Art News. Vasari Codex

article culture schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

art bites michelangelo military fortifications

Michelangelo, best known for masterpieces like the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Pietà, also served as the governor and procurator general of fortifications for Florence in 1529, tasked with designing military defenses against the Medici family. After the Medici were expelled in 1527, Michelangelo joined the "Nine of the Militia" committee, but his overly complex drawings were so impractical that almost none were built. The Medici, backed by Pope Clement VII, successfully besieged Florence in 1529–30, forcing Michelangelo into hiding in a secret chamber beneath the Medici Chapel, where he drew figurative works rediscovered in 1975. He was eventually pardoned and went on to create major commissions like the tomb of Pope Julius II and The Last Judgement, but left Florence for Rome in 1534.

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person people schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

pulitzer critic christopher knight retires los angeles times

Christopher Knight, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for the Los Angeles Times, is retiring after a 45-year career in criticism, including 36 years at the newspaper. His final day is Friday. Knight, one of the few remaining full-time art critics in American journalism, was praised by colleagues for his encyclopedic knowledge and razor-sharp assessments. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2020, notably for a series of articles that harshly critiqued the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's (LACMA) proposed redesign by architect Peter Zumthor. He also received a lifetime achievement award from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation in 2020, and the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award in 1997. Before his journalism career, Knight worked as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and consulted for the Lannan Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 17 link 1 artist

michelangelo drawing sistine chapel christies new york

A five-inch-tall red chalk drawing of a foot, attributed to Michelangelo (1475–1564), is set to be auctioned at Christie’s New York in February with an estimate of $1.5–2 million. The work was discovered when Giada Damen, a specialist in Old Master drawings at Christie’s, flagged it from a public online submission; after extensive provenance research, technical analysis, and comparison with known sketches, Christie’s has declared it a preparatory study for the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–1512). If authenticated, it would be one of only two such Michelangelo drawings remaining in private hands.

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article news schedule Oct 14, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

british museum tudor heart henry viii

The British Museum has launched a high-profile fundraising campaign to acquire the Tudor Heart, a gold pendant from the early reign of Henry VIII, discovered by amateur metal detectorist Charlie Clarke in Warwickshire in 2019. The museum needs to raise £3.5 million ($4.6 million) by early next year to secure the piece, which features symbols of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and is described as the only surviving Tudor jewelry of its kind. Actor Damian Lewis and historian Mary Beard are supporting the appeal, and the museum will host its first British Museum Ball on October 18 to further fundraising efforts.

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gavel restitution schedule Sep 30, 2025 visibility 20 link 2 artists

nazi looted painting argentina attribution investigation

A painting discovered in an Argentine home in August, initially attributed to 18th-century Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi and believed to be Nazi-looted art, has been called into question. Paolo Plebani, curator of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy, told the Argentine newspaper Clarín that the work is actually by Giacomo Ceruti, another Northern Italian painter. The painting was previously owned by Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who fled the Nazis, and later by former Nazi Friedrich Kadgien, whose daughters Patricia and Alicia owned the Mar del Plata home where it was found. Argentine authorities recovered the painting after placing the daughters and Patricia's husband under house arrest.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 21, 2025 visibility 14 link 6 artists

martin beck environments art

Martin Beck has created a new body of artwork inspired by the *Environments* series of LPs, which debuted in 1969 and featured long-duration nature sounds and aural abstractions. The works are on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, through October 5, and include wall works, video, and an exhibition design that explores how the records were marketed as lifestyle accessories and productivity aids. Beck first encountered the series through a friend's lecture at Columbia University and became fascinated by its blend of utopian vision and commercial hype.

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article policy schedule Jul 30, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

trump big beautiful bill space shuttle discovery museum houston

President Donald Trump signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on July 4, which includes a provision requiring the Smithsonian Institution to transfer a space vehicle—widely understood to be the space shuttle Discovery—to NASA. The shuttle has been displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, since 2012. The move must be completed by January 4, 2027, and $85 million has been allocated for planning, transportation, and a new exhibition facility in Houston. The provision originated from the "Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act" introduced by Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, after their state lost the original competition to host Discovery.

