Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Sep 15, 2025 visibility 9 link 1 artist

yemen national museum damaged israeli air strikes

The National Museum of Yemen was damaged during Israeli airstrikes on Sanaa on Wednesday, according to the Houthi Ministry of Culture. The bombardment, part of escalating regional tensions linked to the Gaza war, killed 45 people and injured 165. Video footage shows the museum courtyard littered with rubble, and its windows and doors destroyed, though the building remains standing. The museum had only reopened in May 2023 after a decade-long closure due to Yemen's civil war.

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article policy schedule Aug 18, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

burmese artist sai exhibition bangkok arts cultural center

An art exhibition at the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre titled “Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machine of Authoritarian Solidarity” was censored after repeated visits by Chinese embassy representatives. The show, featuring exiled artists from China, Russia, Iran, and Burma, had black paint applied over artists' names and descriptions of homelands such as Tibet, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang. Works by Tibetan artist Tenzin Mingyur Paldron were particularly affected, with television screens showing her films switched off and Tibetan and Uyghur flags removed. Burmese artist Sai told BBC News that since the censorship, he and his wife fled to the UK to seek asylum.

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article policy schedule Aug 4, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

confederate general monument reinstalled trump

The National Park Service announced it will reinstall a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike in Washington, D.C., after it was toppled and burned by protesters during the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations. The agency shared an image of the bronze work being cleaned of corrosion and graffiti, citing federal historic preservation law and recent executive orders to restore pre-existing statues in the nation's capital. The statue is expected to return to public view in October, with site preparation beginning soon to repair its damaged masonry plinth.

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article local schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 10 link 2 artists

john davidge baltimore medical school portrait

An oil painting of Dr. John Beale Davidge, co-founder of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was discovered at a shuttered Baltimore restaurant called Bertha's Mussels. The portrait, believed to date to 1844, was found by Carolyn Brownley while clearing the space for a foreclosure auction. It was purchased by Meg Fielding, director of the History of Maryland Medicine at MedChi, and donated to the Medical Alumni Association. The painting now hangs in Davidge Hall, the historic medical school building named after Davidge, which is currently under renovation until late 2026.

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article news schedule Jul 24, 2025 visibility 10 link 2 artists

us appeals court yuga labs bored ape nfts ryder ripps

A US appeals court overturned an $8.8 million judgement against artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen, who were previously ordered to pay Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, for creating copycat NFTs. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on July 23 that Yuga Labs had not sufficiently proven that Ripps and Cahen's tokens would confuse buyers. The case, originally filed in June 2022, alleged trademark infringement, false advertising, and cybersquatting. Ripps and Cahen argued their works were satirical appropriation art, while Yuga Labs denied claims of racism tied to the BAYC imagery. The ruling sends the case back to federal court for a trial on trademark and cybersquatting claims.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

phillips auction house new priority bidding structure

Phillips auction house will launch a new "priority bidding" fee structure this September, offering a lower buyer's premium rate to bidders who place a binding written bid at least 48 hours before a live auction, provided the bid meets or exceeds the lot's low estimate. The standard buyer's premium will remain at 29/22/15 percent for New York sales, while priority bidding rates drop to 25/20/14 percent. The policy applies to live auctions across New York, London, Hong Kong, Geneva, and Paris, but excludes watch auctions and timed online-only sales.

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article policy schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

trump to withdraw us from unesco for second time

President Donald Trump has announced the United States will withdraw from UNESCO for the second time, effective at the end of 2026. The State Department cited the organization's focus on "divisive social and cultural causes" and its alignment with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals as contrary to America First foreign policy, as well as "anti-Israel rhetoric" within UNESCO. This follows a pattern of Trump pulling the US from multilateral bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, and continues a fraught history: the US stopped funding UNESCO under Obama over Palestine's membership, left in 2017 under Trump, and rejoined under Biden in 2023.

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article news schedule Jul 15, 2025 visibility 6 link 2 artists

wetransfer changes terms licensing rights ai

WeTransfer, the cloud-based file transfer company widely used by art institutions, updated its terms of service on July 14 to include a clause granting the company a perpetual, royalty-free license to use uploaded content for training machine learning models and creating derivative works, which it could monetize without compensating users. After widespread criticism from the art community, including post-production professional Ashley Lynch, who noted conflicts with non-disclosure agreements, WeTransfer removed the controversial language and issued a statement assuring users that it does not use their content to train AI or machine learning models.

