Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Aug 5, 2025 visibility 16 link 3 artists

tate reports budget deficit critics respond

Tate Modern, the world's most visited modern and contemporary art museum, reported a budget deficit six months ago, prompting critics to blame its programming and curatorial strategies for declining foot traffic. While domestic attendance has recovered to 95% of pre-Covid levels, international visitors have dropped significantly—down 39% at Tate Modern, 32% at Tate Britain, and nearly 40% at Tate St Ives. Tate Liverpool remains closed until 2027. Research from The Art Newspaper's annual visitor report, however, points to external factors such as Brexit, socioeconomic shifts, and the cost-of-living crisis as key drivers of the decline, particularly among young European visitors aged 16 to 24.

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article news schedule Jul 31, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

thomas kinkade foundation responds dhs morning pledge post

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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article policy schedule Jul 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

trump big beautiful bill space shuttle discovery museum houston

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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article news schedule Jul 29, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

wesley lepatner met museum trustee dead

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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person people schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

johanna burton director ica philadelphia departs moca la

Johanna Burton, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, has been appointed the next director of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Philadelphia, effective November 1. She succeeds Zoë Ryan, who left in January to lead the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Burton, who joined MOCA in 2021 after leading the Wexner Center for the Arts, stabilized the institution following a period of turmoil, reinstating its annual gala, securing major gifts, and hiring senior curator Clara Kim.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 23, 2025 visibility 20 link 6 artists

100 massive elephant sculptures beverly hills

The Great Elephant Migration, a public art project featuring 100 life-size elephant sculptures, has concluded its cross-country journey in Beverly Hills, California. The sculptures, crafted by Indigenous artisans of the Coexistence Collective in India from the invasive lantana camara weed, represent real elephants from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. The herd traveled 5,000 miles via electric trucks, making stops in Newport, New York, Miami, Houston, Jackson Hole, and Montana, before arriving at Beverly Gardens Park. The artworks are for sale, with prices ranging from $8,000 to $22,000, and sales have exceeded $3 million, with proceeds supporting 22 conservation NGOs.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 13 link 8 artists

liz collins motherlode

The RISD Museum in Providence has opened "Liz Collins: Motherlode," the first U.S. survey dedicated to fiber and textile artist Liz Collins. Curated by Kate Irvin, the exhibition spans Collins's multi-decade career, from her early fashion label to her recent cross-disciplinary experiments, and includes works like "Cosmic Explosion" (2008–18). Collins, a double RISD graduate and former professor there, describes the show as a homecoming rooted in her deep ties to the school and museum.

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article news schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

raphael rooms restoration discovery

The Vatican Museums have completed the decade-long restoration of the Hall of Constantine, one of the Raphael Rooms, revealing that Renaissance master Raphael himself painted two figures—Justice and Friendship—in the hall, contrary to the long-held belief that the entire room was executed solely by his assistants after his death. Conservators identified Raphael's hand by his distinctive oil-on-resin technique, which differed from the traditional fresco methods used by his assistants Giulio Romano, Gianfrancesco Penni, and Raffaellino del Colle. The discovery was made during a meticulous restoration that began in March 2015 and finished in December 2024.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 21, 2025 visibility 12 link 4 artists

nagakin capsule tower moma

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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trending_up market schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 9 link 4 artists

my wifes lovers cat painting

Carl Kahler's 1891 painting *My Wife's Lovers*, a monumental portrait of 42 cats commissioned by San Francisco millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson, has resurfaced in popularity thanks to social media and a record-breaking sale at Sotheby's in 2016, where it fetched $826,000—more than double its high estimate. The article details Kahler's background as a horse-racing painter from Austria, his three-year stay at Johnson's Buena Vista Castle sketching her feline menagerie, and the painting's debut at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Johnson, an eccentric art collector and philanthropist, owned hundreds of cats and named the work after her late husband's nickname for them.

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article news schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 10 link 5 artists

khaled sabsabi reinstatement

Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino have been reinstated to lead Australia’s pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, following an independent review of Creative Australia’s decision to drop them in February 2025. The initial removal came after right-wing politicians raised allegations of antisemitism against Sabsabi, whose work often addresses Islamophobia and Arab identity, particularly his 2007 video "You" featuring Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The reversal follows resignations, boycotts, and widespread protests from the Australian arts community.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 2, 2025 visibility 14 link 9 artists

cleveland museum of art acquires giambologna

The Cleveland Museum of Art has acquired Giambologna's marble sculpture *Fata Morgana* (ca. 1572), believed to be the last marble work by the Flanders-born Italian Mannerist in private hands. The piece, which depicts a nude woman emerging from a grotto, was originally commissioned by banker Bernardo Vecchietti and remained with his family for 200 years before being sold in 1775. It was misattributed for centuries until London dealer Patricia Wengraf correctly identified it at a 1989 Christie's auction, purchasing it for £715,000. The museum acquired the sculpture for an undisclosed price, making it only the second Giambologna marble in the U.S. and one of just three outside Italy.

