Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades at Parrish Art Museum

The Parrish Art Museum is hosting "Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades," a comprehensive retrospective celebrating the centennial of the legendary American abstractionist. The exhibition spans Kelly’s prolific career, featuring a diverse array of works including his signature shaped canvases, wood sculptures, and precise drawings. By bringing together pieces from various stages of his life, the show highlights Kelly's unwavering commitment to exploring the relationships between color, form, and space.

Obscured Gauguin nude sculpture may be revealed in its entirety following museum donation

A polychromed wood relief by Paul Gauguin, titled 'Te Fare Amu', is set to undergo conservation to remove overpaint that has obscured the figure's genitals for seven decades. The sculpture was partially painted over in 1954 by American collector Henry Pearlman, who feared the work would be seized by US Customs as 'obscene' or 'indecent' upon its import from Paris. The piece is part of a major 63-work promised donation from the Pearlman family foundation to the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and MoMA.

Frieze Los Angeles Diary: hockey hotties, roaming Rami and Simon sells

Frieze Los Angeles week kicked off with a flurry of high-profile events, celebrity sightings, and charitable initiatives across the city. Key highlights included the Felix Art Fair, where RF. Alvarez’s painting inspired by the queer hockey drama 'Heated Rivalry' drew significant attention, and a major benefit auction led by Simon de Pury that raised over $500,000 for natural disaster relief. The week also featured a prestigious gathering at a private James Turrell Skyspace to celebrate the Serpentine Americas Foundation.

A new hope: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art sets September 2026 opening date

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles has announced its opening date of September 22, 2026, more than a decade after the project was first conceived by filmmaker George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson. The museum, which moved from San Francisco to Chicago before settling in Los Angeles's Exposition Park, has grown from a $700 million budget to a reported $1 billion and will house over 40,000 works across 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. The collection spans ancient artifacts, canonical artists like Frida Kahlo and John Singer Sargent, comic book legends such as Jack Kirby and Alison Bechdel, photography by Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange, and the Lucas Archives of film memorabilia.

New York exhibition seeks to raise funds for LGBTQ+ youth centre

The Ali Forney Center (AFC), an LGBTQ+ youth organization facing a funding drop of over $400,000 from lost corporate sponsors, is holding a benefit exhibition titled "Toward the Light: Artists for the Ali Forney Center" at David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery in Chelsea from October 28 to November 1. Organized by art adviser Stephen Truax for the second year, the show features 38 works by artists including Doron Langberg, Jenna Gribbon, Jake Grewal, Ilana Savdie, Anthony Cudahy, Wolfgang Tillmans, Julie Mehretu, and Katherine Bradford, with proceeds supporting AFC’s housing and care for over 2,000 queer youth. Previous editions with Sotheby’s raised over $350,000 and $370,000 respectively.

Reynolds works acquired by Waddesdon Manor under UK's acceptance in lieu scheme

Two major paintings by 18th-century British artist Joshua Reynolds—David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy (1761) and Portrait of Joanna Leigh, Mrs Richard Bennett Lloyd (1775-76)—have been acquired by Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire under the UK’s acceptance in lieu (AIL) scheme. The works, from the estate of Jacob Rothschild who died in February 2024, settled a combined £24.5 million in inheritance tax. Both paintings had been on loan to Waddesdon Manor, a National Trust property managed by Rothschild, since 1995.

Something from Everything leads current excellent array of exhibitions at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) is presenting five exhibitions, including an outdoor public art installation, with the highlight being "Something from Everything" (on view through Jan. 3, 2026). This exhibition features works from 19 artists that use mundane, discarded, and overlooked materials, exploring the evolving medium of sculpture. Key pieces include Lee Bontecou's 1959 "Untitled" relief (on loan from the Art Bridges Foundation) and Charlotte Posenenske's modular "Vierkantrohre (Square Tubes)" from 1967, alongside contemporary works by Nolan Flynn, Patrick Durka, Ricardo Rendón, and Leonardo Drew.

