Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Jan 3, 2026 visibility 19 link 10 artists

an indigenous takeover of the met asks who should be writing art history 1234757699

An unsanctioned augmented reality exhibition titled “Encoded” has taken over the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, featuring works by 17 North American Indigenous artists. The exhibition, organized by the nonprofit media lab Amplifier and co-curated by Tracy Rector, overlays digital artworks onto iconic paintings and sculptures, including a piece by Josué Riva that replaces Thomas Sully’s portrait of Queen Victoria with a moving image of Acosia Red Elk (Umatilla, Cayuse & Nez Perce) delivering the message “Be a Good Ancestor.” The intervention launched on Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day, October 13, 2025, and runs through December 13, without the Met’s permission.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

2025 sigg prize winners 2729598

Wong Ping and Heidi Lau have been named joint winners of the third edition of the Sigg Prize, a biennial award stewarded by Hong Kong's M+ museum since 2018. This marks the first time the prize has recognized two artists simultaneously. Wong, based in Hong Kong, won for his animated narrative *Debts in the Wind* (2025), a lo-fi, darkly humorous commentary on a local land dispute over a golf course. Lau, born in Macau and now based in New York, won for *Pavilion Procession* (2025), an altar-like ceramic installation with a robotic spider inspired by the ancient Chinese text *Shanhaijing*. Both artists were selected from a shortlist of six, all born after the 1980s and '90s.

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person people schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 19 link 13 artists

hamza walker winner 2026 audrey irmas award ccs bard 1234765931

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) has awarded its 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence to Los Angeles–based curator Hamza Walker. Walker, executive director of the Brick (formerly LAXART) since 2016, will receive $25,000 and be honored at CCS Bard’s spring gala in April. He is recognized for exhibitions featuring artists like Elizabeth Paige Smith, Gregg Bordowitz, and Postcommodity, and for cocurating the acclaimed "Monuments" exhibition with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which examines artists' responses to Confederate monument removals. Walker also secured a $1 million donation from collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn to fund the Brick's move to a new Hollywood space and its rebranding.

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article culture schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists

art nouveau renaissance mucha jugendstil paris metro 1234748578

The article recounts the author's personal rediscovery of Art Nouveau, sparked by encountering an iron doorknob shaped like a Belgian endive at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin. It explores the movement's history, its German variant Jugendstil, and the philosophical debate between Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno over its merits—Benjamin criticizing it as a superficial escape from industrial reality, Adorno defending its utopian desire to reconcile art, nature, and technology. The piece also notes a contemporary resurgence of interest in the style.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 19 link 3 artists

shanghai art week 2025 2713268

Shanghai Art Week 2025 is underway, anchored by two major concurrent art fairs: Art021 Shanghai and West Bund Art and Design, running from November 13 to 16. West Bund has relocated to a new venue, the West Bund Convention Center designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, featuring over 200 participants including 106 galleries in its main sector. Art021 returns to the Shanghai Exhibition Center with 139 galleries from 22 countries, including 33 first-time participants. The Shanghai Biennale opened early at the Power Station of Art, curated by Kitty Scott under the title "Does the Flower Hear the Bee?" featuring 67 artists and collectives. Meanwhile, alternative events like "Artist's Treat," launched by Xu Zhen in collaboration with Hol Platform and ShanghArt Gallery, are drawing attention in repurposed local spaces.

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article news schedule Nov 14, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

choke hole ice pioneer works apology 1234761721

Choke Hole, a drag wrestling show, issued an apology on Friday for a controversial ICE-themed segment performed at Pioneer Works, a Brooklyn art center. The event, titled ARMAGEDDON, was held in conjunction with a show by artist Raúl de Nieves and featured a character named Visqueen, a sex robot, who announced that an ICE agent was present to deport an alien queen. Wrestler Candy Pain fought the fictional agent and won, but the performance angered spectators, including trans activist Chiquitita, who confronted the cast and criticized the trivialization of real ICE violence. Choke Hole acknowledged the harm, donated over $3,000 to NYC ICE Watch, and urged followers to contribute.

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article news schedule Nov 5, 2025 visibility 24 link 15 artists

zohran mamdani mayor new york city art world responds 1234760198

Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election, prompting a wave of reactions from the art world. Artists, curators, and critics expressed hope and joy, with figures like Siddartha Mitter calling it a "beacon of civic renewal," while others like Jerry Saltz offered cautious support. Artists such as Aria Dean, Martine Syms, and Salman Toor were involved in his campaign, and El Museo del Barrio was the only institution to officially endorse him. However, some voices, like the market-oriented account Jerry Gogosian, criticized his socialist policies as potentially harmful to the art market.

