The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has secured a major loan of the ancient marble sculpture *Sleeping Hermaphroditus* from the Louvre in Paris. The work will be a centerpiece of the museum's upcoming exhibition "Metamorphoses," which opens on February 6, 2026, and explores themes of transformation drawn from Ovid's epic poem.
Sotheby's is launching its inaugural Old Masters Week at its new Breuer building location in New York with a special exhibition of works heading to auction. The centerpiece is the 'cimasa' (top panel) of Pietro Perugino's 'Decemviri Altarpiece' (1495), on an exceptional loan from Italy's National Gallery of Umbria and traveling outside Italy for the first time. After its display at Sotheby's, the panel will be exhibited at the Morgan Library and Museum alongside Giovanni Bellini's newly restored 'Pietà' (c. 1470), which is also making its U.S. debut.
Hong Kong's M+ museum has selected Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander's hand-painted animated film *3 to 12 Nautical Miles* (2026) for its latest M+ Facade commission, a massive LED media screen. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, the work will screen from March 23 through June 21. The animation explores entangled histories of empire and commerce, linking Imperial Britain, the Indian subcontinent, and Qing China, and chronicles the Mughal Empire's decline, the East India Company's rise, and the First Opium War.
Lego has reversed its policy on bulk orders after facing international backlash for refusing to sell toy bricks to Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. The artist had sought the bricks to create politically sensitive portraits of dissidents for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Lego initially cited a policy against selling bricks for political statements, but after Ai Weiwei's social media campaign—including Instagram posts and a global donation drive—the company announced it will no longer ask bulk customers about their intended use.
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.
Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof museum, facing budget cuts of up to 12% and shifting government spending priorities in Germany, is planning its first-ever gala to mark its 30th anniversary. Co-directors Sam Bardouil and Till Fellrath are spearheading the event, set for March, which will feature cultural figures including Cate Blanchett, Matt Dillon, Elmgreen & Dragset, and the Berlin Philharmonic. The museum has also launched the Chanel Commission and the International Companions philanthropy circle to diversify funding sources.
The Louvre closed on Monday due to a strike by employees demanding improved working conditions and pay equity, marking the fourth closure since mid-December. Roughly 300 workers voted to extend the strike, which began December 15, after fruitless negotiations with the Ministry of Culture and Louvre management. The dispute has been intensified by an October 19 burglary that exposed systemic security failures, and workers have also protested the museum's long-term redevelopment plans, including a proposed standalone gallery for the Mona Lisa, calling them unrealistic given staffing shortages and maintenance issues.
Francis Irv, an unconventional art space in New York known for its unpredictable programming, is closing after over three years. Founded by Sam Marion Wilken and Shane Rossi, the gallery operated first in a Chinatown mall beneath the Manhattan Bridge and later in a nondescript third-floor room nearby. It showcased a multigenerational mix of artists from the US and Europe, including Megan Marrin, Win McCarthy, and Reinhard Mucha, and participated in alternative art fairs like Basel Social Club and Paris Internationale rather than the mainstream circuit.
A growing number of art fairs and galleries are publicly announcing a 'strategic pause'—a hiatus from their regular exhibition schedules to reassess their models. This week, Vienna's Spark Art Fair invoked the phrase to take a year off, following Berlin dealer Mehdi Chouakri's decision to suspend his gallery's exhibition program after 30 years. Last July, ADAA's Art Show coined the term when it announced a year-long break to reimagine the New York fair, and Taipei Dangdai in Taiwan followed suit days later. In December, an unprecedented number of galleries skipped Art Basel Miami Beach. The trend reflects a broader shift in the art world's willingness to openly acknowledge the need for rest and reinvention.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) has appointed Kristen Shepherd as its new president and CEO, effective February 9. Shepherd, 54, previously served as executive director and CEO of the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, and held leadership roles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum in New York, and Sotheby’s in New York and London. She also runs her own consulting firm, Shepherd Lane + Associates. Shepherd takes over at a challenging time for PAFA, which closed its college last May due to rising costs and low enrollment, though it continues to offer K-12 and continuing education programs.
The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco announced a major public art commission by Jeffrey Gibson for Super Bowl LX festivities. The work, an adaptation of Gibson's 2022 video installation "THIS BURNING WORLD," will be installed as a 433-foot-long vinyl mural on the former Bloomingdale's building at San Francisco Centre, wrapping an entire city block. It will be fully unveiled on February 2, 2026, coinciding with the FOG Design+Art Fair. The project is funded by the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation and the Yerba Buena Partnership, which have previously supported public art by Sarah Sze and Hank Willis Thomas.
Beverly Buchanan, who lived in Athens, Georgia for over 20 years, often paid for everyday needs with her artworks, trading them with her doctor and local community members. A new exhibition titled "Beverly's Athens" at the University of Georgia's Athenaeum showcases works borrowed from local collections, including pieces from her doctor's personal collection and sculptures from her own backyard. The show features her flower drawings, which her dealer Betty Parsons once rejected, as well as her "ruins" sculptures and archival footage of her garden. Curators Mo Costello and Katz Tepper, both artists who are chronically ill, organized the exhibition to highlight Buchanan's ecosystem of exchange and survival.
