Art News. Vasari Codex

person people schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

pulitzer critic christopher knight retires los angeles times 1234763888

Christopher Knight, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for the Los Angeles Times, is retiring after a 45-year career in criticism, including 36 years at the newspaper. His final day is Friday. Knight, one of the few remaining full-time art critics in American journalism, was praised by colleagues for his encyclopedic knowledge and razor-sharp assessments. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2020, notably for a series of articles that harshly critiqued the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's (LACMA) proposed redesign by architect Peter Zumthor. He also received a lifetime achievement award from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation in 2020, and the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award in 1997. Before his journalism career, Knight worked as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and consulted for the Lannan Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.

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article culture schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 13 link 7 artists

david adjaye me too studio museum princeton west african 1234763346

The article reflects on the #MeToo movement's failure to achieve lasting change, using the case of architect David Adjaye as a central example. Adjaye was accused in 2023 by three women of sexual exploitation, harassment, and creating a hostile work environment at his firm, Adjaye Associates, allegations he denied. Despite initial backlash—including termination from projects like Westminster's Holocaust Memorial—many clients quietly resumed working with him, illustrating a broader pattern of institutional cowardice.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist

michelangelo drawing sistine chapel christies new york 1234763395

A five-inch-tall red chalk drawing of a foot, attributed to Michelangelo (1475–1564), is set to be auctioned at Christie’s New York in February with an estimate of $1.5–2 million. The work was discovered when Giada Damen, a specialist in Old Master drawings at Christie’s, flagged it from a public online submission; after extensive provenance research, technical analysis, and comparison with known sketches, Christie’s has declared it a preparatory study for the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–1512). If authenticated, it would be one of only two such Michelangelo drawings remaining in private hands.

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article news schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 9 link 5 artists

layoffs metropolitan museum art 1900013

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has laid off 79 employees and furloughed 181 workers, with 93 staff members taking early retirement, citing a $150 million deficit exacerbated by the pandemic. The museum's director Max Hollein and CEO Daniel H. Weiss announced the cuts in an email, noting that salaries comprise 65% of the annual budget. This is the second round of layoffs since April, when 81 employees lost their jobs, and the museum has also implemented pay reductions for top executives and frozen hiring. The workforce has shrunk by about 20%, from 2,000 to 1,600 staff, with 48% of those laid off being people of color. The Met aims to reopen on August 29 with reduced hours, pending government approval.

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candle obituary schedule Oct 29, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

artist jackie ferrara died by assisted suicide at 95 in switzerland 1234759313

Jackie Ferrara, a New York-based artist known for her stacked-wood sculptures, died by physician-assisted suicide in Basel, Switzerland, on October 22 at age 95. She told the New York Times she had fallen twice in the past year and did not want to be dependent on anyone. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland even for those who are not terminally ill.

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article news schedule Oct 23, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

french culture ministry admits stolen louvre jewels valued at 102 m are not insured 1234758527

Masked thieves stole jewels once belonging to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie from the Louvre in a daylight smash-and-grab, using a furniture lift to access the first floor and cutting into display cases. The stolen items, including a diamond-encrusted brooch, diadems, necklaces, and the empress's crown (which was dropped during the escape), are valued at $102 million. French officials have admitted the loot is not privately insured, meaning the state will not be reimbursed if the items are not recovered. Louvre director Laurence des Cars blamed a "terrible failure" in security, offered her resignation (which was refused), and acknowledged staff did not detect the thieves soon enough.

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person people schedule Oct 3, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

glenn lowry middle east podcast interview 1234755278

Glenn Lowry, who stepped down last month after 30 years as director of the Museum of Modern Art, has given a wide-ranging interview on the podcast *The Art World: What If…?!* with Charlotte Burns. He discusses the Trump administration’s threats to museums’ tax-exempt status, his upcoming advisory roles for the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi, a prospective leadership campaign for Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation, and a series of talks at the Louvre titled “I Want a Museum. I Need a Museum. I Imagine a Museum.”

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 27, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

menachem begin grandson avinadav art exhibition israel 1234753825

Avinadav Begin, grandson of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, is currently exhibiting his latest abstract metal and steel works at Sheetrit & Wolf Contemporary Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. The pieces, which he describes as “openings, apertures,” are neither paintings nor sculptures but heavy hybrid forms weighing up to 220 pounds, resembling rubble and broken window frames. In interviews, Begin has emphasized his identity as an artist rather than a politician, distancing himself from the current Likud party leadership under Benjamin Netanyahu, while acknowledging the influence of the ongoing war and hostage crisis on his work.

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article news schedule Jul 29, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

wesley lepatner met museum trustee dead 1234748482

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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article news schedule Jul 16, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

mick taylor guitar stolen met museum donation 1234747536

A donation of 500 guitars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2025, announced via a profile in The New Yorker, has become embroiled in controversy. Mick Taylor, former guitarist for the Rolling Stones, claims through his manager that one of the donated guitars—a Les Paul stolen from the band's French villa in 1971—is his property. The Met initially declined to comment, but later told The New York Times that Taylor played the guitar but never owned it, asserting a well-documented ownership history. The guitars were donated by collector Dirk Ziff, and the museum plans to open a permanent American guitar gallery in 2027.

