre (NBT). The development replaces NBT's original building and integrates a 27,000-square-foot theater as its centerpiece, with 222 apartments above, a quarter of which were offered through an affordable housing lottery. The building features site-specific commissioned artworks by emerging Black artists such as Jurell Cayetano, Freddy Carrasco, Nikko Washington, and Ellon Gibbs, and was designed by Frida Escobedo Studio with Handel Architects.

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CULTURED reports that in 2025, nearly 50 percent of solo exhibitions at New York museums featuring modern and contemporary art focused on deceased artists, more than double the 18 percent share in 2019. Major institutions like MoMA, the Broad, ICA Miami, and the Whitney have programmed posthumous shows for figures such as Wifredo Lam, Helen Frankenthaler, Ruth Asawa, Robert Therrien, Joyce Pensato, Richard Hunt, and Roy Lichtenstein. The article traces this trend to a confluence of factors: ongoing scholarly revisionism, a cultural swing toward equity during the Biden administration, and the long lead times for museum exhibitions that have landed in a more polarized political climate under Trump II.

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Nazy Nazhand has been appointed Arts & Culture director of ISTANBUL’74 and is curating the 15th anniversary edition of IST.FESTIVAL in Istanbul, running from October 10-12. The festival, founded by Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli and Alphan Eşeli, adopts the theme “What Is Really Real?” and features public art installations, conversations, and performances. Participants include Jeff Koons, Flavin Judd, Stefan Sagmeister, Lou Doillon, Kid Cudi, and CULTURED editor-at-large Julia Halperin. The main exhibition will take place in the historic Arnavutköy neighborhood along the Bosphorus.

Venice Golden Lion jury won’t consider Russian and Israeli pavilions

The jury for the Golden and Silver Lion awards at the 61st Venice Biennale has announced it will not consider the national pavilions of any country whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. This decision specifically excludes Russia, whose president Vladimir Putin is charged with unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, and Israel, whose prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is charged with targeting Palestinian civilians and using starvation as a weapon. The jury, presided over by Solange Oliveira Farkas and including Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi, issued a full statement explaining their commitment to human rights and alignment with the curatorial vision of the late Koyo Kouoh.

Centre Pompidou to open Seoul outpost

The Centre Pompidou Hanwha is set to open in Seoul this June, housed in a renovated four-story former aquarium in the Yeouido district. Designed by French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the new outpost is the result of a four-year partnership between the Hanwha Foundation of Culture and the Parisian institution. The museum will launch with the exhibition "The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision," which explores the evolution of Cubism and its specific intersections with Korean art history.