Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 20 link 8 artists

zohran mamdani best museum new york subway system

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared in a New York Times interview that the city's best museum is its subway system, citing the public artworks by artists like Vito Acconci, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Faith Ringgold, and Jeffrey Gibson that are accessible to all riders. He praised the MTA for making art available regardless of income, while also expressing interest in visiting the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, and crediting his wife, illustrator Rama Duwaji, for expanding his appreciation of art beyond formal settings.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

jacques louis david versailles

The Palace of Versailles has agreed to reexamine the provenance of a Jacques-Louis David sketchbook from 1790 after a Radio France investigation revealed it was looted by the Nazis during World War II. The sketchbook was stolen from Professor Lereboullet in July 1940, sold by Munich's Karl and Faber gallery in 1943, then acquired by dealer Otto Wertheimer before being purchased by Versailles in 1951. The museum claims it was unaware of the theft, and France's ministry of culture has promised further research and discussions with the descendants.

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person people schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 20 link 9 artists

christina vassallo leaving contemporary arts center cincinnati pew center for arts heritage

Christina Vassallo is leaving her role as director of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, Ohio, effective January 2, 2026, to become the new director of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia starting January 5, 2026. Vassallo, who joined the CAC in 2023, oversaw exhibitions including a group show celebrating the 20th anniversary of Zaha Hadid's first completed US building, as well as solo shows by Vivian Browne, Marcus Leslie Singleton, and Sheida Soleimani. Prior to the CAC, she served as executive director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Spaces in Cleveland, and Flux Factory in New York.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

brazil library heist matisse

Brazilian authorities arrested one suspect after an armed robbery at São Paulo's Mário de Andrade Library on Sunday, where two thieves stole eight Henri Matisse engravings and works by Brazilian painter Candido Portinari. The artworks were displayed in a glass vitrine as part of the exhibition “From the Book to the Museum,” which was set to close November 30. The thieves held up a security guard and a couple, stuffed the items into a canvas bag, and discarded some works near a rubbish heap during their escape, partially captured by facial recognition cameras. The second suspect remains at large, and the library has not disclosed which specific works were taken.

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person people schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 21 link 8 artists

ralph lemon artnews awards 2025 lifetime achievement

Ralph Lemon has been awarded the 2025 ARTnews Lifetime Achievement Award for his multidisciplinary practice spanning dance, drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, and writing. The article highlights his career trajectory from founding the Ralph Lemon Dance Company to disbanding it in 1995 to focus on broader artistic collaborations. Central to his work is the Geography Trilogy (1996–2004) and his long-term collaboration with Walter Carter, a former Mississippi sharecropper, whose life and family became a recurring subject. Lemon's recent exhibition "Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon" at MoMA PS1 (November 14, 2024–March 24, 2025), curated by Connie Butler and Thomas Lax, featured videos, found African sculptures, drawings, and a four-channel performance piece, Rant (redux), with Kevin Beasley and Okwui Okpokwasili.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 18 link 4 artists

legacies asian american artists 2025 artnews awards 80wse

The article reviews "Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City," an exhibition at 80WSE in New York, curated by Howie Chen, Jayne Cole Southard, and christina ong, running from September 11 to December 20, 2024. Billed as the first institutional survey of Asian American artists in New York City, the show features 90 artists and spans the period from 1969 to 2001, centering on three key organizations: Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, the Basement Workshop, and the Asian American Arts Centre. The exhibition highlights how many of these artists did not solely make work about their race, complicating the link between identity and art, and includes lesser-known pieces such as David Diao's 1974 painting "Odd Man Out" and a provocative 1985 photograph by Hanh Thi Pham.

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article news schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 27 link 38 artists

artnews awards 2025 jury

The second annual ARTnews Awards have announced their 2025 winners, selected by a jury of five esteemed US-based curators: Ryan N. Dennis (Co-Director & Chief Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), Anne Ellegood (Executive Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), Rosario Güiraldes (Curator of Visual Arts, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis), Ruba Katrib (Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, MoMA PS1, New York), and Victoria Sung (Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive). These jurors reviewed exhibitions held between August 2024 and July 2025, meeting twice alongside two ARTnews senior editors to nominate and select winners across six categories.