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article culture schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 12 link 7 artists

laocoon vatican michelangelo forgery 2620416

On January 14, 1506, Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarroti witnessed the excavation of the Laocoön Group, a monumental ancient marble statue unearthed in a Roman vineyard. The sculpture, depicting the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons battling serpents, was quickly acquired by Pope Julius II and installed in the Vatican, where it remains today at the Museo Pio-Clementino. However, art historian Lynn Catterson controversially proposed in 2005 that the statue is not an ancient artifact but a forgery created by Michelangelo himself, citing evidence such as a drawing of a torso resembling the statue's back, bank records of Michelangelo's marble purchases, and his history of producing forgeries like the lost Sleeping Cupid.

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

uk museums defend corporate funding 1234744286

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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article culture schedule May 27, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

op ed museums gender and pay 2648256

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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museum exhibitions schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

diller scofidio and renfro venice canal water coffee wins golden lion 2643348

Diller Scofidio and Renfro (DS+R) has won a Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale for "Canal Café," a project that brews espresso using water filtered from the Venetian lagoon. The installation, part of the biennale's exhibition "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective," uses a combination of biological filtration by salt-tolerant halophytes and artificial methods like reverse osmosis to purify the polluted canal water. Michelin-starred chef Davide Oldani selected the coffee blend, and the espresso is sold for €1.20. Originally conceived for the 2008 biennale but delayed due to permit issues, the project was realized with improved filtration technology and support from engineering firms Natural Systems Utilities and SODAI, as well as Webuild.

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article culture schedule Apr 24, 2026 visibility 17 link 4 artists

‘It’s not much but, at the same time, it’s very much’: the enduring impact of Sade’s style

The article discusses the enduring style of Sade Adu, frontwoman of the British group Sade, following the band's announcement of their induction into the 2026 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It highlights how Adu's signature look—scraped-back hair, red lipstick, hoop earrings, and simple black dresses or denim—has become iconic and influential, with her outfits featured in exhibitions like V&A East's 'The Music is Black' and referenced by celebrities such as Drake. The piece traces the origins of her style to her fashion design studies at Saint Martin's School of Art and her early work with designer Fiona Dealey.

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article culture schedule Jan 15, 2026 visibility 25 link 23 artists

art dead artists museum exhibitions politics

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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candle obituary schedule Apr 13, 2026 source 2 sources visibility 21 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

Painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer dies at 46.

The American painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer has passed away at the age of 46 at her home in Los Angeles. Her gallery, Jeffrey Deitch, confirmed the news of her death but did not specify a cause. The announcement comes just weeks before a scheduled solo exhibition of her recent work, which is still set to open at the gallery’s Los Angeles location on April 17.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 14, 2026 visibility 12 link 2 artists

Daring and Dazzling, a New LACMA Floats Above Los Angeles

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has unveiled its new $724 million David Geffen Galleries, a long-awaited and controversial expansion designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The structure, which spans Wilshire Boulevard with its distinctive horizontal, glass-walled design, marks the culmination of a decade-long effort to modernize the campus and replace several aging buildings.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 10, 2026 visibility 24 link 1 artist

The Sense of Touch at Billboard Scale

Conceptual artist Ann Hamilton has debuted a new series of large-scale scanner photography installations at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Moving from her signature immersive environments to high-resolution digital captures, Hamilton utilizes a flatbed scanner to document the tactile qualities of various objects and figures, enlarging them to billboard proportions to emphasize the intimacy of touch.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 2, 2026 visibility 12 link 1 artist

A Senegalese Artist Who Crossed Boundaries Others Didn’t Dare

A major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is dedicated to the work of Senegalese modernist painter Iba Ndiaye. The show, "Iba Ndiaye: The Studio of the World," presents a comprehensive look at his career, tracing his journey from Senegal to Paris and his unique synthesis of global artistic traditions.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 6, 2026 visibility 21 link 3 artists

The Show the Art World Loves to Hate Gets a Soul

The 60th Venice Biennale, titled "Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere," has opened to a polarized reception. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, it is the first Biennale led by a Latin American curator and heavily features artists from the Global South, Indigenous creators, and queer artists, marking a significant departure from the Eurocentric focus of past editions.

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trending_up market schedule Feb 5, 2026 visibility 20 link 7 artists

adam lindemann too much art column 2743340

Adam Lindemann draws a parallel between the oversupply of wine and the current state of the art market, noting that too many galleries and artists are producing work while demand from collectors is slowing. He cites the glut of art fairs, particularly the 840 galleries exhibiting during Miami Basel week in December 2025, and quotes advisor Allan Schwartzman describing the market as "tired." Lindemann observes that even mega-trophies like Leonardo's *Salvator Mundi* are rare exceptions, and that museums are becoming more selective in accepting donations.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 16 link 6 artists

philip leider artforum founding editor dead 1234770198

Philip Leider, the founding editor of Artforum, died at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 11 at age 96. Leider helped transform Artforum into a leading source for rigorous art criticism after becoming its editor in 1962, but he left the publication in 1971 and largely disengaged from the mainstream art world, later teaching at the University of California, Irvine and the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Israel.

