‘Studio Iron’ to Launch at Saatchi Yates, Blurring the Boundaries Between Art and Design

Saatchi Yates is partnering with creative director and makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench to launch Studio Iron, a new design gallery whose inaugural exhibition opens April 30 and runs through June 7, 2026. The show presents a dense, post-industrial landscape dominated by steel and iron, featuring works by artists including Jannis Kounellis, Paul McCarthy, Jordan Wolfson, Anne Imhof, Marina Abramovic, Nico Vascellari, and others. Furniture, sculpture, installation, and painting collide in a space that resists categorization, hovering between function and non-function, utility and image.

'To Paint Is To Love Again' at Crèvecoeur, Paris–Cascades, France on 9 Apr–27 May 2026

The group exhibition 'To Paint Is To Love Again' at Crèvecoeur gallery in Paris explores the theme of artistic freedom, play, and a childlike approach to creation. The article examines this through the lens of Henry Miller's writings on painting, the influence of Jean Dubuffet's Art Brut, and the practices of contemporary artists Whitney Clafin, Sadie Benning, and Françoise Lapeyre, who incorporate found objects, toys, and a 'Sunday painter' ethos into their work.

Post-Fair delivers by keeping it simple

Post-Fair concluded its second edition in Los Angeles, featuring a curated selection of 31 galleries including PPOW, White Columns, and Tomio Koyama Gallery. Held in a former post office, the event maintained an open floor plan and a relaxed atmosphere that attracted high-profile attendees like artist Paul McCarthy and collectors Beth Rudin DeWoody and Maja Hoffmann. Sales were reported across various price points, with Ehrlich Steinberg selling half of its presentation of Joel Otterson’s sculptures.

New York Gallery Show Spotlights Iconoclastic Comic Artist Paul Pope

Comic artist Paul Pope is the subject of a new gallery exhibition at Philippe Labaune Gallery in New York, opening June 19, 2025. The show spans his three-decade career, featuring never-before-seen original works and curated selections from his archives, coinciding with the release of his career retrospective monograph *Pulp Hope 2: The Art of Paul Pope* (Boom! Studios, 2025). Pope is known for works such as *Batman: Year 100*, *Heavy Liquid*, and *Battling Boy*, blending American, European, and Japanese influences.

de young museum lawsuits workplace culture

Security guards at the de Young Museum in San Francisco have leveled serious allegations against the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) and their union, SEIU 1021, citing a decade of workplace toxicity. Multiple lawsuits detail a culture of whistleblower retaliation, wrongful termination, and harassment, including claims of religious discrimination where a guard was allegedly called a "terrorist" and threatened with gun violence by management. To date, the city has paid out over $1 million to settle seven different lawsuits from security staff, with more litigation reportedly on the horizon.

huge library of ashurbanipal

The British Museum houses the Library of Ashurbanipal, a collection of approximately 30,000 cuneiform tablets from the Assyrian Empire, discovered in the 19th century. Created by King Ashurbanipal (r. 669–631 BCE), the library contains texts on astronomy, medicine, history, and literature, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. The tablets survived a fire set by invading Babylonians and Medes, which hardened them. Recent excavations in Nineveh have uncovered more tablets and a 20-foot-tall winged bull statue, while the British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project, now led by curator Jon Taylor, focuses on digitizing and studying medical texts.

‘Don’t mind if I do’: Northampton exhibit brings art to visitors in a unique and accessible way

Brooklyn-based disabled artist Finnegan Shannon's traveling exhibition "Don't mind if I do" is on view at the Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) in Northampton through June 28. The show features a conveyor belt that brings interactive artworks to seated visitors, challenging traditional museum layouts that require standing and walking. Shannon collaborated with curator Lauren Leving and technical director Peter Reese to create the experience, which includes works by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Pelenakeke Brown, Sky Cubacub, Emilie L. Gossiaux, Felicia Griffin, Joselia Rebekah Hughes, and Jeff Kasper. The exhibition has previously toured to moCa Cleveland, California State University Sacramento, and the University of Illinois Chicago.

