Jackie Ferrara, a New York-based artist known for her stacked-wood sculptures, died by physician-assisted suicide in Basel, Switzerland, on October 22 at age 95. She told the New York Times she had fallen twice in the past year and did not want to be dependent on anyone. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland even for those who are not terminally ill.
Fifty-seven curators and museum directors, including Christophe Cherix of MoMA and Michael Govan of LACMA, signed an open letter published by Le Monde expressing solidarity with Louvre director Laurence des Cars following the theft of the museum's crown jewels. The letter emphasizes that museums are not immune to global violence and that such thefts represent a profound fear for museum professionals, while reaffirming that museums must remain open and accessible despite security risks.
Staff at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University sent a letter of no confidence in executive director Gaëtane Verne to university officials on August 25, 2023, as reported by Columbus outlet Matter News. The letter, signed by 13 employees, alleges high turnover, organizational dysfunction, financial instability, and reputational harm under Verne's leadership. Specific complaints include a "red card" for financial turmoil, a $1 million capital project lacking transparency, and over $200,000 spent on exhibition catalogues without proper budgeting. Since Verne's appointment in November 2022, nearly 50% of staff have departed, and seven Foundation Board trustees have resigned. Ohio State is reviewing the letter, while Verne has defended her leadership as fostering a respectful workplace.
Masked thieves stole jewels once belonging to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie from the Louvre in a daylight smash-and-grab, using a furniture lift to access the first floor and cutting into display cases. The stolen items, including a diamond-encrusted brooch, diadems, necklaces, and the empress's crown (which was dropped during the escape), are valued at $102 million. French officials have admitted the loot is not privately insured, meaning the state will not be reimbursed if the items are not recovered. Louvre director Laurence des Cars blamed a "terrible failure" in security, offered her resignation (which was refused), and acknowledged staff did not detect the thieves soon enough.
British artist and designer Es Devlin, known for stage designs for U2 and Kendrick Lamar, has created a 50-foot-tall revolving library titled 'The Library of Us' for the 10th anniversary of the Faena hotel and cultural complex in Miami Beach. The installation, presented during Art Basel Miami Beach, contains 2,500 books that have influenced Devlin, with visitors able to sit on revolving stools and read. Phrases from 250 books will appear on an LED screen accompanied by Devlin's voice. After the installation closes on December 9, all books will be donated to Miami organizations including public libraries and schools.
Taylor Swift fans have flocked to the Wiesbaden State Museum in Germany to see Friedrich Heyser's painting 'Ophelia' (ca. 1900), which the singer referenced in the opening scene of her music video for the song 'The Fate of Ophelia' from her album 'The Life of a Showgirl'. The museum saw hundreds of additional visitors last weekend, with director Andreas Henning expressing surprise and delight at the attention.
Creative Australia has awarded Khaled Sabsabi a $100,000 grant under its Visual Arts, Craft and Design Framework, supporting a solo show at the Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide in 2027. This comes after Sabsabi was controversially dropped as Australia’s Venice Biennale representative in February over past works, including one depicting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and claims that he favored boycotts of Israel. Creative Australia cited an “unacceptable risk to public support,” but widespread backlash led to the departure of senior leaders and, in July, the reinstatement of Sabsabi and his curator Michael Dagostino.
The British Museum has launched a high-profile fundraising campaign to acquire the Tudor Heart, a gold pendant from the early reign of Henry VIII, discovered by amateur metal detectorist Charlie Clarke in Warwickshire in 2019. The museum needs to raise £3.5 million ($4.6 million) by early next year to secure the piece, which features symbols of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and is described as the only surviving Tudor jewelry of its kind. Actor Damian Lewis and historian Mary Beard are supporting the appeal, and the museum will host its first British Museum Ball on October 18 to further fundraising efforts.
Upsilon Gallery, founded by German-Argentine dealer Marcelo Zimmler, will open its first continental European location in Milan on November 18. The 200-square-meter space is situated near Via Monte Napoleone in the Quadrilatero fashion district, joining a wave of international galleries—including Thaddaeus Ropac, Cardi Gallery, and Robilant + Voena—that are betting on Milan's potential to become a global art capital. The inaugural exhibition features four canvases from Osvaldo Mariscotti's Valley series, with a bilingual catalogue edited by critics David Ebony and Alex Grimley, and coincides with twin shows in Upsilon's London and New York outposts.
As the U.S. government shutdown enters its third week, museums that had remained open are now closing. The National Portrait Gallery (NPG), part of the Smithsonian Institution, postponed its exhibition “The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today,” originally set to open October 18, after the Smithsonian’s surplus funds run out on October 11. The National Gallery of Art (NGA) closed on October 1, leaving two major works by Houston-based multimedia artist Dario Robleto—the film *Until We Are Forged: Hymns for the Elements* and the sculpture *Small Crafts on Sisyphean Seas*—inaccessible to the public.
