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Collector Amitha Raman shares her journey into art collecting, which began with late-night classes at MoMA under art historian Agnes Berecz, where she explored empty galleries after hours. Her first acquisition was Mary Beth Edelson's "Hounds of Hell" (1973), and she now serves as co-chair of MoMA's Young Patrons Council and a member of its Black Arts Council. Raman's collection includes works by Rashid Johnson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tracey Emin, Jenny Holzer, and Jeffrey Gibson, and she actively loans pieces to major museums worldwide.

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Rodrigo Padilla, a hairstylist who built his career at Sally Hershberger and now serves on the Whitney Museum’s Drawing and Print Acquisitions Committee, discusses his art collection with his husband Elliott Trice. The couple’s Midtown flat features works by Latin American and diaspora artists including Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Amy Bravo, Verónica Vázquez, Angel Otero, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Dagoberto Rodríguez, and others. Padilla credits Whitney trustee Brooke Garber Neidich with inspiring his collecting journey by advising him to “see everything.”

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This article from Cultured magazine covers multiple art-related stories, including a profile of restaurateur Keith McNally's memoir, a list of must-see museum exhibitions in New York for spring, a review of Mary Abbott's overlooked Abstract Expressionist work now on view at Schoelkopf Gallery, a feature on Salman Toor's major new exhibition "Wish Maker" at Luhring Augustine, and a discussion on designing more empathetic museums. It also includes a beauty and fashion trends piece with creative nominations.

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Salman Toor's largest exhibition to date, "Wish Maker," opened May 2 across Luhring Augustine's Chelsea and Tribeca galleries in New York. The Chelsea space features new paintings, while the Tribeca show is the artist's first dedicated presentation of works on paper. The two-venue presentation is Toor's first major New York showing since his solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2020, which launched him to art stardom. The article includes an interview conducted by CULTURED contributor Adam Eli, where Toor discusses his creative process, his attachment to finished paintings, and how his need to come out as queer through painting drove the development of his distinctive style.

Death of Artist Fabien Verschaere

Disparition de l’artiste Fabien Verschaere

The French contemporary art world is mourning the sudden death of artist Fabien Verschaere at the age of 50. Represented by Galerie Brugier-Rigail since 2012, Verschaere was known for a prolific and singular body of work that blended childhood imagery, fairy tales, and pop culture icons like Mickey Mouse and Batman into a complex personal mythology. His career was marked by significant exhibitions at major institutions including the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, and the Grand Palais.

Felix Art Fair Founder Mills Morán Steps Back From Gallery Duties

Mills Morán, cofounder of the Los Angeles gallery Morán Morán, is stepping away from its day-to-day operations to focus on Felix Art Fair, the fair he cofounded with his brother Al Morán and collector Dean Valentine in 2018. The fair, held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel alongside Frieze Los Angeles, has staged eight editions. Morán announced the decision in a statement shared with artists and colleagues, citing personal recalibration after nearly two decades in the art world and a desire to be more present for loved ones.

At Independent, Joel Mesler’s ‘Death Wish’ Is Part Art Exhibit, Part Market Experiment

Joel Mesler, a former gallerist turned artist, is debuting a new series of figurative paintings titled “Interiors” at the Independent art fair under the deliberately strange name “Joel Mesler Presented by The Estate of Joel Mesler.” The project includes only 12 paintings, which will not be sold through a gallery sales team; only Mesler himself and his former dealer David Kordansky can sell the work. Mesler describes the presentation as part art exhibit, part controlled market experiment, reflecting his frustration with the contemporary art market's loss of intimacy and unpredictability.

Lucy Liu Paints the ‘Emotional Truth’ of Family Memories

Lucy Liu, best known for her acting career in films like "Kill Bill" and the TV series "Elementary," is currently presenting a new exhibition of paintings titled "Hard Feelings" at Alisan Fine Arts in New York. The show features works that explore family memory and personal history, including pieces like "Family Portrait" (2016) and newer, more gestural paintings such as "What Stays" (2023) and "Hourglass" (2026). Liu, who studied at the New York Studio School from 2004 to 2007, uses layered and obscured imagery to reflect the unstable, fragmentary nature of memory, drawing on family photographs and her own childhood experiences following her father's death.

