Magnum Photos, in partnership with The Photographers' Gallery, is holding a print sale titled 'Odyssey' featuring works from over 100 of its photographers. The sale includes iconic images from artists like Eve Arnold, Alec Soth, and Chris Killip, with themes ranging from personal journeys and American life to global migrations and cultural rituals. The event runs until March 29, 2026.
Lorena Levi, a British artist known for her narrative portraits painted on wood, died on January 8 at age 29 after battling pancreatic cancer. Her death was announced via Instagram. Levi gained rapid momentum in the UK art scene over the past few years, staging a show in Milan with M+B gallery, participating in the V.O. Curations program, and being added to Marlborough Gallery's roster shortly before it closed in 2023. Her work is held in the British government's national collection. She was born in Istanbul in 1997, raised in Tel Aviv and the UK, and studied at Art & Guilds in London and Edinburgh College of Art.
Sperone Westwater, a 50-year-old New York gallery, closed at the end of 2025 amid a legal dispute between its two co-principals, Gian Enzo Sperone and Angela Westwater. Newly filed court documents reveal governance failures, financial disputes, and allegations of unpaid artists. The petition, filed in New York Supreme Court, seeks judicial dissolution of the corporation and appointment of a receiver, citing irreconcilable divisions and a breakdown in communication between the partners. Financial records show gallery revenue fell from $20 million in 2021 to $3.6 million in 2025, with losses in five of the past seven years.
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has announced its 2025 Arts Writers Grant recipients, awarding a total of $1.04 million to 31 writers. The grants, ranging from $15,000 to $50,000, are distributed across four categories: Articles, Books, Short-Form Writing, and a newly introduced Translation category with a $30,000 purse for translating books on contemporary visual art into English. Recipients include past and current contributors to ARTnews and Art in America, such as Glenn Adamson, Jeremy Lybarger, Zoé Samudzi, and Catherine G. Wagley.
Two New York art galleries run by dueling brothers are locked in a legal battle over the use of the name "Aicon." Projjal Dutta, representing Aicon Contemporary, filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court in October against his brother Prajit Dutta and director Harry Hutchison, who run Aicon Art and ArtsIndia.com. The suit alleges that the defendants have misleadingly used the names "Aicon Gallery" or simply "Aicon" instead of the agreed-upon "Aicon Art," causing confusion in the art market. The brothers previously operated the legacy Aicon Gallery together for 20 years before parting ways in 2019, but they still share the same address and phone number at 35 Great Jones Street.
Cultured profiles Jesús Hilario-Reyes, a 29-year-old New York-based artist who describes themself as “anti-disciplinary,” working across performance, sound, video, and sculpture. Inspired by queer rave culture, migration, Western carnivals, and Puerto Rico’s hurricane-worn mangrove forests, they have performed at Documenta, the Kitchen, Gladstone Gallery, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In the interview, Hilario-Reyes discusses key influences from graduate school teachers, the importance of spontaneity and presence in their practice, and their underrated studio tool—an electrical die grinder.
Three months before announcing the closure of Sperone Westwater after 50 years, co-founder Gian Enzo Sperone sued his partner Angela Westwater, alleging a "parasitic deadlock" and accusing her of wresting control of a corporation holding a 50 percent stake in the gallery. The lawsuit claims Westwater mishandled funds, withheld records, mismanaged rent payments, and increased her own salary without approval. The gallery, founded in 1975 as Sperone Westwater Fischer, has represented major artists including Bruce Nauman, Francesco Clemente, and Richard Long, and will close this December.
Curator Luis Pérez-Oramas has organized a two-person exhibition at Nara Roesler's New York gallery pairing Afro-Brazilian artists Alberto Pitta, 64, and Elian Almeida, 31. The show collapses generational and medium-based boundaries, featuring Pitta's layered canvas silkscreens with symbolic folk elements alongside Almeida's colorful explorations of Brazil's history in paint. A functioning coffee cart by Pitta, elevated to artwork status, greets visitors. The exhibition runs through early January.
The US Marshals Service is auctioning four artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Diane Arbus that were surrendered to the US Department of Justice in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. The online-only auction, run by Gaston and Sheehan auction house in Texas, began on July 16 and closes on September 4, with no buyer's premium. The works include Basquiat's *Self Portrait* (1982) and *Red Man One* (1982), Picasso's *Tête de taureau et broc* (1939), and Arbus's *Child with a Toy Hand Grenade* (1962). The pieces were linked to fugitive financier Jho Low and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who surrendered them after they were located in Switzerland.
Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian best known for his character Pee-wee Herman, died at age 70 on June 30, leaving behind a legacy that extends far beyond children's television. The article explores how the design of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" (1986–1990) was a groundbreaking aesthetic achievement, created by a team of downtown New York artists—production designers Gary Panter, Ric Heitzman, and Wayne White—who approached the set as an evolving art installation. Their work blended postmodernism, Memphis Group influences, psychedelia, and thrift-store aesthetics into a joyful, childlike environment that became a cultural touchstone.
Cannupa Hanska Luger, a New Mexico-based artist, has created "Volume," an installation of clay whistles shaped like animal skulls that produce sound hourly using sensors and mechanical breath. The work is part of AIR, the Aspen Art Museum's inaugural retreat and festival, which explores the role of art in an era of rapid technological transformation. Luger discusses how the whistles, fired using multiple techniques, serve as a memento mori and draw on ancient globular whistle technology, Indigenous knowledge systems, and the idea that objects carry life.
Rosenfeld Gallery, founded by Michelle Rosenfeld in New York in 1970, has undergone a significant transformation under the leadership of her son Jason Rosenfeld. In 2020, the gallery relocated from New York to Miami’s Design District, and in 2023 it shifted from a public gallery space to a private operation. The gallery now operates as a leading secondary-market contemporary art purveyor, dealing in works on paper, paintings, sculpture, and editions, with a focus on long-term relationships and bespoke client service.
Cultured magazine interviews Brazilian artist Solange Pessoa about her new exhibition "Catch the sun with your hand" at the Aspen Art Museum, on view through October 26. The conversation explores parallels between Aspen's mining history and her home region of Minas Gerais, Brazil, her use of organic materials like blood and hair, her stone collection, and the sense of incompleteness in her process-based work. The exhibition features carved soapstone sculptures on the museum's roof and works inside that engage with crystals and silver.
A new documentary titled "Maintenance Artist," directed by Toby Perl Freilich, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film chronicles the career of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who coined the term "Maintenance Art" in a 1969 manifesto to elevate everyday domestic and civic labor into art. It follows her decades-long collaborations with New York City agencies, including her seminal "Touch Sanitation Performance" (1979–80) with the NYC Department of Sanitation, and her ongoing struggle to realize the installation "Landing: Cantilevered Overlook" (2008) at Freshkills Park. The documentary weaves together archival footage, interviews, and analysis of second-wave feminism, conceptual art, and urban bureaucracy.
Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich has opened "Franz West, Die Frühen Werke / Early Works," the gallery's twelfth exhibition dedicated to the late Austrian artist Franz West (1947–2012). The show surveys West's output from 1975 to 1990, highlighting his early sculptures, drawings, collages, and his signature interactive "Passstücke" (Adaptives)—pieces designed to be moved, worn, or played with by viewers. The exhibition runs through October 3, 2025.
Hilda Trujillo Soto, the former longtime director of the Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul), has alleged that numerous artworks by Frida Kahlo are missing from the museum's collection and may have been sold at auction in the U.S. to private collectors. In a blog post, she accused the Casa Azul board of ignoring evidence of missing art uncovered during her 18-year tenure, and claimed that the sale or transfer of works from the Diego Rivera inventory would violate both the artist's bequest to the people of Mexico and Mexican law. Several missing works, including the painting *Peoples' Congress for Peace* (1952), which sold for $2.66 million at Sotheby's in 2020, appear to have passed through Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art in New York.
Doyle Auctions will sell over 300 lots from the estate of television star Mary Tyler Moore, including memorabilia, contemporary art, and home furnishings. The auction runs in Beverly Hills from May 16 to 20 and in New York on June 4. Highlights include limestone sculptures by Mimmo Paladino, portraits by Peter Max and Al Hirschfeld, photographs by Annie Leibovitz, and jewelry by Paloma Picasso. Moore, who died in 2017, was a pioneering actress and philanthropist.
British sculptor Joanna Allen is the subject of her debut solo exhibition, “Subconscious Playground,” at London’s Bowman Sculpture, on view through May 30, 2025. The show features works in bronze, marble, clay, and plaster that explore the terrain between conscious and unconscious mind, moving between morphed figuration and pure abstraction. Allen discusses the influence of Surrealism, particularly the 100th anniversary of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, and cites mid-century artists like Picasso, Bacon, and Giacometti as inspirations for her raw, psychologically rooted practice.
New tariffs imposed under the Trump administration are causing significant disruptions for art professionals shipping works to major New York art fairs, particularly TEFAF New York. Shipping companies report a 'torturous road' as galleries navigate complex import taxes—including 7.5% on Chinese artworks, 25% on steel and aluminum sculptures, and 10% on jewelry, furniture, and design pieces—while many original artworks, antiques over 100 years old, and collector's pieces remain exempt. Galleries are modifying operations by renting booth furniture, showing items already stored in the US, and avoiding shipments from China, with some classifying antiquities broadly as 'sculpture' to simplify customs clearance.