Cannupa Hanska Luger collaborated with the filmmakers of the horror film *Him*, directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Jordan Peele, to create a sports mascot named “Tinsel Larry.” The mascot appears in the film as the symbol for the fictional San Antonio Saviors team. Luger worked with lead costume designer Dominique Dawson on the design, which evolved from a “Conquistador Larry” concept into a “razzle-dazzle rose gold glitter monster.” Luger explained on Instagram that the mascot incorporates Indigenous references as a deliberate commentary on the racist history of sports mascots, calling it “an act of reclamation.”
Moroccan modernist painter Mohamed Hamidi has died at the age of 84, as announced by the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah. Born in Casablanca in 1941, Hamidi studied at the School of Fine Arts of Casablanca and later at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. A founding father of Moroccan modern art, he returned to Morocco in 1967 and taught at the Casablanca School, helping to democratize its curriculum. He participated in the landmark 1969 exhibition “Manifesto” in Marrakech and founded the Moroccan Association of Plastic Arts in 1972. His abstract, erotic paintings incorporated traditional Maghreb motifs and geometric shapes.
Taylor Swift's new album 'The Life of a Showgirl' includes a song titled 'The Fate of Ophelia,' which references the tragic character from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet.' The article draws a parallel between Swift's song and John Everett Millais's Pre-Raphaelite painting 'Ophelia' (1851–52), which depicts the character before her death. The Tate, which owns the painting, posted about the work to discuss the death of its model, Elizabeth Siddal, in 1862. Swift's album cover, showing her floating in water, has been compared to the Millais painting, but the song reimagines Ophelia's narrative with a happy ending tied to her relationship with Travis Kelce.
Glenn Lowry, who stepped down last month after 30 years as director of the Museum of Modern Art, has given a wide-ranging interview on the podcast *The Art World: What If…?!* with Charlotte Burns. He discusses the Trump administration’s threats to museums’ tax-exempt status, his upcoming advisory roles for the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi, a prospective leadership campaign for Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation, and a series of talks at the Louvre titled “I Want a Museum. I Need a Museum. I Imagine a Museum.”
P. Staff's current exhibition at David Zwirner in New York transforms the gallery's Upper East Side townhouse into a haunting, body-centric experience. The show features a new video titled *Penetration* (2025), split across three floors, depicting a person with a laser beamed at their bare stomach, alongside sculptures with wood spikes under latex drapes and ambient sounds of a beating heart. The installation evokes a dread of having a body, with jaundiced yellow window films and disjointed sensory elements creating an uncomfortable, dysphoric atmosphere.
Athens-based artist Marina Xenofontos has been selected to represent Cyprus at the 2026 Venice Biennale with a pavilion titled “It rests to the bones.” Curated by Kyle Dancewicz, deputy director of SculptureCenter in New York, the exhibition will be housed at the Associazione Culturale Spiazzi near the Arsenale. Xenofontos, born in Limassol in 1988, works across sculpture, kinetic objects, and film, often exploring Cyprus’s history and British colonial legacy. Her proposal was chosen from 21 submissions via an open call organized by Cyprus’s Department of Contemporary Culture, with a five-person advisory committee praising its engagement with Cypriot micro-histories and global issues.
A painting discovered in an Argentine home in August, initially attributed to 18th-century Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi and believed to be Nazi-looted art, has been called into question. Paolo Plebani, curator of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy, told the Argentine newspaper Clarín that the work is actually by Giacomo Ceruti, another Northern Italian painter. The painting was previously owned by Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who fled the Nazis, and later by former Nazi Friedrich Kadgien, whose daughters Patricia and Alicia owned the Mar del Plata home where it was found. Argentine authorities recovered the painting after placing the daughters and Patricia's husband under house arrest.
The University of California, Irvine (UCI) has acquired the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and will merge it with the UC Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA). The combined institution will be renamed the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. UCI will oversee OCMA's 53,000-square-foot, $98 million facility in Costa Mesa, California, and integrate its 4,500-object collection with approximately 9,000 works from the Irvine Museum Collection and the Gerald Buck Collection. Previously planned programming at both venues is expected to continue through 2026, and a national search is underway for an executive director to lead the new museum.
Avinadav Begin, grandson of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, is currently exhibiting his latest abstract metal and steel works at Sheetrit & Wolf Contemporary Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. The pieces, which he describes as “openings, apertures,” are neither paintings nor sculptures but heavy hybrid forms weighing up to 220 pounds, resembling rubble and broken window frames. In interviews, Begin has emphasized his identity as an artist rather than a politician, distancing himself from the current Likud party leadership under Benjamin Netanyahu, while acknowledging the influence of the ongoing war and hostage crisis on his work.
The Nivaagaard Collection, a small art museum in rural Denmark, has acquired Artemisia Gentileschi's painting *Susanna and the Elders* (1644–48), marking the first work by the Italian Baroque artist to enter a Danish institution. Director Andrea Rygg Karberg secured the painting from a private collection via New York–based Old Masters dealer Nicholas Hall, beating dozens of international galleries. The acquisition is described as the most important addition to the museum since its founding in 1908.
