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Herman Miller has launched the New Mexico Collection, a limited-edition furniture line inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's desert home in Abiquiú, New Mexico. Created in collaboration with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the collection includes the Eames Wire Chair Low Base (300 pieces, $1,995) and the Girard Snake Table (100 pieces, $895), both drawing on O'Keeffe's friendship with textile designer and architect Alexander Girard. The chair reimagines a prototype gifted to O'Keeffe by Charles and Ray Eames, while the table is based on a never-produced Girard design from the 1950s.

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The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) will host the 2025 Museums of Tomorrow Roundtable (MTR) from May 11-17, bringing together 14 global museum leaders and technology firms including Adobe, Anthropic, Bloomberg, and Salesforce. Participants include directors such as Marion Ackermann (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz), Stephanie Rosenthal (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi), Eike Schmidt (Museo di Capodimonte), Mami Kataoka (Mori Art Museum), and others, alongside Bay Area museum heads and AI artist Refik Anadol, who will speak in a free public program at the de Young Museum. The forum aims to bridge the museum and technology communities, exploring how advanced technologies can enrich operations and visitor experiences while supporting artists working with technology.

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P.P.O.W. gallery has taken on representation of artist Owen Fu, while Nicola Vassell Gallery now represents Na Kim, known for her book covers and paintings. Jessie Washburne-Harris has been named Global Director at White Cube, overseeing the gallery's U.S. growth. Chris Sharp Gallery added Mark A. Rodriguez to its roster, and Berry Campbell took on the estate of Louisa Chase. Mexico City dealers Misa Yamaoka and Yuna Cabon launched an artist residency program at Third Born gallery. The article also reports that combined evening sales at Christie's, Phillips, and Sotheby's in Hong Kong totaled $136 million, a significant drop from $208.6 million last fall, and highlights the rising market interest in 17th-century artist Michaelina Wautier.

First US Survey of Mexican Artist Teresa Margolles Coming This Fall

MoMA PS1 in New York City will host the first United States survey of Mexican artist Teresa Margolles this fall. Trained as a forensic pathologist, Margolles creates works using organic and bodily materials from homicide victims, morgues, and crime scenes. The exhibition will feature pieces confronting murder and violence along the US-Mexico border, including a 2026 evolution of her ongoing series "Air" (2003–), where a gallery will be humidified with water carrying degradable material from homicide sites. The Museum of Modern Art will also present a new experiential installation, "Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approaching the Scene)" (2026), starting September 17, which drips water carrying evidence of violent death onto heated steel plates.

The US Pavilion Wants Your Money

The American Arts Conservancy, a new nonprofit with MAGA-aligned leadership, is fundraising for Alma Allen's 2026 US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale through a "Donate" button on its website, having received no institutional financial support. Meanwhile, a sculpture by Pedro Reyes at the newly unveiled LACMA building has sparked controversy for recalling a 2021 commission rejected by Mexico City after Indigenous and feminist protests, and the experimental LA nonprofit The Box has closed after 19 years.

Remembering Desmond Morris, James Hayward, and Flo Oy Wong

This week's obituaries mark the passing of several significant figures in the visual arts. They include British surrealist painter and zoologist Desmond Morris, known for his 'biomorph' paintings and experiments with chimpanzee art; West Coast monochrome abstractionist James Hayward, who developed a cult following for his thickly painted canvases; and Chinese American artist Flo Oy Wong, a foundational storyteller of Oakland's Chinatown and the Asian American experience. Also remembered are assemblage artist Aldwyth, Ethiopian painter and educator Behailu Bezabih, Anglo-Irish conservator and designer Alec Cobbe, Bangladeshi art director Tarun Ghosh, and New Mexico painter Michael Hurd.