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article news schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

raphael rooms restoration discovery

The Vatican Museums have completed the decade-long restoration of the Hall of Constantine, one of the Raphael Rooms, revealing that Renaissance master Raphael himself painted two figures—Justice and Friendship—in the hall, contrary to the long-held belief that the entire room was executed solely by his assistants after his death. Conservators identified Raphael's hand by his distinctive oil-on-resin technique, which differed from the traditional fresco methods used by his assistants Giulio Romano, Gianfrancesco Penni, and Raffaellino del Colle. The discovery was made during a meticulous restoration that began in March 2015 and finished in December 2024.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 17 link 12 artists

diana de rosa

A rediscovered Baroque painting by 17th-century Neapolitan artist Diana de Rosa, titled *Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist*, sold for £317,500 ($436,086) at Sotheby’s Old Masters and 19th Century Paintings sale in London on July 2, more than quadrupling its high estimate. The work, previously unknown to scholars, set a new auction record for the artist and was described by Sotheby’s specialist Elisabeth Lobkowicz as a powerful image comparable to Caravaggio’s treatment of the same subject.

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article news schedule Jul 1, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

director of sao paulos museu afro brasil dismissed after less than two years

Hélio Menezes has been dismissed as director of the Museu Afro Brasil in São Paulo after less than two years in the role. He announced his departure on Instagram, describing the museum's internal decision-making as informal, personalistic, and lacking transparency, and criticized a leadership disconnected from Black representation and the visual arts world. Two board members, Wellinton Souza and artist Rosana Paulino, also resigned. The museum cited budgetary disagreements and accused Menezes of personal attacks against its board chair.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

jane austen sister artist

Jane Austen's older sister Cassandra, a skilled but historically overshadowed artist, is the subject of a new exhibition titled "The Art of Cassandra" at Jane Austen's House in Chawton, England. The show features 10 of her surviving works, including six never before publicly displayed and four newly discovered pieces, such as family portraits, a winter landscape, and copies of existing artworks. The display marks the largest-ever gathering of confirmed works by Cassandra, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth.

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article news schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

black portraiture peregrine tyam letter

A 17th-century British portrait at Claydon House, a National Trust property, depicts Mary Lawley and Peregrine Tyam, a Black enslaved attendant whose identity is known—one of the earliest such examples. Historian Hannah Lee published research in British Art Studies revealing new details about Tyam, including a rediscovered letter he wrote in 1699 to his enslaver John Verney, offering rare firsthand insight into the lives of enslaved people in aristocratic households. The portrait, attributed to the little-known artist Lenthall, was commissioned by Verney to mark his marriage in 1692 and shows Tyam wearing a silver collar, a symbol of enslavement.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 20 link 4 artists

amnh pedro pascal hayden planetarium show

New York's American Museum of Natural History is launching a new film at the Hayden Planetarium titled "Encounters in the Milky Way," narrated by actor Pedro Pascal. Opening June 9, the 30-minute show uses data from the European Space Agency's Gaia observatory and contributions from over 20 academic institutions to map the sun's journey through the Milky Way over billions of years. The project involved astronomers, artists, and science visualization experts, with a score by composer Robert Miller and direction by museum trustee Shawn Levy.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 18 link 8 artists

artemisia gentileschi rediscovered works paris

A new exhibition in Paris, "Artemisia Gentileschi: Heroine of Art," at the Musée Jacquemart-André, presents around 40 paintings by the Italian Baroque painter, including four recently rediscovered works. Curator Patrizia Cavazzini deliberately shifts focus away from Gentileschi's rape and trial, instead highlighting her artistic development and achievements. Among the rediscovered pieces are "Virgin of the Annunciation" (c. 1609-10), one of her earliest known works, and a signed portrait of a Knight of the Order of Saint Stephen (c. 1619-20), previously misattributed to Justus Sustermans.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

rachel ruyschs still lifes dutch toledo pinakothek munich mfa boston

The Toledo Museum of Art has opened the first major exhibition dedicated to Dutch Golden Age painter Rachel Ruysch, organized with the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and traveling next to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show features Ruysch's vibrant still lifes of fruits and flowers, often animated by insects, and places her work alongside that of her sister Anna Ruysch and other female scientific illustrators like Maria Sibylla Merian. Curator Robert Schindler's rediscovery of Anna Ruysch's work helped inspire the exhibition, which also draws on botanical research to catalog the global plant species Ruysch depicted, reflecting colonial trade networks.

