Textiles weave tales of Palestine’s rich but troubled history

The article examines the exhibition 'Narrative Threads' and related artistic projects that explore the profound significance of Palestinian textile traditions, particularly the cross-stitch embroidery known as tatreez. It highlights how 24 contemporary Palestinian artists, including Joanna Barakat and Sliman Mansour, are using this heritage to create new artistic meanings and address themes of displacement, identity, and cultural preservation.

Michelangelo's Pietà Altarpiece for His Own Tomb Restored and Returned to Public View

altarpiece michelangelo made tomb brought back life conservators see pictures update masterpiece

The Opera del Duomo Museum in Florence has unveiled the newly restored Bandini Pietà, a monumental sculpture Michelangelo carved for his own tomb between 1547 and 1555. The two-year conservation project, funded by the Friends of Florence Foundation, removed centuries of accumulated dust, wax, and plaster residue from the 5,900-pound marble block, which the artist famously left unfinished after discovering flaws in the stone.

snow smashes buckminster fuller sculpture

A rare Buckminster Fuller sculpture, the Fly’s Eye Dome, has collapsed at the LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton following a heavy blizzard. The fiberglass structure, one of only five extant versions in the world, caved in under the weight of the snow, leaving the iconic garden centerpiece in ruins.

exiled belarus free theatre brings exhibition on authoritarianism to the venice biennale

The exiled Belarus Free Theatre will stage a major exhibition titled "Official. Unofficial. Belarus." as an official collateral event at the 61st Venice Biennale. In the absence of a formal national pavilion, the group show will occupy the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista, featuring works by artists like Sergey Grinevich and Vladimir Tsesler that utilize religious iconography and prison materials to critique state surveillance and political repression.

venice biennale 2026 artist list koyo kouoh

The Venice Biennale has released the artist list for its 61st edition, titled "In Minor Keys," featuring 111 participants. This edition is historically unique as its curator, Koyo Kouoh, passed away in May 2025 during the exhibition's development, leaving a team of advisors including Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira, and Rasha Salti to realize her vision. The exhibition focuses on understated, poetic sensibilities and living artists, a departure from the larger, historically-focused surveys of recent years.

leonardo da vinci dna finding

Scientists from the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project (LDVP) have extracted DNA from a chalk sketch titled *Holy Child*, which may be by Leonardo da Vinci. In a preprint paper posted Tuesday, researchers suggest genetic links between the artwork and a letter from one of Leonardo's cousins, indicating a shared Tuscan ancestry. However, the findings are preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed, with experts cautioning that proving a direct connection to Leonardo himself is extremely difficult due to the lack of confirmed DNA from the artist and the disputed attribution of the drawing.

stuart semple color of the year anarchic venom

British artist Stuart Semple has announced the winner of his public vote for "Color of the Year," a direct challenge to Pantone's annual color selection. After collecting 4,063 votes online, the winning shade is a purple called Anarchic Venom (hex #B17DAC), now available for $9.99 through Semple's art materials brand Culture Hustle. Semple has a history of democratizing trademarked colors, having previously created alternatives to Tiffany blue, Barbie pink, and Vantablack in a long-running feud with Anish Kapoor. He also released a variant of Pantone's 2025 color Cloud Dancer, which he dubbed Proud Chancer.

art basel awards 2025

Art Basel launched its inaugural Art Basel Awards ceremony at the New World Center in Miami Beach during Art Basel Miami Beach week. The awards, first introduced in New York in May, recognized 36 medalists across categories including Icon, Established, Emerging, Patron, Institution, Curator, and Media & Storytelling. Top winners included Cecilia Vicuña (Icon), Nairy Baghramian and Ibrahim Mahama (Established), Mohammad Alfaraj and Saodat Ismailova (Emerging), and Meriem Bennani (BOSS Award). The event was hosted by musician and collector Kasseem "Swizz Beatz" Dean, with performances by cellist Kelsey Lu and recorded narration by actor Emma D'Arcy. Each artist received $50,000, and established artists will debut commissions at Art Basel in Switzerland next year.

