Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Oct 23, 2025 visibility 20 link 3 artists

british museums controversy hit ball raises 3 3 m securing vital funding for its international partnerships

The British Museum held its inaugural fundraising ball, modeled after the Met Gala, raising over £2.5 million ($3.3 million) through ticket sales and a silent auction. The event, attended by celebrities including Mick Jagger, Janet Jackson, Tracey Emin, James Norton, and Naomi Campbell, also secured a £10.3 million pledge from the Garfield Weston Foundation for the museum's Visitor Welcome Program. However, the evening was marred by controversy: a protester from Energy Embargo for Palestine gained access and demonstrated against the museum's £50 million sponsorship from BP, and Greece's culture minister Lina Mendoni criticized the museum for hosting the event near the Elgin Marbles, accusing it of disrespecting the ancient sculptures.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 22, 2025 visibility 27 link 24 artists

fondation cartier reopens paris

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will reopen its new space at 2 Place du Palais-Royal in Paris on October 25, 2025, during Paris Art Week. Designed by architect Jean Nouvel, the building—originally constructed for the 1855 Exposition Universelle and later a hotel, department store, and antiques center—has been transformed with a modular system of five movable platforms, a glass canopy, and transparent ground-floor windows to create an open, flexible exhibition environment. The inaugural show, titled “Exposition Générale,” features nearly 600 works by over 100 artists from the foundation’s history.

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

robert rauschenberg dance guggenheim

A gala performance at the Guggenheim Museum in New York marked what would have been Robert Rauschenberg's 100th birthday, featuring dancers performing Paul Taylor's 'Tracer' (1962), for which Rauschenberg created costumes and sets—including a spinning bicycle wheel that served as a portal to the exhibition above. The show, 'Robert Rauschenberg: Life Can’t Be Stopped,' opened in one of the museum's tower galleries and runs through May 3, presenting select works from the Guggenheim's collections and loans from the artist's foundation, including major pieces like 'Barge' (1962–63), the largest silkscreen painting Rauschenberg made in the early 1960s, back in New York for the first time in nearly 25 years.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 15, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists, 1 gallery

william monk pace frieze london 2025

British painter William Monk is presenting a new series of paintings at Pace Gallery's solo booth at Frieze London 2025. The works, created during a residency at the Neuendorf House in Mallorca, feature obsessive cactus forms and a sentinel figure evolving from his earlier Ferryman series. Monk's studio visit reveals his meticulous process of controlling every detail, with paintings that recall Seurat and Bonnard in their dense, rhythmic brushwork.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 22 link 12 artists

sothebys matthew carolyn bucksbaum magritte jean dubuffett

Sotheby's will sell ten works from the Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum collection in its fall auctions, with six pieces by René Magritte, Jean Dubuffet, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee featured in the Modern Evening auction on November 20. The group of six works carries a total estimate of $18 million to $24 million, led by Magritte's *Le Jockey perdu* (1942) at $9–12 million and Dubuffet's *Restaurant Rougeot II* (1961) at $6–8 million. Sotheby's executives Julian Dawes and Grégoire Billault emphasized the rarity and importance of these works, noting that the Magritte is the only oil version of its subject and the Dubuffet is one of just three paintings of the iconic Paris restaurant.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 19 link 9 artists

claude monet venice brooklyn museum review

The Brooklyn Museum's exhibition "Monet and Venice" explores how Claude Monet's 1908 trip to Venice revitalized his creative practice, leading to 37 remarkable paintings that directly influenced his later "Water Lilies" series. The show assembles more than half of these Venice works alongside pieces by Canaletto, J.M.W. Turner, and others, tracing how the sojourn allowed Monet to see his canvases with fresh eyes after a period of creative impasse. Curated by Lisa Small and Melissa Buron, the 100-work survey opens October 11 and is the largest Monet exhibition in New York in over 25 years.

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article policy schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 22 link 11 artists

cimam letter museum organization m hka closure flanders

Two leading museum organizations, CIMAM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) and L'internationale, have sharply criticized the Flemish government's decision to transfer the collection and mission of Antwerp's M HKA to a newly formed museum in Ghent by 2028. In a statement dated October 10, CIMAM's Museum Watch Committee expressed profound concern, calling the plan based on "false administrative logic" and urging the Flemish minister of culture to reverse the decision. L'internationale also published a statement condemning the lack of transparency and consultation, noting that the plan was announced without input from M HKA's leadership or stakeholders. The building housing M HKA will be renovated into a Kunsthalle, and the government has canceled a planned $151 million new building for the museum.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 28 link 18 artists