New fund helps museums make purchases at Frieze New York

The Sherman Family Foundation Acquisition Fund has launched at Frieze New York, providing $50,000 annually to help US museums acquire works from the fair's Focus section, which features solo stands by galleries under 12 years old. In its first year, the Baltimore Museum of Art acquired works by Reika Takebayashi, Seba Calfuqueo, and Joanne Burke, while the Brooklyn Museum acquired two works by Bettina (Bettina Grossman). Each artist also receives an unrestricted $5,000 award.

Eva Helene Pade Paints the Thin Line Between Ecstasy and Violence

Danish painter Eva Helene Pade, born in 1997, has been working in a borrowed London studio while her Paris home undergoes renovations. Three of her new monumental paintings—Jagt (Hunt), Nærmere (Closer), and Opstand (Surge)—will debut with Thaddaeus Ropac at TEFAF New York this week. Known for tempestuous, large-scale nocturnal scenes filled with writhing naked female bodies, Pade draws on influences from Edvard Munch, James Ensor, and Gustav Klimt, though she now works more intuitively. She signed with Thaddaeus Ropac in 2024 as the gallery's youngest represented artist and was featured in Artnet's Intelligence Report 'Zero to Hero' list for a major spike in search interest.

Artist Mel Kendrick Is Mining New Possibilities From Wood and Color

American artist Mel Kendrick, who began his career in the early 1970s integrating Minimalism and architecture, presents his ninth solo exhibition at David Nolan Gallery in New York. Titled “Mel Kendrick: Tilt,” the show runs through June 6, 2026, and features new and recent wood sculptures alongside older works, including pieces like *Walnut Shelf* (2026), *Gemstone* (2026), and *Yellow Drum* (2025). Kendrick works without pre-planning, allowing the material to guide his process, and treats color as a material with its own weight, inspired by Gothic and medieval architecture.

Lévy Gorvy Dayan Bets on Urgency With New LGD Hammer Sales Platform

Lévy Gorvy Dayan has launched LGD Hammer, a new sales platform that blends gallery exhibition with auction-style urgency. The first work offered is Willem de Kooning's *Milkmaid* (1984), estimated at $10–$15 million, which will be on view by appointment from May 2 until the sale on May 16. Gallery cofounder Dominique Lévy will serve as auctioneer, drawing on her Christie's experience, while bidding occurs by phone with online observation. Cofounder Brett Gorvy emphasized the platform is not a market overhaul but a response to slowed private sales and cautious collectors who still respond to competitive pressure.

Isabel Nolan’s Work Challenges Everything We Think We Know About Creativity

Artist Isabel Nolan recently discovered she has aphantasia, a rare neurological condition that prevents her from visualizing mental images. Despite this, Nolan has built a successful career creating abstract sculptures, drawings, and tapestries, and her work is featured in the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Her exhibition, "Dreamshook," explores themes of imagination versus reality and draws inspiration from late medieval history and the printer Aldo Manuzio.

How Will the Venice Biennale Impact Alma Allen’s Market?

Artist Alma Allen has been selected as America's representative at the Venice Biennale, sparking controversy due to the unusual selection process under President Trump. The pavilion is commissioned by the newly formed American Arts Conservancy, led by Jenni Parido, who previously ran a pet food lifestyle shop and entered Trump's orbit through Mar-a-Lago pet charity events. Following the announcement, Allen's galleries Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM dropped him, but he was quickly picked up by high-profile gallery Perrotin. The article examines how the Biennale and its attendant drama might affect Allen's market, noting his longtime collectors include Beth Rudin DeWoody, Peter Morton, Jack Pierson, and others, while his auction prices have remained modest.

Paula Rego review – tantalising drawings with the shoeprints left on them

Victoria Miro is hosting the largest exhibition of Paula Rego’s drawings to date, curated by the artist’s son, Nick Willing. Spanning from the 1950s until her death in 2022, the show features intimate pencil sketches, pastels, and ink drawings that reveal the foundational narratives of her career, including her early childhood sketches, her fierce opposition to the Salazar dictatorship, and her advocacy for women's rights.