nairy baghramian katarzyna kobro isamu noguchi wiels brussels

Nairy Baghramian's exhibition "nameless" at Wiels in Brussels engages in a sculptural dialogue with the Polish avant-garde artist Katarzyna Kobro, whose work was largely destroyed during and after World War II. Baghramian riffs on Kobro's forms with unpainted steel variations that double as plinths for her own works, while also referencing other displaced sculptors such as Isamu Noguchi, Louise Bourgeois, and Jean Arp. The show deliberately leaves works untitled and undated, inviting viewers to discover art-historical references while enjoying the material playfulness of the sculptures.

alexander calder painted wood mobile christies

Alexander Calder's painted wood mobile "Painted Wood" (ca. 1943) sold for $20.4 million at Christie's 20th-century evening sale in New York, exceeding its $15–$20 million estimate. The work, from the collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, was acquired over 30 years ago and made its auction debut. Bidding was competitive among Christie's staffers Alex Rotter, Max Carter, and Patrick Saich, with Saich winning the lot for a client after a brief technical hiccup. The result is the second-highest price ever for a Calder at auction, behind "Poisson volant (Flying Fish)" (1957) which sold for $25.9 million in 2014.

emerging risks art collecting insure against

Private Client Select (PCS), an insurance partner for serious art collectors, highlights the growing complexity of protecting fine art and collectibles. The article details unusual but real claims—such as a conceptual artwork mistaken for trash, a fiber work unraveled by a cat, or a sculpture damaged by a housekeeper—alongside more common risks like climate damage, transit mishaps, and theft. PCS's Art Services team, led by Senior Vice President Muys Snijders, offers proactive risk management, coordinating conservators, appraisers, and storage solutions. Emerging threats include climate change (wildfires, floods), social media exposure, financial complexities (tariffs, collateral lending), and material degradation of contemporary works using nontraditional materials.

salvador dali necklace sea sothebys surrealism sale

A Salvador Dalí-designed necklace, the Swirling Sea Necklace, sold for €736,600 ($858,500) at Sotheby's 'Surrealism and Its Legacy' auction on October 24, doubling its pre-sale estimate. The 18-karat gold piece, inlaid with diamonds, a cultured pearl, and sapphire and emerald beads, was conceived by Dalí in 1954 and first owned by São Schlumberger, a frequent patron of the artist. The necklace had previously sold at Sotheby's in 2014 for $665,000 to Anne Schlumberger, who died in April, prompting its return to auction.

george soros trump open society foundations investigation

The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on billionaire philanthropist George Soros, with the Justice Department calling for an investigation into his Open Society Foundations. The foundations, which provide substantial grants to artists and human rights organizations globally, are accused of potential racketeering, wire fraud, and material support for terrorism, based on allegations from the conservative Capital Research Center. Soros, a major Democratic donor, has previously been targeted by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who claim the foundations fund leftist protests. The Open Society Foundations have awarded $100,000 fellowships to numerous prominent artists, including Firelei Báez, Yto Barrada, and Nicholas Galanin, and provided $1.2 billion in funding in 2024 alone.

suzanne duchamp retrospective zurich kunsthall schirn frankfurt

A new retrospective at Kunsthaus Zurich, soon traveling to Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, spotlights Suzanne Duchamp (1889–1963), a French artist often overshadowed by her brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Villon. The exhibition, titled “Suzanne Duchamp: Retrospective,” showcases her highly individual painterly practice rooted in Cubism and Dada, featuring works like *Radiation of Two Solitary Separates Apart* (1916–20) and *Marcel’s Unhappy Readymade* (1920), which reappropriates her brother’s readymade concept. The show includes a new catalog commission by painter Amy Sillman, who created digital drawings inspired by Duchamp’s formal dynamics.

