Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Mar 4, 2026 visibility 17 link 1 artist

dali museum st petersburg expansion 2028

The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, has announced a $65 million expansion project set to break ground in 2026. The 35,000-square-foot addition, designed by the Beck Group, will feature flexible gallery spaces for immersive digital art experiences, a dedicated K-12 learning center, and community-focused programming areas. The project, titled "Reveal," aims to modernize the institution's infrastructure while reinterpreting the architectural language of its existing 2011 building.

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museum exhibitions schedule Feb 20, 2026 visibility 15 link 5 artists

reefline underwater art project miami beach leandro erlich

The Reefline, a non-profit eco-art initiative, has launched its first phase of a seven-mile underwater sculpture park and artificial reef along Miami Beach. The project debuted with 'Concrete Coral' by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich, a submerged sculpture depicting a traffic jam designed to provide a habitat for marine life. Future phases include works by Carlos Betancourt, Alberto Latorre, and Petroc Sesti, all overseen by the architecture firm OMA and founder Ximena Caminos.

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article culture schedule Feb 10, 2026 visibility 12 link 6 artists

olympics opening ceremony art references

The opening ceremony of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics featured significant art-historical references, including a flame cauldron inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's knot drawings and performances that brought to life the marble sculptures of Antonio Canova. Dancers animated recreations of works like 'Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss,' and the ceremony included symbolic representations of Italian architectural landmarks like the Colosseum and Florence's Duomo.

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article culture schedule Feb 9, 2026 visibility 18 link 14 artists

pope francis art artists

Artnet News has compiled a selection of artworks created in anticipation of Pope Francis's first visit to the United States. The works include Anthony VanArsdale's portrait for the North American College in Rome, a new addition to the 'Franks' mural at Philadelphia's Dirty Franks bar, a massive photo-realistic mural by Van Hecht-Nielsen overlooking Madison Square Garden in New York, a large-scale mural by Caesar Viveros for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, and a controversial, officially licensed portrait by Perry Milou. Other featured pieces include an illustration by Omkar Shivaprasad and a vandalized mural in Bolivia by William Luna and Guillermo Rodriguez.

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article news schedule Feb 6, 2026 visibility 15 link 7 artists

claire tabouret criticism notre dame cathedral commission

French figurative painter Claire Tabouret has been awarded the commission to create new stained glass windows for Notre-Dame Cathedral, replacing 19th-century works by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus that survived the 2019 fire. Her designs, featuring multiethnic, multigenerational worshipers during Pentecost, were unveiled in the exhibition "Claire Tabouret: In a Single Breath" at the Grand Palais. The project, chosen by President Emmanuel Macron and Archbishop Laurent Ulrich from 110 candidates, has drawn criticism as an act of vanity and a possible violation of heritage guidelines, though Tabouret and Macron remain undeterred.

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article news schedule Feb 5, 2026 visibility 17 link 13 artists

washington post art critic sebastian smee laid off

The Washington Post laid off approximately 30% of its newsroom staff, including Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee, as part of broader cuts to sports, local news, and international coverage. Smee, who joined the Post in 2018 after working at the Boston Globe and The Australian, confirmed his departure in a statement to ARTnews, expressing gratitude to former editor Marty Baron and solidarity with affected colleagues. Another Pulitzer-winning critic, Philip Kennicott, reportedly remains on staff. The layoffs come shortly after the release of a documentary produced by Amazon MGM Studios, owned by Post owner Jeff Bezos.

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article news schedule Jan 30, 2026 visibility 10 link 2 artists

yet to be built frida kahlo branded apartments in miami hit the market

A luxury condominium development in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood, branded with Frida Kahlo's name and image, has begun selling units despite construction not yet starting. The project, called the Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences, features a 14-story tower designed by architect Carlos Ott with a massive portrait of the artist on its facade and plans for 244 furnished units priced from $500,000 to $1.6 million.

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gavel restitution schedule Jan 23, 2026 visibility 12 link 4 artists

gelman collection of mexican art surfaces at santander with plans to bring it to spain

Banco Santander has announced it will manage roughly half of the Gelman Collection, one of the most significant collections of 20th-century Mexican art, which disappeared from public view in 2008. The Madrid-based bank now oversees 160 of approximately 300 works amassed by patrons Jacques and Natasha Gelman. The collection will anchor the new Faro Santander cultural center in Spain, set to open in June, through a long-term loan agreement with the Zambrano family, the prominent Mexican business family revealed to own the once-lost collection. The collection's whereabouts had been largely unknown, with only sporadic sightings in foreign institutions, after it was divided by executor Robert R. Littman despite the will's stipulation that it be shown intact in a private museum in Mexico.

