In Paris, the Catacombs reveal a transformed route after five months of work

À Paris, les Catacombes dévoilent un parcours métamorphosé après cinq mois de travaux

The Catacombs of Paris have reopened to the public following a comprehensive five-month renovation aimed at modernizing the visitor experience. The upgrades include a completely redesigned lighting scheme, a more welcoming entrance hall capable of hosting small exhibitions, and a high-tech spatialized audio guide that utilizes radio-style storytelling to narrate the site's history.

Auguste Renoir in 2 Minutes

Auguste Renoir en 2 minutes

Pierre-Auguste Renoir remains a cornerstone of Impressionism, celebrated for his transition from porcelain painting to becoming a master of figure and light. While he initially pioneered plein air techniques alongside Claude Monet, Renoir eventually pivoted toward a more classical study of 18th-century masters, focusing on portraits, domestic scenes, and nudes. His career was marked by iconic works like 'Bal du moulin de la Galette' and a persistent drive to paint even as severe rheumatism physically debilitated him in his final years at Cagnes-sur-Mer.

On Arte, a Documentary Deciphers the Persistent Misunderstanding Around the Painter of Happiness, Auguste Renoir

Sur Arte, un documentaire décrypte le malentendu tenace autour du peintre du bonheur, Auguste Renoir

A new documentary titled "Renoir in Love" airing on Arte examines the persistent critical misunderstanding surrounding Auguste Renoir. The film, released in tandem with a major double exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay, argues that Renoir's joyful depictions of couples and modern leisure have been unfairly dismissed as saccharine, relegating him to the margins of modern art history. It presents a nuanced portrait of an artist whose work was fundamentally driven by a philosophy of love and human connection.

Don't Go to the Museum with Children Without These 10 Tips!

N’allez plus au musée avec des enfants sans ces 10 astuces !

Beaux Arts Magazine offers ten practical tips for making museum visits with children more enjoyable and less stressful. The advice, provided by Marion Charneau of the Louvre-Lens, includes practical preparation like checking hours and packing snacks, as well as strategic approaches such as keeping visits short, choosing morning hours, and turning the experience into a game with visual challenges.

Giverny Before the Water Lilies: An Unknown and Intimate Monet Revealed at the Museum of Impressionisms

Giverny avant les nymphéas : un Monet méconnu et intime se dévoile au musée des Impressionnismes

The Musée des Impressionnismes in Giverny is presenting an exhibition focused on Claude Monet's first seven years in the village, a period before he created his famous water lily pond. The show, assembled for the centenary of his death, features lesser-known works from private collections and small museums, revealing a Monet grappling with financial instability, family scandal, and artistic doubt as he transitioned to stability and fame.

Masterpieces of Art Modeled and Printed in Ultra-High Definition: The Challenge Met by LITO

Des chefs-d’œuvre de l’art modélisés et imprimés en très haute définition : le défi relevé par LITO

Beaux Arts Magazine partnered with the Austrian printing and publishing company LITO to stage a challenge at its 500th-issue launch party. Guests were asked to identify the authentic 15th-century painting by Giovanni Bellini's circle from among four seemingly identical works, three of which were ultra-high-definition reproductions created by LITO. The company's patented modeling and printing technology replicates the texture of brushstrokes, varnish sheen, canvas grain, and even craquelure with unprecedented precision.

50 Women Artists You Absolutely Should Know

50 artistes femmes que vous devriez absolument connaître

Beaux Arts Magazine is publishing a multi-part series throughout March highlighting 50 historically significant but often overlooked women artists. The series profiles figures like Impressionist painter Marie Bracquemond, whose career was curtailed by her husband, pioneering Spanish photographer Mey Rahola, and Brazilian modernist Tarsila do Amaral, who will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg in 2024.

BETWEEN EARTH AND CONCRETE DELCY MORELOS EXHIBITS IN LONDON

Colombian artist Delcy Morelos has unveiled her first UK public commission, titled "Origo," at London’s Barbican Centre. Located in the Sculpture Court—a space reactivated for the first time in ten years—the monumental oval installation is constructed from earth, clay, hay, and seeds, infused with aromatic spices like cinnamon and cloves. The work invites visitors to walk through earthen tunnels, creating a sensory experience that contrasts the organic, porous nature of soil with the Barbican’s rigid Brutalist concrete architecture.

MoMA Plans a Retrospective for Marcel Duchamp, the Dada Artist Who Was Unimpressed With His Own Masterpieces

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will open a major retrospective of Marcel Duchamp in April 2026, marking the first U.S. retrospective for the artist in over 50 years. The exhibition will feature more than 200 works, including a 1968 replica of his infamous 'Fountain,' spanning his experiments in Cubism, Futurism, film, photography, and his pioneering readymades.

culture aesop new york creatives holidays

Aesop, the skincare and fragrance company, has released a collection of festive holiday kits designed for creatives, focusing on hand and workspace care. The kits include themed sets like “Party in the Greenhouse” and “Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen,” featuring products such as geranium-infused balms and pumice hand wash. Cultured magazine partnered with Aesop to highlight the creative spaces of New York artists and chefs, including Fernando Mastrangelo, Flynn McGarry, and Eny Lee Parker, who opened their studios and kitchens to showcase their rituals.

