Raphael: Sublime Poetry

This article announces the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition on Raphael, titled "Raphael: Sublime Poetry," which offers an immersive look at the artist's meteoric career through drawings, paintings, prints, and tapestries. It traces Raphael's journey from his birth in Urbino in 1483, through his training under his poet-painter father Giovanni Santi and later Pietro Perugino, to his rise as a peer to Leonardo and Michelangelo in Florence and his final decade as the favorite artist of the popes in Rome, where he was celebrated as the "prince of painters."

Press Release: Pace University Art Gallery Presents Siobhan McBride’s Summer Remembers Winter

Pace University Art Gallery presents *Summer Remembers Winter*, a solo exhibition by painter Siobhan McBride, opening February 14, 2026. The show features new works exploring disjointed spaces, memory, and identity shaped by dislocation, reflecting McBride's experience as a Korean-born, U.S.-raised adoptee. The exhibition includes a free public reception on February 19 and an artist talk on March 5, running through March 21, 2026.

San Juan’s Artists Are Shaping Puerto Rico’s Cultural Future One Space at a Time

Larissa De Jesús Negrón and other Puerto Rican artists are driving a cultural renaissance in San Juan, with grassroots galleries, collectives, and adaptive institutions redefining how art is produced and shared. This surge follows Hurricane Maria and the pandemic, bolstered by global attention from figures like Bad Bunny and exhibitions such as the 2023 Whitney show "no existe un mundo poshuracán." Art dealer Walter Otero notes that the scene has strengthened through local residencies, fellowships, and Puerto Rican curators in U.S. institutions, while spaces like EMBAJADA, founded by Christopher Rivera and Manuela Paz, reject the white-cube model to engage broader local audiences.

At London's Barbican, Lucy Raven chronicles the destruction of a California dam

Lucy Raven's video installation "Murderers Bar" (2025) has its European premiere at the Barbican's Curve gallery in London. The work documents the 2023-2024 demolition of four dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California, focusing on the destruction of the Copco No. 1 dam built in 1918. The film is the final part of Raven's trilogy "The Drumfire," exploring themes of pressure, release, and material transformation. It uses aerial photography, drones, lidar, and sonar animations to capture the river's reclamation of its course after the dam's removal, following decades of activism by Indigenous communities including the Yurok, Karuk, Klamath, Hoopa, and Shasta Indian Nation. The exhibition also includes a new kinetic sculpture, "Hardpan" (2025), that physically manifests ideas of force and pressure.

Is This the Breaking Point for Museums?

Museums across the West are facing a severe funding crisis as governments slash public support. In the U.S., President Donald Trump’s deep cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost funding, while stock market volatility and increased endowment taxes further strain budgets. In Europe, Berlin cut €130 million from cultural funding in December 2024, and other countries face similar pressures, forcing museums to confront dwindling subsidies and shifting philanthropy.

SAM Opens Its First Solo Exhibition By a Pakistani-American Artist

Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAM) has opened "Anila Quayyum Agha: Geometry of Light," the institution's first solo exhibition by a Pakistani-American artist. The show, running from August 26, 2025 through April 19, 2026, features Agha's intricate laser-cut steel light sculptures, beadwork, and embroidered pieces that explore cultural identity, gender, and spirituality. Curated by José Carlos Diaz, SAM's Susan Brotman deputy director for art, the exhibition marks Agha's first presentation in the Pacific Northwest and includes works such as the 2021 piece "Liminal Space."

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Brady Lum, the chief operating officer of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, has resigned following an internal investigation into the alleged misappropriation of approximately $600,000. The Woodruff Arts Center, which oversees the museum, discovered financial irregularities in early December and subsequently referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia for potential criminal prosecution. The organization believes Lum acted alone over a period of three to four years.