'It was my job to create the view': US artist Liza Lou on making colourful works in her windowless warehouse

American artist Liza Lou discusses her recent shift in practice, moving from her famous large-scale bead installations to a new body of work that fuses oil painting with glass beads. After years of collaborative work in South Africa and focusing on monochrome tones, Lou has returned to a solitary studio practice in a windowless warehouse in the San Fernando Valley. This new phase is defined by a "headlong love affair with colour," inspired by the hallucinatory palette of the Mojave Desert and a transition from logical drawing to a more intuitive, freestyle process.

‘I wanted my work to be shameless’: 93-year-old artist Joan Semmel on her trailblazing nudes

Nonagenarian painter Joan Semmel is preparing for a major career moment with a retrospective at the Jewish Museum and a dual-city exhibition, 'Continuities', at Alexander Gray Associates in New York and Brussels. At 93, Semmel continues to produce large-scale, vibrant works from her SoHo studio that focus on the aging female nude, using her own body as a primary reference. The new works, including 'Here I Am' (2025), maintain her lifelong commitment to depicting the female form through a non-idealized, authentic lens that rejects the traditional male gaze.

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Artist Mia Westerlund Roosen is currently presenting a solo exhibition titled "Then and Now" at Nunu Fine Art in New York, on view through February 21. The show spans her work from the 1970s to the present, featuring sculptures and drawings that explore materiality and the human body, including her notable 1981 phallic forms *Heat* and *Conical*.

meet 5 artists transforming photography

Soho Beach House in Miami has reoriented its art collection around photography in late 2025, featuring works by established figures like Isaac Julien, JR, Laurie Simmons, Marilyn Minter, and Ming Smith alongside emerging artists such as René Matić, Caroline Allison, and Walead Beshty. The rehang, overseen by chief art director Kate Bryan, spans polaroids, performance-derived imagery, collage, and cameraless prints, with a focus on artists who use photography as a tool for broader inquiry.

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The Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery has opened "State Fairs: Growing American Craft," the first exhibition since the Trump administration's August 2025 audit of all Smithsonian exhibitions, didactics, and collections. The audit, based on an executive order to "restore truth and sanity to American history," condemned discussions of racism, sexism, and oppression as revisionist history. The exhibition features over 250 works from across the United States, spanning the 19th century to the present, arguing that regional state and tribal fairs are essential sites for the development of American craft. It includes spectacular pieces like a 12-foot pair of Lucchese boots, a life-size butter sculpture, and works by artists such as Morgan Hill, Kelly Bohnenkamp, Betty Spindler, Linda Nez, Kaye D. Miller, and Peggie Hartwell.

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Caribbean British artist Winston Branch is the subject of his inaugural solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery in London, titled “Out of the Calabash.” The show features new and recent works alongside a historical piece, *Blue for Miles* (1982), and follows the announcement of his global representation by Goodman Gallery in partnership with Varvara Roza Galleries. Branch, who first exhibited at the alternative art space Arts Lab led by Jim Hanes nearly six decades ago, creates abstract paintings that explore light and color, often working on canvas placed on the floor.

artists dealers

A growing number of prominent art dealers across New York, London, Los Angeles, Brussels, and Reykjavik began their careers as artists, not salespeople. Figures like Jack Hanley, Sebastian Gladstone, Börkur Arnarson of i8 Gallery, and the team behind Galerie Sardine (Joe Bradley and Valentina Akerman) all transitioned from studio practice to gallery ownership. The article explores how their firsthand experience as artists shapes their approach to representing others, from patience with the creative process to building artist-centered business models.

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Miami Art Week 2025 features three interrelated fairs—Art Miami, Context Art Miami, and Aqua Art Miami—running from December 2–7. Art Miami, celebrating its 35th year at One Herald Plaza, hosts over 160 galleries from 24 countries with blue-chip and emerging works, including a never-before-seen Alex Katz piece and Keith Haring's Subway Drawings. Context Art Miami returns for its 13th edition as a platform for emerging and mid-career artists with nearly 70 galleries, while Aqua Art Miami on Miami Beach transforms the Aqua Hotel into an intimate fair space for its 19th year.