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article news schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

museum removes maori artist new zealand flag diane prince

The Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, New Zealand, removed an artwork by Māori artist Diane Prince after public outcry. The piece, a new version of her 1995 work *Flagging the Future*, featured the New Zealand flag printed with the words “PLEASE WALK ON ME” and was part of a solo show organized by Pātaka Art + Museum. Local resident Ruth Tipu protested by picking up the flag daily, citing distress over the flag being walked on, especially given her grandfather’s service in the Māori Battalion. The museum cited an escalation in hostile discourse as the reason for removal, while affirming support for freedom of expression.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 23, 2025 visibility 19 link 5 artists

artemisia gentileschi masterpiece restored beruit bombing getty debut

The J. Paul Getty Museum unveils Artemisia Gentileschi's long-lost painting *Hercules and Omphale* (ca. 1635–37) after three years of restoration. The work was nearly destroyed in the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, which caused severe damage to the Sursock Palace where it was housed. Senior conservator Ulrich Birkmaier led the delicate process of reassembling the canvas, removing glass shards and debris, and restoring the original colors.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 22, 2025 visibility 21 link 6 artists

louise bonnet swiss institute site santa fe

Louise Bonnet, a Los Angeles-based painter known for her cartoonish yet sophisticated depictions of the female nude, discusses her latest work ahead of two major exhibitions. Her two-person show with Elizabeth King, titled "De Anima," opens at the Swiss Institute in New York, focusing on shared approaches to figuration that balance objecthood and liveliness. Bonnet also created a new series for the next edition of the SITE Santa Fe International biennial, opening in June. In an interview with ARTnews editor Emily Watlington, Bonnet explains her shift to tighter cropped compositions emphasizing routine gestures like tying shoelaces or fastening bras, inspired by World War II British spies and films like Rosemary's Baby.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 24, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

ei arakawa nash japan 2026 venice biennale pavilion

Ei Arakawa-Nash, a Los Angeles–based performance artist, has been selected to represent Japan at the 2026 Venice Biennale, as announced by the Japan Foundation. He will create a new installation for the Japan Pavilion that explores his perspective as a queer parent of newborn twins, aiming to “dissect nationalism and patriarchy.” Arakawa-Nash, who gave up his Japanese nationality a few years ago, draws on post-war avant-garde movements like Gutai and Tokyo Fluxus, and his recent works include a large-scale participatory performance at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2021.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 4, 2026 visibility 26 link 2 artists, 2 galleries

Hito Steyerl “The Island” Osservatorio Fondazione Prada / Milan by Piermario De Angelis

Hito Steyerl's solo exhibition "The Island" at Osservatorio Fondazione Prada in Milan explores the concept of submersion as both a geological condition and a media regime. The show takes its title from a Neolithic artificial island discovered off the coast of Korčula, Croatia, which remained submerged for approximately seven thousand years. Through video interviews, installations, and critical assemblages, Steyerl connects this submerged structure to contemporary issues of digital image circulation, algorithmic power, and the dispossession of agency, drawing on science fiction, quantum physics, biochemistry, and deep time.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 31, 2026 visibility 28 link 12 artists, 3 galleries

“Iter Subterraneum” / Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen by Adele Seip

Bergen Kunsthall has launched "Iter Subterraneum," a group exhibition inspired by Ludvig Holberg’s 1741 satirical novel about a man who falls through a cave in Bergen into a subterranean world. The show features ten international artists, including Robert Gabris, Anicka Yi, and Cecilia Fiona, whose works span video, sculpture, and performance. By pairing historical editions of Holberg’s book with contemporary installations, the exhibition explores themes of displacement, collective existence, and the blurring of lines between human and non-human life.

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article culture schedule Apr 1, 2026 visibility 29 link 21 artists

What Art Can Do

A conversation between German author and filmmaker Alexander Kluge and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, originally published in 2017, has been republished following Kluge's recent death at age 94. The dialogue explores the unique capacities of different art forms, the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, and the role of art as an "oasis" or "garden" within an overwhelming technological landscape.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 31, 2026 source 2 sources visibility 23 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

Miriam Cahn “STILL LEBEN” at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris

Miriam Cahn presents a new exhibition, "STILL LEBEN," at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff in Paris. The show features a recent body of work, produced largely in the past few months, which marks a distinct shift from her previous focus on the human body and overt brutality. The new pieces center on objects, everyday domestic situations, and interiors, exploring what the artist terms 'le ménage' (housekeeping).