Minneapolis Artists Respond to ICE, DHS After Killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti

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Federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and ICE under Operation Metro Surge, have resulted in the deaths of two American citizens, poet Renee Good and nurse Alex Pretti, near major art institutions. The violence and subsequent shelter-in-place orders have directly impacted the local arts community, forcing school closures, remote learning, and causing widespread fear.

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The Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey has appointed Lisa Funderburke as its new director and CEO, effective February 1. She succeeds Linda C. Harrison, who left the position seven months ago. Funderburke joins from the Artist Communities Alliance, a much smaller nonprofit focused on supporting artists and residencies.

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The U.S. Senate has confirmed Mary Anne Carter as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) by a 53–43 party-line vote, returning the same political operative to the post she held during Trump’s first term. Carter, who has no professional arts experience and previously worked for the Heritage Foundation (author of Project 2025), was nominated in May amid a tumultuous period when the Trump administration sought to defund the NEA, senior leaders left en masse, and hundreds of arts organizations had promised grants cut or delayed.

manhattan das office returns over 30 antiquities to spain italy and hungary 1234749145

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, led by Alvin Bragg and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit under Matthew Bogdanos, has repatriated over 30 antiquities to Spain, Italy, and Hungary. The returned objects include a 1st-century CE marble head of Alexander the Great as Helios, a 1675 Jesuit manuscript stolen during World War II, and several 6th-century Visigoth pendants trafficked by Robin Symes and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1990. The items were seized from traffickers including Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Robin Symes, Robert Hecht, Eugene Alexander, and Edoardo Almagià, who is awaiting extradition from Italy.

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Nadya Tolokonnikova, cofounder of Pussy Riot, has created a performance installation titled "Police State" (2025) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (LA MOCA). The work recreates a Russian jail cell where Tolokonnikova performs daily activities—making music, creating art, and resting—observed by visitors via security camera footage and peepholes. The installation also features artworks by current and former political prisoners from Russia, Belarus, and the United States, curated through Tolokonnikova's Art Action Foundation and the Artistic Freedom Initiative. Originally scheduled for June 5–14, the show was extended due to the museum's closure amid anti-ICE protests and National Guard deployment.

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UOVO, a collector-founded art storage company, is seeking approval to build a second large-scale facility in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood. The proposed seven-story, 240,000-square-foot building at 74 Bogart Street would expand the company's footprint near its existing 150,000-square-foot Bushwick facility opened in 2020. Founded in 2013 by real estate developer Steven Guttman, UOVO operates 30 locations across the U.S. and stores collections for museums, galleries, and high-net-worth individuals, including artworks, wine collections, and fashion archives. Architecture firm S9 will oversee the design if the plan is approved by the city.

Art Market Minute: March 9

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The Gulf region’s art market is navigating a period of significant instability as escalating geopolitical tensions between the U.S., Israel, and Iran threaten the upcoming Art Dubai fair. Long considered a safe haven for global culture and commerce, the United Arab Emirates now faces questions regarding its perceived insulation from regional conflict just weeks before its major international art event.

Epstein Emails and the Art Market

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A massive release of over three million documents by the U.S. Department of Justice has exposed the deep ties between the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and prominent figures in the global art world. The files reveal how Epstein utilized sophisticated financial structures to manage and enhance the value of blue-chip art collections, most notably for billionaire Leon Black. The fallout from these disclosures has already led to high-profile resignations, including Jack Lang from the Arab World Institute and David A. Ross from the School of Visual Arts, while others like collector Steve Tisch face renewed scrutiny.

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Activists took to the streets across the U.S. over the weekend of January 11, 2026, for "No War, No Kings, No ICE" protests, sparked by the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent and the U.S. invasion of Venezuela. In New York City, a coalition of 11 activist groups led by the NYC Democratic Socialists of America organized a march starting at Grand Army Plaza, featuring protest art including giant grayscale posters of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and Representative Jeffries, as well as signs designed by Brooklyn artist Julie Peppito. An estimated tens of thousands attended the New York rally, part of some 1,000 protests nationwide.

