Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 20 link 12 artists

the detroit museum of arts confronts art history while wrestling with its future

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has reinstalled its African American galleries, moving them from the back of the museum to a prominent location beside Diego Rivera's iconic "Detroit Industry Murals" (1932–33). The reinstallation is framed by a quote from Alain Locke's 1925 essay "The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts," envisioning the museum as an instrument of cultural education and repair. Complementing this is "Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation" (through April 5), the first comprehensive survey of art from the Indigenous inhabitants of the Great Lakes region. The DIA began collecting African American art in 1943 and in 2001 became the first US museum to name a curator devoted to that field, Valerie J. Mercer, who still serves as curator and head of African American art.

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article news schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 17 link 6 artists

louvre strike

On December 15, 2025, the Musée du Louvre in Paris was forced to close as approximately 400 of its 2,100 employees went on strike, picketing outside the museum's glass pyramids and turning away visitors. The strike follows a series of crises at the institution, including a $102 million jewel heist in broad daylight two months prior, a flooding incident from a burst water pipe in November, and ongoing concerns about deteriorating facilities, long lines, and substandard restrooms and dining areas. Workers are demanding higher wages and better conditions, with three trade unions—CGT, SUD, and CFDT—warning in an open letter that staff feel like "the last bastion before collapse."

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trending_up market schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 19 link 5 artists

art institute chicagos acquisitions 2025

The Art Institute of Chicago announced its top acquisitions from over 1,000 works added to its collections in 2025. Highlights include Kay WalkingStick’s two-panel painting *The Silence of Glacier* (2013), which overlays Northern Cheyenne beadwork onto a Glacier National Park landscape; Christian Schad’s *Portrait of Composer Josef Matthias Hauer* (1927); Frans Francken II’s *Esther Before Ahasuerus* (1622); a rare 17th-century Indian textile titled *A Nayaka Nobleman with Courtiers and Courtesans*; an untitled photograph from Francesca Woodman’s “Caryatid” series (1980); and the *Ovejo Armchair* (1972) by Jaime Gutiérrez Lega.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 23 link 11 artists

malba acquires daros latinamerica collection expansion

Malba, the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires, has acquired the Daros Latinamerica Collection, a private trove of 1,233 works by 117 artists spanning the 1950s to 2010s. The deal, orchestrated by founder Eduardo F. Costantini, nearly doubles the museum's holdings to roughly 3,000 works and is part of a broader expansion timed to Malba's 25th anniversary in 2026, including a building extension beneath Plaza Perú that will double its footprint to 90,000 square feet.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 30 link 18 artists

malba acquires 1200 works

Eduardo F. Costantini, founder of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba), announced the acquisition of the Daros Latinamerica Collection in Zurich, adding 1,233 works by 117 artists to the museum's holdings. This roughly doubles Malba's collection to 3,000 works, with a major expansion project planned to accommodate the new pieces, set to begin next fall to mark the museum's 25th anniversary. Highlights include works by Doris Salcedo, Ana Mendieta, Julio Le Parc, Alfredo Jaar, Lygia Clark, and Jesús Rafael Soto, with 75 artists new to Malba.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 14, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

guy cogeval obituary former director musee dorsay paris

Guy Cogeval, the former director of Paris's Musée d'Orsay, died on November 13 at age 70 after a long illness. A specialist in 19th-century art and the Nabis, Cogeval led the Musée d'Orsay from 2008 to 2017, overseeing a major renovation of 80 percent of its galleries and merging it with the Musée de l'Orangerie. He previously directed the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of French Monuments, and curated acclaimed exhibitions including "Hitchcock and Art" and "Édouard Vuillard, Master of Post-Impressionism."

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person people schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 20 link 7 artists

maria balshaw tate

Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate, will step down in the new year after nine years at the helm, the museum announced Friday. Appointed in 2017, Balshaw was the first woman to lead the institutional network, which includes Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Her tenure was marked by a substantial diversification of Tate’s collection and programming to spotlight new art forms, indigenous artists, and artists from the Global South. She also oversaw the launch of a landmark £150 million endowment fund for Tate Modern to address financial woes. Memorable exhibitions included surveys of pre-internet digital artists, modern art in Nigeria, and retrospectives for Leigh Bowery, Isaac Julien, Yoko Ono, and Emily Kam Kngwarray.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

william eggleston david zwirner books

David Zwirner Books has released a new monograph titled *William Eggleston: The Last Dyes* (2025), dedicated to the final major body of photographs by pioneering American color photographer William Eggleston using the now-discontinued dye-transfer printing process. A solo exhibition of these images will open at David Zwirner gallery in New York on January 15, 2026, following a presentation at the gallery’s Los Angeles location earlier this year. The book includes a newly commissioned essay by critic Jeffrey Kastner.