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person people schedule Jul 14, 2025 visibility 7 link 1 artist

volord kingdom art collection

Artist Walter Paul Bebirian discusses the Volord Kingdom Art Collection, a vast and growing trove of hundreds of thousands of digital artworks he has created over decades. In an interview with Artnet News, Bebirian recounts significant personal challenges since 2022, including a stroke in April 2023 that led to rheumatoid arthritis, limiting his mobility and forcing a hiatus from his practice. He lowered his prices to make his art more affordable and gradually resumed work despite physical difficulties. The collection, born from a need to unify his oeuvre and create a generative artistic world, blends abstraction and representation, photography and digital imagination.

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article news schedule Jul 8, 2025 visibility 6 link 1 artist

archaeologists peru ancient 3500 year old city penico

Peru’s Ministry of Culture has unveiled the archaeological site of Peñico, a 3,500-year-old city in the province of Huaura, after eight years of research and conservation. Dating back to 1800 BCE, the “City of Social Integration” was strategically built to enhance monumentality, prevent flooding, and promote trade. It likely served as a hub linking Pacific coast cultures with the Andes and Amazon. Archaeologist Ruth Shady, director of the Caral Archaeological Zone, led the research and noted that Peñico emerged after the Caral civilization was devastated by climate change. The site includes 18 structures, among them a major administrative building with depictions of conch shell trumpets called pututus, and yielded artifacts such as clay sculptures, necklaces, and stone tools. The site opened for tourism on July 3, with a traditional Andean festival planned for July 12.

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article news schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

remnants enaissance equestrian statue french dig

Archaeologists from INRAP (the National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research) have unearthed a Renaissance-era limestone equestrian statue in Toul, northeastern France. The statue, broken into 27 pieces, was found buried under a roadway among the remains of a medieval gate demolished around 1700. The largest fragment measures about three-and-a-half feet, and the intact work would have stood over five feet high. The horse's trunk and head are preserved, along with the rider's hips and upper thighs, but the rider's head and limbs are missing, making identification uncertain. INRAP suggests the rider may have been Henry II, King of France, or more likely John III of Lorraine, Cardinal of Lorraine and Bishop of Toul, and that Italian artists may have been involved in its creation.

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person people schedule Jul 2, 2025 visibility 8 link 1 artist

ford foundation heather gerken next president

The Ford Foundation has appointed Heather Gerken, dean of Yale Law School, as its next president. She will succeed Darren Walker and become the 11th president of the foundation, as well as the second woman to lead the organization in its nearly 90-year history. Gerken will officially assume the role on November 1, following a national search launched after Walker announced his departure after 12 years.

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article policy schedule Jul 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

germany colonial restitution conduct

Germany's culture minister Monika Grütters has released a 130-page code of conduct for museums, titled "Guide to Dealing With Collection Goods From Colonial Contexts," which outlines methods for identifying and confronting colonial-era artifacts in German collections. The guidelines, published by the German Association of Museums, include best practices for provenance research, a list of former and current colonies, and alternatives to full restitution such as long-term loans and joint custody agreements. The release coincides with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation's official ceremony returning nine artifacts to Indigenous Alaskan communities, and follows increased pressure from public outcry over the Humboldt Forum and similar restitution efforts by French president Emmanuel Macron.

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article culture schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist

curtis yarvin venice biennale

Far-right political blogger Curtis Yarvin has floated a proposal to take over the U.S. pavilion at the Venice Biennale with an "art ho"–themed exhibition centered on Titian's painting *The Rape of Europa* (1559–62). Yarvin discussed the idea in a New Yorker profile and promoted it in a YouTube video, which includes AI-generated imagery and a fake press release. He also reportedly rented a flat near Art Basel in Switzerland to host a party announcing the proposal. The article dismisses the initiative as a troll and a bid for MAGA cultural credibility, noting its lack of real momentum or institutional backing.