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Artnet News reports on how the recent art market downturn has severely impacted working artists, particularly those reliant on mid-tier galleries. Following a three-year contraction driven by higher interest rates and reduced spending, many galleries have closed or cut costs, leading to fewer exhibitions, delayed payments, and precarious incomes for artists. Some have been dropped by their galleries, while others have taken on second jobs or shifted toward corporate-sponsored public commissions. The article includes data showing low median earnings for artists in the U.S., Germany, and the U.K., and quotes gallerist Facundo Argañaraz on the stigma artists face when pivoting careers.

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France returned an extremely rare 70-million-year-old Tarbosaurus bataar skeleton and 30 other paleontological finds to Mongolia on Monday. The fossils were looted from the Gobi Desert by a European trafficking network, smuggled via South Korea, and confiscated by French customs in 2015. At a ceremony in Paris, French Public Accounts Minister Amelie de Montchalin handed the items to Mongolia’s Culture Minister Undram Chinbat. The cache includes dinosaur eggs and the prized skeleton, worth over $800,000 at the time of seizure and now valued two to three times higher.

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Artnet News published its 'Museums in Crisis' series, a global investigation into pressures facing cultural institutions. Key takeaways include: Western museums face a funding and political crisis, with U.S. institutions losing hundreds of millions in federal support (including $428 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities) and European museums like those in Berlin facing cuts of €130 million. Corporate sponsorship is increasingly risky due to ethical scrutiny, with the U.K.'s Museums Association urging institutions to avoid ties to fossil fuels or human rights abuses. China's private museums are at risk of downsizing or disappearing due to economic slowdown and lack of public funding.

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British artist Lucy Sparrow will present her first U.S. museum exhibition, “The Beginning of Convenience,” at the Momentary, the contemporary art hub of Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, opening in summer 2026. The immersive installation recreates an American supermarket entirely in felt, featuring approximately 20,000 hand-sewn plush products evoking the 1980s and 1990s. Sparrow researched Walmart’s archives to curate semi-vintage items, nodding to the museum’s founding family. Unlike her previous felt installations, nothing will be for sale, and the free exhibition will include a recreation of her studio and a documentary. Sparrow will also debut a candy shop titled “Sugar Rush” at Art Miami with TW Fine Art in December 2025.

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The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) has launched an experimental art lending program alongside its new exhibition “Letters for the Future,” created with the artist-organized group Department of Transformation. The show features works by 35 artists, including a print by Kameelah Janan Rasheed and a box of spell jars by the duo Hilma’s Ghost. Twenty artworks—ranging from magnets and banners to prints and original works on paper—are available for patrons to borrow, reviving a BPL initiative from the 1950s and ’60s.

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Two legal challenges advanced on Thursday against the Trump administration's cuts to U.S. cultural agencies. A coalition of academic groups—the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association—filed a lawsuit to stop the "illegal dismantling" of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which in April announced a 70–80 percent staff reduction and cancellation of over 1,000 grants. Separately, a federal judge issued an emergency order temporarily blocking similar cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, after the Department of Government Efficiency placed its 75-person staff on leave and the American Libraries Association brought suit.

Robert Mnuchin, the blue-chip gallerist who loved the drama of the auction saleroom, has died aged 92

Robert Mnuchin, the prominent New York gallerist who transitioned from a 33-year career on Wall Street to become a major force in the art world, has died at age 92. After heading the trading desk at Goldman Sachs, he co-founded C&M Arts in 1992 with James Corcoran, later establishing L&M Arts with Dominique Lévy in 2005, which was renamed Mnuchin Gallery in 2013. Known for his aggressive bidding at auction, Mnuchin made headlines with high-profile purchases including Roy Lichtenstein's *Sinking Sun* (1964) for $15.6 million in 2006 and Jeff Koons's *Rabbit* (1986) for $91.1 million in 2019, the latter a record for a living artist at the time.

