Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 21 link 9 artists

coney art walls deitch

Jeffrey Deitch, the New York dealer and former director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, is co-curating a new street art project called "Coney Art Walls" in Brooklyn with real-estate developer Joseph Sitt of Thor Equities. The project features murals by prominent graffiti and street artists including Crash, Daze, Lady Pink, How & Nosm, Lee Quinones, Futura, Kenny Scharf, Miss Van, Swoon, and Icy Signs, and will accompany a Smorgasburg Coney Island pop-up with 12 food vendors. Photos show the artists hard at work as the project rapidly takes shape.

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article news schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 22 link 8 artists

jeffrey deitch sunk low hee280s curating douchebag property developers coney island

Jeffrey Deitch is co-curating a street art exhibition in Coney Island this summer with Joseph Sitt, head of real estate developer Thor Equities. The show features artists including Crash, Lee Quinones, Futura, Kenny Scharf, Miss Van, Lady Pink, Swoon, and Icy Signs, and will debut alongside Smorgasburg Coney Island with 12 food vendors and live music. Deitch previously organized the controversial 2011 exhibition "Art in the Streets" at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, which drew large crowds but faced criticism for prioritizing entertainment over scholarship, and included the censorship of a mural by Blu.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

francois xavier lalanne rhinoceros bar sothebys

Sotheby's design sale in New York achieved the second highest auction price ever for a work by French artist François-Xavier Lalanne, with his monumental sculpture desk *Grand Rhinocrétaire II* (1964) selling for $16.4 million—more than triple its $5 million high estimate. The piece, which opens into a fully functional writing desk, sparked a 13-minute bidding battle. Just weeks earlier, another Lalanne work, *Bar aux Autruches* (1967–68), sold for €11.1 million at Sotheby's Paris. The all-time record for Lalanne remains $19.4 million for *Rhinocrétaire I*, sold at Christie's Paris in 2023.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

eames past prologue san francisco

An exhibition titled "Past as Prologue: The Last Decade of Furniture Design by Ray and Charles Eames" opens June 7 at the Transamerica Pyramid Center during San Francisco Design Week. Curated by Llisa Demetrios, the couple's granddaughter and chief curator of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, the show highlights the Eameses' often-overlooked final decade of collaboration (1968–1978). It features iconic designs like the side chair, executive chair, chess stool, and chaise, alongside rarely seen models and materials that reveal their iterative design process.

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article news schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

moca los angeles closed anti ice protests

The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA) has closed its Geffen Contemporary space through the weekend due to nearby anti-ICE protests and increased military activity, including National Guard deployment. The closure affects an Olafur Eliasson exhibition and has postponed a durational performance by Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova, who turned part of the venue into a prison cell-like installation. The protests began after ICE raids in Los Angeles, leading to arrests, a curfew, and vandalism of MOCA's facade.

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article policy schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists

mark bauerlein trump arts funding

Mark Bauerlein, a conservative professor and contributing editor to First Things, published an op-ed in the New York Times arguing against cuts to government arts funding while simultaneously attacking progressive scholars and NEH grants he deems wasteful. He suggests that instead of slashing the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Trump administration should repurpose it to promote conservative cultural values, citing examples like funding for a curriculum on race and comics or a database of a historic gay travel guide as wasteful.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

new institute of sexology celebrates history of erotic art film photography

The Wellcome Collection in London has opened a new exhibition titled "The Institute of Sexology," celebrating the history of erotic art, film, and photography. The show features a wide range of objects including archival material, ethnographic and medical artifacts, erotica, and works by contemporary artists such as John Stezaker, Sharon Hayes, Zanele Muholi, and Timothy Archibald. It highlights pioneers of sexology like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Marie Stopes, and marks the first exhibition after the institution's £17.5 million expansion, inaugurating a new gallery for large, year-long shows.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 18 link 7 artists

the gates christo jeanne claude

Artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude developed 'The Gates' for New York City's Central Park in 1979, but the project faced over two decades of bureaucratic hurdles before finally being installed in 2005 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The work consisted of 7,503 steel gates with orange nylon fabric along 23 miles of pathways, using 5,390 tons of steel. Now, on its 20th anniversary, a comprehensive survey titled 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates and Unrealized Projects for New York City' is being held at the Shed, accompanied by an augmented reality experience via the Bloomberg Connects app.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 12 link 6 artists