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article news schedule Oct 27, 2025 visibility 17 link 9 artists

german police bust forgery ring rembrandt picasso 1234759011

German police have dismantled an international forgery ring attempting to sell fake artworks attributed to masters including Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Kahlo. The suspected ringleader, a 77-year-old German man from Bavaria, was arrested after trying to sell two counterfeit Picasso paintings, one a portrait of Dora Maar. Investigators, who code-named the operation “Dora Maar,” conducted raids across Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, seizing 19 fake works with asking prices ranging from $460,000 to $16 million. A 74-year-old accomplice is accused of producing forged expert reports to authenticate the fakes.

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article news schedule Oct 15, 2025 visibility 24 link 6 artists

leading artists call for nationwide resistance against authoritarian forces 1234757308

Visual artist Dread Scott, playwright Lynn Nottage, and dozens of cultural figures have launched "Fall of Freedom," a nationwide weekend of creative demonstrations scheduled for November 21–22, 2025, to protest rising authoritarianism under the Trump administration. The project invites arts communities to organize independent actions—such as storefront readings, pop-up performances, exhibitions, and workshops—at museums, galleries, classrooms, comedy clubs, or any community gathering space. Participating institutions include the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which will host a "Wear Your Rights" silk-screening workshop, and New York's Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which will turn a gallery into a library of queer art activism books. Other notable participants include artists Marilyn Minter, Robert Longo, and Amy Sherald, who recently canceled a Smithsonian exhibition after concerns over her painting of a Black transgender Statue of Liberty.

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person people schedule Sep 27, 2025 visibility 28 link 16 artists, 2 galleries

ebony l haynes zwirner global head of curatorial projects 1234753820

Ebony L. Haynes, a director at David Zwirner since 2020 and founder of the gallery's affiliated space 52 Walker in 2021, has been promoted to the newly created position of global head of curatorial projects. In this role, she will oversee special exhibitions, projects, and collaborations with Zwirner's artists globally, while continuing to direct 52 Walker in New York's Tribeca neighborhood. The space has hosted 16 shows since opening in October 2021, featuring artists such as Kandis Williams, Nikita Gale, Nora Turato, and Raymond Pettibon, whose wrestling-themed drawings and live matches open tonight.

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article news schedule Sep 18, 2025 visibility 9 link 3 artists

glenn lowry moma values trump 1234752653

Glenn Lowry, the longtime director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), delivered a farewell speech in June 2025 at MoMA's Party in the Garden, implicitly addressing the Trump administration's attacks on cultural institutions. He urged the museum to defend values of pluralism, freedom of expression, and minority rights, warning that the coming years would present consequential choices not seen since World War II. The article notes that while Trump has not directly targeted MoMA, he has threatened the Smithsonian Institution, and artist Amy Sherald canceled a National Portrait Gallery survey alleging censorship. Under Lowry, MoMA mounted a 2017 exhibition critical of Trump's travel ban, but has otherwise avoided explicit political programming.

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article policy schedule Sep 12, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists

nicholas galanin pulls out smithsonian syposium 1234751712

Artist Nicholas Galanin withdrew from a symposium tied to the Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” alleging that organizers asked him not to record the event or share footage on social media. The symposium, a private event not publicly listed on the Smithsonian’s website, also included curator Hamza Walker, artists Titus Kaphar and Miguel Luciano, and critic Aruna D’Souza. Galanin stated on Instagram that the request effectively censored participants, though a Smithsonian spokesperson denied censorship, citing that not all participants consented to recording. The exhibition was previously singled out by President Donald Trump in an executive order criticizing the Smithsonian for promoting “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 16 link 17 artists

best digital art works picked by experts 1234745683

The Digital Art Mile, Basel's first-ever digital art fair, opened its second edition on Monday at the city's Kult Kino Camera cinema, running through Sunday. Founded by digital art adviser Georg Bak and ArtMeta founder Roger Haas, the fair features panels, conferences on the digital art market, and the headline exhibition “Paintboxed,” which explores the history of the Quantel Paintbox. In a calmer, more academic atmosphere than Art Basel, ARTnews asked 10 prominent digital art figures to select their favorite artwork from the fair, with responses highlighting works such as Kim Asendorf's "Monogrid 90," XCOPY's "Last Selfie," and Matt Kane's "Gazers 200."

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

tamara de lempicka retrospective de young 2574448

A major retrospective of Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980) has opened at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, featuring over 120 works including iconic portraits, lesser-known drawings, and early Cubist still lifes. Co-curated by Furio Rinaldi and Gioia Mori, the exhibition is the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective of the artist in over four decades, drawing passionate responses from audiences unfamiliar with her name as well as from connoisseurs discovering her draftsmanship.