christies arnold joan saltzman fernand leger picasso matisse

Christie’s will sell over 70 works from the collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman during its fall marquee sales in November, with a group estimate exceeding $70 million. The modern art collection includes pieces by Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Edvard Munch, František Kupka, Robert Delaunay, Henri Matisse, and Henry Moore. The top lot is Léger’s 1914 painting *Composition (Nature Morte)*, estimated around $20 million, from his celebrated 'Contraste de formes' series. Other highlights include Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture *Reclining Woman: Elbow* (1981), estimated at $9–12 million, and Henri Matisse’s *Femme au chapeau fleuri* (1923), estimated around $10 million. The collection, built over 60 years, will be featured in Christie’s 20th century evening sale on November 17 and day sales on November 18.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 8, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

louvre jacques louis david museum retrospective

The Louvre in Paris is staging a major retrospective of Jacques-Louis David, featuring 100 works by the French Neoclassical painter, to mark the bicentenary of his death in 1825. The exhibition opens October 15 and runs through January, drawing on the Louvre's own collection and prestigious loans from institutions including the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Curator Sébastien Allard emphasizes that the show is not a conventional blockbuster but aims to explore under-examined aspects of David's practice, particularly his political engagement across the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Empire.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 7, 2025 visibility 22 link 1 artist, 1 gallery

wade guyton artwork inigo philbricks flops at sothebys

A Wade Guyton artwork (2007) that was forfeited by Inigo Philbrick's business partner Robert Newland failed to sell at Sotheby's New York in late March 2025, carrying an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. The same piece had previously sold for $208,000 at a U.S. Marshals Service auction in Texas in August 2023, a steep decline from its $490,000 sale at Sotheby's in 2015. Another Guyton from the same forfeiture—a 2018 piece owned by Philbrick himself—sold for $215,100 at the Texas auction, representing a 65% drop from its 2018 Christie's Paris sale of €535,500 (about $625,000). The article also notes a curious discrepancy: the Texas auction catalog listed a Phillips auction house label on the 2007 Guyton, but Phillips does not appear in the work's provenance, and Philbrick was known to do business with Phillips.

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person people schedule Oct 2, 2025 visibility 24 link 4 artists

sculptor petrit halilaj wins 2027 nasher prize

The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has awarded its 2027 Nasher Prize to Petrit Halilaj, a Kosovo-born sculptor known for works addressing his country's history and sociopolitical realities. At 40, Halilaj is the youngest recipient of the prize since its 2015 inception. The award, now given biannually, includes $100,000 and a future exhibition at the Nasher. In an unusual gesture, Halilaj will donate the entire prize purse to the Hajde! Foundation, a Kosovo-based nonprofit he co-founded in 2014 to support Kosovar artists.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 29, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

picasso museum paris expansion sculpture park plan

The Musée Picasso-Paris has announced a €50 million ($59 million) transformation plan, including a new wing for temporary exhibitions and a redesigned garden that will connect with the nearby Square Léonor-Fini. The project, scheduled for construction from 2028 to 2030, will double the museum's temporary exhibition space to 8,600 square feet and create a 25,000-square-foot sculpture park featuring around 10 Picasso sculptures, free to the public without a museum ticket. The museum plans to remain open during construction, which will be funded through patronage raised by a foundation hosted by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, with a significant donation from the Picasso family.

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person people schedule Sep 25, 2025 visibility 22 link 7 artists

lisa phillips steps down new museum

Lisa Phillips, director of New York's New Museum, will retire after more than 25 years in the role, as reported by the New York Times. The museum is currently in the midst of a 62,000-square-foot expansion expected to open this fall, though no date has been set. Phillips, 71, oversaw the museum's relocation to the Bowery in 2007, launched the influential New Museum Triennial in 2010, and added initiatives like New Inc and Rhizome. Her tenure also included controversies, such as criticism over a 2010 show of works owned by a trustee, staff complaints about her $900,000 salary, and tensions around the museum's unionization in 2019.

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article news schedule Sep 25, 2025 visibility 21 link 21 artists

aspen art museum redefining future

The Aspen Art Museum is undergoing a strategic shift under director Nicola Lees, moving away from its reputation as a collector's clubhouse toward becoming a global institution. The museum's annual ArtCrush gala and fundraiser week, once centered on wealth-displaying collector home visits and glitzy parties, now emphasizes intellectual programming like the inaugural AIR festival, a $20 million artist-led interdisciplinary initiative featuring talks by Werner Herzog and Hans Ulrich Obrist. This change comes amid soaring local real estate prices, including a $108 million home co-purchased by Steve Wynn and Thomas Peterffy, and contrasts the area's deep pockets with the museum's free admission since 2008.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 20, 2025 visibility 19 link 11 artists