moca los angeles geffen nadya tolokonnikova

Artist Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founding member of Pussy Riot, began a durational performance titled *Police State* at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles on Thursday, inhabiting a cell and sewing clothing. The following day, protests erupted in the city after ICE raids in the garment district, leading to clashes with police and the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops by President Donald Trump. MOCA closed its Geffen branch early on Sunday for safety, while Tolokonnikova continued her performance, live-streaming audio from the protests into her installation.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

lost turner auction sothebys london

One of J.M.W. Turner's earliest oil paintings, *The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol*, painted when he was 17, will be auctioned at Sotheby's London with an estimate of £200,000–£300,000. The work had been misattributed for decades and sold last year at Dreweatts for just £600–£800 as a work by a follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson, before cleaning revealed Turner's signature. The painting was originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793 and had not been publicly displayed for 167 years.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 6 artists

bode galerie the woman in art muse and creator

Bode Galerie in Nuremberg has opened a new group exhibition titled “The Woman in Art – Muse and Creator,” running through July 5, 2025. The show traces the representation of women across the 20th and 21st centuries, featuring works by artists such as Henri Matisse, Ida Kerkovius, Alain Clément, and Elvira Bach. It begins with early 1900s works where women were primarily muses for male artists, then moves through decades of reclamation by women artists, culminating in contemporary autonomous depictions of the female form.

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article culture schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 12 link 4 artists

amalia ulman film magic farm

Amalia Ulman's new film *Magic Farm* follows an American documentary crew that arrives in a rural Argentine town with a mandate to cover "crazy subcultures," only to find none. Led by a harried producer (Alex Wolff) and an anchor (Chloë Sevigny), the crew fabricates a zany trend while completely missing an environmental crisis affecting the village—no drinking water and widespread illness. Ulman describes the film as a critique of media bureaucracy, where content demands override actual news. The film continues her exploration of image-making and fiction, themes she previously investigated in her 2014 Instagram performance *Excellences & Perfections* and her 2021 debut feature *El Planeta*.

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article culture schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 22 link 14 artists

wet paint romero britto cruise

Artnet News' gossip column Wet Paint reports on a Valentine's Day dining experience aboard a simulated Princess Cruises ship at Pier 59 in Chelsea Piers, New York. The event, titled "Love by Britto: First Artistically Inspired Dining Experience Celebrating 'Love'," was designed by Miami-based artist Romero Britto, featuring his signature kaleidoscopic pop art on plates, wine labels, paperweights, and even toilet paper roll stickers. Chef Rudi Sodamin prepared the meal, which included a cocktail with edible glitter and heart-shaped desserts. Britto himself attended a run-through the previous night, and the $214 tickets for the final evening were sold out.

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article news schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

pennsylvania man pleads guilty fake picasso basquiat

A 77-year-old Pennsylvania man, Carter Reese, pleaded guilty on May 29 to wire fraud and mail fraud for selling artworks falsely attributed to major modern and contemporary artists including Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Fernand Léger, and Francis Bacon. The scheme ran from February 2019 to March 2021, and was uncovered by the FBI's Art Crime Team in Philadelphia and Miami. Reese, a former teacher and admissions director at Pottstown's Hill School, also claimed a personal collection of 17,000 antiques valued at over $6 million.

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article news schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

campaign for barbara hepworth sculpture gathers momentum

A campaign to return Barbara Hepworth's sculpture "Rock Form" (1964) to the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton, UK, is gaining momentum. The sculpture, valued at £1 million, was removed from the shopping centre in June 2024 during a redevelopment. Campaigners argue it was originally offered to the previous owner at cost price on the condition of public display, and they fear current owners—the Royal Bank of Scotland and Delancey—may sell it privately.

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

barbara hepworth takes top lot at londons british art sales

London's auction houses held seven sales of Modern British art this week, achieving £22.3 million (including buyer's premium) against a presale estimate range of £21.3 million to £31.7 million. A total of 547 of 705 lots sold, a 77.6% sell-through rate. Bonhams struggled, with half its top lots unsold, including a Henry Moore bronze estimated at £1–2 million, but Pyms gallery and art adviser Wentworth Beaumont bought key works below estimate. Sotheby's raised £6.4 million, led by Edward Burra's *Striptease, Harlem* (1934) at £842,500, and a Paul Nash watercolor tripled its estimate to £212,500. Christie's achieved the highest total at £12 million, topped by Barbara Hepworth's *Figure (Sunion)* (1960), bought by Pyms gallery for over £800,000.

