ArtReview Podcast | Episode 3: Noémie Goudal
The ArtReview Podcast released its third episode featuring an interview with artist Noémie Goudal. Hosted by ArtReview editor J.J. Charlesworth, the conversation explores Goudal's practice through three selected artworks, touching on VR technology, the representation of time in photography, and the concept of 'immersiveness' in contemporary art.
April in Los Angeles features a diverse array of art exhibitions, from major institutional retrospectives to politically charged group shows. Highlights include a 60-year retrospective of the influential printmaking studio Gemini G.E.L. at its own space, a survey of the Grunwald Center at the Hammer Museum, and shows celebrating LA performance art icons Bob & Bob and Rachel Rosenthal. The month also sees a newly discovered collection of matchbook miniatures by Joe Brainard and Dave Muller's work on social connection at ArtCenter.
Hyperallergic reports on the 2026 Venice Biennale, with Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara criticizing the U.S. pavilion's exhibition of Alma Allen's work as a disappointing departure from the previous editions' profound explorations of Indigenous life and Black sovereignty. Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian offers a positive review of the main exhibition "In Minor Keys," while Greta Rainbow covers a poetry procession honoring the late artistic director Koyo Kouoh. Additional stories include a review of the film "The Christophers" about an artist and forger, and news of workers at the American Folk Art Museum picketing for higher wages.
Christophe Leribault, the new director of the Louvre, has outlined his vision for the museum following a $100 million heist in October 2025. The Apollo Gallery, where the theft occurred, will reopen in July with a redesigned display that removes mineral cases to highlight its Romantic wall paintings, inspired by Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors. Empress Eugénie’s diamond-and-emerald crown, crushed by the thieves, is being restored and will become a new highlight. Security upgrades include window bars, 100 new cameras by 2026, a mobile police station, and a new security coordinator. The heist led to the resignation of former director Laurence des Cars in February.
Hyperallergic's May guide for Los Angeles highlights ten art shows, including a posthumous exhibition of Celeste Dupuy-Spencer's paintings at Jeffrey Deitch, Yoko Ono's first solo museum show in Southern California at The Broad, and a survey of Richard Mayhew's abstract landscapes at Karma. Other notable shows include Joe Brainard's matchbook miniatures at Chris Sharp Gallery, Gordon Parks's musical output at the California African American Museum, and a two-venue presentation of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess's ceramics and drawings.
Art communities and heritage in Iran, moderate recovery in the art market, Sydney Biennale—podcast
The latest episode of The Week in Art podcast covers three main topics. First, it discusses the impact of the ongoing Middle East conflict on cultural communities and heritage sites in Iran and Lebanon, including damage to the Chehel Sotoun palace in Isfahan. Second, it analyzes the new Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, which indicates a market recovery but reveals a complex picture. Third, it features a new installation by Indigenous American artist Cannupa Hanska Luger at the Sydney Biennale, consisting of ceramic dingo skulls, which has gained relevance following a recent tragedy in Australia.
Ki Smith Gallery in New York is hosting "50 years of PUNK," an exhibition honoring the seminal punk magazine that launched in 1975. Running through January 11, the show features ephemera, new artworks, and issues 24 and 25 of the magazine, which famously covered bands like the Ramones and Lou Reed. The exhibition opened on November 28, marking 50 years since PUNK interviewed Reed and the Ramones at CBGB's. Co-curated by gallery founder Ki Smith and PUNK co-founder John Holmstrom, the show celebrates the magazine's DIY spirit and its role in shaping punk culture.
Thailand is emerging as a major contemporary art destination, with a wave of new institutions, fairs, and tax incentives drawing international attention. The government-initiated Thailand Biennale opens in Phuket, while the third and final edition of the Ghost biennial just concluded in Bangkok. Collector Marisa Chearavanont recently opened Bangkok Kunsthalle and Kai Yao Art Forest, and Purat “Chang” Osathanugrah is launching Dib Bangkok, billed as the country’s first international contemporary art museum, on December 21. New York dealer Harper Levine plans to open a Bangkok outpost of his Harper’s gallery in spring, and Seoul-based Artue is planning a scaled-up art fair called Art Bangkok International for next year. In August, the Thai government approved tax deductions for purchasing artworks by national artists and higher tax breaks for artists.