Chicago Artist Brian Sykes draws huge crowd for emotional exhibit debut

Chicago-based artist Brian Sykes returned to the Beverly Arts Center for the opening of his multimedia exhibition, “I Heard the City Breathe.” The event drew a significant crowd and featured a unique blend of visual art, film, and live vocal performances, including a set by Sykes himself. The project explores the emotional and cultural realities of Chicago’s Black experience, utilizing an intergenerational approach to discuss identity and memory.

Smith College Museum of Art Exhibit Explores Access

The Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) is presenting the exhibition 'Don’t mind if I do,' a project conceived by artist Finnegan Shannon. The show features a 25-foot conveyor belt loop that displays 30 small, touchable sculptures by eight artists, allowing visitors to view the art from comfortable seating without needing to move through the gallery. The project originated from a 2019 residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and has toured to several university galleries before arriving at Smith.

Artist recreates snapshots of 1950s resort with colorful quilts, paintings at WAM

The Wichita Art Museum (WAM) is presenting a new exhibition by an artist who recreates snapshots of a 1950s resort using colorful quilts and paintings. The works draw on vintage photographs to evoke the leisure and social life of mid-century American resort culture, rendered in textile and paint.

Best new awards & arts prize winners: November 2025

The article reports on several major arts and literary prize winners announced in November 2025. Swedish photographer Martina Holmberg won the £15,000 Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize for her portrait 'Mel,' with other prizes awarded to Luan Davide Gray, Byron Mohammad Hamzah, and Hollie Fernando. Australian author Helen Garner won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for 'How to End a Story.' The Forward Poetry Prizes named joint winners Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie for best collection, while Bogdan Ablozhnyy received the Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Award. Historian Sunil Amrith won the British Academy Book Prize for 'The Burning Earth,' and the Women's Prize for Playwriting announced its longlist.

World Famous Buffalo Bill Western Art Show And Sale Opens For 44th Year

The 44th Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale opened at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, with over $20,000 in art sold on the first evening. The show features 104 paintings from 104 artists, valued at over $1.25 million, displayed until the live auction on September 19. A Buy-It-Now Sale offers 63 smaller pieces donated by artists, providing immediate purchasing opportunities alongside the main exhibition of contemporary Western art.

'Hugh Hayden: American Vernacular' at the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA, United States

The Frye Art Museum in Seattle will present 'Hugh Hayden: American Vernacular' from June 28 to September 28, 2025, marking the artist's first solo museum exhibition on the West Coast. The show features Hayden's meticulously crafted wooden sculptures and multimedia installations that transform everyday objects—such as designer shoes carved from tree bark and basketball hoops woven from grain stalks—into darkly humorous commentaries on identity, desire, and belonging.

Paris is getting a huge new art museum this year

The Fondation Cartier, a contemporary art gallery in Paris for the past 30 years, is opening a new flagship location at 2, place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre and near the Ministry of Culture. Occupying an 8,500-square-meter space in a building dating to 1852, the interior has been redesigned by architect Jean Nouvel. The new venue, set to open on October 25, 2025, will be the largest private art center in Paris, with half its space dedicated to exhibitions and the other half housing a restaurant, bookshop, auditorium, and offices. The inaugural exhibition, 'Exposition Générale,' will feature nearly 600 works from the foundation's collection of over 2,500 pieces.

Modern and Contemporary African and Middle Eastern Art: Olympia Auctions’ Largest Sale to Date

Olympia Auctions will hold its largest-ever sale of Modern and Contemporary African and Middle Eastern Art on May 7, 2025, in London. The auction features over 100 lots including works by pioneering Nigerian artists appearing at auction for the first time, Egyptian modernists from the Zulficar collection, classic South African paintings from a major collection, and Botswanan works on paper. Highlights include a portrait of Oum Kalthoum by George Bahgoury (estimate £25,000-30,000) and satirical portraits by Kingsley Obasi. Olympia Auctions expert Janet Rady, who has led the secondary market for Middle Eastern art since 2013, curated the sale.

London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m

London's National Gallery has acquired a mysterious altarpiece, "Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret and Two Angels" (1500-10), for just over $20 million in a private sale arranged through Sotheby's. The painting, funded by the American Friends of the National Gallery London, was sold by a descendant of the Blundell family and had been kept on the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. The artist remains unknown, with proposed names including Jan Gossaert, Jean Hey, and the Master of Saint Giles, and no other works by the same hand are known. The altarpiece was last publicly exhibited in 1960 and has only recently been shown privately to specialists, who remain divided on its attribution.