As the US Slides Into Tyranny, Europe Champions Black American Artists

Four major European museums are simultaneously staging ambitious exhibitions of Black American artists, including Kerry James Marshall at London's Royal Academy, Jacob Lawrence at Kunsthal KAdé in Amersfoort, Nina Chanel Abney in Paris and Amersfoort, and Mickalene Thomas at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse and the Grand Palais in Paris. The article, written as an opinion piece, describes the author's experience at the opening of Abney's show at Elbow Church in the Netherlands and contrasts the European embrace of these artists with the political climate in the United States.

Racheal Crowther review – unnerving installation attacks your mind … and your nostrils!

London-based artist Racheal Crowther has transformed the Chisenhale Gallery into a sensory-heavy, paranoid environment for her first institutional solo exhibition. The installation centers on a decommissioned U.S. military mobile health unit, once used during the 2018 Novichok decontamination efforts, set against walls painted in "drunk tank pink." The experience is defined by an aggressive olfactory component—a chemical cocktail of powdered milk scents and hexadecanal, a molecule found on infants' heads known to manipulate human aggression.

GEORGE FEBRES: TRADUCCIÓN, IRONÍA Y LIBERACIÓN. UN ARTISTA ECUATORIANO EN LA DIÁSPORA

George Febres (Guayaquil, 1943 – New Orleans, 1996) was an Ecuadorian artist whose work blended pop art, neo-surrealism, and Southern U.S. culture, shaped by his experience as a migrant and queer individual. The article traces his life from a privileged but unstable childhood in Ecuador to his migration to the United States, where he was drafted during the Vietnam War and eventually settled in New Orleans. Febres used bilingualism and ironic appropriation of tropical imagery to create a hybrid, irreverent body of work that challenges the official historiography of Ecuadorian art.

Alma Allen’s US Pavilion Heads to Venice Amid Questions Over Selection Process

The selection of Alma Allen to represent the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale has ignited controversy over the process. The U.S. State Department abandoned its traditional selection model, which involved a panel of experts convened by the National Endowment for the Arts, and instead handed control to a new nonprofit, the American Arts Conservancy, led by individuals with little museum experience. This shift has drawn criticism from prominent figures in the art world, with some artists declining to participate due to concerns over the political context and unfamiliar leadership.

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The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is launching a new grant program to support U.S.-based visual arts nonprofits with budgets under $200,000, offering awards between $20,000 and $30,000. The program will begin accepting applications for its Spring 2026 grant cycle, with a deadline of March 1. This marks a significant expansion of the foundation's previous focus, which had been on organizations with budgets of $300,000 or more.

artists circulate letter urging jewish museum save murals guston shahn fogel demolition 1234770975

A group of artists led by Elise Engler, Joyce Kozloff, and Martha Rosler has circulated a letter urging the Jewish Museum in New York to intervene and save New Deal-era murals and sculptural reliefs from the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in Washington, D.C. The artworks, created by Jewish artists including Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, and Seymour Fogel, are threatened with demolition after the U.S. government listed the building for accelerated disposal in November 2025 and began soliciting demolition bids in December. The letter, addressed to Jewish Museum board chair Shari Aronson, has been signed by hundreds of artists and art-world figures, including Joan Semmel, Rochelle Feinstein, Joan Snyder, Lucy Lippard, and Kay WalkingStick.

extraordinary artist visas social media influencers 1234768831

Immigration lawyers report that social media influencers and OnlyFans models are increasingly qualifying for O-1B visas—the U.S. visa category for individuals with extraordinary ability in the arts—by presenting online metrics such as follower counts, earnings, and brand deals as evidence of distinction. Traditionally, visual artists have needed exhibition histories, recommendation letters, and press clips to apply, but attorneys say the criteria have shifted to accommodate digital fame, with some arguing that the quality of approved applicants has been "watered down."