deleuze seminars painting

A newly translated English edition of Gilles Deleuze's 1981 seminars on painting, originally published in French as 'Sur la peinture' in 2023, has been released by the University of Minnesota Press. Translated by Charles J. Stivale, the eight lectures explore what concepts painting can offer to philosophy, rather than the reverse. Deleuze discusses terms like catastrophe, the diagram, and figure, focusing on artists such as Titian, Turner, Cézanne, van Gogh, Klee, Mondrian, Pollock, and Bacon, offering a chaotic yet magnificent counterpoint to his more systematic book 'Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation'.

eames house restored reopened

The Eames House, designed by Charles and Ray Eames in the late 1940s in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades, has reopened after a six-month closure due to smoke damage from the January 2025 wildfires. The property was saved from destruction partly because hundreds of surrounding trees were removed in 2024. The restoration has expanded visitor access, opening the studio for the first time, which will host exhibitions on the house's evolution and contemporary design influences. The first exhibition may focus on community rebuilding after the fires.

taipei dangdai nixes 2026 edition

Taipei Dangdai Art and Ideas, the annual art fair in Taiwan's capital, will not hold its 2026 edition as organizers pause to conduct a strategic evaluation of the fair's model, timing, scale, and format. The decision follows a prolonged contraction in the art market and comes days after the Art Dealers Association of America canceled its long-running Art Show in New York. The fair, which first launched in 2019 and held its sixth edition in May, had seen its exhibitor numbers decline from over 90 to around 50 this year. Co-director Robin Peckham left after the 2025 edition, and the fair's parent organization, the Art Assembly, has removed material about previous editions from its website, with its Instagram account apparently disabled.

carlos agredano fume los angeles nomadic art division

Artist Carlos Agredano, who grew up near the 105 Freeway in Lynwood, California, has created a traveling sculpture titled "FUME" (2025) that uses air quality sensors mounted on his 1992 Toyota Pickup to measure pollution from vehicle exhaust and ambient air. The work was exhibited at the Los Angeles Nomadic Art Division (LAND) and is part of Agredano's broader practice examining how the LA freeway system has harmed working-class communities of color through toxic drift and destructive urban planning. His research draws on sources including Eric Avila's book "Folklore of the Freeway" and studies from UCLA's Center for Occupational & Environmental Health.

eames past prologue san francisco

An exhibition titled "Past as Prologue: The Last Decade of Furniture Design by Ray and Charles Eames" opens June 7 at the Transamerica Pyramid Center during San Francisco Design Week. Curated by Llisa Demetrios, the couple's granddaughter and chief curator of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, the show highlights the Eameses' often-overlooked final decade of collaboration (1968–1978). It features iconic designs like the side chair, executive chair, chess stool, and chaise, alongside rarely seen models and materials that reveal their iterative design process.

new institute of sexology celebrates history of erotic art film photography

The Wellcome Collection in London has opened a new exhibition titled "The Institute of Sexology," celebrating the history of erotic art, film, and photography. The show features a wide range of objects including archival material, ethnographic and medical artifacts, erotica, and works by contemporary artists such as John Stezaker, Sharon Hayes, Zanele Muholi, and Timothy Archibald. It highlights pioneers of sexology like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Marie Stopes, and marks the first exhibition after the institution's £17.5 million expansion, inaugurating a new gallery for large, year-long shows.

eureka max ernst grattage technique

The article explores how German Surrealist Max Ernst developed the techniques of frottage and grattage in the mid-1920s. Frottage—rubbing paper over textured surfaces like floorboards, leaves, and netting—allowed Ernst to create spontaneous, unconscious imagery, culminating in his 1926 publication *Natural History*. He later adapted the method to canvas as grattage, scraping layers of paint over textured materials to reveal abstract forms, drawing on influences from Leonardo da Vinci and memories of his childhood in the Rhineland.

armando marrocco robilant voena

Artnet News spotlights Italian artist Armando Marrocco (b. 1939), whose early career was shaped by Lucio Fontana. After moving to Milan in 1962, Marrocco developed his "Intrecci" series—vibrant monochromatic enamel-on-cardboard works that layer and weave humble materials into substantial objects. The exhibition "Marrocco Twist" at Robilant and Voena in Paris showcases these earliest works, on view through July 22.