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, a textile artist born in 1949 in Sacramento, has spent decades creating works that confront the US-Mexico border. In 2009, she was invited to participate in the group exhibition “Xicana: Spiritual Reflections/Reflexiones Espirituales” at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California. Faced with a blank museum wall, she decided to “blow up the border,” creating her first large-scale installation, *Undocumented Border Flowers* (2010), which features a red gash representing the border surrounded by paper flowers of the four border states. This work launched her ongoing “BORDERLINES” series, which she has produced some 15 times across the country, often collaborating with schoolchildren or recently incarcerated women. Her practice is deeply personal: her father was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico of Huichol ancestry, and she spent her childhood as a migrant farmworker, following harvests along Highway 99. Her first woven artwork, *C.C. Huelga* (1974), was inspired by the United Farm Workers flag and leader César Chávez.
Qui est Yto Barrada, représentante de la France à la Biennale de Venise avec une œuvre-monde ?
Yto Barrada, the artist representing France at the 2026 Venice Biennale, has created a multidisciplinary installation titled "Saturne" for the French Pavilion. The work centers on textiles and natural dyeing, weaving together themes of postcolonial history, migration, craft transmission, and the symbolism of Saturn—from its astronomical mystery to its mythological role as the devourer of children. The installation features wool curtains, Aubusson tapestry, goat skins, wasp-nest sculptures, masks, muzzles, a color chart, and video, all housed in a renovated pavilion designed with the help of numerous artisans. Barrada, born in Paris in 1971 and raised in Tangier, founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger and later The Mothership, a research center focused on textiles and natural dyes. The exhibition is curated by Myriam Ben Salah.
The 2026 Venice Biennale is embroiled in multiple controversies, including the cancellation and reinstatement of Australia's representative artist Khaled Sabsabi, ongoing calls to bar Israel from participating, criticism over allowing Russia to participate, and mounting voices to exclude the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump's actions in Iran. Despite these disputes, the article highlights that many of the city's most exciting shows will take place away from the main Biennale venues.
A legal battle over a collection of 1,800 paintings attributed to Russian modernist masters has escalated after the litigation funder backing the claimants, LitFin, raised concerns it may have been misled about the works' authenticity. The funder is now in a dispute with the claimants, the family of the late Palestinian collector Uthman Khatib, over halted payments and control of the lawsuits, which seek the return of the paintings or $323 million from Israeli-Russian businessman Mozes Frisch, who is accused of stealing them.
A group of cultural leaders including Kristina Newman-Scott, Heather Hubbs, Franklin Sirmans, Maribel Pérez-Wadsworth, and Sarah Harrelson hosted a launch party at Tropezón Miami for ECOLOGIES, a four-day series of public programming presented by NADA, the Knight Foundation, Pérez Art Museum, and CULTURED. The event featured tapas and tequilas, with guests including philanthropists Jorge and Darlene Pérez, artist Anastasia Samoylova, and NADA Director Heather Hubbs, among many others. Attendees received a copy of 'The Deep State: Art, Culture & Florida' as a parting gift.
This article from Cultured magazine presents a roundup of five distinct stories spanning art, culture, and technology. It features a new column by psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster in conversation with artist Mindy Seu about digital libidinal history; an analysis of the declining photography auction market by collector Ralph DeLuca; a review of the Los Angeles art scene by Juliana Halpert; a guide to Paris Art Week following a heist at the Louvre and the opening of Art Basel Paris; and a report on the Fondation Louis Vuitton's retrospective of Gerhard Richter curated by Nicholas Serota and Dieter Schwarz.
The Louvre has announced an international team of architects—New York's Selldorf Architects and Studios Architecture Paris—to lead its "Nouvelle Renaissance" expansion, a project estimated to cost over €1 billion ($1.2 billion). The plan, first announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in early 2025, includes a new entrance to accommodate three million additional visitors annually and a dedicated 33,000-square-foot exhibition space for Leonardo da Vinci's *Mona Lisa*. The museum's new director, Christophe Leribault, is moving forward with the project despite significant budget uncertainty, with cost estimates ranging from €270 million to €1.1 billion.