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article culture schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 22 link 6 artists

burton the meeting on the turret stairs

The article explores Frederic William Burton's iconic Victorian watercolor *Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs* (1864), held at the National Gallery of Ireland. It recounts the tragic medieval Danish ballad that inspired the painting, in which the noblewoman Hellelil and her guard Heldebrand are doomed lovers. Burton, an Irish painter influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, worked exclusively in watercolor and gouache, making this delicate piece a technical marvel. The museum displays it only one hour twice weekly to protect it from light damage.

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article culture schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 15 link 11 artists

art bites facts holiday small talk

Artnet News offers a lighthearted holiday guide with seven art-historical conversation starters designed to deflect awkward family small talk. The article reveals quirky facts such as a secret apartment atop the Eiffel Tower, the Surrealists' party game 'Exquisite Corpse,' Leonardo da Vinci's role as a wedding planner for Milan's nobility, Marcel Duchamp paying his dentist with a fake check, and Frank Lloyd Wright inspiring Lincoln Logs.

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article news schedule Dec 5, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

lucas museum of narrative art pilar tompkins rivas departs

Pilar Tompkins Rivas, chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, has left her post, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Her departure is the latest in a series of leadership exits at the institution, which is set to open on September 22, 2026. The museum was founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, and Rivas was one of six women of color appointed to high-ranking roles in 2020 by then director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont, who left in February. The museum laid off 15 employees in May, and CEO duties are now held on an interim basis by Jim Gianopulos, while Lucas himself oversees curatorial content.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

m f husain museum qatar

Qatar has unveiled a new museum dedicated entirely to the late Indian Modernist artist M.F. Husain, titled Lawh Wa Qalam: M.F. Husain Museum. Located in Doha's Education City, the museum houses over 150 artworks spanning from the 1950s to his death in 2011, including paintings, poetry, photography, tapestries, sculptures, and installations. The museum, opened on November 28 by the Qatar Foundation chaired by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, fulfills a long-held dream of the artist, who was granted Qatari citizenship in 2010 after self-imposed exile from India. The building was designed by architect Martand Khosla based on a sketch Husain himself created for his envisioned museum.

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person people schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 16 link 10 artists

komal shah making their mark foundation forum launch

Komal Shah, a prominent art collector, announced the renaming of her Shah Garg Foundation to the Making Their Mark Foundation, coinciding with a three-day forum in Washington, D.C., scheduled for March 2025. The foundation takes its name from the traveling exhibition "Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection," curated by Cecilia Alemani, which highlights women artists from Shah and her husband Gaurav Garg's collection. The forum, held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, will feature panels, keynotes, and performances organized around themes like Visionary Voices and Changemakers, with Alemani as curatorial director and Loring Randolph as director.

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article local schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 17 link 10 artists

miami water taxis basel

Miami is expanding its free water taxi service and shuttle routes for Art Week 2024, which coincides with Art Basel Miami Beach. The city will increase the number of water taxis from four to seven, operating between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park and the Venetian Marina, with service running from December 1 to December 7. Shuttles will connect the convention center to the Design District, mid-beach, and South Beach, where fairs like SCOPE, Untitled Art, SATELLITE, and Aqua Art Miami are held. The Transit mobile app will track all services in real time.

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article culture schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 23 link 22 artists

art in america winter collaborations issue

The winter collaborations issue of Art in America explores the often unglamorous, slow-paced nature of creative work, challenging the social-media-driven perception of art-making as fast and dramatic. The issue features pieces on Ira Sachs's film *Peter Hujar's Day*, which depicts the artist's mundane daily routine, and an interview with Chicago-based artists Nick Cave and Bob Faust, who discuss their collaborative practice and the perceived lack of drama in their process. Other highlights include features on Talia Chetrit's fashion-art boundary work, Mernet Larsen's multi-perspective paintings, and the role of licensing agreements with artists' estates.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 16 link 9 artists

norton museum of art the leiden collection rembrandt

The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, is hosting "Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection," an exhibition featuring 17 Rembrandt paintings from the largest private collection of his works. The show includes over 200 additional paintings and drawings by Dutch Golden Age artists such as Frans Hals, Carel Fabritius, and Johannes Vermeer, including the only Vermeer painting held in private hands. The exhibition marks the first major Rembrandt show in Florida and the largest U.S. exhibition of 17th-century Dutch paintings from a private collection, timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of New Amsterdam's founding.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 28, 2025 visibility 21 link 3 artists

christies london to sell third part of sam josefowitzs rembrandt print collection in december

