Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 22 link 9 artists

video data bank downsizing school art institute chicago

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) laid off three of five staff members at the Video Data Bank (VDB), a renowned video art distribution organization, on November 12. Former director Tom Colley announced the dismissals of digital collection manager Elise Schierbeek and distribution assistant Nicky Ni, and stated that acquisitions and programming would cease. SAIC cited financial pressures from federal policy changes and enrollment declines, insisting the VDB is not closing but needs adjusted staffing to protect its teaching mission. The VDB, founded in 1976 and approaching its 50th anniversary, holds works by major artists including Nam June Paik, Pipilotti Rist, and Bruce Nauman, and has historically received NEA funding.

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article news schedule Nov 5, 2025 visibility 21 link 1 artist

detroit institute of arts workers move to unionize

Employees at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) announced plans to unionize on November 4, joining a growing wave of labor organizing at U.S. cultural institutions. The staff, organizing as DIA Workers United, are seeking recognition under AFSCME Cultural Workers United (AFSCME Michigan), which already represents workers at major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Philadelphia Museum of Art. The DIA acknowledged the request and stated it respects employees' legal rights to organize. The announcement follows recent unionization efforts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and a broader trend that began with the New Museum in 2019.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 27, 2025 visibility 25 link 40 artists

biennale of sydney 2026 artist list

The Biennale of Sydney has announced the full artist list for its 2026 edition, titled 'Rememory,' which opens on March 14, 2026. The exhibition is curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, marking her second major biennial after the Aichi Triennale. The show will feature over 60 artists and collectives, with a heightened focus on Indigenous art through a partnership with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, facilitating 15 commissions by First Nations artists. Notable participants include Emily Jacir, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and many others from diverse global backgrounds.

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article news schedule Oct 23, 2025 visibility 21 link 3 artists

british museums controversy hit ball raises 3 3 m securing vital funding for its international partnerships

The British Museum held its inaugural fundraising ball, modeled after the Met Gala, raising over £2.5 million ($3.3 million) through ticket sales and a silent auction. The event, attended by celebrities including Mick Jagger, Janet Jackson, Tracey Emin, James Norton, and Naomi Campbell, also secured a £10.3 million pledge from the Garfield Weston Foundation for the museum's Visitor Welcome Program. However, the evening was marred by controversy: a protester from Energy Embargo for Palestine gained access and demonstrated against the museum's £50 million sponsorship from BP, and Greece's culture minister Lina Mendoni criticized the museum for hosting the event near the Elgin Marbles, accusing it of disrespecting the ancient sculptures.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 22, 2025 visibility 17 link 4 artists

joel shapiro ellen phelan lennox hill home sale 4 75 million

The Manhattan duplex of the late sculptor Joel Shapiro and his wife, painter Ellen Phelan, has been listed for $4.75 million. Located in a 1907 Lenox Hill building on East 67th Street, the home was purchased in the early 2000s and renovated with beveled glass doors, brass hardware, and a sculptural staircase. The listing is held by Eileen Angelo and Max Collins of Sotheby’s International Realty. The couple also owned a lakeside estate in Westport, New York, called Kenjockety, which is also on the market, reduced from $5.49 million to $4.8 million.

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article news schedule Oct 20, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

british museum fundraising gala interrupted by protestor

The British Museum's inaugural fundraising gala on October 18 was interrupted by a protester from the group Energy Embargo for Palestine. The woman, who gained access to the Great Court by working as a waitress, took the stage next to board chair George Osborne holding a sign reading 'DROP BP NOW.' She criticized the museum for accepting a £50 million sponsorship from BP, an oil and gas company she accused of causing climate collapse and enabling genocide in Gaza. The gala, co-chaired by Isha Ambani of Reliance Industries, raised over $2 million from ticket sales and featured a silent auction, including a pet portrait by Tracey Emin and a private tour of Coco Chanel's Paris apartment.