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person people schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 20 link 13 artists

hamza walker winner 2026 audrey irmas award ccs bard

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) has awarded its 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence to Los Angeles–based curator Hamza Walker. Walker, executive director of the Brick (formerly LAXART) since 2016, will receive $25,000 and be honored at CCS Bard’s spring gala in April. He is recognized for exhibitions featuring artists like Elizabeth Paige Smith, Gregg Bordowitz, and Postcommodity, and for cocurating the acclaimed "Monuments" exhibition with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which examines artists' responses to Confederate monument removals. Walker also secured a $1 million donation from collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn to fund the Brick's move to a new Hollywood space and its rebranding.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists

paris modern art museum donation henri matisse

Barbara Dauphin Duthuit, the wife of Henri Matisse's grandson, has donated 61 works by Matisse to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The gift includes seven paintings, numerous drawings, etchings, lithographs, and illustrated books, most of which feature portraits of the artist's eldest daughter, Marguerite (1894–1982). Many of these works were on view in France for the first time during the museum's recent exhibition “Matisse and Marguerite: Through Her Father’s Eyes.” The donation spans from Marguerite's childhood to 1945, including pieces that reference her convalescence from diphtheria and her survival of Gestapo torture during World War II.

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article news schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 20 link 8 artists

zohran mamdani best museum new york subway system

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared in a New York Times interview that the city's best museum is its subway system, citing the public artworks by artists like Vito Acconci, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Faith Ringgold, and Jeffrey Gibson that are accessible to all riders. He praised the MTA for making art available regardless of income, while also expressing interest in visiting the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, and crediting his wife, illustrator Rama Duwaji, for expanding his appreciation of art beyond formal settings.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

jacques louis david versailles

The Palace of Versailles has agreed to reexamine the provenance of a Jacques-Louis David sketchbook from 1790 after a Radio France investigation revealed it was looted by the Nazis during World War II. The sketchbook was stolen from Professor Lereboullet in July 1940, sold by Munich's Karl and Faber gallery in 1943, then acquired by dealer Otto Wertheimer before being purchased by Versailles in 1951. The museum claims it was unaware of the theft, and France's ministry of culture has promised further research and discussions with the descendants.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 1 artist

swedish court acquits climate activists monet painting

A Swedish court acquitted six climate activists from the group Återställ Våtmarker (Restore Wetlands) who smeared red paint on the protective glass of Claude Monet's painting *The Artist’s Garden at Giverny* (1900) at the National Museum of Sweden in June 2023. The painting, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, was unharmed; the court ruled the activists had no intent to damage the work, noting they used water-soluble paint and targeted a glass-covered piece, though some paint reached the frame.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 26 link 25 artists

helen frankenthaler facts

Helen Frankenthaler, the pioneering Color Field painter known for her luminous, stain-soaked canvases, is the subject of a renewed wave of exhibitions. The Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao recently hosted a major survey of her work, while the Museum of Modern Art in New York is currently presenting "Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep" in its atrium. Next year, the Kunstmuseum Basel will open the largest exhibition of her art in Europe to date, marking her first solo museum show in Switzerland. The article also recounts her biography—her privileged upbringing on the Upper East Side, her studies at the Dalton School and Bennington College, her relationships with Clement Greenberg and Robert Motherwell, and her invention of the soak-stain technique in 1952, which helped birth Color Field painting.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

brazil library heist matisse

Brazilian authorities arrested one suspect after an armed robbery at São Paulo's Mário de Andrade Library on Sunday, where two thieves stole eight Henri Matisse engravings and works by Brazilian painter Candido Portinari. The artworks were displayed in a glass vitrine as part of the exhibition “From the Book to the Museum,” which was set to close November 30. The thieves held up a security guard and a couple, stuffed the items into a canvas bag, and discarded some works near a rubbish heap during their escape, partially captured by facial recognition cameras. The second suspect remains at large, and the library has not disclosed which specific works were taken.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