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article news schedule Jul 1, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

director of sao paulos museu afro brasil dismissed after less than two years

Hélio Menezes has been dismissed as director of the Museu Afro Brasil in São Paulo after less than two years in the role. He announced his departure on Instagram, describing the museum's internal decision-making as informal, personalistic, and lacking transparency, and criticized a leadership disconnected from Black representation and the visual arts world. Two board members, Wellinton Souza and artist Rosana Paulino, also resigned. The museum cited budgetary disagreements and accused Menezes of personal attacks against its board chair.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

sandy rodriguez ringling museum of art exhibition

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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trending_up market schedule Jun 19, 2025 visibility 10 link 2 artists

work of the week emily kam kngwarray

Artnet News's "Work of the Week" highlights Emily Kam Kngwarray's painting *Desert Storm* (1992), currently on view at Pace London as part of the exhibition "My Country." Painted midway through her career, the work marks a stylistic shift from intricate dotting to broader strokes and expansive color fields. The piece is priced between $1 million and $1.5 million, aligning with the artist's auction record of $1.3 million (AUD $2.1 million) for *Earth's Creation I* (1994), sold at Cooee Art Gallery in 2017. The exhibition is organized with D'Lan Contemporary, which has branches in New York, Melbourne, and Sydney, and 10 percent of proceeds will support the Utopia community, in addition to the Artist Resale Right returned to Kngwarray's estate.

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article news schedule Jun 17, 2025 visibility 16 link 7 artists

the met taps 3 international craftmakers for new artisan residency

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Swiss luxury watchmaker Vacheron Constantin have announced the inaugural class of their new Artisan Residency, an 18-month program aimed at nurturing traditional craft techniques while encouraging contemporary innovation. The first cohort includes American furniture maker Aspen Golann, Egyptian ceramicist Ibrahim Said, and Italian jeweler Joy Harvey, selected from a worldwide open call. The artisans will study The Met's collections and work with Vacheron Constantin's master craftsmen in New York and Geneva, with a public presentation of their completed works planned for 2026.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

amnh pedro pascal hayden planetarium show

New York's American Museum of Natural History is launching a new film at the Hayden Planetarium titled "Encounters in the Milky Way," narrated by actor Pedro Pascal. Opening June 9, the 30-minute show uses data from the European Space Agency's Gaia observatory and contributions from over 20 academic institutions to map the sun's journey through the Milky Way over billions of years. The project involved astronomers, artists, and science visualization experts, with a score by composer Robert Miller and direction by museum trustee Shawn Levy.

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gavel restitution schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

fbi recovers paintings university new mexico harwood museum art

The FBI has recovered two paintings stolen 40 years ago from the University of New Mexico's Harwood Museum of Art in Taos. Victor Higgins's oil painting *Aspens* (c. 1932) and Joseph Henry Sharp's portrait *Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress* (c. 1915) were taken in March 1985, when the building housed a public library with a museum on the second floor. The recovery was triggered by a late 2023 tip from investigative reporter Lou Schachter to museum executive director Juniper Leherissey, who then led an Art Recovery Task Force. The paintings had been sold in 2018 by the Scottsdale Auction House under altered titles, and were located, recovered, and returned to the museum on May 12, 2025, with a public unveiling on June 6.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 8 artists

artemisia gentileschi rediscovered works paris

A new exhibition in Paris, "Artemisia Gentileschi: Heroine of Art," at the Musée Jacquemart-André, presents around 40 paintings by the Italian Baroque painter, including four recently rediscovered works. Curator Patrizia Cavazzini deliberately shifts focus away from Gentileschi's rape and trial, instead highlighting her artistic development and achievements. Among the rediscovered pieces are "Virgin of the Annunciation" (c. 1609-10), one of her earliest known works, and a signed portrait of a Knight of the Order of Saint Stephen (c. 1619-20), previously misattributed to Justus Sustermans.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

rachel ruyschs still lifes dutch toledo pinakothek munich mfa boston

The Toledo Museum of Art has opened the first major exhibition dedicated to Dutch Golden Age painter Rachel Ruysch, organized with the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and traveling next to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show features Ruysch's vibrant still lifes of fruits and flowers, often animated by insects, and places her work alongside that of her sister Anna Ruysch and other female scientific illustrators like Maria Sibylla Merian. Curator Robert Schindler's rediscovery of Anna Ruysch's work helped inspire the exhibition, which also draws on botanical research to catalog the global plant species Ruysch depicted, reflecting colonial trade networks.