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article culture schedule Jan 15, 2026 visibility 18 link 24 artists

gossip crit group

On a frigid December evening, eleven women artists gathered in the lobby of 125 Maiden Lane in downtown Manhattan to view and discuss Langdon Graves's exhibition "Mental Model," produced by Art in Buildings. The group, called Gossip, is a long-running artist crit collective founded in 2009 by Cranbrook Academy of Art graduates including Jessica Stoller and Kelli Miller, originally named "Get Out" before being renamed by member Virginia Wagner after Silvia Federici's writings on gossip. The group now has about 20 members, including Jenna Gribbon, Erin M. Riley, and Julie Curtiss, and meets regularly in studios and galleries for critical feedback and creative exchange.

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article news schedule Jan 10, 2026 visibility 10 link 1 artist

recovered picassos art theft trial nice

Seven years after an undercover sting in Nice, France, recovered a cache of stolen artworks including several by Pablo Picasso, ten defendants are now on trial. The 2017 police operation, triggered by a tip from Belgium, involved officers posing as Swiss buyers who met a seller at a Nice hotel and were led to a house in Peillon filled with stolen pieces. Among the recovered works were Picasso's *Le vieux roi* and *Le clown*, along with other items traced to a burglary in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and an armed robbery in Èze. The trial consolidates earlier investigations into a suspected art theft and fencing network, with prosecutors alleging the Peillon property served as a storage and sales hub.

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article news schedule Jan 8, 2026 visibility 14 link 1 artist

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.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jan 2, 2026 visibility 11 link 5 artists

edita schubert profusion museum susch

Croatian artist Edita Schubert (1947–2001), a contemporary of Marina Abramović, is the subject of a major retrospective at Muzeum Susch in Switzerland. Titled "Edita Schubert: Profusion," the exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of her work outside Croatia, spanning twelve galleries and covering her evolution from early anatomical realism to abstraction, collage, sculpture, and performance. Curated by historian David Crowley, the show draws its name from a description by critic Ješa Denegri, who called Schubert a pioneer of Yugoslav art and her practice a "profusion." The exhibition highlights Schubert's conceptual rigor and her engagement with the human body, influenced by her work as a draftswoman at the University of Zagreb's Institute of Anatomy.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 26, 2025 visibility 16 link 14 artists

10 top lots auction 2025

Gustav Klimt's portrait of Elisabeth Lederer topped the list of the most expensive artworks sold at auction in 2025, achieving $236.3 million at Sotheby's New York on November 18—far exceeding its $150 million estimate and setting a new record for the artist. The painting came from the collection of the late Leonard Lauder, who died in June at age 92. Other top lots included two more Klimts from Lauder's collection, a newly offered Basquiat, and a record-setting Frida Kahlo work, alongside notable sales by van Gogh, Rothko, Mondrian, Monet, and Picasso, with many of the highest prices achieved during the blockbuster November auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 16 link 12 artists

frank frazetta fantasy art market

Frank Frazetta's iconic painting *Conan the Berserker* (1967) is being auctioned at Heritage Auctions with an opening bid of $10 million. The work, originally created for the cover of the 1967 paperback *Conan the Conqueror*, has become one of the definitive images of the fantasy hero. This year alone, five Frazetta paintings have sold for over $1 million, including *Man Ape* (1966) which fetched $13.5 million in September. The artist's total sales volume was just $674,640 in 2018, according to the Artnet Price Database.

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article news schedule Dec 3, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

pan african flags queen elizabeth portrait larry achiampong

British Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong responded to controversy after two of his pan-African flags from the "Relic Traveller: Phase 1" series replaced a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in the UK Foreign Office. The flags, titled "Pan African Flag For The Relic Travellers’ Alliance (Motion)" and "Pan African Flag For The Relic Travellers’ Alliance (Community)", were hung by Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy. Conservative MP Lee Anderson criticized the move, while Achiampong dismissed the outrage as "deeply problematic" in an interview with the Guardian.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 9 link 3 artists

rediscovered rubens painting sells france

A long-lost painting by Peter Paul Rubens, unseen for four centuries, was sold at auction in Versailles for €2.94 million ($3.4 million), nearly double its high estimate. Created in 1613, the work depicts Jesus Christ on the cross and was discovered in a private Paris townhouse by auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat. The painting was authenticated by German art historian Nils Büttner through X-ray imaging and pigment analysis, and its provenance traces back to the 19th-century French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