Christie’s London will auction the third and final part of Sam Josefowitz’s Rembrandt print collection on December 3, featuring 101 etchings by the Dutch master. The sale, titled “The Sam Josefowitz Collection: Graphic Masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn – Part III,” follows two previous installments that together brought £13.5 million. A highlight is the rare portrait *Arnout Tholinx, Inspector* (circa 1656), estimated at up to £2.5 million, described as the last impression in private hands. The collection was amassed by Josefowitz, a Lithuanian-born entrepreneur who built a mail-order business before his death in 2015.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 28, 2025 visibility 18 link 8 artists

magrittes empire of light history

René Magritte’s *L’empire des lumières* series, comprising 17 oil paintings and 10 gouaches created between the late 1940s and early 1960s, juxtaposes a nocturnal street scene with a bright daytime sky. The article explores the origins, meaning, and market performance of these works, noting that they were inspired by a line from André Breton’s poem *L’Aigrette* and reflect Magritte’s own Brussels neighborhood. Recent auction sales have shattered records, including a 1954 version that sold for $121.2 million at Christie’s New York in November 2024, making it the most expensive Surrealist artwork ever sold at auction.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 27, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

roni horn mca denver

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has organized the first exhibition dedicated to conceptual artist Roni Horn's long-standing engagement with water. Titled "Roni Horn: Water, Water on the Wall, You're the Fairest of Them All," the show spans sculpture, photography, drawing, and bookmaking, exploring water's mutability, ecological resonance, and paradoxical purity. Horn, who has received a Ford Foundation grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, and three NEA fellowships, has shown at major institutions including the Menil Collection, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, and Tate Modern, and is represented by Hauser and Wirth.

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article policy schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 19 link 14 artists

museums finances

Museums worldwide are urgently searching for new financial models as government funding declines, wealthy patrons pull back, and corporate sponsors face pressure. A global study published in January by the International Research Alliance on Public Funding for Museums found that in 37 percent of responding countries, 71 to 100 percent of museums now receive most funding from private sources. Institutions are exploring endowments, new revenue streams, and collaborative approaches, with the Louvre becoming the first French museum to create an endowment fund in 2009, raising €175 million. The $85 trillion Great Wealth Transfer offers hope, but next-generation donors prioritize transparency and meaningful engagement over prestige.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 22 link 9 artists

performa 2025 aria dean diane severin nguyen sylvie fleury

The article recounts the author's experience at the 2025 Performa biennial in New York, beginning on November 4 with the death of Dick Cheney and the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor. The author attended Diane Severin Nguyen's performance "War Songs," which restaged historical protest concerts from the Vietnam War era, blending anti-war anthems with pop music. The piece also highlights missing performances by Lina Lapelytė and Ayoung Kim, and expresses anticipation for Aria Dean's play "The Color Scheme."

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person people schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

keith haring foundation simon castets

The Keith Haring Foundation has appointed Simon Castets, a French American curator formerly of Luma Arles and the Swiss Institute, as its next executive director, effective January 12. Castets will oversee the foundation's collection of Haring's work, its archives, and its grant-making program, which disbursed $7.7 million in 2025, including major gifts to the Studio Museum in Harlem and Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies. Upcoming exhibitions include a Brant Foundation show on Haring's early work and Crystal Bridges Museum's "Keith Haring in 3D."

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trending_up market schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 11 link 7 artists

art market minute nov 24

Last week's New York marquee auctions saw record-breaking sales and billions of dollars in transactions, providing a much-needed boost of confidence after nearly three years of market contraction. The article reviews top sales and notable flops from the week, analyzing how these results are shaping the current market outlook.

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article news schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 15 link 4 artists

frank lloyd wright usonian home jackson mississippi

The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) has acquired Fountainhead, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Usonian home in Jackson, Mississippi, for $1 million. The residence, built in 1954 for oilman J. Willis Hughes, is one of only four Wright homes in the state and the only one listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was sold by the estate of late architect Robert Parker Adams, who had restored the property after purchasing it in 1980. The museum plans to preserve the home and open it to the public as a cultural destination.