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article news schedule Jun 2, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

banksy marseille lighthouse

Banksy has unveiled a new street artwork in Marseille, France, located on Rue Félix Fregier. The piece features a painted lighthouse and the stenciled text “I want to be what you saw in me,” set beside a sidewalk bollard whose shadow the lighthouse mimics. The artist posted the work on Instagram, where it quickly garnered over 800,000 likes. The mural marks a notably introspective and emotionally vulnerable departure from Banksy’s typically satirical or politically charged style.

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trending_up market schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

david lynch personal items auction

Hundreds of items from filmmaker David Lynch’s personal estate are being auctioned by Julien’s in Los Angeles, with online bidding already exceeding $56,000. The nearly 450 lots include movie props, musical gear, Polaroids, and more, spanning Lynch’s career. Top-performing items include his personalized director’s chair (bidding at $15,000), a red curtain from Twin Peaks ($2,750), a photo of a nuclear explosion from Twin Peaks: The Return ($6,000), a personal 35mm print of Eraserhead ($7,000), a vintage boomerang sofa ($4,500), and a signed Man Ray photograph ($3,500). The sale also features musical instruments from his home studio, such as a custom five-neck Ferrington guitar and a Roland synthesizer. The auction officially ends on June 18 and is held in collaboration with Turner Classic Movies.

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trending_up market schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

lost gustav klimt portrait african prince tefaf maastricht

A long-lost Gustav Klimt portrait of an African prince, missing since World War II, has resurfaced and is now on view at TEFAF Maastricht with a €15 million ($16.4 million) price tag. The painting, titled *Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona* (1897), was brought to W&K – Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Gallery in 2023 in poor condition, but a stamp from Klimt's estate led to its identification by catalog raisonné author Alfred Weidinger, who had searched for it for two decades. The work depicts an Osu prince from present-day Ghana, created after Klimt attended an ethnographic exhibition at Vienna's Tiergarten am Schüttel where Osu people were put on display. The painting had been owned by Ernestine and Felix Klein, Jewish collectors who fled the Nazis, and is now being shown after a restitution settlement with Klein's heirs.

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trending_up market schedule May 27, 2025 visibility 16 link 16 artists

calder sale art detective

An Alexander Calder mobile, *Big Horizontal Red* (1956), estimated at $5–7 million, is set for auction at Christie’s on May 12. The work’s provenance traces through Perls Galleries, the Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, and a private New York collection, but a source reveals that its 1997 purchaser, Patricia Halterman, was the granddaughter of Magda Goebbels, wife of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Christie’s declined to comment on the consignors but stated it conducted careful evaluation and diligence.

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article policy schedule May 23, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

louisville art historian resigns statue louis xvi damaged

Chris Reitz, an art historian and chair of Louisville’s Commission on Public Art, has resigned in protest over the city’s plan to restore a statue of King Louis XVI that was damaged by protesters in May 2020 following the police killing of Breonna Taylor. In an op-ed, Reitz argued that the $200,000 restoration cost is unjustified for a statue he deems beyond repair, and accused city officials of trying to erase evidence of the protests. The statue, created by Achille Valois, was originally erected in France in 1829 and gifted to Louisville in 1966; it was vandalized on the same day the city released 911 calls from Taylor’s killing.

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article news schedule May 22, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

rediscovered klimt painting tefaf maastricht export debate

A rediscovered Gustav Klimt painting of a West African prince, shown at TEFAF Maastricht in March, has sparked a dispute over its export legality. The Hungarian publication HVG reported that the work was "smuggled" into Austria, while the Austrian outlet Der Standard countered that the Viennese gallery Wienerroither and Kohlbacher obtained the necessary export permit. The gallery denies any wrongdoing, calling HVG's claims an insinuation. The painting, made in 1897 and depicting Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, was priced at €15 million and appeared at TEFAF following a restitution settlement with the heirs of Jewish collector Ernestine Klein.

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article news schedule May 22, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

brian eno calls out microsoft israeli military

Brian Eno, the English musician and artist who composed the iconic startup sound for Windows 95, has publicly called out Microsoft for its business relationship with the Israeli Ministry of Defense amid the ongoing war in Gaza. In an open letter titled “Not in My Name” posted to Instagram, Eno expressed dismay that the company he once associated with a promising technological future is now providing cloud and AI services to the Israeli military, which he and human rights organizations accuse of committing genocide and war crimes. He urged Microsoft to suspend all services that contribute to violations of international law and announced he would donate his original fee for the Windows 95 chime to Gaza victims.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

armando marrocco robilant voena

Artnet News spotlights Italian artist Armando Marrocco (b. 1939), whose early career was shaped by Lucio Fontana. After moving to Milan in 1962, Marrocco developed his "Intrecci" series—vibrant monochromatic enamel-on-cardboard works that layer and weave humble materials into substantial objects. The exhibition "Marrocco Twist" at Robilant and Voena in Paris showcases these earliest works, on view through July 22.