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article culture schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 7 artists

frida kahlo auction record op ed

Frida Kahlo's 1940 painting *El Sueño (La Cama)* sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby's New York, setting a new auction record for the most expensive work by a woman artist, surpassing Georgia O'Keeffe's *Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1* ($44.4 million in 2014). The sale sparked widespread commentary, with many framing it as a milestone for gender equity in the art market, while others noted the persistent gap between this price and those achieved by male artists like Leonardo da Vinci ($450.3 million) and Gustav Klimt ($236.4 million).

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists

manar abu dhabi

The second edition of Manar Abu Dhabi has launched under the theme “The Light Compass,” featuring 22 site-specific light-based installations across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain through January 4, 2026. Organized by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, the exhibition includes works by Emirati and international artists such as Pamela Poh, DRIFT, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and KAWS, with venues spanning Jubail Island, Al Jimi and Al Qattara oases, and Mina Zayed. A parallel performance program and educational lectures accompany the installations.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 20 link 16 artists

julia stoschek foundation los angeles show

The Julia Stoschek Foundation, one of the world's largest collections of video art, will present its first major U.S. exhibition at the Variety Arts Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Titled "What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem" and curated by Udo Kittelmann, the show opens February 6, 2026, pairing contemporary video works by artists such as Marina Abramović, Dara Birnbaum, Cyprien Gaillard, Arthur Jafa, Jesper Just, and Lu Yang with historic films by Luis Buñuel, Walt Disney, Alice Guy-Blaché, Winsor McCay, and Georges Méliès. The exhibition spans 120 years of filmmaking and will occupy a historic 1920s Venetian-style landmark that once housed L.A.'s first women's clubhouse and a vaudeville theater.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 11 link 3 artists

collector sues sothebys modigliani painting authenticity

Collector Charles C. Cahn, Jr. has filed a lawsuit against Sotheby’s in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, alleging the auction house refuses to resell a painting attributed to Amedeo Modigliani that he purchased in 2003 for $1.55 million. The work, titled *Portrait de Leopold Zborowski* (1917), was consigned under a 2016 agreement allowing Cahn to resell it within 15 years, but Cahn claims Sotheby’s raised authenticity concerns and failed to respond to his recent attempts to consign the piece. He is seeking $2.67 million in damages.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 21 link 16 artists

sothebys surrealism modern auction november 2025 new york

On Thursday night, Sotheby’s concluded a week of evening sales with a three-part modern art auction that achieved $304.6 million, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $211.3–$289.3 million. The evening featured 13 works from the collection of Cindy and Jay Pritzker, which sold for $109.5 million, followed by the 'Exquisite Corpus' Surrealist sale from Selma Ertegun’s collection totaling $98 million, and a multiple-owner modern art auction that brought in $97 million. The standout was Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* (1940), which sold for $55 million, setting records for Kahlo, a Latin American artist, and a female artist at auction. Vincent van Gogh’s *Piles de romans parisiens et roses dans une verre (Romans parisiens)* (1887) achieved $62.7 million after a seven-minute bidding war.

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article culture schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 18 link 14 artists

art books surrealism

Artnet News published a list of must-read books on Surrealism, marking the movement's 100th anniversary since André Breton's 1924 Surrealist Manifesto. The article highlights key texts including Breton's own "Manifestoes of Surrealism" and his novel "Nadja," Patrick Lepetit's "The Esoteric Secrets of Surrealism" exploring occult influences, and Whitney Chadwick's "Farewell to the Muse" focusing on women Surrealists who were often marginalized as muses rather than artists.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 19 link 12 artists

kaws drift rafael lozano hemmer artists participating abu dhabis public light art exhibition

Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism has organized the second edition of its public light art event, titled “The Light Compass,” for the 2025-26 season. Curated by a four-person team led by artistic director Khai Hori, the event features 15 installations by international and Emirati artists, including DRIFT, KAWS, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Ammar Al Attar, and Christian Brinkmann. Works are displayed across multiple sites: Jubail Island and Souq Al Mina in Abu Dhabi, and Al Qattara Oasis and Al Jimi Oasis in Al Ain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Highlights include DRIFT’s biometric dome and drone show, KAWS’s giant “Companion” figure holding a glowing orb, and site-specific pieces by Lozano-Hemmer and others.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 12 link 7 artists

art market minute nov 17

The U.K. Crown Prosecution Service has charged Hauser & Wirth and an art shipping firm with violating criminal sanctions by making George Condo's 2021 work on paper, *Escape from Humanity*, available to a person connected to Russia in 2022. Separately, Frida Kahlo's 1940 painting *El sueño (La cama)*, estimated at $40–60 million, will be auctioned at Sotheby's on November 20, potentially yielding a 78,400 percent return for its consignor. Qatar is also planning the first duty-free art storage unit in the Gulf.