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article policy schedule Jun 18, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

murujuga rock art woodside gas unesco concerns

Australian politicians are pushing back against UNESCO's concerns that ancient rock art in Murujuga, Western Australia, is endangered by the proposed expansion of the Karratha Gas Plant, operated by Woodside Energy. The site contains up to 1 million petroglyphs, some dating back 47,000 years, and UNESCO's advisory body ICOMOS has warned that industrial emissions are a major threat. Australia's environmental minister Murray Watt has disputed ICOMOS's findings, calling them factually inaccurate, while Woodside claims the expansion will help transition away from coal and achieve net zero by 2050.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 18, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

international art finance adam chinn nahmads

Adam Chinn, former chief operating officer at Sotheby's, has been quietly building International Art Finance (IAF), a boutique art lending firm backed by the billionaire Nahmad family. In a recent interview with ARTnews, Chinn revealed that IAF has disbursed nearly $400 million in loans and is on track to reach $500 million by the end of 2025. The firm offers short-term, non-recourse loans with an average size of $8 million, claiming an edge in speed and scale, with loans disbursed in as little as 10 days. The Nahmad family, prolific collectors and dealers, provides funding and conducts internal artwork valuations, a practice that has drawn scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 16, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

a i art summary venice intelligens

Nick Axel and Daniele Balleri have written a reply to this article. The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, organized by MIT professor Carlo Ratti under the theme “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.,” features A.I.-generated summaries alongside traditional wall texts for each exhibit. These two-sentence distillations, labeled “A.I. Summary,” are designed to help visitors quickly grasp core ideas and choose their pace through the dense show. An example is Beatriz Colomina, Roberto Kolter, Patricia Urquiola, Geoffrey West, and Mark Wigley's installation *The Other Side of the Hill*, whose 200-word wall text is condensed into a succinct A.I. summary about microbial intelligence and demographic collapse.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 13, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

yuge zhou midnight moment

Artnet is co-presenting Midnight Moment in partnership with Times Square Arts this June, featuring Yuge Zhou's video work *Trampoline Color Exercise*. The piece uses archival Olympic footage to show gymnasts tumbling on pink-gridded trampolines in a seamless collage, exploring themes of globalization, geopolitical tension, and humanity's pursuit of perfection. Zhou, a video artist with a background in computer science and a former child singer in China, discusses her creative journey and the inspiration behind the work in an accompanying interview.

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gavel restitution schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

looted antiquities sold facebook marketplace palmyra syria

Thieves in Syria are looting ancient artifacts from archaeological sites like Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage city dating back to the 3rd century BCE, and selling them on Facebook Marketplace. The looting has surged since the overthrow of former president Bashar al-Assad in December, with traffickers listing funerary gold, statues, and mosaics alongside ordinary secondhand goods. The Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project reports that nearly one-third of its 1,500 Syrian cases occurred in December alone, and sales are happening faster than ever—mosaics that once took a year to sell now move in two weeks.

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article news schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 8 link 1 artist

how nebra sky disc made study

Researchers from Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany, and the Saxony-Anhalt-State Museum of Prehistory, in collaboration with engineering firm DeltaSigma Analytics and coppersmith Herbert Bauer, have successfully replicated the manufacturing process of the Nebra Sky Disk, a 3,600-year-old bronze artifact depicting the cosmos. By analyzing a small sample of the disk using advanced techniques like energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and electron backscatter diffraction, the team determined the disk was cast and then forged at least 10 times through repeated heating and hammering. Bauer replicated this by annealing a similar metal mixture 55 times, revealing that the disk's microstructure matches a stage after 10 forging cycles, not the final 55, indicating the original preform was thinner and wider than assumed.

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article policy schedule Jun 3, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

peru halves protected area near nazca lines

Peru's Culture Ministry has reduced the protected area surrounding the Nazca Lines by nearly half, from approximately 2,162 square miles to 1,235 square miles. The move shrinks the Nazca Archaeological Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and archaeologists warn it could expose the ancient geoglyphs to exploitation by informal miners seeking to legitimize their operations amid a global surge in precious metal prices.

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article culture schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 10 link 4 artists

freedom to be trans artists quilts

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) debuted a massive art installation called the Freedom to Be Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., coinciding with the start of WorldPride 2025. The 9,000-square-foot piece consists of 258 six-foot-square quilts created by over 1,000 trans artists and allies from across the country, celebrating trans joy and resilience. The project aims to rally support for the trans community ahead of the Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti, which will decide whether state bans on gender-affirming care for minors violate the Equal Protection Clause, and comes amid efforts by President Donald Trump and conservative lawmakers to roll back trans rights.