Moving On Up: 24 Museum Curators and Art Leaders Who Took on New Appointments in First Half of 2025

Culture Type has published its annual list of new appointments among museum curators and arts leaders for the first half of 2025, highlighting two dozen hires and promotions at major institutions. Notable appointments include Deana Haggag as program director for arts and culture at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ann Collins Smith as chief curator at the New Orleans Museum of Art (the first Black American in a full-time curatorial role there), and Vincent van Velsen as head of exhibitions at Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. The list also features curators such as Alisa Chiles at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Brittany Webb at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

‘I feel at home here’: Michael Rakowitz’s Acropolis Museum exhibition locates the lines between stories of lost heritage

The Acropolis Museum in Athens has opened "Allspice: Michael Rakowitz and Ancient Cultures," the first exhibition in a trilogy organized with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the nonprofit Neon. It is also the first time the museum has presented work by a living artist. The show pairs ancient objects from the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture and the Thanos N. Zintilis Collection of Cypriot Antiquities with 14 works by Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, including pieces from his ongoing series "The invisible enemy should not exist," which recreates artifacts looted or destroyed from the National Museum of Iraq. Rakowitz’s lamassu reliefs, reimagined from the Palace of Nimrud, and a new commission featuring his mother’s recipes explore themes of lost heritage, memory, and diaspora.

Major, International Touring Exhibition ‘Treasures of the Pharaohs’ Coming to the Kimbell Art Museum in 2027

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, announced it will host the major international touring exhibition 'Treasures of the Pharaohs' from March 14 to September 19, 2027. Featuring 130 artifacts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Luxor Museum, the exhibition spans 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, including royal treasures, newly discovered objects from the 'Golden City' in the Valley of the Kings, and works from Dynasty I to the Ptolemaic period. The exhibition is currently on view at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome and will travel to the de Young museum in San Francisco before arriving at the Kimbell.

Hamed Abdalla | Al Beous, Misery (1961) | For Sale

Hamed Abdalla's 1961 work "Al Beous, Misery" is being offered for sale through Mark Hachem Gallery, listed on Artsy. The piece is an ink on paper from glue relief, measuring 33 × 46 cm, hand-signed, and includes a certificate of authenticity. Abdalla (1917–1985) was a pioneering Egyptian and Arab modernist, known for his "Creative Word" concept blending abstraction and human forms. His career included exhibitions at Cairo's Museum of Modern Art, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tate Modern, among others.

Painting the park: Artists blossom at Wegerzyn as they make it their classroom

Sinclair Community College associate professor of art Bridgette Bogle took her mixed-level painting class to Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark in Dayton, Ohio, for a plein air painting session. Students ranging in age from 18 to 80, including postal worker Don Adams and lifelong artist Aubrey Botts, set up easels throughout the gardens to paint landscapes outdoors, learning the Impressionist-inspired technique of working quickly in natural light.

Exhibition | Anna Park, 'Hot Honey' at Lehmann Maupin, London, United Kingdom

Anna Park makes her United Kingdom solo debut at Lehmann Maupin London with 'Hot Honey,' an exhibition of large-scale charcoal works running from April 30 to May 30. The show features Park’s signature fractured, cinematic compositions that explore female archetypes like the 'vixen' and the 'bombshell.' For the first time, the artist introduces shaped supports that turn her drawings into sculptural reliefs, alongside restrained passages of color that heighten the psychological intensity of her social critiques.

Photomontage of Israel bombing Gaza will go on show at Art Basel Qatar

Pakistani artist Rashid Rana's photomontage 'Black Square (2025)' will be presented at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar fair. The work, composed of hundreds of stills from a Gaza CCTV camera, depicts a night of Israeli bombardment and is priced at $30,000, with all proceeds directed to Gaza relief funds. It is being shown by Mumbai gallery Chemould Prescott Road.

BRAFA 2026: the art market heats up from the opening

The 71st edition of BRAFA art fair in Brussels opened with strong sales, signaling a promising start to the 2026 art market. During the first three invitation-only days, major works were sold by galleries including Greta Meert, which placed a €500,000 Enrico Castellani, and Mulier Mulier Gallery, which sold a Tom Wesselmann for €80,000. Other notable sales include a Kim Tschang Yeul work at Boon Gallery, a Renoir painting at Stern Pissarro, and a James Ensor piece at Patrick Derom Gallery. The fair features 147 exhibitors and has attracted loyal collectors, with many galleries reporting multiple red dots and strong interest from younger buyers.