The autumn edition of Asia Week New York is underway, with auction houses reporting strong interest in Asian art despite broader economic challenges. Bonhams kicked off the week with sales totaling $7.3 million, including Chinese ceramics and snuff bottles, though it offered 47% fewer lots than last year. Top results included a blue-and-white jar selling for $1.75 million and a pair of famille rose dishes for $1.5 million. Christie’s sold a Vasudeo S. Gaitonde painting for $2.35 million and a Tyeb Mehta work for nearly $2 million. New US tariffs under the Trump administration have added uncertainty, particularly for cross-border consignments and purchases.
Christie’s will auction a Pascaline, the first calculating machine in history, developed by Blaise Pascal in 1642, at a sale in Paris on November 19. The estimate for the box decorated with ebony sticks is €2 million to €3 million. This particular model, dedicated to survey calculations, is the only one in private hands among nine surviving originals, and it remains fully functional. The auction also includes 15 volumes of Pascal’s writings, including a first copy of *Pensées* (estimate €200,000–€300,000), and works by Descartes, Newton, and others.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will open a landmark exhibition dedicated to Renaissance master Raphael in 2026. Titled "Raphael: Sublime Poetry," the show runs from March 29 to June 28 and will be the first major Raphael retrospective ever mounted in the United States. Curated by Carmen Bambach, the exhibition brings together 200 works including paintings, drawings, tapestries, and decorative arts, with loans from major museums worldwide such as the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Prado, and the Vatican Museums. Key loans include the Louvre's "Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione" and the Galleria Borghese's "Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn."
Martin Beck has created a new body of artwork inspired by the *Environments* series of LPs, which debuted in 1969 and featured long-duration nature sounds and aural abstractions. The works are on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, through October 5, and include wall works, video, and an exhibition design that explores how the records were marketed as lifestyle accessories and productivity aids. Beck first encountered the series through a friend's lecture at Columbia University and became fascinated by its blend of utopian vision and commercial hype.
Tate Modern, the world's most visited modern and contemporary art museum, reported a budget deficit six months ago, prompting critics to blame its programming and curatorial strategies for declining foot traffic. While domestic attendance has recovered to 95% of pre-Covid levels, international visitors have dropped significantly—down 39% at Tate Modern, 32% at Tate Britain, and nearly 40% at Tate St Ives. Tate Liverpool remains closed until 2027. Research from The Art Newspaper's annual visitor report, however, points to external factors such as Brexit, socioeconomic shifts, and the cost-of-living crisis as key drivers of the decline, particularly among young European visitors aged 16 to 24.
On Friday, May 23, arts and culture workers protested at the Whitney Museum in New York following the museum's cancellation of a pro-Palestine performance titled "No Aesthetics Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance" by artists Fadl Fakhouri, Noel Maghathe, and Fargo Tbakhi. The protest, organized by Writers Against the War on Gaza, took place during the museum's Free Friday Night event, with demonstrators unfurling a Palestinian flag and a banner reading "Creativity Does Not Have to Rely on Death," distributing brochures demanding the removal of board members with ties to Israel, and calling out museum leadership for censorship. The performance, originally scheduled for May 14 as part of the Whitney's Independent Study Program, was canceled after museum leadership viewed a recording of its initial presentation at the Poetry Project, citing concerns that it "valorized specific acts of violence" and singled out community members based on belief systems.
The Thomas Kinkade Family Foundation has publicly condemned the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for using Kinkade's painting *Morning Pledge* in a July 1 social media post on X that included the phrase “Protect the Homeland.” The foundation stated it did not authorize the use of the artwork and that the post promotes division and xenophobia, which is antithetical to its mission. It has requested the post's removal and is consulting legal counsel. This follows similar complaints from artist Morgan Weistling, whose painting *New Life in A New Land* was used by DHS without permission, and criticism over DHS's use of John Gast's *American Progress* (1872), owned by the Autry Museum of the American West.
President Donald Trump signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on July 4, which includes a provision requiring the Smithsonian Institution to transfer a space vehicle—widely understood to be the space shuttle Discovery—to NASA. The shuttle has been displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, since 2012. The move must be completed by January 4, 2027, and $85 million has been allocated for planning, transportation, and a new exhibition facility in Houston. The provision originated from the "Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act" introduced by Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, after their state lost the original competition to host Discovery.
The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing allegedly withheld staff wages for six months from January to June, according to the South China Morning Post. The institution, founded by the late Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens in 2007, has faced financial challenges including lower ticket sales, higher international freight costs, stricter rental demands from its landlord in Beijing's 798 Art District, and difficulty collecting payments from international partners. Its Shanghai branch, UCCA Edge, has seen no activity since June after an exhibition co-presented with the Saudi Ministry of Culture. Director Philip Tinari acknowledged a difficult year for museums in China, citing a slower consumer economy, and said the UCCA is working on long-term funding solutions.
Wesley M. LePatner, a newly elected trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was among four people killed by a gunman in a Midtown office building on Monday. LePatner was a senior managing director at Blackstone, where she served as global head of its Core+ Real Estate division and CEO of the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust. She had just been elected to the Met’s board in February and was previously a member of the Met’s Friends of European Paintings group.