A new four-volume catalogue, authored by former royal surveyor Jonathan Marsden, documents approximately 1,800 sculptures in the Royal Collection. The publication reveals the unsystematic nature of the collection's growth, driven by royal tastes and historical opportunities, and highlights significant discoveries like a previously unknown bronze satyr by Benvenuto Cellini.
The Metropolitan Opera in New York faces a $30 million deficit after a $200 million funding deal with Saudi Arabia collapsed. The Saudi government withdrew from the agreement, which would have sent Met performers to the Royal Diriyah Opera House for three weeks each February, citing economic pressures from the Iran War and the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. To address the shortfall, the Met is considering selling two monumental Marc Chagall paintings—The Sources of Music and The Triumph of Music (1966)—valued at $55 million, along with other options like selling naming rights or seeking a similar deal with another country.
Wohin am Wochenende?
This week's art tips from Monopol magazine highlight exhibitions and events across Germany and Europe. In Berlin, the Helmut Newton Museum reopens with a new immersive film space and a fresh presentation of its collection, while the Neue Nationalgalerie showcases Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's iconic painting "Potsdamer Platz" in the exhibition "Ruin und Rausch. Berlin 1910-1930." In Bozen, Chinese artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang presents new works at Museion, blending painting, textiles, and installation. The Art Brussels fair returns with a reduced lineup of 138 galleries, focusing on Belgian and neighboring markets. In Duisburg, Anish Kapoor receives the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Prize, accompanied by a solo exhibition at the Lehmbruck Museum.
Marian Goodman Gallery is suspending operations at its Los Angeles location after two and a half years, following the conclusion of Tacita Dean's solo show on April 25. The gallery's partners announced a consolidation of programming to its historic homes in New York and Paris, stating they will evaluate the space's future while maintaining an LA presence through art fairs, special projects, and museum exhibitions.
Sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud has revealed she declined an offer to represent the United States at the 2025 Venice Biennale, stating that for her, "this was not the moment." The offer was made by the American Arts Conservancy, the nonprofit organization commissioning the US Pavilion. The revelation comes amid ongoing scrutiny of the selection process that ultimately led to artist Alma Allen being chosen, following reports that the Trump administration removed diversity language from application materials.
A set of 15 bronze and copper mirrors by Claude Lalanne sold for $33.5 million at Sotheby's in New York, shattering the artist's previous auction record and surpassing the record price for works by her late husband and collaborator, François-Xavier Lalanne. The ensemble, which far exceeded its $15 million high estimate, drew fierce competition from five bidders over ten minutes.
Aipad: The Photography Show is taking place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York from April 22-26, 2026, featuring works from over 70 galleries. The exhibition highlights include Bill Brandt's 1952 nude, Rania Matar's portrait of a young woman in Lebanon, and Zanele Muholi's 2009 portrait of a lesbian pageant queen, alongside works by Tania Franco Klein, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, and others that explore themes of identity, anxiety, and alternative realities.
Tracey Emin's 2021 lithograph "Even Saying Nothing Is a Lie" is being offered for sale by Hang-Up Gallery in London for £8,500. The limited-edition print, hand-signed and numbered by the artist, measures 37 × 29 1/10 inches and comes framed. Emin, a leading Young British Artist known for her confessional works such as "My Bed" (1998), has exhibited globally at institutions including the Mori Art Museum, Whitney Museum, and Stedelijk Museum, and her work is held by major collections like Tate and MoMA.
Pilar Corrias, a London gallerist, opened her eponymous gallery in 2008 during the global financial crisis, defying the trend of closures. She commissioned architect Rem Koolhaas to design the space and built a program with a strong intellectual focus and a diverse roster of artists.
This article is a detailed listing for KAWS's sculpture *ALONG THE WAY* (2013), a wood piece measuring 96 7/8 × 75 × 51 1/4 inches, held in the collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. It includes the work's exhibition history, the artist's biography (born Brian Donnelly, 1974), his key solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and his high auction record of HK$116 million at Sotheby's in 2019. The listing also features a series of related KAWS works available at auction houses including Christie's, Phillips, and Heritage Auctions.
The Hayward Gallery in London, in partnership with the RC Foundation in Taiwan, has announced a new exhibition series for its HENI Project Space running from October 2025 to March 2027. The series features five solo exhibitions by artists Val Lee, Samuel Laurence Cunnane, Kulpreet Singh, Musquiqui Chihying, and Andrius Arutiunian, each exploring themes ranging from political violence and surveillance to climate change, ritual, and alternative cosmologies. The exhibitions are curated by a team including Yung Ma, Rachel Thomas, and others.