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article culture schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

severance dieter rams braun vitsoe

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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article policy schedule Jun 4, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

uk museums defend corporate funding

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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person people schedule Jun 4, 2025 visibility 16 link 7 artists, 4 galleries

nicolas nahab samy ghiyati ng interview

Nicolas Nahab and Samy Ghiyati, two seasoned art world professionals, have left their high-profile gallery positions to launch NG, an independent art advisory and exhibitions company. Nahab, formerly a director at Mendes Wood DM and previously at Marian Goodman Gallery and Yvon Lambert, will focus on curating, while Ghiyati, who worked at David Zwirner and Kamel Mennour, will handle advising. Their inaugural show will feature a solo exhibition of new work by New York–based Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani in Essaouira, Morocco, opening in December 2025.

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article culture schedule Jun 3, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

bint mbareh sound art palestinian resistance

Bint Mbareh, a Palestinian sound artist and stage name assumed around 2019, creates installations and performances that use water and sound as metaphors for Palestinian experience. Growing up in Ramallah and later studying at Goldsmiths in London, she learned geographically specific Palestinian rain-summoning songs, which she twists and destabilizes using digital technology in works like *Time Flows in All Directions: Water Flows Through Me* (2020). After October 7, 2023, she expanded her practice to include a “choir” of collaborators performing collective grief, with appearances at an Artists for Aid benefit concert in London and at Tate Modern. Recent installation works such as *Bodies of Knowledge* (Royal College of Art) and *What’s Left?* (Sharjah Biennial) incorporate water tanks vibrated by sound, evoking both childhood and displacement.

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article news schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

japanese sculptor kunimasa aoki wins 2025 loewe craft prize

Japanese sculptor Kunimasa Aoki won the 2025 Loewe Craft Prize on Thursday evening in Madrid, receiving a €50,000 cash prize. His anamorphic terracotta sculpture “Realm of Living Things 19” was selected by a 12-member jury from 30 shortlisted works on display at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. The jury praised the work's honest expression of the ancestral coil process and the raw, unfinished form of the material. Two special mentions were awarded: Nigerian artist Nifemi Marcus-Bello for “TM Bench with Bowl” and Studio Sumakshi Singh from India for “Monument.”

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trending_up market schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 21 link 12 artists, 1 gallery

asian artists under 35 are doing at auction

A new analysis by The Asia Pivot reveals that total global auction sales for Asian artists born between 1990 and 1999 dropped to $9.7 million in 2024, the lowest level in three years. The market for these young artists shows clear signs of cooling, with 696 lots sold out of 1,128 offered, a 62% sell-through rate, and an average price per lot falling 26.5% year-over-year to $13,905. Top-ranked artists like Raghav Babbar and Anna Park saw steep price declines, while a few consistent performers like Yukimasa Ida, Sun Yitian, and Chris Huen Sin-Kan maintained strong market recognition.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 28 link 5 artists, 57 galleries

art basel paris 2025 exhibitor list

Art Basel Paris has announced the 203 galleries participating in its 2025 edition, set to take place at the Grand Palais from October 24–26, with VIP previews on October 22–23. The fair is divided into three sections: the main Galeries section with 177 dealers, Emergence featuring 16 solo booths for emerging artists, and Premise with nine presentations from 10 galleries challenging the art historical canon. Notable blue-chip participants include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, and top Parisian galleries such as Balice Hertling, Galerie Chantal Crousel, and Mennour. The fair will also bring back its Oh La La! Initiative and public art exhibition in the Jardin des Tuileries.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 27, 2025 visibility 11 link 4 artists

prado museum clara peeters exhibition

The Museo del Prado in Madrid has opened its first-ever exhibition dedicated to a female artist, "The Art of Clara Peeters," 197 years after the museum's founding. The show features 15 major works by the Flemish still-life painter, active in early 17th-century Antwerp, and is curated by Alejandro Vergara, the museum's Chief Curator of Flemish and Northern School Painting. The exhibition runs from October 25, 2026, to February 19, 2017, and is co-organized with the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp.

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article culture schedule May 27, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

op ed museums gender and pay

The article examines how gender pay disparities and the fear of a "pink-collar" profession persist in the art museum world, triggered by comments from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about "masculine energy" in the workplace. It recounts a 2020 forum where National Gallery of Art director Kaywin Feldman expressed concern that art museums becoming predominantly female could lower salaries, a remark initially seen as sexist but later contextualized by the author's investigation into the origins of such fears. The author traces the concept to a 2016 New York Times article citing research on how female-dominated fields see pay drops, and explores how even progressive leaders like Feldman can inadvertently perpetuate gender bias.

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article policy schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

whitney museum breuer building landmarked sothebys

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated the former Whitney Museum building at 945 Madison Avenue as both an individual and interior landmark. Designed by Marcel Breuer and completed in 1966, the inverted ziggurat structure with raw concrete interior served as the Whitney's home until 2015, later housing the Metropolitan Museum of Art's contemporary art annex and the Frick Collection during its renovation. Sotheby's acquired the building in 2023 and plans to relocate its global headquarters there, with renovations led by Herzog & de Meuron. Preservationist groups pushed for landmark status amid concerns about commercial alterations, and the designation now legally protects the exterior and key interior elements like the lobby and main staircase.

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