The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) has reopened with a weekly rotating post-ceasefire program called 'Art and War,' following weeks of bombardment that forced its closure and prompted emergency efforts to protect its collection. The program began with works by American Pop artists James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Indiana, and this week features three works from Pablo Picasso's Weeping Woman series, focusing on Spain. Museum director Reza Dabirinezhad described the challenges of safeguarding the collection during US-Israeli strikes, including removing 80% of the oil from Noriyuki Haraguchi's installation 'Matter and Mind' (1977) to prevent fire risk, and protecting outdoor sculptures by Henry Moore, René Magritte, and Max Bill.
Tate Britain will stage a major exhibition titled "The 90s: Art and Fashion" this autumn, curated by former British Vogue editor Edward Enninful. The show will feature nearly 70 artists, photographers, and designers, including Steve McQueen, Chris Ofili, Damien Hirst, Alexander McQueen, and Tracey Emin, alongside works by Juergen Teller, Mark Leckey, and others. It will explore the decade's art, fashion, and club culture, with pieces such as McQueen's film "Bear" (1993), Ofili's Turner Prize-winning "No Woman, No Cry" (1998), and images from Manchester's Haçienda and London's Bagley's nightclubs.
The article focuses on the curatorial approach and artistic ethos of the 2025 edition of the 'Made in L.A.' biennial, highlighting how artists are actively engaging with pressing social and political issues rather than retreating into quietism or abstraction. It examines specific works and the overall thematic drive of the exhibition, which is organized by the Hammer Museum and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Alma Allen, a sculptor known for sleek, abstract works, has been selected to represent the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale, marking the country's 250th anniversary. The selection process, run by the US State Department and funded by the newly formed American Arts Conservancy—which the article notes is stocked with Trump allies—has drawn criticism for favoring politically neutral art. Allen's sculptures, often made of marble and wood with digital technology, are described as aesthetically inoffensive and reminiscent of Constantin Brâncuși, with no apparent commentary on current US issues.
Former Sotheby's rainmaker Brooke Lampley, now a director at Gagosian, discusses the art market's loss of control over pricing, citing a failed $70 million Alberto Giacometti bust at auction as a symptom of deeper market confidence issues. The article traces the evolution of art pricing from opaque, dealer-driven norms to a data-rich system enabled by Artnet's Price Database in 1989, which fueled a price spiral and attracted speculators. Now, in 2025, the market faces a correction with auction sales down 27.3 percent to $10.2 billion, and buyers are pausing as traditional pricing signals become scrambled.
András Szántó has published the third volume of his trilogy on the future of museums and the art world, titled "The Future of the Art World." The book compiles 38 interviews conducted between April 2024 and June 2025 with a wide range of art-world stakeholders, including artists, curators, collectors, dealers, auctioneers, art fair directors, sociologists, philosophers, and policymakers. Unlike his previous books, which focused on museum directors and architects, this volume gives significant voice to artists, who offer provocative critiques and predictions about the future of museums, art education, and digital art.
Sotheby's London modern and contemporary evening sale brought in $85.7 million, down from $105 million last year, with highlights including a $10 million Tamara de Lempicka and a record $9.6 million auction result for Jenny Saville's drawing 'Mirror'. In other market news, a crowdfunding campaign raised over £100,000 to help Bristol Museum acquire a rediscovered J.M.W. Turner painting, and a Tiffany Studio window sold for $4.2 million at Christie's. Galleries announced new representation deals: James Cohan now represents Ranti Bam, Maruani Mercier represents Kate Gottgens, and Yancey Richardson represents Karen Gunderson; Ronchini gallery is moving to a new Mayfair location. Tate launched a £150 million endowment fund, the Louvre announced an international architectural competition to address overcrowding, the Uffizi imposed selfie restrictions after a tourist damaged a painting, the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired a rare Giambologna marble, and Italy's culture minister pledged support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.