‘It’s much more extreme’: US institutions and artists enter a new culture war

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has rapidly dismantled parts of the U.S. cultural infrastructure through executive orders and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk. Key federal funding bodies—the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)—have faced staff cuts, grant cancellations, and threats of further reductions. Trump has also replaced leadership at the Kennedy Center and signaled similar moves against the Smithsonian Institution, while DOGE visited the National Gallery of Art to discuss its legal status. Arts organizations and advocates are scrambling to assess the damage and find alternative funding.

Exhibition Draws Huge Crowds at Long Beach Museum of Art

A major exhibition of artist Robert Williams, "Robert Williams: Fearless Depictions," opened at the Long Beach Museum of Art, drawing massive crowds with wait times up to two hours. The show features 57 paintings, 3-D miniatures, and a large fiberglass sculpture, exclusively showcasing work Williams created in the 21st century.

art meriem bennani hugo boss award

Meriem Bennani, a Moroccan-born, New York–based multimedia artist, has been awarded the inaugural Boss Award for Outstanding Achievement at Art Basel Miami Beach. The award, presented by Hugo Boss and its Creative Director Marco Falcioni, includes a $50,000 grant. Bennani is known for her fantasy-driven installations and films, such as the 'Life on the CAPS' series and the public sculpture 'Windy' on the High Line. In an interview, she discusses her plans to donate the grant to Bilna’es, an organization founded by Palestinian artists that funds cultural projects in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Myth of Sandokan on Display in Monza Between History and Imagination. The Curators Speak

Il mito di Sandokan in mostra a Monza tra storia e immaginario. Parola ai curatori

A new exhibition titled "Sandokan. La Tigre ruggisce ancora" has opened at the Reggia di Monza, exploring the enduring myth of the fictional pirate Sandokan, who first appeared in Italian serialized fiction in 1883. Curated by Francesco Aquilanti and Loretta Paderni, the show brings together ethnographic materials, costumes from the 1970s television series, weapons, books, illustrations, and archival items, including the original Dayak collection donated by Sir Charles Brooke to the King of Italy. The exhibition traces Sandokan's evolution across literature, comics, film, and television, presenting him as a layered, ambivalent hero—both ruthless pirate and justice fighter—whose story remains relevant today.

Phillips claims stake in South Asian market with London exhibition

Phillips auction house has launched a selling exhibition titled "Crossing Borders" at its Berkeley Square location in London, featuring 64 South Asian Modernist artists including Bhupen Khakhar, Huma Bhabha, Rasheed Araeen, and Nilima Sheikh. The show, organized in collaboration with Grosvenor Gallery, includes major market figures like S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza alongside lesser-known names such as Ahmed Parvez and Viswanathan. Prices range from £5,000 to £1.5 million, with works jointly consigned and profits shared between Phillips and Grosvenor. The exhibition marks Phillips' most significant entry into the South Asian art market, a sector long dominated by Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams.

New book explores the complex history of Jewish country houses

A new book titled *Jewish Country Houses*, edited by Juliet Carey and Abigail Green, explores the history of approximately 1,000 country estates built or remodeled by wealthy Jewish families across Great Britain and Continental Europe from the French Revolution until World War II. These houses, such as Waddesdon Manor and Château de Champs-sur-Marne, served as symbols of social arrival and assimilation, blending eclectic architectural styles with art collections from European auction houses. The volume, published by Profile and Brandeis University Press in association with the National Trust, features contributions from an international team of historians and curators, with photographs by Hélène Binet, and includes case studies of a dozen houses now open to the public.

The West as Witness: Langston Hughes Reimagined

The California African American Museum (CAAM) has launched 'A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West,' an exhibition that reframes the legendary Harlem Renaissance poet through his travels and political work in California and Nevada during the 1930s. By blending archival materials with contemporary artistic responses, the show moves beyond the traditional East Coast narrative to highlight Hughes as a diasporic thinker shaped by movement, labor, and the diverse landscapes of the American West.