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trending_up market schedule May 20, 2025 visibility 18 link 9 artists

mary tyler moore art mementos doyle auction

Doyle Auctions will sell over 300 lots from the estate of Mary Tyler Moore, including memorabilia from her iconic television shows, collected artworks, and furnishings from her homes in New York and Greenwich, Connecticut. The auction follows a Beverly Hills preview from May 16 to 20 and takes place at Doyle New York on June 4. Highlights include sketches by Al Hirschfeld, photographs by Annie Leibovitz, works by Peter Max and Mimmo Paladino, pre-Columbian pottery, and the golden "M" from *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* (estimated at $5,000 to $8,000).

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article culture schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 14 link 10 artists

inside peter paul rubenss secret life as a spy

Peter Paul Rubens, the renowned Baroque painter known for dramatic altarpieces and 'Rubenesque' figures, also led a secret career as a diplomat and spy for the Holy Roman Empire and Spanish Habsburgs. The article details his early life, education, and apprenticeship, and reveals how he used his artistic access to European courts to gather intelligence, including while working on commissions for Marie de' Medici in France. His diplomatic efforts helped broker peace between Spain and England, and he was appointed Secretary of the Flanders' Council.

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trending_up market schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 23 link 11 artists

may marquee auctions recap analysis christies sothebys

Christie's marquee auctions in New York generated $489 million across two sales, led by the $272 million 'Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works' sale and a $217 million 20th century art evening auction. The house guaranteed all 39 lots in the Riggio sale and used third-party guarantees on many others to mitigate risk in a soft market. Top lots included Piet Mondrian's *Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black, and Blue* (1922) at $47.6 million, Claude Monet's *Peupliers au bord de l'Epte, crépuscule* (1891) at $49.2 million, and Mark Rothko's *No. 4 (Two Dominants) [Orange, Plum, Black]* (1950–51) at nearly $39 million. Two Warhols were pulled before the sale, highlighting ongoing challenges in selling high-value works at auction.

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article news schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 24 link 29 artists

new talent art in america 2025

Art in America, the sister publication of ARTnews, has released its Summer 2025 issue featuring profiles of 20 emerging artists selected as "New Talent." The list includes artists from around the world working in various mediums, such as Agnes Questionmark, Aislan Pankararu, Alejandro García Contreras, Alison Nguyen, and others. This marks a continuation of the magazine's long-running "New Talent" designation, which began in 1954 and ran regularly until 1966, was relaunched in summer 2021, and has continued since.

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article policy schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 9 link 1 artist

smithsonians african american history museum removed objects

Two lenders to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) reported that their objects were removed from the museum’s galleries earlier than expected, raising concerns about the influence of President Trump’s recent executive order targeting “anti-American content” in Smithsonian museums. Amos C. Brown, a civil rights activist and pastor, lent a 1880 book on Black history and his father’s Bible, which Martin Luther King Jr. carried during protests; the museum cited the loan’s May expiration as the reason for removal. Liz Brazelton, who lent the diary of her great-great-grandfather—a lawyer who worked on behalf of Solomon Northup—said the diary was returned in March, six months before a 10-year loan agreement was set to end in September, with the museum citing an “internal gallery rotation schedule.” At least 32 objects have reportedly been removed, though the museum denied planned removals.

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trending_up market schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 23 link 16 artists

at christies 13 6 million marlene dumas painting sets new record for living female artist at auction

Christie's 21st-century evening sale in New York on Wednesday night totaled $96.5 million, surpassing last year's $80.3 million, though the auction was characterized by caution, few fireworks, and a reduced number of lots. The headline event was Marlene Dumas's painting *Miss January* (1997) selling for $13.6 million with premium, setting a new auction record for a living female artist. The work, estimated at $12–18 million, was guaranteed and sold to a client bidding through Christie's deputy chairman Sara Friedlander; Miami collectors Don and Mera Rubell were the consignors. Other notable results included new records for Simone Leigh, Emma McIntyre, and Louis Fratino, while the top lot was Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Baby Boom* (1982) at $23.4 million. Four of 43 lots were withdrawn, and several works failed to sell, including an Ellsworth Kelly canvas with a $2 million low estimate.

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