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article news schedule Oct 13, 2025 visibility 16 link 1 artist

climate activists deface christopher columbus painting on day marking his arrival to americas

Two activists from the climate group Futuro Vegetal were arrested on October 12 after throwing biodegradable red paint on José Garnelo's 1892 painting *First Tribute to Christopher Columbus* at the Naval Museum in Madrid. The protest occurred on Spain's National Day, which commemorates Columbus's arrival in the Americas. The activists unfurled a banner reading “October 12, nothing to celebrate. Ecosocial justice” and were charged with crimes against cultural heritage. Separately, about 20 activists from Marea Palestina staged a sit-in around Picasso's *Guernica* at the Reina Sofía Museum, demanding an end to “the genocide against the Palestinian people,” temporarily closing the gallery.

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article policy schedule Oct 12, 2025 visibility 21 link 3 artists

smithsonian closes museums government shutdown

The Smithsonian Institution has been forced to close its 21 museums in Washington, D.C., indefinitely due to a continuing U.S. government shutdown that began on October 1. The National Gallery of Art had already closed the previous weekend. The Smithsonian had initially used its own funds to stay open, first planning to close on October 6 and then extending operations through October 11, but the ongoing shutdown—stemming from disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over health care policy—has now made closure unavoidable. The shutdown also threatens upcoming programming, including a planned Grandma Moses survey at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a portraiture competition exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which has already been postponed.

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article policy schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 23 link 11 artists

cimam letter museum organization m hka closure flanders

Two leading museum organizations, CIMAM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) and L'internationale, have sharply criticized the Flemish government's decision to transfer the collection and mission of Antwerp's M HKA to a newly formed museum in Ghent by 2028. In a statement dated October 10, CIMAM's Museum Watch Committee expressed profound concern, calling the plan based on "false administrative logic" and urging the Flemish minister of culture to reverse the decision. L'internationale also published a statement condemning the lack of transparency and consultation, noting that the plan was announced without input from M HKA's leadership or stakeholders. The building housing M HKA will be renovated into a Kunsthalle, and the government has canceled a planned $151 million new building for the museum.

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person people schedule Oct 8, 2025 visibility 22 link 13 artists

macarthur genius grants garrett bradley gala porras kim

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its 2025 class of 22 MacArthur Fellows, each receiving an $800,000 no-strings-attached grant. Among the winners are several visual artists: Garrett Bradley, known for her Oscar-nominated documentary *Time* (2020) and works centering Black resistance; Gala Porras-Kim, whose practice questions how art institutions convey or conceal information about objects; Tuan Andrew Nguyen, whose films and installations explore trauma and colonization; and Jeremy Frey, a seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basket maker whose midcareer survey is on view at the Bruce Museum. Photographers Matt Black and Tonika Lewis Johnson also received fellowships, along with archaeologist Kristina Douglass and non-artists such as novelist Tommy Orange and astrophysicist Kareem El-Badry.

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person people schedule Oct 6, 2025 visibility 17 link 7 artists

frick collection chief curator aimee ng

The Frick Collection in New York has promoted Aimee Ng to chief curator, effective November. She succeeds Xavier F. Salomon, who is leaving to become director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. Ng, a curator at the Frick since 2015, has organized exhibitions on Italian Renaissance artists and co-curated the landmark 2023 show "Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick." Her appointment is the second senior leadership choice under director Axel Rüger, who joined in March ahead of the museum's long-awaited reopening.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 4, 2025 visibility 18 link 2 artists

acropolis michael rakowitz athens allspice mesopotamia

Michael Rakowitz's survey exhibition "Allspice" at the Acropolis Museum in Athens explores themes of cultural displacement, looting, and historical narrative through works like his series "The invisible enemy should not exist" (2007–), which reconstructs looted artifacts from Baghdad's National Museum of Iraq using Arabic food wrappers and newspapers. The show also features his 2004 video "Return," documenting his effort to import Iraqi dates labeled as "product of Iraq" to the US after decades of sanctions, and includes interventions with the museum's own collection, such as a Cypriot head he linked to Assyrian art.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 29, 2025 visibility 19 link 3 artists

