Inside Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Radical Reinvention
Milan’s art scene takes center stage during the Miart fair with a diverse array of institutional and gallery exhibitions. Highlights include Cao Fei’s exploration of global farming and technology at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Anselm Kiefer’s monumental tributes to female alchemists at Palazzo Reale, and a survey of Italian conceptualist Salvo at Pinacoteca di Brera.
New Zealand returns to the Venice Biennale in 2025 with Fiona Pardington’s solo exhibition *Taharaki Skyside* at the Istituto Provinciale per l’Infanzia Santa Maria della Pietà. The show features 17 large-scale photographic portraits of taxidermied birds from the South Canterbury Museum Timaru’s collection, including the extinct whēkau (laughing owl) and the critically endangered kākāpō. Pardington, an artist of Māori and Scottish descent, draws on Māori cosmology in which birds serve as spiritual messengers, and her work continues a long-standing photographic investigation of objects that hold “mana” (power) for Māori people.
Printed Matter, the nonprofit artists' bookstore and publisher, celebrated its 50th anniversary with a gala at the High Line Hotel in New York. The event featured speeches honoring co-founder Pat Steir and artist Ed Ruscha, performances from the opera *Einstein on the Beach*, and a crowd of notable artists, museum directors, and gallerists including Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, MoMA Director Christophe Cherix, and Larry Gagosian. Founded in 1976 by Sol LeWitt, Pat Steir, and Lucy Lippard, Printed Matter has become a vital platform for artist books, operating a bookstore, exhibition space, and one of the world's largest book fairs.
Finnish artist Iiu Susiraja, known for her deadpan self-portraits that blend vulnerability and absurdity, is opening her first New York solo exhibition since her 2023 MoMA PS1 show, titled “A style called a dead fish,” at the gallery Gratin on December 11. The article, an interview by a critic, explores Susiraja’s practice of embracing her “inner clown” through photographs that feature nudity, balloons, and domestic props, often staged in her own home or her parents’ home in Turku. New works include images like “Lift up, Breasts” (2025), where helium balloons are taped to her nipples, and a sculpture involving photocopying machines that will distribute keepsakes during the show.
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, a 33-year-old London-born, Brooklyn-based artist, is featured in CULTURED's 2025 Young Artists list. He contributed a luminous ceiling painting to the Nigerian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, and his work is represented by White Cube and held in collections including the Dallas Museum of Art and Pérez Art Museum Miami. In the profile, he discusses his painting "Dance in Heat," his influences (including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Bob Thompson), and his interest in starting a clothing line.
Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction on May 19 achieved $304 million with a 98% sell-through rate across 45 lots, more than doubling the total from the equivalent sale in November. The auction was anchored by fresh-to-market masterpieces, including Henri Matisse's "La Chaise Lorraine" from the Barbier-Müller collection, which sold for $48.4 million—the second-highest price for a Matisse painting at auction. Other highlights included works from the Enrico Donati collection, which generated a combined $58.9 million, and Pablo Picasso's "Arlequin (Buste)" (1909) selling for $42.6 million. The sale contributed to a running combined total of $839.6 million for Sotheby's marquee sales, following strong results from the Mnuchin collection and Contemporary Day Auction.
Ocula's weekly briefing reports strong sales at viennacontemporary with 15,000 visitors and six-figure results for Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill. Sotheby's announced $248 million in pre-tax losses for 2024 but achieved $100 million from the Karpidas collection sale and consigned the Pritzker and Lauder collections for November. Haegue Yang was appointed chair of the executive board at Kunst-Werke Berlin. Yemen's National Museum in Sanaa was damaged by Israeli airstrikes. Gallerist Sebastian Gladstone opened a new Los Angeles space, while L.A. Louver closed its Venice Beach gallery after 50 years. Taymour Grahne Projects opened in Dubai. Samia Halaby won the MUNCH Award, Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt received Heinz Family Foundation awards, and the Henry Moore Foundation distributed £100,000 to UK sculptors.
The Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI) has released a new digital catalogue raisonné for French painter Eva Gonzalès, correcting long-standing misattributions and omissions from the 1990 printed edition. The project reattributes works like *Apples in Basket* (previously assigned to Belgian painter Isidore Verheyden) and adds newly discovered pieces, including a portrait of Madame Georges Haquette and Gonzalès’s sketchbooks now held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. WPI executive director Elizabeth Gorayeb emphasizes that the digital format allows for iterative updates and brings overlooked figures in Gonzalès’s orbit to light.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has entered mediation with the Dutch government after initiating legal proceedings to secure additional public funding for a major renovation. The museum, which plans a three-year, €104m renovation starting in 2028, claims it could be forced to close unless its annual subsidy increases by €2.5m. The Dutch government, facing a budget deficit, considers the current €8.5m subsidy sufficient and argues the museum should contribute more itself. Mediation talks are making progress, and legal proceedings have been postponed indefinitely, with both sides aiming to conclude before summer.