Raque Ford ”The only one willing to to the hard part” at Fridericianum, Kassel

The article reviews Raque Ford's exhibition "The only one willing to do the hard part" at Fridericianum in Kassel. Ford, born in 1986 in Columbia, Maryland, and based in New York, presents works that blend artistically formed shapes with bold color contrasts and slogan-like text. Using plastic and industrial materials, she creates an aesthetic that oscillates between abstraction and simple visual codes, with layered compositions that challenge conventional boundaries.

Eric N. Mack “A Whole New Thing” at Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus

Eric N. Mack has created a site-responsive installation titled "A Whole New Thing" for the lobby commission at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus. The work continues his exploration of abstraction, foregrounding fabric as an expressive, atmospheric, structural, and social medium that reveals a painterly sensibility.

Jack Goldstein “Pictures, Sounds and Movies” at Kunst Museum Winterthur

Jack Goldstein (1945–2003), a Canadian-born artist and CalArts graduate, is the subject of the exhibition "Pictures, Sounds and Movies" at Kunst Museum Winterthur. The show highlights his role in the Pictures Generation, a group that in the 1970s rejected traditional art forms by appropriating images from advertising, television, and popular culture, while Goldstein also explored the autonomy of Minimal Art objects.

Julia Heyward “Miracles in Reverse” at Kunstverein Nürnberg

Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft is presenting "Miracles in Reverse," the first institutional solo exhibition in Europe by American artist Julia Heyward (born 1949). Heyward was a central figure in New York's downtown art scene during the 1970s and 1980s, and her work anticipated major developments in art history. The exhibition showcases her distinctive practice developed over five decades.

Chiara Camoni, “Con te con tutto” (With You, With Everything)—Italian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale: Chiara Camoni, Cecilia Canziani, and Alessandro Rabottini in Conversation

Chiara Camoni presents "Con te con tutto" (With You, With Everything), the Italian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale. In a conversation with curator Cecilia Canziani and Alessandro Rabottini, Camoni discusses how the project emerged organically from years of friendship, collaboration, and shared thinking, rather than being a staged event.

Beatriz González at Barbican Art Gallery, London

The Barbican Art Gallery in London is presenting a major retrospective of Colombian artist Beatriz González, marking her first solo show in the UK and her largest-ever exhibition in Europe. The exhibition spans six decades of her work, from the 1960s to the present, showcasing her roles as an artist, curator, art historian, and educator.

KOO JEONG A “KANGSE X” at Hauser & Wirth, Zurich

Koo Jeong A presents "KANGSE X" at Hauser & Wirth in Zurich, an exhibition that extends from her previous show "ODORAMA CITIES" at the Korean Pavilion of the 60th Venice Biennale. The title derives from the Korean term "KANGSE," meaning spatial strength, and the show encompasses her multifaceted practice across drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, film, and animation, including her earlier work "MYSTERIOUSSS" (2017).

“Grammars of Light” at Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo

Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo presents "Grammars of Light," a major exhibition featuring immersive works by Cerith Wyn Evans, Ann Lislegaard, and P. Staff. The show includes architecturally scaled video projections and luminous sculptures made from repurposed consumer, medical, and industrial lighting, transforming the museum's galleries into sensory environments that challenge perception.

“Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition” at Gropius Bau, Berlin

Marina Abramović presents her first major exhibition in Berlin since the 1990s at Gropius Bau, titled "Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition." The show juxtaposes historic works from the 1970s with new video installations, exploring how the artist uses the body as a vital force to confront political systems, histories, and mythologies of the Balkan countries.

John Giorno “The Performative Word” at MAMbo, Bologna

A major retrospective exhibition dedicated to John Giorno, titled "The Performative Word," has opened at MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna. The show, curated by Andrea Bellini and Vincente Todolí, explores Giorno's multidisciplinary practice as a poet, artist, and activist, highlighting his collaborations and his innovative approach to making poetry a performative and visual experience.

Isa Genzken “World Receiver” at Den Frie, Copenhagen

Isa Genzken's monumental 16-meter-tall sculpture 'Vollmond' has been installed in front of Den Frie in Copenhagen for nearly a year. The venue is now hosting the exhibition 'World Receiver,' which gathers significant works from the German artist's career spanning several decades.

Berlin in Art Spring

Berlin im Kunstfrühling

The Monopol podcast "Kunst und Leben" previews the upcoming Gallery Weekend Berlin, taking place from May 1 to 3. Editors Elke Buhr and Silke Hohmann share their personal watchlist of must-see exhibitions, including shows by Daniel Buren and Lawrence Weiner at Konrad Fischer, Candice Breitz at KOW, Heimo Zobernig at Nagel Draxler, and Jorinde Voigt at Mercator Höfe. The episode also covers performances, tattoo art on moving cars, tapestries, robot dogs, and tips for navigating the weekend.