Tate Modern's upcoming exhibition "Frida: The Making of an Icon," opening in June, will feature only 36 works by Frida Kahlo, a significant drop from the 50-plus works shown in the museum's last major Kahlo exhibition in 2005. Curators cite the artist's soaring global popularity as a practical obstacle: her paintings have become scarcer, more valuable, and harder to borrow. A key example is Kahlo's 1940 painting "El sueño (La cama)," which sold at Sotheby's New York for $54.7 million last fall, setting a new auction record for a woman artist. Tate is still trying to secure that work for the show, but curator Tobias Ostrander says chances are slim. Notably, Madonna, who lent works in 2005, has declined to loan this time. The exhibition, which premieres at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston before traveling to London, will not be a traditional retrospective but will instead place Kahlo's work within a broader cultural context, including works by over 80 artists she influenced and a section examining "Fridamania" and the mass merchandising of her image.
Nan Goldin used the opening of her retrospective “This Will Not End Well” at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie to deliver a forceful 14-minute speech condemning the Israel-Gaza war and criticizing Germany’s censorship of pro-Palestinian voices. She called for a phone-free moment of silence for the dead in Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon, and framed her exhibition as a test case for artistic freedom. The event drew a large crowd, police presence, and was widely shared on social media by figures like Ai Weiwei and Wolfgang Tillmans.
Creative Time, a New York-based nonprofit known for large-scale public art, has appointed Jean Cooney as its executive director. Cooney previously served as vice president of arts and culture at the Times Square Alliance and director of Times Square Arts since 2019, and before that spent seven years at Creative Time, rising to deputy director. She worked on major projects including Kara Walker's 'A Subtlety' at the Domino Sugar Factory. Cooney succeeds Justine Ludwig, who stepped down in September to join PST ART as inaugural creative director. Cooney begins her role on February 23, and the organization will celebrate her return at its annual spring gala on April 28.
Artist Ai Weiwei will unveil a new exhibition titled “Button Up!” at Factory International in Manchester, England, opening July 2. The show features monumental installations made from 30 tons of buttons he rescued from a shuttered British factory in 2019, along with over 3.5 million Lego pieces. Highlights include eight flags sewn with 9,000 buttons each, referencing the Eight-Nation Alliance that invaded China during the Boxer Rebellion, and a new version of his Lego work *History of Bombs*. The buttons were secretly shipped to China, where artisans assembled the works over 281 days.
Milan is briefly opening access to a rare Leonardo da Vinci mural inside the Sforza Castle during the 2026 Winter Olympics. From February 7 to March 14, visitors can climb a 20-foot scaffold in the Sala delle Asse to see conservators restoring the unfinished wall and ceiling painting, which was begun around 1498 and long hidden under plaster. The castle has also launched a new multimedia installation on the room's history and reopened a gallery dedicated to Leonardo's students and followers, the Leonardeschi.
52 Walker, the Tribeca kunsthalle-style space founded by Ebony L. Haynes under David Zwirner in 2021, has quietly transitioned from a standalone venue into a standard David Zwirner gallery space. The change followed Haynes's promotion to global head of curatorial projects last fall. The final exhibition at 52 Walker as a dedicated physical space was a presentation by Nicole Eisenman. Haynes will continue to curate under the 52W banner as a nomadic, project-based initiative across Zwirner's global locations, with the next show being an Isa Genzken exhibition titled 'Vacation' opening in March.
Jermaine Jackson has announced plans to launch a touring museum dedicated to Michael Jackson's visual art, debuting in Monaco toward the end of 2026 as part of a biennial. The museum, described as a "Showseum," will open with a 120-work exhibition of Jackson's paintings, including collaborations with Andy Warhol and portraits of US presidents. The collection of 200 works, reportedly worth $1.6 billion, has been stored in a secure facility in Washington, D.C., and is not for sale.
Madrid's Prado Museum has announced it will cap visitor numbers after a record-breaking 3.5 million visits in 2025, with director Miguel Falomir declaring the institution does not want or need 'a single visitor more.' The museum unveiled 'Plan Host,' a new strategy prioritizing visitor experience over volume, including measures to limit crowds and attract more local Spanish audiences, as 65 percent of current visitors are overseas tourists. Falomir warned against chasing ever-higher attendance, citing the Louvre as a cautionary example where overcrowding has led to deteriorating conditions, staff strikes, and calls for the director's resignation.
Martin Parr, the acclaimed British photographer known for his wry, colorful images of tourists and leisure culture, died on December 6 at his home in Bristol, England, at age 73. His death was announced by the Martin Parr Foundation, which noted he had been diagnosed with myeloma in 2021. Parr was a longtime member of Magnum Photos and published countless photobooks, shot fashion campaigns for Vogue and Gucci, and created iconic series such as "The Last Resort" (1983–85) and "Small World" (1987–94). A retrospective themed around climate change and overtourism is planned for 2025 at the Jeu de Paume in Paris.