sothebys karpidas sale white glove smashes estimate

Sotheby's achieved a white-glove sale of Pauline Karpidas's collection on Wednesday night, far exceeding its $53 million high estimate to reach $100 million. All 55 lots sold, with 70% surpassing their high estimates, marking the highest total for a designated auction held in London. Two additional sales from the collection are ongoing: a day auction of 193 lots and an online sale of 97 lots, with a combined presale estimate of $80 million. The auction featured 23 Surrealist works, including pieces by René Magritte, and replicated Karpidas's London home in the salesroom.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 16, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

jean michel basquiat estate albino and preto collection

Fashion brand Albino & Preto has collaborated with the Jean-Michel Basquiat estate on a new collection of jiujitsu sets and lifestyle apparel featuring the artist's paintings. The limited-edition collection, released on September 10 ahead of New York Fashion Week, incorporates martial arts motifs that Basquiat often used in his work, including a reference to the jiujitsu foot lock known as "Achilles." The Basquiat estate has a history of fashion collaborations, including a previous line with H&M tied to the 2022 exhibition "King Pleasure."

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article news schedule Sep 10, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

jfk international airport terminal six art moma met

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with JFK Millennium Partners, is investing $4.2 billion to bring art from four major New York cultural institutions—the American Museum of Natural History, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art—into the new Terminal 6 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The terminal will feature loaned works from these institutions in the international arrivals corridor, plus 19 permanent site-specific installations curated by Public Art Fund and rotating local artwork curated by Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Highlights include a 140-foot mural from Lincoln Center, an installation by Yoko Ono inspired by her 2019 work *Peace is Power* for MoMA, and installations from the other two museums. The terminal is designed by architect Stanis Smith and will include 10 gates, with the first six opening this year and completion by 2028.

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article news schedule Sep 4, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

amy sherald american sublime the baltimore museum of art

Amy Sherald's exhibition "American Sublime" will now open at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in November, after the artist canceled its planned iteration at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in July over censorship concerns. The show, which features some 50 works and is one of the largest presentations of Sherald's work, was originally organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is currently on view at the Whitney Museum through August 10. Sherald, who attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and previously served on the BMA's board, called the BMA presentation a homecoming.

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article policy schedule Aug 27, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

van gogh museum closure dutch government funding

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has threatened to close unless the Dutch government increases its annual funding to support a major renovation. The museum, which houses masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh, says the government is failing to uphold a 1962 agreement requiring it to fund the museum's construction and upkeep. The institution currently receives around $10 million per year but needs an additional $2.9 million annually for climate control, elevators, and infrastructure. Its Masterplan 2028, a $120.6 million project, would partially close the museum for necessary maintenance. Director Emilie Gordenker warned that without action, conditions could become dangerous for both the art and visitors.

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trending_up market schedule Aug 26, 2025 visibility 12 link 4 artists

people inc claes oldenburg coosje van bruggen plantoir sculpture

People Inc., the media company formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, sold the 23-foot-tall sculpture *Plantoir* (2001) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen on August 22. The bright-red garden trowel sculpture, recognized as the World’s Largest Garden Trowel Sculpture, had been a landmark on the former Meredith Corp. campus in Des Moines, Iowa, since 2002. The buyer, sale price, and new location were not disclosed, though the company stated the piece was offered to local organizations before being sold to an out-of-state buyer. The sculpture is expected to be moved by the end of September.

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article news schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

mickalene thomas racquel chevremont harassment allegations

Artist Mickalene Thomas has been accused in a legal filing of fostering an abusive work environment and mismanaging funds involving her former romantic partner Racquel Chevremont. Chevremont, a model, curator, and reality TV star, filed a summons in the Supreme Court of the State of New York on August 8, alleging she was not properly compensated for work done for Thomas, that Thomas diverted significant funds and business opportunities, and that she subjected Chevremont to quid pro quo harassment and a hostile work environment. The summons states their romantic relationship ended in 2020 but their professional ties remained strained, and Chevremont is seeking $10 million in damages.

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person people schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 20 link 2 artists

brian ferriso named director dallas museum of art

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has appointed Brian Ferriso, the longtime director of the Portland Art Museum (PAM), as its next director, effective December 1. Ferriso succeeds Agustín Arteaga, who left last year to lead the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. During his 18-year tenure at PAM, Ferriso grew the endowment by $40 million, eliminated $7 million in debt, doubled curatorial staff, and made the museum free for visitors 17 and under. He also oversaw major collection diversification, co-commissioned Jeffrey Gibson’s U.S. Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, and will open a 100,000-square-foot expansion funded by a $140 million capital campaign.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 11, 2025 visibility 25 link 18 artists

aspen air festival 2025

The inaugural AIR festival took place in Aspen as part of Aspen Art Week, featuring a mix of talks, performances, and a closed-door retreat for artists, writers, scientists, and theorists. Highlights included a pack of panting huskies, a psychoanalysis talk in a psychedelic chapel, an artist conversing with his AI doppelganger, and a whispery musical performance on a museum rooftop. The festival kicked off with a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul accompanied by composer Rafiq Bhatia, followed by discussions on dreaming and catastrophe, and site-responsive works by Jota Mombaça and Paul Chan.