Malo Chapuy Reimagines Medieval Art on the Cover of our New Talent Issue

Malo Chapuy's painting *Virgin with Codex* (2025) appears on the cover of Art in America's new talent issue. In an interview from his Paris studio, Chapuy explains how he reinterprets medieval and early Renaissance Flemish painting by mixing its motifs with contemporary and sci-fi elements, such as gothic cathedral spaceships and QR codes designed to function like medieval manuscripts for future postapocalyptic monks. He describes his process as making "forgeries," using traditional techniques like oil on wood panels, homemade lead white, and self-carved frames to mimic aged Old Master works while addressing themes of ecological collapse, apocalyptic anxiety, and planetary exile.

A Rare Blue-Green Diamond Ring Sold for Over $17 M. At Christie’s Geneva

A rare 5.5-carat blue-green diamond ring, named Ocean Dream, sold for over $17 million at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction in Zurich on May 13, 2026. The triangular-cut stone, estimated at $9–12 million, is set in an 18-karat white gold band with pink and white diamonds. The buyer was an unnamed private client, and the ring took 20 minutes to sell. It had previously fetched nearly $10 million at Christie’s Geneva in 2014.

Is This a JMW Turner Self-Portrait? One Scholar Has Doubts

Art historian James Hamilton has published a paper in the JMW Turner Society’s magazine arguing that a famous portrait long believed to be a self-portrait by JMW Turner was actually painted by John Opie, a British portrait artist 14 years Turner’s senior. Hamilton notes that the work is an anomaly in Turner’s oeuvre, which is dominated by landscapes and seascapes, and that its dramatic lighting closely resembles Opie’s style. He suggests Opie may have given the painting to Turner, and that its authorship became misattributed after Turner’s death when his vast bequest of artworks was transferred to the nation and eventually housed at the Tate.

Artist Alleges Hair Dress in the Met’s ‘Costume Art’ Show Copies Her Design

London-based artist Anouska Samms has accused the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute and curator Andrew Bolton of displaying a garment in the spring 2026 exhibition "Costume Art" that she claims is a counterfeit of her collaborative work. Samms says the piece, titled Corpus Nervina 0.0, was inspired by a 2023 hair dress she co-created with fashion designer Yoav Hadari for his label Psycheangelic. Despite a contract giving Samms sole ownership of the hair-based textile's intellectual property, the museum's wall label credits only Hadari and states Samms's textile was not used. Samms's lawyer, Jon Sharples, says the museum initially expressed interest in acquiring the original dress but later shifted to a remake after Hadari reported water damage, then stalled entirely before the exhibition opened.

Art Basel’s Swiss Fair Will Include a New Initiative Where Galleries Will Withhold Works from Their PDF Previews

Art Basel has announced a new initiative called "Basel Exclusive" for its upcoming Swiss fair, running June 18–21 with VIP previews June 16–17. Under the program, participating galleries will withhold at least one artwork—or even their entire booth—from the PDF previews sent to clients ahead of the fair, encouraging collectors to visit in person. So far, 170 of 232 exhibitors (nearly 75%) have signed on, including major galleries like Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, Gladstone, Lehmann Maupin, Lisson, Matthew Marks, Paula Cooper, Thaddaeus Ropac, and White Cube, as well as secondary-market dealers such as Galerie 1900-2000, Helly Nahmad, Landau, Mayoral, Pace Di Donna Schrader, and Van de Weghe. Art Basel’s chief artistic officer Vincenzo de Bellis described it as a "gallery-led process" developed from conversations with exhibitors, formalized during Art Basel Hong Kong.

dinkins building civic fate statue public tours

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.

stahl house los angeles for sale

The Stahl House, the iconic midcentury modern home in the Hollywood Hills also known as Case Study House No. 22, has been listed for sale for the first time in its 65-year history. The property, designed by architect Pierre Koenig and immortalized in a famous photograph by Julius Shulman, is priced at $25 million. Siblings Shari and Bruce Stahl, who grew up in the house, are selling it due to the challenges of maintaining it as they age. The home was originally built for $37,651 as part of Arts and Architecture magazine's Case Study program and remains the only one in the program still under original family ownership.

illuminated medieval manuscripts to know

This article explores the history and significance of illuminated manuscripts, correcting the common misconception that they were exclusively produced by medieval European monks. It highlights five standout examples, including the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, made for Jean I, Duke of Berry around 1411 by the Limbourg brothers, and the Book of Kells, created around 800 C.E. by monks of Iona Abbey. The article notes that illuminated manuscripts, defined by the decorative use of gold or silver, date back to the 4th century B.C.E. and span cultures from the Middle East to Africa and Mesoamerica, serving primarily as status symbols rather than reading material.