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article news schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 6 link 1 artist

winged goddess carving hadrians wall

A couple of volunteer archaeologists, Dilys and Jim Quinlan, discovered a Roman stone relief carving of the winged goddess Victory while excavating at the Vindolanda fort near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England. The 18.5-inch carving was found in the infantry barracks and is believed to have been part of a larger ornamental arch and gate, dating to around 213 CE after the Severan wars. The discovery was identified by Newcastle University professor Rob Collins and announced by the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.

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article news schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

dealers robilant voena sexual harassment racial discrimination

A New York court has summoned art dealers Count Edmondo di Robilant and Marco Voena to answer a civil complaint filed by former employee and curator Virginia Brilliant. The lawsuit, filed in New York, alleges repeated verbal harassment, misogynistic, antisemitic, racist, and homophobic comments, and other inappropriate behavior at their gallery Robilant and Voena, which has locations in New York, London, Milan, Paris, and St. Moritz. Brilliant, who holds a Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, began working as an independent contractor in 2019. She claims the dealers created a toxic workplace, failed to pay promised medical expenses during her chemotherapy for breast cancer, and owes her commissions, back pay, and damages totaling at least $3.13 million. Robilant was served papers at the TEFAF New York art fair on May 13.

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article news schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

mrbeast mexico ancient mayan sites outrage

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has filed an administrative lawsuit against the production company of YouTuber MrBeast (James Donaldson) over a video titled “I Explored 2000 Year Old Ancient Temples,” uploaded on May 10, 2025. The video shows MrBeast and his companions exploring Mayan sites in Yucatán, including Chichén Itzá, Calakmul, and Balamcanché, and features a scene where he promotes his snack brand Feastables as “the only Mayan-approved snack on the planet.” INAH alleges that the permit granted to Full Circle Media did not authorize commercial advertising or false information, and it demands compensation and a public retraction. The controversy escalated after Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum called for further investigation into whether the permit was violated.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 8 link 5 artists

gallery les bois claire julia hill

London-based Gallery Les Bois, founded in late 2024 by Claire-Julia Hill, is establishing itself as a pioneering force in sustainable contemporary art. The gallery features a diverse roster of artists who work with eco-conscious materials and techniques, such as transforming natural resources from impacted waterways into pigments and repurposing textile waste. In an interview, Hill discusses her background studying art history at Cambridge University, her inspiration to integrate sustainability into the art world, and the gallery's mission to champion artists who combine ecological responsibility with aesthetic excellence and conceptual rigor.

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article policy schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 6 link 1 artist

trump nominates nea head mary anne carter

President Donald Trump has nominated Mary Anne Carter to return as head of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a position she previously held from 2019 to 2021. The nomination comes after Trump’s 2026 budget proposed eliminating the agency, which distributes federal grants to arts organizations nationwide. Carter, who lacks extensive arts experience and previously served as chief policy adviser to Florida Governor Rick Scott, is currently listed as a senior adviser to the NEA. Her nomination follows a wave of resignations among senior NEA leaders and reports that over 350 organizations have had their grants canceled as the agency shifts its funding priorities.

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article policy schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

lawmakers probe executive order targeting museum content

A group of 71 House Democrats, led by Representatives Ayanna Pressley and Paul Tonko, is urging the Smithsonian Institution's inspector general to investigate Executive Order 14253, issued by President Donald Trump in March 2025. The order mandates the removal of exhibits and materials deemed "divisive" or promoting "race-centered ideology" from federally funded museums, including the Smithsonian. The lawmakers argue that the directive threatens the Smithsonian's congressionally mandated independence and could breach federal law, as the institution is expected to remain nonpartisan and free from political interference.

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article policy schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

trump fires biden appointees from holocaust museum board

President Donald Trump fired Biden-appointed members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversees the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Those removed include former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain, former labor secretary Tom Perez, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and Jill Biden’s senior adviser Anthony Bernal. The appointments had been announced in January 2025. Emhoff, who is Jewish, condemned the move as politicizing Holocaust remembrance, while the White House stated Trump will appoint new members who honor the Holocaust and support Israel. The museum issued a statement expressing commitment to its mission without directly addressing the firings.

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article news schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

hikers in the czech republic giant gold hoard

A pair of hikers in the Czech Republic discovered a 20th-century gold hoard worth over $340,000 in the foothills of the Krkonoše mountains. The find, consisting of 600 gold coins from multiple countries and a second box of gold items, was turned over to the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové, where archaeologists are investigating its origins.

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