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Artnet News compiled a roundup of 2025 interviews with celebrities whose creative work intersects with the visual art world. Sharon Stone turned to portrait painting after her mother's death, creating a series of works channeling historical and personal figures. Adrien Brody exhibited new works at Eden Gallery in New York, discussing how his acting career supported his art practice. Director Yorgos Lanthimos held his first photography exhibition at Webber Gallery in Los Angeles, while Alejandro Iñárritu created a multisensory installation at Mexico's LagoAlgo to mark the 25th anniversary of his film *Amores Perros*. Actor Lili Taylor performed in an artist lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra centered on a Renaissance tapestry from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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The US Department of State confirmed that Mexico-based artist Alma Allen will represent the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale, opening next May. Jeffrey Uslip will serve as curator, and the commissioning institution is the American Arts Conservancy (AAC), with its executive director Jenni Parido as official commissioner. Allen, who has had only two museum solo shows in three decades, was approached directly by Uslip in October after the State Department had already approved him. The selection process broke from tradition: the National Endowment for the Arts was not involved due to time constraints and staffing transitions, and a prior proposal by artist Robert Lazzarini and curator John Ravenal fell through after negotiations with the University of South Florida’s Contemporary Art Museum collapsed. Allen’s pavilion, titled "Call Me the Breeze," will feature about 30 works exploring elevation and transformation, framed by the State Department as furthering the Trump Administration’s focus on American excellence.

How Latin American Artists Have Harnessed the Allure of Alchemy

A new exhibition titled “Constellations and Drifts: Art from Latin America in the FEMSA Collection” has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey) in Mexico, running through August 9, 2026. The show features 170 works by 115 Latin American artists from the FEMSA Collection, one of the most prestigious corporate collections of Latin American art, and is organized around five curatorial themes or “constellations,” including a section centered on alchemy. Highlights include works by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Francis Alÿs, and a new commission by Argentine artist Ad Minoliti, alongside Surrealist pieces by Remedios Varo, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, and Kati Horna.

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Artnet News continues its exploration of famous artists' studios via Google Maps Street View, featuring nine historic homes and workspaces. Among them are Max Liebermann's lakeside Berlin villa, now a memorial museum; the modernist compound of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico City, designed by Juan O'Gorman; Dora Gordine's eclectic Dorich House in South London; and Ben Nicholson's studio in the historic Porthmeor Studios building in Cornwall, which once housed Francis Bacon and other artists. Each entry includes the location, historical context, and an interesting fact about the site.

Pedro Friedeberg, key figure in Mexican art renowned for hand-shaped chair, has died at age 90

Pedro Friedeberg, the Mexico-based artist and designer famed for his iconic Mano Silla (Hand Chair) created in 1962, has died at age 90. A key figure in 20th-century Mexican art, his singular work blended intricate, fantastical architecture with ornament and irony, creating a unique visual universe that defied easy categorization within movements like Surrealism or geometric abstraction.

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The FBI has recovered two paintings stolen 40 years ago from the University of New Mexico's Harwood Museum of Art in Taos. Victor Higgins's oil painting *Aspens* (c. 1932) and Joseph Henry Sharp's portrait *Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress* (c. 1915) were taken in March 1985, when the building housed a public library with a museum on the second floor. The recovery was triggered by a late 2023 tip from investigative reporter Lou Schachter to museum executive director Juniper Leherissey, who then led an Art Recovery Task Force. The paintings had been sold in 2018 by the Scottsdale Auction House under altered titles, and were located, recovered, and returned to the museum on May 12, 2025, with a public unveiling on June 6.

Pedro Reyes’s new Lacma commission sparks criticism in Mexico

Pedro Reyes's new sculpture 'Tlali' (2026), a four-meter-tall Olmec-inspired volcanic-stone female face installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), has sparked criticism in Mexico. An open letter signed by nearly 80 cultural figures, published on the art criticism site Cubo Blanco, alleges the work is a new version of a 2021 project that was canceled after backlash. That earlier project, 'Tlalli', was meant to replace a Christopher Columbus statue on Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma but faced opposition from over 300 cultural figures who argued a male, non-Indigenous artist should not represent Indigenous women. The site later became the 'Glorieta de las Mujeres que Luchan', an anti-monument against gender violence.

A ‘bird of Mexico City’ strikes a revolutionary pose: Pieter Henket’s best photograph

Photographer Pieter Henket describes the creation of his portrait "La Mujer" (The Woman), part of his series "Birds of Mexico City." The image features Ixchel Paz, a young Mexican woman wearing a lucha libre wrestling mask, captured in a dignified pose on the first day of the project. Henket explains how the series evolved from an earlier project, "Birds of New York," which celebrated young people in New York during the first Trump administration. After the pandemic, he traveled to Mexico City with his husband Roger Inniss, collaborated with stylist Chino Castilla and his team, and encouraged subjects to express their identities through costume and culture.