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article policy schedule Jun 16, 2025 visibility 19 link 20 artists

new york mayoral candidates arts 2025 2655110

On June 24, New Yorkers will vote in the Democratic primary for mayor, with candidates including embattled incumbent Eric Adams, former governor Andrew Cuomo, and Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is gaining support from artists and art dealers. The article outlines the arts-related positions of several candidates: City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams restored $53 million in cultural funding after proposed cuts; Eric Adams has an uneven record, having proposed cuts but later launching the 'NYC Create in Place' pilot program; and Andrew Cuomo's arts stance is mentioned but not detailed.

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article news schedule Jun 13, 2025 visibility 15 link 8 artists

canyon museum durational immersive art new york 2656883

New York City will gain a major new cultural venue in 2026 called Canyon, a 18,000-square-foot hub on the Lower East Side dedicated to durational, time-based art forms such as video, sound, and performance. Founded by philanthropist and collector Robert Rosenkranz, the space is designed by New Affiliates Architecture and will feature state-of-the-art galleries, a 300-seat performance hall, and a skylit piazza with food and beverage options. Joe Thompson, founding director of MASS MoCA, will serve as the venue's director. Canyon has already appointed conservator Cass Fino-Radin as director of art and technology and curator Sam Ozer as curator-at-large, with partners including Rhizome, Electronic Arts Intermix, and the Archive of Contemporary Music. Its inaugural exhibitions will include a major retrospective of Japanese new media artist Ryoji Ikeda and a show titled "Worldbuilding" curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

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

marlene dumas pushes the limits of portraiture at tate modern 242725

Marlene Dumas's largest retrospective to date, "The Image as Burden," has opened at Tate Modern, showcasing her uncompromising approach to portraiture. The exhibition features over 200 works, including early ink drawings like "Rejects" (1994-ongoing), political pieces such as "Osama" (2010), and the "Magdalenas" series from the 1995 Venice Biennale. Dumas, a South African painter based in Amsterdam, explores themes of identity, politics, and the female body through her fluid, often dark palette and responses to mass media images.

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article policy schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

frankenthaler warhol foundations fund projects nea cuts 2640695

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation are jointly providing $800,000 in emergency grants to replace funding lost when the Trump administration abruptly cut the National Endowment for the Arts' Challenge America grants in February 2025. The grants, each worth $10,000, will support 80 small and medium-sized visual arts programs across the country that had been promised NEA funding for underserved communities, including the Kids & Art Foundation, Allentown Art Museum, Free Arts for Abused Children, InToto Creative Arts Forum, and Latinitas.

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rate_review review schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

jack whittens 9 11 01 moma 2634165

Jack Whitten's monumental mosaic-painting "9.11.01" (2006) is the focus of this article, which examines the work on view at the Museum of Modern Art. The painting, created in response to the September 11 attacks, uses abstract forms—a cracked black pyramid with dagger-like spines and bootprints—to evoke the trauma of that day. Whitten, who witnessed the first plane strike from his studio in Manhattan, embedded ash and wreckage fragments into the surface, blending abstraction with historical memory.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 7 artists

emily fisher landau picasso sothebys 2384885

Pablo Picasso's 1932 painting *Femme à la montre*, depicting his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, sold for $139.4 million (including fees) at Sotheby's New York during the highly anticipated Emily Fisher Landau sale. The work, estimated at $120 million, was the centerpiece of the auction, with bidding starting at $95 million and concluding after a two-minute standoff among three phone bidders, including one from Asia. Brooke Lampley, Sotheby's head of global fine art, secured the winning bid on behalf of a client. The sale was handled by Sotheby's, which won the right to auction the estate of Landau, a longtime Whitney Museum board member and private collector.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 26, 2025 visibility 18 link 4 artists

museums of tomorrow roundtable 2025 2634542

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) will host the 2025 Museums of Tomorrow Roundtable (MTR) from May 11-17, bringing together 14 global museum leaders and technology firms including Adobe, Anthropic, Bloomberg, and Salesforce. Participants include directors such as Marion Ackermann (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz), Stephanie Rosenthal (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi), Eike Schmidt (Museo di Capodimonte), Mami Kataoka (Mori Art Museum), and others, alongside Bay Area museum heads and AI artist Refik Anadol, who will speak in a free public program at the de Young Museum. The forum aims to bridge the museum and technology communities, exploring how advanced technologies can enrich operations and visitor experiences while supporting artists working with technology.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 22, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

ai weiwei rebel retrospective seattle 1234739184

The Seattle Art Museum has opened “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,” the largest U.S. retrospective ever for the Chinese dissident artist. The exhibition features iconic works such as the neon sign *FUCK* (2020), the sculpture *Middle Finger* (2000), and the photographic series “Study of Perspective” (1995–2011), alongside pieces that remix art history—from Duchamp-inspired readymades to Lego versions of Old Masters. Curated by Ping Foong, the show spans Ai’s career, including his politically charged responses to the Sichuan earthquake and his infamous 1995 performance *Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn*.