The Julia Stoschek Foundation will close its Berlin outpost at the end of October 2025, after a decade of operation. The Düsseldorf-based nonprofit, which holds one of the world's largest collections of time-based art, opened the Berlin space in 2016 and welcomed over 450,000 visitors across 22 exhibitions, including solo shows by Meriem Bennani, Stan Douglas, Arthur Jafa, and Mark Leckey. The foundation cited a "strategic realignment" that will shift focus to projects elsewhere in Germany and abroad. Its Düsseldorf space is currently closed for renovations and expected to reopen next year.
Auckland Art Gallery is presenting 'Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now,' a major survey of Chinese contemporary art featuring 67 works by 42 artists, running from May 2 to August 23, 2026. The exhibition includes Xiao Lu's iconic 1989 work 'Dialogue,' which she famously shot with a gun hours after its opening, an act later linked to the Tiananmen Square protests. Xiao Lu comments on the political resonance of the show in New Zealand amid global shifts in democracy and US-centric world order.
APC ART is offering for sale a gray variant of KAWS's iconic figure "Along the Way" (2019), a painted cast vinyl sculpture measuring 10 × 7 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches. The work is a miniature version of the artist's 2013 wooden sculpture, originally exhibited at Mary Boone Gallery in New York. The piece features two of KAWS's signature "Companion" characters leaning on each other for emotional support. The work is brand new, in hand, signed in plate, and includes a certificate of authenticity. It is offered exclusively by APC ART, which ships from the USA.
An auction listing for KAWS's "Beautiful Losers Exhibition Poster" (2004) is featured on a digital marketplace, with bidding having ended. The work is an offset lithograph in color, measuring 17 × 11 inches, published by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. The listing includes a detailed biography of KAWS (born Brian Donnelly), highlighting his career from street art subversion in the 1990s to high-profile brand collaborations with Nike, Uniqlo, and Dior, and his record auction sale of $14.8 million at Sotheby's in 2019.
The article presents a curated guide to 13 current museum and gallery exhibitions across the UAE, including shows at Louvre Abu Dhabi, Foundry in Dubai, Sharjah Art Foundation, and Alserkal Avenue. Featured artists range from Pablo Picasso to regional talents like Shamsa Al Omaira, Abdulla Elmaz, and Ahaad Alamoudi, with exhibitions spanning sculpture, photography, and installation art. The guide is published during Alserkal Art Month and ahead of Art Dubai.
Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York is presenting 'Leaves of the World,' an exhibition of works by Eileen Agar (1899–1991) spanning seven decades of her career, from 1927 to 1980. The show highlights Agar's enduring engagement with collage and her unique blend of surrealism, cubism, and abstraction, featuring pieces such as 'Leaves of the World' (c. 1940) and 'Personnage' (1949). A parallel exhibition of Agar's work will open at Alison Jacques in London this June.
Ha Chong-Hyun, a leading figure of the Korean Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement, will receive his first North American museum retrospective at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The exhibition, titled 'Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective,' opens on September 25 and will feature approximately 50 paintings spanning over 60 years of his career, including new works and pieces showcasing his signature 'Back Pressure Technique.'
Monochrome painting master Ha Chong-Hyun will have his first North American museum retrospective at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (AAM) from September 25, 2026, to January 25, 2027. The exhibition, titled "Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective," will feature about 50 works spanning over 60 years, including his early Art Informel experiments, his politically charged works, and his iconic "Conjunction" series created with his signature Back Pressure Technique.
Julia Stoschek, a leading art collector and ARTnews Top 200 figure, is closing her Berlin exhibition venue after a decade of operation. The 3,000-square-meter space in the former Czech Cultural Center, which opened in 2016, will shut at the end of October 2026, having hosted 22 exhibitions and attracted 450,000 visitors. The Stoschek Foundation will maintain its Düsseldorf venue, while Stoschek shifts focus to international projects, such as the recent Los Angeles exhibition “What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem,” curated by Udo Kittelmann.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has opened a major exhibition titled 'Metamorphoses,' inspired by Ovid's poem. The show brings together Renaissance masterpieces, antiquities, and contemporary works, grouping them by the myths they depict to explore themes of transformation, desire, and gender through striking visual juxtapositions.