louvre leak strike

A water pipe burst at the Musée du Louvre in Paris on November 26, damaging 300 to 400 archival documents related to Egyptian history in the Mollien Pavilion. The leak, which also posed a fire risk due to a nearby electrical cabinet, was followed by a smaller leak days later. Employees, represented by a coalition of unions including CGT, CFDT, and Sud, have voted unanimously to begin a rolling strike next Monday, demanding urgent renovations and the hiring of 200 new staff to restore the workforce to 2014 levels. The Louvre's director Laurence des Cars had previously warned that the museum's buildings were in "poor condition" and "no longer water tight," and a major renovation was announced, but pipe repairs were not scheduled until September 2026.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists

studio museum harlem reopening

The Studio Museum in Harlem reopened its newly rebuilt, seven-story space on 125th Street after nearly eight years without a permanent home. A press preview on November 6, 2025, showcased the $300 million, 82,000-square-foot building designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson, which more than doubles the museum's exhibition space. The public reopening is set for November 15 with a free community celebration. Inaugural exhibitions include "From Now: A Collection in Context," works by over 100 alumni of the artist-in-residence program, and a solo show of Tom Lloyd, whose work was featured in the museum's first exhibition in 1968. The building features a grand staircase, a cantilevered auditorium called the "Stoop," a roof terrace, and prominent works by David Hammons and Glenn Ligon.

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person people schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 21 link 7 artists

wafaa bilal artnews awards 2025 established artist

Wafaa Bilal has been named the recipient of the 2025 ARTnews Award for Established Artist, recognizing his survey exhibition “Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (February 1–October 19, 2025). The show is the first major retrospective for the Iraqi American artist, featuring works that put his body at risk, including the iconic performance *Domestic Tension* (2007), in which remote participants fired a paintball gun at him over the internet, and *Virtual Jihadi* (2008), a modified video game that blurs the lines between aggressor and victim. Curated by Bana Kattan, the exhibition restages elements of Bilal’s original performance and presents his ongoing critique of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, particularly the Iraq War and the use of drone warfare.

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article culture schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 22 link 6 artists

burton the meeting on the turret stairs

The article explores Frederic William Burton's iconic Victorian watercolor *Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs* (1864), held at the National Gallery of Ireland. It recounts the tragic medieval Danish ballad that inspired the painting, in which the noblewoman Hellelil and her guard Heldebrand are doomed lovers. Burton, an Irish painter influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, worked exclusively in watercolor and gouache, making this delicate piece a technical marvel. The museum displays it only one hour twice weekly to protect it from light damage.

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article news schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 20 link 11 artists

chief curator leaves george lucas museum

Pilar Tompkins Rivas, chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, has left the museum less than a year before its scheduled September 2026 opening. The museum stated it has no immediate plans to replace her, with George Lucas continuing to oversee curatorial direction. This departure follows a series of staffing issues, including the exit of director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont in March 2025, layoffs of 22 staff members in May, and the earlier losses of curator Amanda Hunt and curator-at-large Dan Nadel. The $1-billion museum, first announced in 2017, has faced repeated delays due to the pandemic and supply-chain shortages.

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article news schedule Dec 5, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

lucas museum of narrative art pilar tompkins rivas departs

Pilar Tompkins Rivas, chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, has left her post, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Her departure is the latest in a series of leadership exits at the institution, which is set to open on September 22, 2026. The museum was founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, and Rivas was one of six women of color appointed to high-ranking roles in 2020 by then director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont, who left in February. The museum laid off 15 employees in May, and CEO duties are now held on an interim basis by Jim Gianopulos, while Lucas himself oversees curatorial content.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

m f husain museum qatar

Qatar has unveiled a new museum dedicated entirely to the late Indian Modernist artist M.F. Husain, titled Lawh Wa Qalam: M.F. Husain Museum. Located in Doha's Education City, the museum houses over 150 artworks spanning from the 1950s to his death in 2011, including paintings, poetry, photography, tapestries, sculptures, and installations. The museum, opened on November 28 by the Qatar Foundation chaired by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, fulfills a long-held dream of the artist, who was granted Qatari citizenship in 2010 after self-imposed exile from India. The building was designed by architect Martand Khosla based on a sketch Husain himself created for his envisioned museum.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists

nybg holiday train show whitney museum

The New York Botanical Garden's 34th annual "Holiday Train Show" features miniature replicas of New York landmarks crafted from natural materials by the botanical artists of Applied Imagination. This year's edition adds two new models: the recently renovated Delacorte Theater in Central Park and the Whitney Museum of American Art's Meatpacking District flagship, designed by Renzo Piano. The Whitney replica, built over three months by artist Ava Roberts and fabrication director Kaitlin Schmidt, uses a new two-way mirrored acrylic glass technique for the windows and incorporates materials like purple smoke bush branches, horse chestnut bark, and fallen Zelkova bark. The company, founded by Paul Busse in 1991 and now run by his daughter Laura Busse Dolan, creates whimsical versions of landmarks using leaves, sticks, fungi, and other dried plant materials.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