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Artist Fulton Leroy Washington, known as Mr. Wash, is establishing the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, a 13,000-square-foot campus in Compton, California, to serve recently incarcerated individuals and local youth. Released in 2016 after President Barack Obama commuted his life sentence for nonviolent drug offenses, Mr. Wash taught art in prison for 18 years and later gained recognition in the art world, including a breakout appearance at the 2020 Made in L.A. biennial. The center, designed pro bono by Morphosis Architects and The NOW Institute, will offer art-making instruction, studio space, materials, and exhibition opportunities, with the goal of connecting emerging artists to curators and galleries. The project is currently fundraising $100,000 for its first phase, with completion targeted for 2028.

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The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat is releasing a new screenprint titled *King Alphonso*, available from Pace Prints starting November 5. Produced in an edition of 60, the print reproduces a 1982–83 drawing in acrylic and charcoal, referencing the Spanish monarch Alfonso XIII, known as “El Africano.” The work will be stamped and signed by Basquiat’s sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, administrators of his estate. The announcement follows recent estate activities, including the 2022 “King Pleasure” exhibition in New York and the designation of Great Jones Street as “Jean-Michel Basquiat Way.”

tilton gallery closure

Tilton Gallery in New York has announced that its upcoming exhibition, featuring late abstract painter Ruth Vollmer, will be its last. The show runs from September 30 to November 15, after which the gallery will vacate its Upper East Side space. The decision was made by Connie Rogers Tilton, Jack Tilton's widow, who has run the gallery since his death in 2017. She stated it is time to pursue her own projects in a more private setting. The gallery was founded in 1983 by Jack Tilton, who previously worked for Betty Parsons, and was known for launching careers of artists like Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, and Glenn Ligon, as well as promoting Chinese artists in the 1990s.

art dealer mary boone says prison was very relaxing

Mary Boone, the influential New York art dealer, has reemerged in the art world five years after her release from prison. She collaborated with Lévy Gorvy Dayan on the exhibition “Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties,” featuring artists she championed like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ross Bleckner, Keith Haring, and Julian Schnabel. In a recent interview with New York magazine, Boone described her time at Danbury Correctional as “very relaxing,” noting she went to the gym daily and read a book a day. She also revealed that Martha Stewart advised her to get a criminal lawyer early in her tax evasion case, though Boone initially ignored the suggestion. Boone served 13 months of a 30-month sentence after securing early release during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Robert Grosvenor, a sculptor known for his idiosyncratic works that initially aligned with Minimalism before evolving into unclassifiable forms, died in New York at age 88. His death was confirmed by Paula Cooper Gallery, with no cause given. Grosvenor gained prominence in the 1960s through exhibitions like "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum and later created spare, industrial sculptures ranging from ceiling-piercing steel forms to altered car-like objects and works incorporating creosote and water. He appeared in two editions of Documenta and the 2022 Venice Biennale, and a survey of his work opened at the Fridericianum museum in Kassel just days before his death.

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Walter Swennen, a Belgian artist who began his career as a poet before turning to painting, has died at age 79. His death was announced by his gallery, Xavier Hufkens, without specifying a cause. Swennen was known for his playful, language-infused paintings that combined cryptic phrases, comic-book-like figures, and unconventional materials such as found wood and metal. He rose to prominence in Belgium alongside other painters interested in materiality, but his work stood out for its freewheeling humor and destabilization of meaning. A major retrospective at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels in 2013 helped revive his career, leading to later shows at Gladstone Gallery in New York and a growing international following.

rena bransten gallery

Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a series of exhibitions highlighting key moments in its history. The second installment, "RBG at 50: Photo & Video," on view through August 23, 2025, features works by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Sophie Calle, Jim Campbell, and Vik Muniz. The show traces the gallery's expansion beyond its original focus on ceramics, which began in 1979 with a solo exhibition of photographer Judith Golden. Highlights include Sophie Calle's "La Robe de Mariee" (1989) and a photograph by Dawoud Bey documenting a performance by David Hammons.