Manetti Shrem Museum Fall 2025 Exhibitions Explore the Borderlands; Environmental Justice

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis presents two fall 2025 exhibitions: “OJO” Julio César Morales, a midcareer survey exploring the U.S.-Mexico border as a lived human experience through over 50 works in various media, and “Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice,” a group exhibition from the Hammer Museum at UCLA that connects environmental and social injustice. The exhibitions run through Nov. 29, with a free public opening celebration on Sept. 28 featuring artists, curators, art making, and music. Morales’ show marks his California homecoming after a decade in Arizona as a senior curator and museum director, and includes an outdoor neon commission, “tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming” (2025).

Selfie-Friendly Pedro Reyes Sculpture Sparks Controversy at LACMA

Nearly eighty Mexican cultural figures have signed an open letter condemning the installation of Pedro Reyes's sculpture 'Tlali' (2026) in the plaza of LACMA's new David Geffen Galleries. The work, described as a selfie-friendly monolithic face inspired by Olmec art, closely resembles a 2021 proposal for a Mexico City sculpture titled 'Tlalli' that was abandoned after protests from hundreds of cultural workers. Critics argue that Reyes, a male artist who does not identify as Indigenous, should not represent Indigenous womanhood, and that the new work perpetuates colonial stereotypes and nationalistic aesthetics. LACMA has defended the piece, claiming it is entirely different in purpose and meaning, while Reyes has not commented.

The Pet Food Store Owner Behind the Venice Biennale’s US Pavilion, 400-Year-Old Pendant in English Painting Resurfaces, and More: Morning Links for April 20, 2026

The New York Times profiled Jenni Parido, the 37-year-old commissioner of the upcoming US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, who has no professional arts background and previously ran a luxury pet food store in Florida. She selected Jeffrey Uslip as curator, and artist Alma Allen will represent the US after other artists reportedly declined.

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Jeff Magid, a New York, Los Angeles, and Mexico City–based art collector, plans to open Cuernavaca Tres, a public art foundation in Mexico City, in 2026. In an opinion piece for ARTnews, he argues that the current downturn in the art market—marked by declining sales and gallery closures—is not due to economic cycles or financialization, but rather a simple mismatch: there are more galleries, auctions, fairs, and artists than ever, while the number of buyers has not kept pace. Magid criticizes the luxury retail model adopted by many galleries, which prioritizes exclusivity and status signaling, and contends that this approach fails to attract enough new collectors to sustain the market.

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John Giorno's 1969 conceptual artwork "Dial-A-Poem," originally a phone-based poetry service featured in MoMA's landmark 1970 exhibition "Information," has been relaunched as an online platform. The new version, created by Giorno Poetry Systems, presents randomized readings of both historic and contemporary poems, including contributions from Laurie Anderson, William S. Burroughs, and Gary Snyder. International editions have been added for France, Mexico, Thailand, Italy, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Brazil, with poems recited in their native languages.

Inside the Fight to Keep a Trove of Frida Kahlo Works from Leaving Mexico

The Gelman Collection, featuring 11 essential masterpieces by Frida Kahlo, is at the center of a heated legal and cultural dispute following news of its transfer from Mexico to Spain. Acquired by the Zambrano family and managed by the Banco Santander Foundation, the collection is slated for a multi-year residency at the new Faro Santander cultural hub. Critics and historians argue the move potentially violates Mexico’s strict heritage laws, which designate Kahlo’s works as national monuments subject to permanent export bans.

How an Overlooked Printmaker Became a Hero of Mexican Cultural Identity

The article profiles the life and work of José Guadalupe Posada, a prolific Mexican printmaker who died in relative obscurity in 1913. It details his career from his early work in lithography and political cartoons to his later, defining collaboration with publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo in Mexico City, where he produced sensationalist broadsides and his iconic calaveras (skeletons).

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Jeffrey Epstein commissioned a large-scale reproduction of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem's 1591 painting 'The Massacre of the Innocents' for the entrance of his New Mexico ranch. The $1,999 copy, depicting Roman soldiers killing infants, was ordered in 2010 from the reproduction company Ocean's Bridge Group and was requested to be shipped by his assistant in 2011.