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 7, 2026 visibility 15 link 8 artists

A Muddy History of Plant-Hunting

The exhibition "Seeds of Exchange" at London's Garden Museum highlights a 1773 botanical collaboration between British amateur plant hunter John Bradby Blake and Cantonese painter Mak Sau. Centered on Blake’s unpublished "Flora Sinensis," the project attempted to systematically catalogue Chinese flora, including the Camellia japonica, through detailed watercolors that blended Western objective illustration with Chinese artistic expertise. These works served as the primary medium for introducing Chinese plant species to the West long before live specimens could survive the journey.

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article news schedule May 14, 2026 visibility 14 link 4 artists

Artists Spar Over Credit For A Dress Displayed In The Met’s ‘Costume Art’ Exhibition

London-based artist Anouska Samms has accused the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute of exhibiting a dress that she claims is a counterfeit of her work in the ongoing "Costume Art" exhibition. The dress, titled Corpus Nervina 0.0, is credited solely to New York-based Israeli designer Yoav Hadari, but Samms alleges it closely resembles an earlier Nervina hair dress she co-developed with Hadari during their 2023 residency at the Lee Alexander McQueen Sarabande Foundation. Samms discovered the display via a social media post and has since spoken out, noting that a contract from their collaboration designated her as the sole owner of the intellectual property of the fabric. The Met has requested that the two parties resolve their dispute before the museum takes further action.

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article culture schedule May 4, 2026 visibility 27 link 8 artists

Mummy, is this a video game? The dangers of showing kids art on a screen

A parent takes their toddler to Frameless, an immersive digital art experience in London, where works by Hieronymus Bosch, Claude Monet, and Georges Seurat are projected onto walls, ceilings, and floors. The child reacts with mixed engagement—enjoying some moments but feeling overwhelmed by the frenetic, screen-based environment—while the author reflects on the tension between traditional static art and animated digital reproductions.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 30, 2026 visibility 30 link 11 artists

Jarvis Cocker and Kim Sion to curate art exhibition at Hepworth Wakefield

Jarvis Cocker and his wife Kim Sion will curate a new exhibition titled "Hodge Podge" at the Hepworth Wakefield, opening in May 2027. The show brings together a personal selection of works by artists including Jeremy Deller, Peter Doig, Barbara Hepworth, and others, alongside unknown outsider and visionary artists never before exhibited in UK public museums. The exhibition aims to challenge conventional ideas of art and includes an immersive Dreamachine, a flickering light device co-invented by Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville in 1959.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 18 link 6 artists

philip leider artforum founding editor dead

Philip Leider, the founding editor of Artforum, died at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 11 at age 96. Leider helped transform Artforum into a leading source for rigorous art criticism after becoming its editor in 1962, but he left the publication in 1971 and largely disengaged from the mainstream art world, later teaching at the University of California, Irvine and the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Israel.

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article news schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

banksy sentimental lighthouse

Banksy has unveiled a new artwork featuring a lighthouse with the text 'I want to be what you saw in me,' posted on his Instagram account without any caption or location details. The piece, rendered in his signature black stencil on a stucco wall, appears to be his first major work since the 2023 'Beastly London' campaign, which included animal-themed murals across the city. Within two hours of posting, the image garnered over 300,000 likes, continuing the artist's tradition of cryptic, location-ambiguous public interventions.

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article culture schedule May 8, 2026 visibility 17 link 7 artists, 2 galleries

Can Raising Children Make You a Better Artist? Four Artist Mothers Weigh In.

Four artist mothers—Hope Atherton, Jessi Reaves, Sam Moyer, and Sarah Morris—share candid reflections on how raising children has shaped their art practices. They discuss fractured time, heightened decisiveness, evolving rituals like bedtime reading, and the guilt and power that accompany balancing motherhood with studio work. Atherton describes a new sense of urgency and efficiency, while Reaves and others offer personal anecdotes about the interplay between caregiving and creativity.

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