Shelley’s hair to Schindler’s list: the most fascinating objects in the State Library of NSW – in pictures

The State Library of NSW is celebrating its 200th anniversary with a new exhibition featuring 200 objects from its collection of 6 million items. Lead curator Elise Edmonds and her team selected highlights including a lock of Mary Shelley's hair, the smallest book in the library's collection (measuring 6mm by 6mm), bread wrappers from the 1960s, a colonial sketchbook from 1817, a Dharawal Indigenous language wordlist, Australia's oldest surviving political cartoon from 1808, and a contemporary artwork by Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens. The objects span literature, colonial history, Indigenous culture, sport, and everyday life.

‘It’s a huge, futuristic space with massive skylights’: Ali Zolghadri’s best phone picture

Ali Zolghadri, a Tehran-born fine art photographer, captured a composite image of the central atrium of the Iran Mall in Tehran—the world's largest shopping mall—which was shortlisted in the creative category of the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards. The photograph, taken four months before the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, depicts the mall's futuristic architecture with sweeping curved lines, metallic surfaces, and massive skylights, and includes a lone passerby to emphasize scale. Zolghadri emphasizes that his process involves manual editing in Photoshop without AI, blending three frames and removing unnecessary elements to construct meaning.

huge persepolis destruction

The article recounts the Sack of Persepolis in 330 B.C.E., when Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces pillaged and destroyed the Achaemenid capital. It describes Persepolis as a marvel of ancient architecture, including the 31-acre limestone terrace, the Apadana hall with 36 columns, and the palace of Xerxes I. Ancient sources like Diodorus of Sicily and Plutarch offer conflicting accounts of the destruction—whether it was spontaneous, premeditated, or fueled by alcohol—while modern historians view it as a political act of retribution for Xerxes' attack on Athens.

libya national museum red castle reopens after 14 years

Libya’s National Museum, also known as the Red Castle Museum (As-Saraya Al-Hamra), has reopened in Tripoli for the first time since the 2011 revolution that ended Muammar el-Qaddafi’s rule. The museum, the largest in North Africa, closed at the onset of Libya’s military instability during the Arab Spring. Its 10,000-square-meter gallery houses artifacts spanning prehistory through Greek, Roman, and Islamic periods, including millennia-old mummies. Renovations began in 2023, with a full public reopening scheduled for early 2026; currently admission is limited to students.

huge olmec heads mesoamerica

A farmer in southern Mexico discovered the first Olmec head in the late 1850s while clearing land for corn cultivation. Since then, 17 colossal stone heads have been unearthed, primarily at the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan archaeological site in Veracruz. Carved by the Olmec civilization between 1200 and 400 B.C.E., these basalt monuments range from 3.5 to 11.5 feet tall and weigh up to 45 tons. Each head features unique facial expressions and is thought to depict individual Olmec rulers, possibly serving as funerary monuments. The heads are now held by institutions such as the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology.

new arrests drents museum heist romanian gold artifacts

Dutch police arrested two more suspects, a 20-year-old and an 18-year-old from Heerhugowaard, in connection with the January 2025 theft of Romanian gold artifacts from the Drents Museum in Assen. The stolen items include the golden helmet of Coțofenești and three gold bracelets from 450 BCE, valued at over €5.8 million. The suspects were identified via security camera footage from a hardware store where they purchased tools similar to those used in the heist. Police searched properties in Heerhugowaard and Opmeer, seizing digital evidence, but the artifacts remain missing.

parties art21 chanel yana peel screening

Chanel and Art21 hosted a screening event at the Roxy Cinema in New York to celebrate the launch of their new docuseries "IRL/url," which premieres on TikTok. The evening featured remarks by Yana Peel, Chanel’s President of Arts, Culture & Heritage, and a screening of selected films from the series, followed by a conversation between Art21’s Executive Director Tina Kukielski and seven of the eight featured artists: Neïl Beloufa, Jacky Connolly, Julien Creuzet, Sara Cwynar, Xin Liu, Rachel Rossin, and Jacolby Satterwhite. The event also drew a crowd of notable artists, advisors, curators, and cultural figures.