American artist Derrick Adams has installed a monumental portrait of the late curator Koyo Kouoh on a building façade near the Arsenale in Venice, ahead of the 2026 Venice Biennale that Kouoh was to curate. The painting, titled "Heavy is the head that wears the crown (2026)," depicts Kouoh with a crown that transforms into the word "JOY" emitting golden light. The project was spearheaded by curator Francesco Bonami, who invited Kouoh to serve on the jury of the 50th Venice Biennale, and is intended as an accessible public homage rather than an exclusive art-world event.
A new exhibition titled “Constellations and Drifts: Art from Latin America in the FEMSA Collection” has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey) in Mexico, running through August 9, 2026. The show features 170 works by 115 Latin American artists from the FEMSA Collection, one of the most prestigious corporate collections of Latin American art, and is organized around five curatorial themes or “constellations,” including a section centered on alchemy. Highlights include works by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Francis Alÿs, and a new commission by Argentine artist Ad Minoliti, alongside Surrealist pieces by Remedios Varo, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, and Kati Horna.
The Guardian reviews a major exhibition of 17th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán, highlighting his visionary and surrealist qualities. The show features works such as "The Apparition of Saint Peter to Saint Peter Nolasco" (1629), newly attributed paintings including a giant mask, and iconic pieces like "The Crucified Christ" and "Saint Serapion," all drawn from collections including the Prado and the National Gallery, London. The review emphasizes Zurbarán's ability to paint supernatural subjects with naturalistic conviction, his exquisite rendering of fabrics—especially loincloths—and his influence on modern artists like Salvador Dalí.
Joshua Johnson, born into slavery in Maryland around 1763, emerged in the late 18th century as the first documented Black professional artist in the United States. After gaining his freedom in 1782, Johnson established himself in Baltimore as a self-taught portraitist, advertising his services in local newspapers and catering to the city's prominent families. His body of work, consisting of approximately 83 attributed paintings, is characterized by a distinct flatness and three-quarter profile compositions typical of early American folk art.
The exhibition "Women Artists of the American West: Colorado and Utah: 1885–1935" at History Jackson Hole spotlights seven forgotten female artists, including the adventurous mountaineer and painter Helen Henderson Chain. Curated by the founders of the Paris-based nonprofit AWARE, the show uncovers the lives of women who documented the Rocky Mountains and local communities while navigating the restrictive social norms of the late 19th century. Through paintings and photographs, the exhibition challenges the traditional, male-dominated "heroic" narrative of Western expansion.
A once-common sales tactic in the contemporary art market, known as "buy-one, give-one" or "bogo," has significantly declined. Under this arrangement, collectors gained preferential access to in-demand artists' paintings by agreeing to purchase two works and donating one to a museum. The practice peaked from 2021 to 2023, with institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, acquiring works this way.
The 2026 Whitney Biennial marks a shift in contemporary art from literal messaging toward atmospheric 'mood.' This edition is characterized by an immersive aural landscape of drones and whispers, moving away from the overt identity politics of previous years in favor of a 'sincerity first' credo. Key works include Emilie Louise Gosslaux’s emotional tribute to her guide dog, Mo Costello’s community-focused binders, and Nour Mobarak’s intimate recordings of internal bodily sounds.
Advanced imaging and material analysis have officially reattributed the 1633 painting "Vision of Zacharias in the Temple" to Rembrandt van Rijn. The work, which had been dismissed by scholars in the 1960s as the product of a collaborator, underwent a rigorous two-year study by the Rijksmuseum’s conservation department. Using macro-XRF scanning and dendrochronological analysis, researchers identified characteristic pentimenti and period-accurate materials that confirm it as a masterpiece from the artist's early Amsterdam period.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has officially authenticated a long-lost painting, 'Vision of Zacharias in the Temple' (1633), as a genuine work by Rembrandt van Rijn. The painting had been dismissed by scholars in the 1960s and remained in a private collection for over six decades until the owner approached the museum for a technical analysis. Using advanced imaging and material studies similar to those used on 'The Night Watch', experts confirmed that the pigments, signature, and date align perfectly with Rembrandt’s early Amsterdam period.
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The 17th-century Flemish Baroque painter Michaelina Wautier is experiencing a significant rediscovery following centuries of obscurity and misattribution. Long overshadowed by her male contemporaries and her brother Charles, Wautier's diverse oeuvre—ranging from still lifes to monumental allegorical scenes—is being re-evaluated through major exhibitions at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. This scholarly revival is correcting the historical record, as works previously attributed to artists like Artemisia Gentileschi are being rightfully returned to her catalog.
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Old Masters Week in New York saw a resurgence in the sector, highlighted by the Italian Ministry of Culture's $14.9 million private acquisition of a rare two-sided panel by Antonello da Messina from Sotheby’s. The week featured high-profile sales at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s, resulting in new auction records for major figures including Artemisia Gentileschi and Michelangelo, as well as a record price for a Rembrandt drawing. The success was attributed to a high level of museum participation and more realistic pricing strategies compared to previous seasons.