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will reopen its newly renovated Flight and Arts Center in July 2026 with a major exhibition devoted to Robert Rauschenberg. Titled “The Ascent of Rauschenberg: Reinventing the Art of Flight,” the show features 30 works by the American Pop artist, some never before exhibited, tracing how aviation and space exploration themes permeated his six-decade career. Highlights include his lithograph *Sky Garden (Stoned Moon)*, inspired by the Apollo 11 mission, and works from his “Combines” series. The exhibition draws loans from the Hirshhorn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Actress and comedian Ego Nwodim will co-chair the Whitney Museum of American Art’s annual Art Party on January 27, 2026. The event, hosted by the Whitney Contemporaries, will take place at the museum’s Gansevoort Street building and feature DJ sets by Raúl de Nieves and The Dare. Nwodim joins co-chairs including artists Martine Gutierrez and Emma Safir, as well as Whitney Contemporaries Steven Beltrani, Micaela Erlanger, and Alexander Hankin. The evening will offer after-hours gallery access, cocktails, and dancing, with proceeds supporting the Whitney’s exhibitions, education, and public programs.
Seven notable art historical rediscoveries from 2025 are highlighted, including an early Eva Hesse painting found at a Goodwill thrift store that sold for $107,100 at Christie's, a previously unknown John Singer Sargent portrait unveiled at the Musée d'Orsay, a Salvador Dalí watercolor bought for $186 that fetched $61,400 at auction, and a John Constable drawing resurfacing after 200 years. Other finds include works by post-minimalist and old master artists uncovered in attics, estate sales, and private collections, often identified by sharp-eyed dealers or lucky amateurs.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has announced an $11.5 million permanent sculpture garden, funded by a €60 million donation from the Don Quixote Foundation. Designed by Foster + Partners and landscape architect Piet Blanckaert, the garden will transform three areas of the museum grounds into a permanent display of Modern and contemporary sculpture, featuring works by Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, and Roni Horn. Three existing pavilions will be converted into exhibition spaces, and the garden is slated to open later this year, pending local council approval.
Artnet News columnist reflects on the fragile state of the art market as 2025 ends, noting that global instability and troubling news have dampened buyer psychology. Despite this, major auction houses reported strong annual sales—Sotheby's at $7 billion (up 17%) and Christie's at $6.2 billion (up 6%)—and a series of high-profile sales, including the Pauline Karpidas collection auction and Leonard Lauder's Gustav Klimt portrait fetching $236.4 million, have sparked renewed momentum. The article quotes advisors and dealers who sense a market bottom has passed, with buyers returning to auctions and fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach.
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum will open a new sculpture garden in fall 2026, funded by a nearly $70 million donation from the Don Quixote Foundation, which is financed by Dutch billionaire Rolly van Rappard. The garden will be located in Carel Willinkplantsoen park, across the Boerenwetering canal from the museum, and will incorporate three adjacent Amsterdam School-style pavilions renovated by Foster + Partners. Belgian landscape architect Piet Blanckaert will design the gardens, and the museum plans to display works by Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, Roni Horn, and Henry Moore, along with temporary exhibitions in the pavilions.
The Morgan Library and Museum in New York will open "Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit in Focus" on January 16, centered on a landmark loan of Caravaggio's titular painting from the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The exhibition, organized through the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture (FIAC) led by Alain Elkann, features 13 artworks by artists who preceded and succeeded Caravaggio, curated by John Marciari to provide context on the artist's influences and legacy.
The New Museum in New York has announced that its OMA-designed expansion will open to the public on March 21, following nearly a decade of planning and a two-year closure. The 60,000-square-foot addition, located next to the original flagship on Bowery Street, doubles the institution's footprint and features new residency studios, exhibition spaces, a restaurant, a forum, and a Sky Room. The inaugural exhibition, "New Humans: Memories of the Future," will showcase 150 artists including Sophia Al-Maria, Meriem Bennani, Hito Steyerl, Tau Lewis, and Jamian Juliano-Villani, alongside permanent commissions by Tschabalala Self and Sarah Lucas. The building, designed by Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas of OMA with executive architect Cooper Robertson, is one of the few museums worldwide designed by two Pritzker Prize winners.
The New Museum in New York will reopen on March 21, 2026, after a two-year closure for a major expansion. Designed by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas, the project adds 60,000 square feet to the existing SANAA-designed building, bringing the total footprint to nearly 120,000 square feet. New features include expanded exhibition space, a 74-seat Forum, an enlarged Sky Room, artist commissions by Tschabalala Self, Klára Hosnedlová, and Sarah Lucas, a larger bookstore, and a restaurant by Henry Rich with executive chef Julia Sherman. The reopening weekend will offer free admission funded by trustee Charlotte Feng Ford, and the museum will debut the exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” featuring over 200 artists including Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí, and contemporary figures like Meriem Bennani and Hito Steyerl.