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person people schedule Aug 5, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

rosa barba wins the zurich art prize 2026

Sicily-born, Berlin-based installation artist Rosa Barba has been named the 19th winner of the Zurich Art Prize, awarded by Museum Haus Konstruktiv and Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. The prize includes 100,000 CHF ($124,000) toward a show at the museum and an additional 30,000 CHF ($37,000). Barba’s conceptual installations combine film, sculpture, and sound to explore time, space, and human impact on the natural world. She recently presented the cinematic installation “The Ocean of One’s Pause” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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article news schedule Aug 4, 2025 visibility 15 link 4 artists

amy sherald trans forming liberty the new yorker cover

Amy Sherald's portrait of a Black transgender Statue of Liberty, titled *Trans Forming Liberty* (2024), has appeared on the cover of *The New Yorker* after the artist canceled a planned iteration of her traveling survey at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, alleging censorship. Sherald said museum leadership objected to the painting and proposed replacing it with a video discussion that would include anti-trans views. The work is currently on view at the Whitney Museum, where her survey 'American Sublime' runs through August 10. The Smithsonian later stated it sought to contextualize rather than replace the work, while the Trump administration praised the removal as a 'principled and necessary step' amid broader scrutiny of the institution's exhibitions.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 23 link 9 artists

renoir drawings exhibition morgan

A woman in Pennsylvania purchased a nude charcoal sketch for $12 at a local auction, later discovering it was a Pierre-Auguste Renoir drawing now potentially worth six figures. This fall, the Morgan Museum and Library will present "Renoir Drawings," the first exhibition dedicated to the artist's works on paper since 1921, bringing together over 100 drawings, pastels, watercolors, and prints. The show is organized thematically, covering Renoir's academic studies, sketches of modern life, and portraits, and will reunite finished works with preparatory drawings, including major loans from the Musée d'Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other institutions.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 23, 2025 visibility 23 link 5 artists

guggenheim rauschenberg 100th birthday

Two major New York museums are celebrating the centennial of Robert Rauschenberg's (1925–2008) birth this fall with exhibitions that spotlight lesser-known chapters of his career. At the Guggenheim New York, the monumental silkscreen painting "Barge" (1962–63) returns to New York in October for the first time in nearly 25 years as part of a show titled "Life Can't Be Stopped." The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) will showcase Rauschenberg's undersung photography work focused on New York City. Neither exhibition features his famous "Combines," instead highlighting other aspects of his wide-ranging practice. The Guggenheim's show is part of its new "Focus" series, launched in November 2024, which aims to highlight the museum's collection.

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candle obituary schedule Jul 14, 2025 visibility 17 link 4 artists

bill dilworth new york earth room caretaker dead

Bill Dilworth, the longtime caretaker of Walter De Maria's "The New York Earth Room," died on December 10, 2024, at age 70 from a stroke. His death was reported by The New York Times on Saturday. Dilworth tended the 1977 installation—280,000 pounds of dirt piled two feet high—for 35 years, from 1989 until his retirement in 2024. Managed by the Dia Art Foundation, the piece has been open to the public since 1980 and became a cult favorite, even inspiring a lookalike in a music video by pop star Lorde. Dilworth, an abstract painter, also maintained another De Maria work, "The Broken Kilometer," through his wife Patti, who served as its caretaker.

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article culture schedule Jul 11, 2025 visibility 16 link 20 artists

modi johnny depp modigliani film

Johnny Depp has directed a new film titled "Modigliani – Three Days on the Wing of Madness," based on a play by Dennis McIntyre, which dramatizes 72 hours in the life of Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. The film stars Riccardo Scamarcio as Modigliani and follows the artist's struggles with relationships, money, police, and a meeting with a collector, set against his bohemian life in early 20th-century Paris. It marks Depp's first directorial effort since 1997's "The Brave."

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article news schedule Jul 11, 2025 visibility 13 link 6 artists

ulay wins case regarding against former collaborator marina abramovic

A Dutch court has ordered performance artist Marina Abramović to pay her former collaborator Ulay (Ulay Laysiepen) over €250,000 ($280,500) for violating a 1999 contract regarding joint works created between 1976 and 1988. The court ruled that Ulay is entitled to 20 percent net royalties on sales of those works, plus €23,000 in legal costs. Ulay had accused Abramović of failing to provide accurate sales statements and making only four payments over 16 years. The case stems from their decade-long artistic and romantic partnership, which ended in 1988 with their famous walk on the Great Wall of China.

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