An owner of a pawn shop in Los Angeles, Glenn Steven Bednarsh, has been indicted on federal charges of conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen goods for allegedly conspiring to sell a stolen Andy Warhol trial proof print of Vladimir Lenin. The print, a unique 1987 screenprint from an edition of 46, was purchased by Bednarsh for $6,000 in February 2021. He then enlisted co-conspirator Brian Alec Light to help sell it through Heritage Auctions. The scheme unraveled when a gallerist identified the work as stolen, leading to FBI involvement. Light has already pleaded guilty, and Bednarsh faces arraignment in the coming weeks.
Israel’s participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale is at risk due to government delays in renovating its pavilion. According to a Haaretz report, the Israeli culture ministry and foreign ministry, which co-manage the pavilion, have struggled to agree on a budget and schedule for the renovation, with the foreign ministry citing budgetary issues and the culture ministry awaiting a timeline. This follows the 2024 Biennale, where artist Ruth Patir shuttered the pavilion on opening day in protest of the Gaza war, and Israel’s absence from the 2025 Architecture Biennale.
A recently discovered drawing by René Magritte, purchased on eBay for $1,580, will headline Rago/Wright's Post War & Contemporary Art auction on May 21. The untitled work on paper, executed in ballpoint pen, colored pencil, and pencil, depicts oversize chess pieces amid soft clouds—motifs Magritte used throughout his career. It is estimated to sell for between $100,000 and $150,000. The drawing once belonged to Mora Henskens, companion of Magritte's close friend Harry Torczyner, and was acquired directly from the artist's widow, Georgette Berger Magritte, after his death in 1967. It remained in Henskens's collection until 2022, when it sold through a smaller auction house before resurfacing on eBay.
The Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks presents "All is Portraiture," a major exhibition of the artist's work at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris. The show, running from February 6 to April 4, 2026, features a comprehensive checklist of Hendricks's portraits, offering a focused look at this central aspect of his celebrated practice.
Artist Matt Mullican has opened a solo exhibition titled "The Universe" at Peter Freeman Inc. in New York. The show, which runs from February 28 to April 11, 2026, is documented with 38 installation photographs taken by Nicolas Knight.
A major group exhibition titled *Pharmakon* has opened at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, featuring works by over twenty international artists. The show includes both historical and contemporary figures, from Marcel Broodthaers and Felix Gonzalez-Torres to emerging artists, exploring the dual nature of substances that can be both remedy and poison. It presents a diverse range of media, including painting, sculpture, and installation, curated around this central, ambiguous theme.
UNA CRÍTICA INSTITUCIONAL POÉTICA Y MATERIAL: GALA PORRAS-KIM EN KURIMANZUTTO Y LA BIENAL DE VENECIA
Colombian artist Gala Porras-Kim presents her first solo exhibition at kurimanzutto gallery in Mexico City, titled "Espacios del futuro replican los del pasado" (2026), alongside her participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale. The show critically examines how museum conservation protocols transform objects by detaching them from their original material, ritual, and spiritual contexts. Central to the exhibition is "The Motion of an Alluvial Record" (2024), a greenhouse that recreates the humidity and temperature of Yucatecan mangroves, allowing clay and sediment to shift continuously, resisting the linear, stratified time of Western archives and evoking cyclical Maya cosmologies. Another series, "Uprooted" (2026), reproduces fragments of looted Teotihuacan murals from Techinantitla, now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, reinstalling them near the floor to restore their original architectural scale and orientation.
Paula Rego's exhibition "Story Line" is on view at Victoria Miro in London, featuring works that explore narrative through drawing and painting. The show highlights Rego's organic, hand-driven creative process, where drawings evolve into unexpected forms, as described in her own words.
Mousse Magazine reports on the two-person exhibition "Adam Pendleton + Antoni Tàpies" at Alfonso Artiaco in Naples, which pairs the contemporary American artist Adam Pendleton with the late Spanish master Antoni Tàpies. The show explores how both artists use painting as a site where language, materiality, and history converge, highlighting Tàpies's textured, sign-laden surfaces and Pendleton's conceptual engagement with abstraction and text.
MASSIMODECARLO gallery in Hong Kong is presenting "A Grass Roof," the first solo exhibition of American artist Lily Stockman in the city. The show features new oil paintings inspired by the eighth-century Zen poem "Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage" by Shitou Xiqian, exploring themes of interior refuge and infinite expanse through collapsed perspective and dissolved boundaries.
Merlin Carpenter presents "Warning Signs" at Karma International in Zurich, featuring his latest paintings that evolve from his earlier "anti-painting" style. The artist reflects on how his early 2000s work, characterized by a semi-finished, indifferent aesthetic, had become decorative by the time of his 2013 POLICE show, prompting him to update his approach.