moma carlo rambaldi centennial screening series

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will host a two-week screening series starting December 10, featuring 15 films that showcase the special effects work of the late mechatronics maestro Carlo Rambaldi. Co-curated with Rome's Cinecittà studios, the series spans Rambaldi's career from Italian arthouse and exploitation films to Hollywood blockbusters like *Alien* (1979), *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*, *King Kong* (1976), and *Dune* (1984). The screenings include films directed by Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dario Argento, and David Lynch, among others. Rambaldi, who would have turned 100 this autumn, was also honored earlier this year with an exhibition at Long Island City Culture Lab and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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article policy schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

louvre ticket price hike

The Louvre will raise ticket prices by 45 percent for non-E.U. visitors starting January 14, 2026, with tickets increasing to €32 ($37) for travelers from the U.S., U.K., and China, while E.U. visitors continue to pay €22. The price hike, announced on November 27, is expected to generate €15–20 million annually to fund modernization plans, following intense criticism over aging infrastructure and a $102 million jewel heist in October. The museum also faces structural issues, including the temporary closure of parts of its Sully wing due to fragile support beams, and has implemented an €80 million security master plan.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 27, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

roni horn mca denver

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has organized the first exhibition dedicated to conceptual artist Roni Horn's long-standing engagement with water. Titled "Roni Horn: Water, Water on the Wall, You're the Fairest of Them All," the show spans sculpture, photography, drawing, and bookmaking, exploring water's mutability, ecological resonance, and paradoxical purity. Horn, who has received a Ford Foundation grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, and three NEA fellowships, has shown at major institutions including the Menil Collection, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, and Tate Modern, and is represented by Hauser and Wirth.

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article policy schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 19 link 14 artists

museums finances

Museums worldwide are urgently searching for new financial models as government funding declines, wealthy patrons pull back, and corporate sponsors face pressure. A global study published in January by the International Research Alliance on Public Funding for Museums found that in 37 percent of responding countries, 71 to 100 percent of museums now receive most funding from private sources. Institutions are exploring endowments, new revenue streams, and collaborative approaches, with the Louvre becoming the first French museum to create an endowment fund in 2009, raising €175 million. The $85 trillion Great Wealth Transfer offers hope, but next-generation donors prioritize transparency and meaningful engagement over prestige.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists

museo jumex football and art exhibition 2026 world cup fifa

Museo Jumex in Mexico City will host "Fútbol y Arte. Esa misma emoción" (Football & Art. A Shared Emotion), an exhibition timed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Opening March 28 and running through July 26, the show features around 100 works by 60 international artists, including Marta Minujín, Graciela Iturbide, Melanie Smith, and Rafael Ortega. Curated by Guillermo Santamarina with exhibition design by Mauricio Rocha, the museum will be transformed into elements symbolic of soccer, with sections exploring gender, community, identity, and the political dimensions of the game. New commissions by Diego Berruecos, Iñaki Bonillas, and Sofía Echeverri are included, along with a sculptural installation by Tercerunquinto made from recycled Estadio Azteca seats.

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article news schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 7 artists

guggenheim abu dhabi basquiat warhol

The chairman of Abu Dhabi's department of cultural tourism, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, revealed at a recent briefing that the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry and set to open in 2026 on Saadiyat Island, will feature Western masters like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol alongside lesser-known contemporary artists from Asia, Africa, and the Arab world. The museum, originally announced two decades ago and delayed multiple times, will also incorporate augmented reality and artificial intelligence to enhance visitor engagement, and will include music, food, and dance as part of its civic space concept.

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gavel restitution schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

california revives nazi looted pissarro cassirer case

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a motion on November 17 to intervene in the Cassirer family's two-decade-long restitution case for a Camille Pissarro painting stolen by the Nazis. The artwork, *Rue Saint Honore, Apres Midi, Effet De Pluie* (1897), is owned by Spain's Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had previously ruled that Spanish law applied, allowing the museum to keep the painting, but California's Assembly Bill 2867, signed into law in September, now seeks to apply California law to protect victims of art theft. The case has been sent back to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for reconsideration.

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