From monumental scroll paintings to metaphorical breasts: five works to see at Art SG

The article highlights five standout works at Art SG, the Singapore art fair. Featured artists include Pinaree Sanpitak, whose hand-blown glass sculpture *Stacked Offering I* (2024-25) continues her exploration of breasts as metaphors for womanhood and spirituality; Jakkai Siributr, whose textile work *CG20* (2023) repurposes discarded uniforms from Thailand's struggling tourism workers into a tapestry of healing; Citra Sasmita, whose installation *Timur Merah Project XI: Bedtime Story* (2023-24) centers female protagonists in Balinese mythological scrolls; and Ayesha Singh, whose wall reliefs from the *Evolution* series trace Indian architectural motifs. Prices range from around $5,000 to $40,000, with works shown by galleries including Ames Yavuz, Flowers Gallery, Yeo Workshop, and Nature Morte.

‘We just wanted to do our small part’: how Texas's art community responded to deadly flash floods

Flash flooding in Texas's Hill Country over the 4 July weekend killed at least 137 people, devastating towns like Kerrville. Darrell Beauchamp, executive director of the Museum of Western Art, describes waking to evacuation efforts and later joining volunteer search groups along the river. The museum, located on high ground, was unharmed and opened the next morning as a refuge for first responders and locals, offering its parking lot and gallery space. Beauchamp received support from neighboring institutions like the Nimitz Museum, which offered archival supplies to help save art.

The Underrated Architect of the Avant-Garde

Der unterschätzte Architekt der Avantgarde

The Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare in Bolzano is hosting a comprehensive retrospective dedicated to Ilja Sdanewitsch, known as Iliazd, a Georgian-Russian-French avant-garde polymath. The exhibition, titled "Toutité Iliazd. Die Erforschung der Form," showcases his diverse output as a writer, designer, and publisher who viewed the book as a primary art object. The display includes architectural reliefs, textile designs for Coco Chanel, and his significant collaborations with icons like Picasso and Duchamp.

"We are among those in the crowd who are overjoyed"

"Wir gehören zu denjenigen in der Menge, die überglücklich sind"

The Hungarian art scene is celebrating a major political shift following Péter Magyar’s electoral victory over Viktor Orbán, ending 16 years of restrictive cultural policies. Local figures, including gallerist Margit Valkó and artist János Sugár, express immense relief and hope for a future defined by institutional autonomy and international engagement after years of state-led hostility toward contemporary art.

Château-Chinon unveils the astonishing gifts of President François Mitterrand

Château-Chinon déballe les étonnants cadeaux du président François Mitterrand

The Cité des présents-François Mitterrand, formerly the Musée du Septennat, has reopened in Château-Chinon, France, after a renovation. The museum displays thousands of diplomatic gifts received by President François Mitterrand during his 14-year tenure (1981–1995), including a portrait of Prince Charles, a vermeil oasis from the king of Saudi Arabia, and taxidermy lions from the Central African Republic. The collection of 4,800 objects spans 80 countries, with one-third donated by French citizens. The site also houses a fashion museum featuring 5,000 pieces from the 17th century to contemporary designers like Alexis Mabille and Yves Saint Laurent.

studio museum in harlem to close for more than a week after sprinkler emergency 1234771150

The Studio Museum in Harlem has closed through February 7 after a sprinkler emergency forced visitors to evacuate on Friday. Water poured from a ceiling near the gift shop, creating a large pool on the floor, but no artworks or galleries were affected. The museum initially planned a weekend closure, but repairs proved more extensive after a sprinkler was damaged during preparations for a record-breaking snowstorm that dropped 11 inches on Manhattan.

confederate heritage group sues stone mountain exhibition 1234746944

A Confederate heritage group, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, has filed a lawsuit against Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, challenging a new exhibition that examines the site's history of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy. The group argues that the exhibition, commissioned by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association and developed by Warner Museums, violates state law by repurposing the park away from its original mandate to honor the Confederacy. The exhibition, funded with $11 million from the Georgia legislature in 2023, is not yet open to the public but has already sparked backlash from heritage groups.

mfa boston returns benin bronze robert owen lehman 1234746813

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has returned two Benin Bronzes—a 16th/17th-century terracotta and iron Commemorative Head and a 16th-century bronze Relief Plaque—to the Kingdom of Benin. The works were looted by British soldiers during the 1897 attack on Benin City, later acquired by collector Robert Owen Lehman Jr., and donated to the MFA in 2013 and 2018. The repatriation ceremony took place on June 27 at Nigeria House in New York, with the items handed over to Prince Aghatise Erediauwa and Ambassador Samson Itegboje. The MFA closed its Benin Kingdom Gallery in April and noted that three other Benin works donated by Lehman remain in its collection pending further provenance research.