munch the scream bird droppings

Edvard Munch, the Norwegian Expressionist and Symbolist painter, often worked and stored his paintings outdoors on the grounds of his 45-acre estate, Ekely. This unconventional approach led to many works suffering damage from the elements, including water damage, dog paw prints, and an enduring urban legend that white smears on his iconic painting *The Scream* (1893) were bird droppings. In 2016, researchers at the University of Antwerp used X-ray radiation to debunk this myth, proving the marks were actually candle wax.

smith partner art investment firm 11m fraud

Smith and Partner, a London-based art investment firm, has been accused of defrauding over a thousand investors out of $11 million through a scheme involving high-pressure sales of limited edition art prints with promises of future returns that rarely materialized. The company, founded by Austrian citizen Peter Paul Adam in 2015, faced complaints from 2020 onward, leading to its bank freezing accounts and an investigation by British Trading Standards. Liquidators are seeking $17 million in compensation, and a High Court judge has upheld asset freeze orders against former director Luke Sparkes and his company Zeno Fine Art, which allegedly inflated print prices by nearly 500 percent.

national garden of american heroes analysis

President Trump is moving forward with the National Garden of American Heroes, a monument featuring 250 life-size statues of American historical figures, to be built for the U.S. semiquincentennial in 2026. The project, first announced in a 2020 executive order, has released grant guidelines offering $200,000 per sculpture, with $34 million diverted from the NEA and NEH. The list of 244 subjects includes figures like Hannah Arendt, Neil Armstrong, and John Singer Sargent, with six remaining to be chosen by a presidential aide. The statues must be realistic, using materials like marble or bronze, and the location is still undecided, though South Dakota is a strong contender.

South Korean ceramic artist Jongjin Park wins 2026 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.

South Korean ceramic artist Jongjin Park has won the 2026 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize for his piece "Strata of Illusion" (2025), a partially-collapsed seat-like form made from paper and coated in porcelain slip. The award comes with a €50,000 ($58,700) prize, and Park's work will be exhibited alongside other shortlisted entries at the National Gallery Singapore, opening tomorrow and running through June 14.

The tiniest event can tear a hole. Sara MacKillop by Margaret Kross

Sara MacKillop's exhibition "The Cutaway View" at Good Weather in Chicago presents sculptures made from humble analog materials like blank wall calendars, empty shopping bags, and gift wrapping. The London-based artist alters these objects with minimal interventions—such as surgically cut holes in shopping bags to accommodate vinyl records—drawing attention to the ephemera and texture of retail culture. Her series "Calendar Houses" (2021–ongoing) uses archive boxes and wall calendars to create miniature modernist dwellings that critique systems of order and self-optimization.

Collaged Denim Sculptures by Nick Doyle Unravel American Mythology

Brooklyn-based artist Nick Doyle creates large-scale wall sculptures using layered and bleached denim, exploring American mythology and its contradictions. His solo exhibition "Collective Hallucinations" at Perrotin features works such as stylized cacti, landscapes, tarot cards, and a fortune teller's shop, all rendered in denim. Doyle's practice began after finding a discarded roll of denim in 2018, which he saw as a metaphor for the complexities of American history, including slavery, masculinity, and Manifest Destiny.

A Wooden Canopy by Kengo Kuma Casts Dappled Light Around a Copenhagen Museum

Architect Kengo Kuma has unveiled a monumental site-specific installation titled "Earth / Tree" at Copenhagen Contemporary. The structure features a suspended canopy of curved wooden slats designed to evoke the Japanese concept of 'komorebi,' or the dappled light that filters through trees. Positioned over a brick platform and rubble, the installation serves as a material bridge between Nordic and Japanese architectural traditions.

Jean Katambayi Mukendi “RATIO” at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

Congolese artist Jean Katambayi Mukendi has opened a solo exhibition titled "RATIO" at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. The show features works that interrogate fundamental dualities such as the natural versus the artificial, growth versus destruction, and the dynamics between resources and power.