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article news schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 30 link 21 artists, 4 galleries

photo archive historic new york gallery shows

The New York Gallery History Project has launched its first installment: an online archive of Jay Gorney Modern Art, which operated from 1985 to 1998. The archive documents over 90 exhibitions held at the gallery, featuring artists such as Catherine Opie, Jessica Stockholder, Gillian Wearing, Haim Steinbach, and Martha Rosler. The material includes installation views, artwork images, and original invitations, all digitized from analog transparencies and slides. The project is an initiative of the Independent art fair and the Contemporary Art Library, a Los Angeles nonprofit.

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article news schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 22 link 18 artists

anonymous was a woman 2025 grant winners

Anonymous Was a Woman, a grant-making organization supporting woman-identifying artists, has announced 15 recipients of its $50,000 grants for 2025. The winners include Candida Alvarez, Park McArthur, Lola Flash, Kunié Sugiura, and Sonya Kelliher-Combs, among others. Founder Susan Unterberg, who initially remained anonymous, revealed herself in 2018 and named the organization after a Virginia Woolf quotation. The grants are primarily for artists over 40, and the organization has recently expanded to fund environmentally minded projects.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 24 link 10 artists

sothebys lauder day sale

Sotheby's held a day sale on Wednesday featuring 30 works from the collection of cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, generating $3.84 million against an estimate of $2.22 million to $3.29 million. The sale followed a strong Tuesday auction led by a Gustav Klimt portrait from Lauder's collection that achieved the second-highest price ever for an artwork at auction. Standout results included works by Dorothea Rockburne, Elizabeth Murray, and Lyonel Feininger that far exceeded their estimates, while a Claes Oldenburg sculpture sold for $444,500, the top price of the day.

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article culture schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 21 link 7 artists

peter hujar day biopic ira sachs

Filmmaker Ira Sachs has released a new film titled *Peter Hujar's Day*, based on a 1974 audio recording and subsequent book by writer Linda Rosenkrantz. The film captures a single day in the life of photographer Peter Hujar, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1987, as he recounts mundane details and artistic anxieties to Rosenkrantz. Starring Ben Whishaw as Hujar and Rebecca Hall as Rosenkrantz, the movie adapts a transcript Rosenkrantz rediscovered and published in 2021. Sachs describes the project as an exploration of portraiture, light, and emotion, contrasting with his earlier, more turbulent film *Passages*.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 16 link 8 artists

basquiat crowns peso neto sothebys auction

An early Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, *Crowns (Peso Neto)* (1981), sold for $48.3 million at Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale on Tuesday night, exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $35–45 million. The work, making its auction debut, was created when Basquiat was 21 and features his signature motifs of crowns, black faces, and cartographic lines. Bidding lasted five minutes, with Sotheby’s chairman for China Jen Hua winning on behalf of a phone client. The painting had been held in three private collections over four decades and was previously exhibited at Basquiat’s first solo show at Annina Nosei, documenta 7, the Whitney Museum, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 13 link 7 artists

auguste rodin egyptian collection exhibition nyu isaw

A new exhibition titled “Rodin’s Egypt” opens November 19 at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), exploring how ancient Egyptian art influenced Auguste Rodin’s sculptures. Guest curated by Bénédicte Garnier of the Musée Rodin in Paris, the show features 65 objects, including Rodin’s rarely seen assemblages that combine his plaster casts with Egyptian antiquities from his personal collection of over 1,000 Egyptian items. This marks the first US exhibition of Rodin’s Egyptian holdings.

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article news schedule Nov 15, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist, 3 galleries

hauser wirth charged by uk authorities for breaching criminal sanctions

UK tax authority HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has charged mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth with breaching criminal sanctions by allegedly making a luxury artwork available to a person connected with Russia. The case involves a 2021 work-on-paper by George Condo titled *Escape from Humanity*, sold by the gallery between April and December 2022, after the UK banned luxury goods exports to Russia-linked individuals in April 2022. The gallery, along with shipping company Artay Rauchwerger Solomons, faces charges under the sanctions law, which was enacted following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hauser & Wirth has stated it strongly contests the charge and intends to plead not guilty.

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