Tate St Ives to host first UK museum exhibition of groundbreaking artist

Tate St Ives will present the first UK museum exhibition of Aleksandra Kasuba, a Lithuanian American artist (1923–2019), from May 2 to October 4, 2026. The show spans seven decades of her career, featuring early paintings, mosaics, sculptures, and public artworks, including the spatial environment *Spectrum: An Afterthought* and a recreation of her *Live-In Environment*. Works are drawn from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art's collection, where Kasuba donated her pieces.

art artists gaza fundraiser wolfgang tillmans

Artist Mai-Thu Perret has organized a fundraiser called '100 Artists for Gaza,' bringing together over 170 artists to support humanitarian efforts in Gaza. The initiative includes an online auction and an exhibition at Doctors Without Borders’ Geneva location, culminating in a live auction on December 2. Proceeds benefit Doctors Without Borders. Co-organized by Vidya Gastaldon, Sarah Benslimane, and Anne Lamunière, the project features works by notable contemporary artists such as Kara Walker, Rosemarie Trockel, Peter Doig, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Camille Henrot, among others. Some works explicitly reference the conflict, while others gesture toward shared humanity.

Rafał Zajko Is Hatching a Plan

Rafał Zajko's exhibition 'The Egg Egg' at Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland, brings together 50 works from the past decade across two floors of a former power station, organized into nine 'acts'. The show features modular installations like 'Funny Games' (2025), a set of pastel-colored platforms on wheels with ceramic reliefs, and monumental sculptures such as 'Sisyphus' (2025), a suspended ceramic bobbin evoking textile factory tools. Performances by Agnieszka Szczotka, including 'Song to the Siren' (2026), activate works like 'Amber Chamber III Echo' (2025), blending archaism, futurism, and themes of labor and technology.

AT THE ART GALLERIES

The article announces a series of May art exhibitions across multiple galleries in Key West, Florida. The Studios of Key West opens four solo shows: Tim Marshall Curtis's "Giants Among Us" featuring towering sculptures, Carole Faye's "Reverence/Irrelevance" with works made from scavenged materials, Andree B. Carter's "Roots of a City" textile paintings, and Wayne Garcia's "Once There Was a Railroad" hand-carved reliefs. Other venues include the Key West Collective featuring Steve Bikis and Brad Gruss, Harrison Gallery showcasing Santa Fe artist Melinda K. Hall, Gallery on Greene honoring Peter Vey, and Shade and Shutter Gallery highlighting Mark Klammer's pottery.

Christie’s Paris Sells $64 Million Worth of 20th- and 21st-Century Art at Auction

Christie’s Paris held a series of auctions focused on 20th- and 21st-century art, achieving over $64 million in total sales with a 92% sell-through rate. The sales included works from the Lise and Roland Funck-Brentano Collection and the Henri Canonne Collection, and featured Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary art. Three world records and one national record were set, including a wooden relief by Sophie Taeuber-Arp that sold for $3.4 million and Jane Avril au Divan Japonais by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which fetched over $6 million and set a national auction record for the artist. The evening sale alone brought in over $34 million, and the Contemporary Art sale exceeded its high estimate at over $9.4 million.

Arts and heritage organisations largely exempted from new UK regulations on memberships

The UK government has exempted charitable and heritage organizations from new consumer regulations that would have allowed members to cancel and receive refunds within a two-week cooling-off period. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA), set to take effect next year, will not apply to membership schemes of qualifying cultural and heritage charities.

looted artworks returned turkey met museum manhattan da 1234768114

On December 8, 2025, a repatriation ceremony in New York saw 43 looted antiquities returned to Turkey, including a 2nd-century marble head of Demosthenes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Roman bronze statue of an emperor from collector Aaron Mendelsohn, and 41 terracotta reliefs from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The returns resulted from a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit into networks that plundered archaeological sites in Turkey and sold items with forged provenance.