Art Fund director Jenny Waldman responds to a philosophical article about art's intrinsic value, arguing that while art should be enjoyed for its own sake, promoting its measurable health benefits can serve as a crucial entry point for new audiences. She cites the organization's National Art Pass adverts and recent research with King's College London, which demonstrated immediate physiological responses to viewing original art, as tools to invite people who might otherwise feel excluded from cultural institutions.
This week's art news roundup covers several stories: Jonathan Meese publishes an obituary for his mother Brigitte Meese in Der Spiegel, describing her as a central figure in his life and work. Pussy Riot seeks to take over the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The European Media Art Festival (EMAF) in Osnabrück faces controversy over antisemitism allegations linked to Palestinian-American filmmaker Basma al-Sharif, leading the city and state government to distance themselves from the festival. In the NZZ, Christian Wildhagen reports on conflicts over official political portraits, citing examples like Swiss councilor Martin Neukom rejecting paintings and Donald Trump criticizing his portrait. Art historian Horst Bredekamp pays tribute to Italian philosopher Federico Vercellone (1955–2026) in the FAZ, highlighting his theory of the 'self-activity of form.'
Salon des Refusés 2.0
A group exhibition titled "we refuse_d" has opened at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (M HKA) in Antwerp, bringing together 15 artists, many of whom faced cancellations or disinvitations from exhibitions following the October 7, 2023 attacks. The show, referencing the historic 1863 Salon des Refusés, aims to reclaim reputation and amplify marginalized voices, specifically focusing on Palestinian history and artists affected by the cultural fallout.
5 joyaux secrets à découvrir en Europe
L'Œil magazine has curated a list of five European cities rich in art historical treasures, highlighting hidden gems for cultural getaways. The first city profiled is Mainz, Germany, featuring the Romanesque-Gothic Mainzer Dom (Imperial Cathedral of St. Martin), the Gutenberg Museum showcasing the 42-line Bible as a landmark of printing history, and the Church of St. Stephen with its iconic blue stained-glass windows designed by Marc Chagall. The second city is Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where the old town blends ancient Roman ruins (a stadium, forum, odeon, and theater from the 2nd century) with 19th-century Bulgarian National Revival houses, such as the Balabanov, Hindliyan, and Kuyumdzhioglu houses, now converted into museums.
Une nouvelle directrice pour le Smithsonian American Art Museum
Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, 75, has been appointed director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), succeeding Stephanie Stebich after a vacancy of nearly 17 months. Hartigan, who began her career at SAAM in the 1970s and rose to chief curator before leaving in 2003, most recently served as executive director of the Peabody Essex Museum, becoming its first woman to lead the institution. She will assume her new role on September 8.
Une IA suggère qu’El Greco pourrait être l’unique auteur du Baptême du Christ
A new scientific study published in the journal Science Advances challenges the long-held belief that El Greco's monumental painting 'The Baptism of Christ' was completed by his workshop. Using a deep-learning tool called PATCH to analyze the painting's surface topography, researchers from Case Western Reserve University found a technical consistency suggesting the work was executed by a single hand, likely El Greco himself, despite visible variations in execution.
Quelles sont les œuvres d’art englouties à bord du Titanic ?
The RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912, was carrying over 300 paintings, drawings, prints, and art objects according to its cargo manifest. The most famous artwork lost was the 1814 neoclassical painting 'La Circassienne au bain' by French artist Merry-Joseph Blondel, owned by Swedish businessman Mauritz Håkan Björnström-Steffansson, which was insured for $100,000. Also lost was the legendary 'Grand Omar,' a jewel-encrusted luxury edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, created by the London bindery Sangorski & Sutcliffe.
Marina Abramović presents her first major exhibition in Berlin since the 1990s at Gropius Bau, titled "Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition." The show juxtaposes historic works from the 1970s with new video installations, exploring how the artist uses the body as a vital force to confront political systems, histories, and mythologies of the Balkan countries.
Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, a late Japanese American collagist who lived and worked as a street artist in New York City, is the subject of a new solo exhibition at the Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas City, on view through June. Co-curators Maki Kaneko and Kris Imants Ercums organized the show thematically rather than chronologically, reflecting Mirikitani's fragmented life—from surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and incarceration at Tule Lake to arriving in New York in the 1950s. The exhibition draws on years of research, including visits to the parks where he lived and to Hiroshima, and builds on Linda Hattendorf's 2006 documentary *The Cats of Mirikitani*.