picasso museum paris expansion sculpture park plan

The Musée Picasso-Paris has announced a €50 million ($59 million) transformation plan, including a new wing for temporary exhibitions and a redesigned garden that will connect with the nearby Square Léonor-Fini. The project, scheduled for construction from 2028 to 2030, will double the museum's temporary exhibition space to 8,600 square feet and create a 25,000-square-foot sculpture park featuring around 10 Picasso sculptures, free to the public without a museum ticket. The museum plans to remain open during construction, which will be funded through patronage raised by a foundation hosted by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, with a significant donation from the Picasso family.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 20 link 8 artists

marina abramovic venice accademia 2026

Marina Abramović will celebrate her 80th birthday with a career-spanning exhibition titled "Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy" at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice from May 6 to October 19, 2026, coinciding with the 61st Venice Biennale. The show, previously staged at the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai in fall 2024, features 150 works including furniture-sculpture hybrids made from quartz, amethyst, and tourmaline. Abramović's "transitory objects" will be installed throughout the 14th-century building alongside the museum's permanent collection of Renaissance masterpieces by Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione, and Mantegna, with a notable pairing of her 1983 photograph *Pietà (with Ulay)* and Titian's *Pietà* (1575–76).

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 17 link 9 artists

lawrence abu hamdan munch museum exhibition golan heights

Lawrence Abu Hamdan's exhibition "Zifzafa" has opened at the Munch Museum in Oslo, featuring a politically charged exploration of sound as both a celebration of life and a tool of displacement. The show centers on a forensic audio investigation into the impact of 31 wind turbines planned for the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, or Jawlan. Key works include the video projection *Wind Ensemble* (2024) featuring saxophonist Amr Mdah, CGI animations *Tilting at windmills i, ii & iii* (2024), and the 45-minute film *Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay* (2025), which uses a video game walkthrough format to simulate the sonic pollution that will affect local homes—some as close as 115 feet from the turbines. The game incorporates field recordings by local composer Busher Kanj Abu Saleh and turbine noise from Germany, highlighting the sounds of daily life and resistance.

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gavel restitution schedule Sep 22, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

heirs of jewish collector urge appeals court to reconsider claim to van goghs sunflowers

Heirs of German Jewish banker and art collector Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy have urged the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to revive their lawsuit seeking the return of Vincent van Gogh's *Sunflowers* (1888), which they claim was sold under Nazi duress. The lawsuit, filed in 2022 against Japanese insurer Sompo Holdings, argues that the painting was purchased at a 1987 Christie's auction by Sompo's predecessor, Yasuda, despite provenance indicating Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was a Nazi victim. A lower court dismissed the case in 2024 for lack of jurisdiction, but the heirs contend that the painting's exhibition in Chicago in 2001 establishes sufficient legal ties to Illinois.

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person people schedule Sep 17, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

jennifer packer and marie watt win 250000 heinz award

American artists Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt have been named winners of this year's Heinz Awards for the Arts, each receiving an unrestricted cash prize of $250,000. The awards, now in their 30th year, are distributed by the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation and honor six recipients annually across three categories: arts, the economy, and the environment. Packer, based in New York, is known for her jewel-toned paintings that explore Black figuration and abstraction, while Watt, a citizen of the Seneca Nation, works with printmaking, textiles, and sculpture to examine Indigenous traditions and community memory, notably through her "Blanket Stories" series.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 16, 2025 visibility 18 link 1 artist

jeffrey gibson met animal sculptures

Jeffrey Gibson has installed four large bronze animal sculptures—a deer, a coyote, a squirrel, and a hawk—on the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, collectively titled “The Animal That Therefore I Am.” At a talk with Met curator Jane Panetta, Gibson explained that the works draw on his early paintings on brain-tanned elk hides and his ongoing exploration of Indigenous kinship philosophies, which honor all living beings as extensions of ourselves. The sculptures, each adorned with ceremonial regalia inspired by Native American traditions, are designed to be viewed as four-sided paintings and connect the museum’s Central Park location to Gibson’s home in the Hudson River Valley.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 10, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists

patrizia sandretto re rebaudengo new museum commissions

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, a top European art collector and founder of a Turin-based foundation, is partnering with New York's New Museum for a series of commissions. The first commission will be realized by Italian artist Diego Marcon, known for his uncanny videos, with his work titled 'Krapfen'—a musical dance film blending American animation and Italian opera. The New Museum, currently undergoing a renovation and expansion with a seven-story annex, is set to reopen this fall. 'Krapfen' was also co-commissioned by Chicago's Renaissance Society, Paris's Lafayette Anticipations, and the Vega Foundation, run by Canadian collector Elisa Nuyten, and will debut at the Renaissance Society before its New Museum run.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 9, 2025 visibility 18 link 15 artists

elaine wynn francis bacon lacma christies november auction

The estate of Elaine Wynn, the late casino magnate and top art collector who died in April 2024, has announced plans for her renowned collection. Francis Bacon's triptych *Three Studies of Lucian Freud* (1969)—which Wynn purchased for a record $142.2 million at Christie's in 2013—will be donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she served as board cochair. The painting, the first Bacon to enter LACMA's collection, will debut in the museum's new David Geffen Galleries when they open next year. Separately, Christie's will auction 20 works from Wynn's collection across three sales in New York this November, with estimates totaling at least $75 million. Highlights include Richard Diebenkorn's *Ocean Park #40* (1971), Lucian Freud's *The Painter Surprised by a Naked Admirer* (2004–05), Joan Mitchell's *Sunflower V* (1969), and J.M.W. Turner's *Ehrenbreitstein* (1835).

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 8, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

independent 20th century breuer sothebys

Independent 20th Century art fair has announced that its 2026 edition will be hosted by Sotheby’s at the auction house’s new flagship headquarters in Manhattan’s historic Breuer building. The move, first reported by the New York Times, marks a significant expansion for the fair and an unprecedented collaboration between an art fair and an auction house in the modern art market. Founded in 2022, Independent 20th Century focuses on overlooked and celebrated artists of the last century, with curatorial programming that reframes movements from women in Surrealism to Arab Modernism. The Breuer—a landmark of Modernist architecture designed by Marcel Breuer and recently renovated by Herzog & de Meuron with PBDW Architects—will allow the fair to grow to more than 50 galleries, up from 31 at its most recent edition.

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article news schedule Sep 5, 2025 visibility 19 link 7 artists

us ambassador uk cezzane monet winfield house

America’s new ambassador to Britain, Warren Stephens, has transformed Winfield House, the official residence in Regent’s Park, into a private museum by installing works from his family’s art collection. The display includes several Cézannes, a Renoir, a Degas, and a centerpiece Monet painting, *Effet de soleil couchant sur la Seine à Port-Villez* (1883), hung above the drawing-room mantelpiece. Unlike most ambassadors who rely on loans from the State Department’s “Art in Embassies” program, Stephens draws directly on his own holdings, which were assembled in partnership with the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.

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article policy schedule Aug 29, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

trump lonnie bunch meeting smithsonian

President Donald Trump had lunch with Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, on Thursday, according to the New York Times. This meeting comes amid ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and the Smithsonian, including a White House list denouncing specific artworks—such as a painting of refugees at the US-Mexico border and Amy Sherald’s portrait of a Black trans woman as the Statue of Liberty—and an executive order claiming the institution has been influenced by “divisive, race-centered ideology.” Trump has also called for a legal review of Smithsonian displays, though his authority over the institution is unclear. The lunch was described as “productive and cordial” by a White House spokesperson, but no details of the discussion were released.

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article policy schedule Aug 27, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

van gogh museum closure dutch government funding

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has threatened to close unless the Dutch government increases its annual funding to support a major renovation. The museum, which houses masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh, says the government is failing to uphold a 1962 agreement requiring it to fund the museum's construction and upkeep. The institution currently receives around $10 million per year but needs an additional $2.9 million annually for climate control, elevators, and infrastructure. Its Masterplan 2028, a $120.6 million project, would partially close the museum for necessary maintenance. Director Emilie Gordenker warned that without action, conditions could become dangerous for both the art and visitors.