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The state of New Mexico has announced a major conservation effort to preserve 6,000 acres of desert landscape that inspired artist Georgia O’Keeffe. The New Mexico Land Conservancy is partnering with the National Ghost Ranch Foundation to implement the Ghost Ranch Conservation Plan, which will protect land, water, and wildlife habitat around Ghost Ranch—where O’Keeffe lived and worked from 1940 until her death. The plan involves conservation easements held in trust for the public benefit, ensuring the area remains undeveloped while allowing continued visitor access to hiking trails, museums, and the retreat center.

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The 24th edition of the Biennale de Arte Paiz, titled "El Arból del Mundo" ("The Tree of Life"), has opened in Guatemala City and Antigua Guatemala. Under Italian curator Eugenio Viola, the biennial has expanded from 30 to 46 artists and doubled its venues from 5 to 10, including the Museo Nacional de Arte de Guatemala (MUNAG) and La Nueva Fabrica. The dates have shifted to December to attract visitors from Miami Art Week and Zona Maco in Mexico City. The show features textile works, research-based art, and ecological themes, with highlights including a street installation by Erick Boror.

Protests in Mexico Challenge Move of Frida Kahlo Trove to Spain

A heated controversy has erupted in Mexico following the decision to move a massive trove of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera artworks to Spain for a long-term loan. Protesters and cultural advocates are challenging the relocation of the Dolores Olmedo Museum collection, which includes some of Kahlo’s most iconic paintings, to a new private museum in Madrid. In response to the backlash, Mexican officials have issued public assurances that the collection remains national heritage and is legally required to return to Mexico by 2028.

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Zona Maco, one of Latin America's premier art fairs, will return to Mexico City from February 4–8, 2026, at Centro Banamex. The fair will feature 241 exhibitors across nine sections, including a new section called Forma, which blends contemporary art and design, and a revised Diseño Emergente section for emerging designers. Notable participants include Pace Gallery, Galleria Continua, Kurimanzutto, and OMR, with curated sections led by Aimé Iglesias Lukin and Manuela Moscoso. Founder Zélika García highlighted the fair's growth and its commitment to showcasing blue-chip galleries alongside emerging and mid-career talent.

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Jackie Amézquita, a Los Angeles-based artist originally from Guatemala, has developed a unique brick-making process using soil and masa de maíz (corn dough) mixed with organic materials like blue pea flower, cocoa, cochineal, and charcoal to create vibrant, colorful bricks. Her work, including the 2023 installation *El suelo que nos alimenta* commissioned by the Hammer Museum for the Made in L.A. biennial, uses soil from each of LA's neighborhoods to explore themes of migration, memory, and colonial legacies. Amézquita's practice is deeply personal, drawing on her family's migration history—her mother moved from Guatemala in 1987, and her grandmother fled Mexico during the Cristero War—and her own eight-day walk from Tijuana to LA, during which she collected soil samples as an archive of memory.

500-year-old Aztec ritual offering uncovered in Mexico City

Archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History have uncovered a 500-year-old Aztec ritual offering at the Templo Mayor site in Mexico City. The discovery consists of six volcanic stone boxes containing greenstone sculptures, thousands of marine shells, copal spheres, and pendants, all forming a complete ceremonial assemblage from the reign of Emperor Moctezuma I (1440-1469).

OSCAR MURILLO: PAINTING AS A WELL OF ACCUMULATION

ÓSCAR MURILLO: LA PINTURA COMO POZO DE ACUMULACIÓN

The article profiles Colombian-born artist Oscar Murillo and his expansive, socially-engaged practice. It details his rise to international prominence in the early 2010s with large-scale paintings that incorporate text, textiles, and studio detritus, and highlights his ongoing, collaborative project 'Frequencies,' which involves students from over thirty countries creating works on canvases attached to school desks. The piece also references his major solo exhibitions, including 'El pozo de agua' at kurimanzutto in Mexico City (2026), 'Masas' at WIELS in Brussels (2024), and 'The flooded garden' at Tate Modern (2024).

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Sotheby's announced the consignment of Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)*, estimated at $40–60 million, for a November 2025 single-owner sale titled "Exquisite Corpus." The work is expected to break Kahlo's auction record of $34.9 million set in 2021 and potentially surpass the $44.4 million record for a woman artist held by Georgia O'Keeffe. The painting depicts Kahlo lying on a floating bed with a skeleton above, created during a turbulent period following Leon Trotsky's assassination and her divorce from Diego Rivera.