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person people schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 20 link 14 artists

evan beard left masterworks launch new york gallery 1234770026

Evan Beard, a former Navy intelligence officer and Oxford economics graduate, is launching a new secondary market gallery called Beard & Co. on New York's Upper East Side after leaving Masterworks, the $1 billion art-tech startup where he ran its secondary market gallery Level & Co. Beard's career path includes stints at Deloitte and Bank of America, where he managed art financing operations and worked with major U.S. collectors. His new gallery will employ a half-dozen staff and function as a discreet private bank for collectors, offering services such as art loans, auction guarantees, consignments, and estate planning.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 20 link 12 artists

report rebounding art auction market 2025 arttactic 1234767509

ArtTactic's year-end report reveals that the global art auction market rebounded to $4.55 billion in 2025, an 11.1% increase from 2024. Sotheby's saw a 17% sales jump and Christie's a nearly 7% rise. Historic single-owner sales, including estates of Leonard Lauder, Cindy and Jay Pritzker, and Pauline Karpidas, drove recovery with $884.9 million in total. Old Masters, Impressionist, and modern art surged 42.3% year-on-year, while contemporary and post-war art lagged. The trophy market (works over $10 million) grew 19.4% to $1.48 billion, led by Impressionist art up 80.4% to $1.04 billion, fueled by three Gustav Klimt canvases from the Lauder collection.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists

documentary pretty dirty marilyn minter art 1234762927

A new documentary titled "Pretty Dirty: The Life and Times of Marilyn Minter" premiered at the DOC NYC film festival at IFC Center, chronicling the artist's four-decade career and personal struggles. Directed by Jennifer Ash Rudick and Amanda Benchley, the film follows Minter's journey from a dysfunctional upbringing in the South—with an emotionally abusive mother and her own battles with addiction—to her eventual rise as a major figure in contemporary art. It highlights her gritty, provocative enamel-on-metal paintings, her commercial work for Tom Ford and Zara, and her cultural impact through projects like Madonna's 2009 tour and the TV show Gossip Girl. The documentary features interviews with celebrities such as Lizzo, Jane Fonda, and Miley Cyrus, as well as art-world peers like Laurie Simmons and Jeff Koons.

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rate_review review schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 21 link 25 artists

blank space book review cultrure over men 1234760399

W. David Marx's book "Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century" argues that 21st-century culture has stagnated, blaming the Internet and its economies for a lack of innovation. The book cites critics like Jason Farago and Alex Ross who lament the death of monoculture and the failure of the Internet's promised diversity, while Marx himself longs for a past era of linear artistic progress defined by -isms like Realism and Cubism. However, the review criticizes Marx's framework as rooted in a 19th-century positivist fallacy, noting that art history has never been a clean linear progression and that overlooked artists—such as Hilma af Klint and Hector Hyppolite—have always complicated the canon.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 23, 2025 visibility 11 link 4 artists

rare m c escher works auction 2660493

A cache of M.C. Escher drawings and prints, created during his time in Italy and later, fetched a stunning total of $7.8 million at Christie’s on July 22, quadrupling its low presale estimate. The auction, titled 'The Art of Infinity,' featured 65 lots, with nearly every work on paper surpassing the previous record for an Escher work in the medium. The top lot, *Reptiles* (ca. 1943), sold for $529,200—five times its low estimate—while *Relativity* (ca. 1953) achieved $504,000, ten times its low estimate. The sale largely came from the collection of Robert Owen Lehman Jr., a documentary filmmaker and member of the Lehman banking family.

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article news schedule May 22, 2025 visibility 10 link 5 artists

sean combs diddy may lose kerry james marshall painting 1234743296

Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, may lose a prized Kerry James Marshall painting, *Past Times* (1997), among other assets if found guilty of sex trafficking charges, which he has denied. The painting was purchased at Sotheby's in 2018 for $21.1 million, setting an auction record for Marshall. Reports indicate Combs had been actively collecting art since 2014 with adviser Maria Brito, but with multiple civil suits pending, speculation has grown that he might be forced to sell.

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article news schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

amid fraud case collector justin sun reportedly spent 75 m on trump backed crypto firm 1234740625

Justin Sun, the crypto billionaire known for buying and eating Maurizio Cattelan's banana sculpture, is under scrutiny after reportedly spending $75 million on World Liberty Financial (WL), a cryptocurrency firm promoted by President Donald Trump. The investment, revealed by a New York Times investigation on April 28, comes while Sun faces a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fraud lawsuit and a separate legal battle with collector David Geffen over an Alberto Giacometti sculpture allegedly stolen from Sun's collection.

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