Ernst van de Wetering, the leading authority of the Rembrandt Research Project, has reattributed 70 paintings to the Dutch master in the project’s final volume. This significant shift includes reinstating 44 works that were previously stripped of their authenticity by the project's earlier democratic voting process, which van de Wetering now describes as flawed and overly restrictive. The new findings bring the total count of surviving Rembrandt paintings to 340.
Ashley Stewart Rödder, a highly respected director at Gagosian, has passed away at the age of 42 following a prolonged illness. During her tenure at the gallery since 2019, she was instrumental in managing the careers of prominent contemporary artists including Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Stanley Whitney, Titus Kaphar, and Deana Lawson. Her career also included significant leadership roles at Salon 94 and David Zwirner, as well as board positions at the nonprofit Performa and the Children’s Art Guild.
A viral Instagram video by Emily Kaplan claims that two artworks stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 appear in tax estate documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files. Kaplan suggests the Rembrandt etching and a painting attributed to Govaert Flinck were listed, potentially linking the infamous art heist to Epstein's financial network for money laundering.
Belgian art dealer Klaas Muller purchased a painting at an online auction three years ago, identified only as a study by an unknown artist of the Flemish school. After research, he discovered the work is likely a rediscovered study by Peter Paul Rubens (circa 1609), featuring a hidden second image of a woman's face visible when the painting is turned upside down. The work will debut at the BRAFA art fair in Brussels, where Muller serves as chairman.
Belgian art dealer Klaas Muller has identified a previously unattributed oil-on-paper study as a work by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, titled "Bearded old man, looking down to his left" (ca. 1609). Muller purchased the piece for under €100,000 at a lesser-known northern European auction house three years ago, where it was listed as an unknown artist from the "Flemish school." After recognizing the bearded figure as Saint Thomas from Rubens's "Apostolado Lerma" series at the Prado, Muller commissioned research from art historian Ben van Beneden, former director of Rubenshuis, who confirmed the work's exceptional quality and likely attribution to Rubens. The study also features a ghostly woman's face visible when turned upside down, reflecting Rubens's playful reuse of materials.
Hundreds gathered on a cold Monday night in New York at Phillips auction house and the Metropolitan Club to celebrate the life and legacy of Walter Robinson, the beloved art-world figure who died in February 2025. The event, organized by the New York Academy of Art as part of its annual “Take Home a Nude” fundraiser, featured silent and live auctions, a posthumous honorary doctorate awarded to Robinson, and the announcement of the Walter Robinson Scholarship funded by auction proceeds. The evening raised over $800,000, with works by students and acclaimed artists like Richard Prince and Kiki Smith on offer, and Robinson’s painting *Blood on the Sun* (2018) selling for $35,000.
Konstantin Akinsha, a prominent curator and art historian of Russian and Ukrainian art, has identified 14 artworks in the collection of the Palazzo de Nordis museum in Cividale del Friuli, Italy, as likely forgeries. In a Substack post and interview with ARTnews, Akinsha scrutinized the De Martiis Collection, donated in 2015 by the late collector Giancarlo De Martiis, which includes works attributed to Russian and Ukrainian modernist painters. He points to suspicious provenances involving Jean Chauvelin, a disgraced French art dealer, and Boris Gribanov, a convicted forger. A specific still life attributed to Olga Rozanova (1915-17) is nearly identical to a 1999 painting by contemporary Russian artist Andrei Saratov, who confirmed he did not paint the museum's version. Elisabetta Gottardo, the municipal head of culture, acknowledged Akinsha's authority and pledged further investigation.
Christina Vassallo is leaving her role as director of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, Ohio, effective January 2, 2026, to become the new director of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia starting January 5, 2026. Vassallo, who joined the CAC in 2023, oversaw exhibitions including a group show celebrating the 20th anniversary of Zaha Hadid's first completed US building, as well as solo shows by Vivian Browne, Marcus Leslie Singleton, and Sheida Soleimani. Prior to the CAC, she served as executive director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Spaces in Cleveland, and Flux Factory in New York.
Qatar has unveiled a new museum dedicated entirely to the late Indian Modernist artist M.F. Husain, titled Lawh Wa Qalam: M.F. Husain Museum. Located in Doha's Education City, the museum houses over 150 artworks spanning from the 1950s to his death in 2011, including paintings, poetry, photography, tapestries, sculptures, and installations. The museum, opened on November 28 by the Qatar Foundation chaired by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, fulfills a long-held dream of the artist, who was granted Qatari citizenship in 2010 after self-imposed exile from India. The building was designed by architect Martand Khosla based on a sketch Husain himself created for his envisioned museum.
A wave of exhibitions and projects is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the births of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the late husband-and-wife duo known for monumental environmental installations. Their nephew Vladimir Yavachev, who directs their foundation, is overseeing the realization of their final permanent work, *The Mastaba* in Abu Dhabi, while temporary works like *The Gates* in Central Park are being revived through augmented reality. The anniversary also marks 30 years since *Wrapped Reichstag* and 20 years since *The Gates*.