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article news schedule Apr 22, 2025 visibility 7 link 5 artists

kehinde wiley new sexual assault complaint 2634883

Artist Ogechi Chieke has filed a legal complaint against Kehinde Wiley, accusing him of sexual assault stemming from an incident in 2007. Chieke alleges that after a New York exhibition she was included in, Wiley groped her and made unwanted sexual advances, causing her to leave New York and abandon her art career. Wiley denies the allegations, calling them a "blatant money-grab" and stating he has never met Chieke. The suit was filed under New York City's Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law just before the statute of limitations window closed on March 1, 2025.

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article policy schedule Apr 21, 2026 visibility 22 link 7 artists

Picasso’s Guernica is the ultimate emblem of the horrors of war. It has no place in Spain's partisan squabbles | María Ramírez

A political dispute has erupted in Spain over the potential temporary relocation of Pablo Picasso's iconic anti-war painting *Guernica*. The president of the Basque Country, Imanol Pradales, has formally requested the work be moved from Madrid's Reina Sofía museum to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for several months in 2027, framing it as a form of "reparation" for the Basque people. The Spanish government has rejected the request on conservation grounds, while conservative politicians have used the proposal to attack Basque nationalism.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 27, 2026 visibility 24 link 2 artists

‘The violence of racist tyranny’: African Guernica goes on display alongside Picasso masterpiece

The Reina Sofía museum in Madrid has installed Dumile Feni's 1967 drawing 'African Guernica' directly opposite Pablo Picasso's iconic 'Guernica' painting. This pairing is the centerpiece of the museum's new annual exhibition series 'History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Does Rhyme,' which aims to place works from different cultural contexts in dialogue with Picasso's masterpiece.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 7, 2026 visibility 14 link 2 artists

Protests in Mexico Challenge Move of Frida Kahlo Trove to Spain

A heated controversy has erupted in Mexico following the decision to move a massive trove of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera artworks to Spain for a long-term loan. Protesters and cultural advocates are challenging the relocation of the Dolores Olmedo Museum collection, which includes some of Kahlo’s most iconic paintings, to a new private museum in Madrid. In response to the backlash, Mexican officials have issued public assurances that the collection remains national heritage and is legally required to return to Mexico by 2028.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 26, 2026 visibility 19 link 2 artists

Para Site 30th Anniversary Programme: Q&A with Junni Chen

Para Site, a Hong Kong contemporary arts center, has launched a year-long 30th anniversary programme featuring exhibitions, performances, and residencies. The programme is structured around acts of response, pairing artists and fostering new collaborations, drawing inspiration from the organization's earliest experimental exhibitions.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 11, 2026 visibility 22 link 5 artists, 4 galleries

What Germany’s Art Market Reveals About the Limits of Localism

German art dealers are increasingly pivoting toward regional strategies as the national market faces a period of stagnation. While the broader European Union saw a modest rise in dealer sales, Germany’s market contracted by 4 percent between 2024 and 2025, hampered by high interest rates and a sluggish post-pandemic recovery. In response, major fairs like Art Cologne are launching satellite editions in locations like Mallorca to follow wealthy German collectors on vacation, while Art Düsseldorf prepares for a record-breaking edition despite the economic downturn.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jan 29, 2026 visibility 18 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

elda cerrato artist of the extraterrestrial has her long awaited new york debut 2740177

The Galerie Lelong in New York is presenting the first U.S. solo exhibition of Argentine-Italian artist Elda Cerrato, who died in 2023. The show features two distinct series: abstract "cosmovision" paintings from the 1960s exploring invisible energies, and more overtly political map-based works from the 1970s created in response to authoritarian regimes in Latin America.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

who will art basel draw to doha 2653063

Art Basel will launch a new fair, Art Basel Qatar, in Doha in February 2025, featuring around 50 exhibitors. The expansion into West Asia follows the fair's earlier move into Hong Kong in 2013 and reflects the region's growing wealth and cultural development. Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel's director of fairs, stated the company aims to attract collectors from the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as well as South Asia. The announcement has drawn interest from collectors and curators across Asia, including those from the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and India, who see the fair as a potential turning point for Doha's art scene.

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