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article policy schedule Aug 25, 2025 visibility 23 link 5 artists

amy sherald speaks out government censorship at the smithsonian

Amy Sherald, the painter who canceled her exhibition “American Sublime” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in July due to censorship issues, has broken her silence in a MSNBC article. Sherald canceled her September show after the museum considered removing her painting *Trans Forming Liberty* (2024), depicting model and performance artist Arewà Basit as a Black transgender Statue of Liberty. In her op-ed, Sherald explains that institutional fear shaped by political hostility toward trans lives played a role, and she cannot comply with a culture of censorship targeting vulnerable communities.

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article policy schedule Aug 22, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

white house smithsonian artworks list refugees fauci

The White House published an article on its website denouncing a range of artworks, exhibitions, and objects at the Smithsonian Institution, continuing President Donald Trump's protest against the museum network. The list included previously criticized shows, such as one about sculptures as signifiers of power at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture's displays on 'white dominant culture.' It also named new targets: a painting of a Black trans woman as the Statue of Liberty by Amy Sherald (which was pulled from a National Portrait Gallery show due to alleged censorship), Rigoberto A. González's 2022 painting 'Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas,' a stop-motion portrait of Anthony Fauci commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, and a papier-mâché Statue of Liberty from a workers' rights protest. The administration also objected to wall texts at the National Museum of the American Latino and the National Museum of American History's LGBTQ+ History display.

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trending_up market schedule Aug 15, 2025 visibility 23 link 6 artists

sothebys to open its new breuer building hq on november 8 with blockbuster exhibition

Sotheby's has announced November 8 as the opening date for its new headquarters in the iconic Breuer Building at 945 Madison Avenue, New York. The auction house purchased the building from the Whitney Museum in 2023 and commissioned Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron, along with PBDW Architects, to renovate the landmarked structure. The opening will feature a blockbuster exhibition of modern and contemporary art, followed by major sales the week of November 17. The building, designed by Marcel Breuer and completed in 1966, previously housed the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection.

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article culture schedule Aug 6, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

the right influential art historian victoria coates project esther

The article profiles Victoria Coates, an art historian and former Trump administration official, who is leading 'Project Esther,' a conservative initiative aimed at taking over US higher education and targeting progressive organizations. Named after the biblical queen, the project accuses critics of Israel of anti-Semitism and seeks to dismantle what it describes as a 'terrorist support network.' Coates, who previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor and worked on Rumsfeld's memoirs, has a long history of attacking academia from within, including as an anonymous blogger behind 'Elephants in Academia.'

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trending_up market schedule Aug 4, 2025 visibility 23 link 18 artists

sothebys karpidas collection sale lots magritte surrealism

Sotheby's has announced the headline lots for the upcoming sale of British socialite and arts patron Pauline Karpidas's collection, set to take place September 17–19 in London. The 250-item auction, described as the 'greatest collection of Surrealism to emerge in recent history,' is led by René Magritte's oil painting *La Statue volante* (1940-41), estimated at £9–12 million ($12–16 million). Other highlights include ten more Magritte works, four Andy Warhol pieces from his 'Art from Art' series, and works by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Leonora Carrington, along with furniture and design objects.

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article news schedule Jul 28, 2025 visibility 8 link 3 artists

picasso les demoiselles davignon african catalan art

New research by French collector and self-proclaimed 'art detective' Alain Moreau challenges the long-held belief that Pablo Picasso's groundbreaking painting *Les Demoiselles d'Avignon* (1907) was primarily inspired by African art. Moreau's paper, published in the *Bulletin of the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts Sant Jordi*, argues that the painting instead drew from Medieval church frescoes in the Spanish and French Pyrenees, such as those in the church of La Vella de Sant Cristòfol in Campdevànol and the Romanesque murals of Sant Martí de Fenollar. He retraced Picasso's travels and notes that the African mask exhibited alongside the painting in a 1939 MoMA retrospective did not arrive in Europe until 1935, decades after the work was completed.

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