Pope Francis became the first pontiff in history to visit the Venice Biennale, touring the Vatican's Holy See pavilion at the 60th edition on April 28, 2024. The exhibition, titled "With My Eyes," was installed inside a women's prison on Giudecca Island and featured works by artists including Maurizio Cattelan, Simone Fattal, and Corita Kent. The pope met with about 80 female inmates, delivered a speech on art's power to address societal ills, and praised the contributions of women artists such as Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois. He also held an open-air mass in St. Mark's Square and spoke with young people at Santa María della Salute.
Ei Arakawa-Nash, a Japanese American performance artist, was selected to represent Japan at the 61st Venice Biennale, becoming the first non-Japanese national to do so in a solo presentation. This follows his first solo museum exhibition, "Paintings Are Popstars," at Tokyo's National Art Center in 2024, which was also the center's first solo show devoted to a performance artist. In an interview with ArtReview, Arakawa-Nash discusses his naturalization as a U.S. citizen, his complex relationship with national identity, and his upcoming Venice exhibition titled "Grass Babies, Moon Babies," cocurated by Lisa Horikawa and Takahashi Mizuki, which will explore themes of care and reparation using babies as a central motif.
Hyperallergic's guide highlights 10 exhibitions opening in Upstate New York this May, including the Hessel Museum of Art's annual showcase of thesis exhibitions by graduates of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, featuring works by Alice Aycock, Arthur Jafa, Mike Kelley, and Ana Mendieta. Other notable shows include Daniele Frazier's camera-less photography at September Gallery, Onnis Luque's investigation into resource exploitation at Art Omi, and Japanese woodblock prints at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. The guide also covers Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo's mixed-media works and Maria Auxiliadora da Silva's paintings.
Acclaimed painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer has passed away at the age of 46 in Los Angeles, just days before a scheduled solo exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch’s gallery. Known for her visceral and politically charged figurative works, Dupuy-Spencer gained national recognition for her contributions to the 2017 Whitney Biennial and the 2018 Made in LA biennial. Her practice often deconstructed American mythologies, the rise of domestic fascism, and global human rights issues, including a high-profile stance against the conflict in Gaza.
D’Agnès Varda à Giuseppe Penone, l’étrange passion des artistes pour les patates décryptée à Aubenas
The article explores the exhibition "Des patates" at Le Château – Centre d'Art Contemporain et du Patrimoine in Aubenas, France, which celebrates the humble potato as an artistic subject. It highlights how filmmaker and visual artist Agnès Varda turned potatoes into art with her 2003 Venice Biennale project "Patatutopia," dressing as a potato and scattering 700 kilos of tubers, inspired by her documentary *Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse*. The show also features works by Giuseppe Penone, Michel Blazy, Valérie Geissbühler Pacheco, and Lucas Chanoine, all using potatoes to explore themes of consumption, waste, colonialism, and the cycle of life.
New York institutions are presenting nuanced exhibitions for the US's 250th birthday, offering both patriotic and critical perspectives on the American Revolution. The Grey Art Museum at NYU displays one of the 26 surviving Dunlap broadsides of the Declaration of Independence alongside over 100 contextual documents in "The Declaration of Independence: Long Trail to Liberty," while the Museum of the City of New York's "The Occupied City" immerses visitors in the British occupation of New York, featuring interactive elements like toppling a digital effigy of King George III.
Paris-based artist Iván Argote launches a new mobile sculpture titled DIGNIDAD in Chicago on June 12, installed on a flatbed truck that will travel through the city. The project, organized by the Floating Museum as part of its Floating Monuments series, begins in Humboldt Park—a neighborhood central to Chicago's Puerto Rican community—and will also visit Pilsen, Little Village, and potentially other cities like Dallas and Minneapolis. Argote, known for his giant pigeon sculpture Dinosaur on the High Line, worked with curator Carla Acevedo-Yates and local communities to create a work that responds to current political tensions around immigration and dignity.
A significant number of American art museums are currently without a permanent director, or will soon be. Recent departures include Sally Tallant from the Queens Museum to lead London's Hayward Gallery, and David Brenneman from Telfair Museums due to a medical condition. Other high-profile vacancies include the National Portrait Gallery, MOCA Los Angeles, the New Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Clark Art Institute, the Newark Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among many others across various budget sizes and regions.