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article news schedule Nov 14, 2025 visibility 15 link 7 artists

border patrol anish kapoor bean photo

British artist Anish Kapoor's iconic sculpture *Cloud Gate* (2006), known as "the Bean," in Chicago's Millennium Park became the site of a controversial photo op on Monday, when dozens of U.S. Border Patrol agents, led by chief Gregory Bovino, gathered in front of the 110-ton piece just after dawn. The agents, armed and in fatigues, reportedly shouted "Little Village"—a predominantly Mexican American neighborhood where Border Patrol had deployed tear gas in a raid over the weekend—instead of "cheese" for the photo. Local officials, including Chicago governor J.B. Pritzker and alderman Mike Rodriguez, condemned the action, and Kapoor himself expressed horror, likening the agents to "SS Nazi troops" and calling the incident a "fascist battle cry of intimidation." Chicago artist Michael Rakowitz also denounced the shoot as a "horrible invasion and occupation."

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article culture schedule Oct 28, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

barnett newman mayoral run new york city

A new biography titled *Barnett Newman: Here*, written by art historian Amy Newman, reveals that the Abstract Expressionist painter Barnett Newman ran for mayor of New York City in 1933—long before he became a famous artist. At age 28, with no paintings to his name, Newman campaigned on a vague, socialist-utopian platform that included a free city-run art school, waterfront parks, cleaner waters, and public ownership of utilities. He ran specifically to oppose the spread of Communism among intellectuals, but he admitted he did not expect to win. He lost, and his candidacy became a family joke.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 24 link 43 artists

kochi muziris biennial artist list

The Kochi-Muziris Biennial, South Asia's largest contemporary art biennial, has announced the 66 artists from over 20 countries participating in its 2025 edition, titled “For The Time Being.” Running from December 12 to March 31 across venues including Aspinwall House and Pepper House in Kochi, India, the event features around 50 new commissions and a theme centered on the body, memory, and temporality. The announcement comes after the 2023 edition was marred by controversy, with more than half of its 90 artists signing a public letter alleging communication breakdowns, unpaid fees, and production issues, as well as the Kerala government reportedly pulling out of a deal to acquire the main venue.

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article news schedule Oct 1, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

judge denies motion to dismiss swizz beatz 1mdb case

A federal judge has denied a motion to dismiss music producer and art collector Kasseem Dean, known as Swizz Beatz, from a bankruptcy case tied to the 1MDB scandal. Dean and his two companies, Monza Studios and Swizz Beatz Productions, were named as defendants in a suit filed in October 2024 by joint liquidators Angela Barkhouse and Toni Shukla, seeking to recover $7.3 million allegedly transferred to Dean from entities controlled by Jho Low, the mastermind of the $7.65 billion 1MDB fraud. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that the plaintiffs' claims are not time-barred, that they have standing, and that sufficient facts have been pleaded to proceed to discovery.

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article news schedule Sep 25, 2025 visibility 9 link 4 artists

french artist invader lawsuit julien auctions street art

French artist Invader, whose real name is Franck Slama, sued the parent company of Julien Auctions for copyright infringement, theft, and violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act. The lawsuit claims 15 of his original mosaic artworks were stolen from their installation sites worldwide—including Tokyo, Paris, and other French locations—damaged or distorted, and then offered in the auction house's "Street Art: Paint & Pavement" sale on September 25. Invader demanded the works be removed, and a U.S. District Court in California granted a restraining order halting the auction of those pieces. The auction house's co-founder Martin Nolan defended the sale, arguing that street art created in public spaces transfers ownership to those who lawfully acquire it.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 22, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

frida kahlo auction record broken sothebys el sueno la cama

Sotheby's announced the consignment of Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)*, estimated at $40–60 million, for a November 2025 single-owner sale titled "Exquisite Corpus." The work is expected to break Kahlo's auction record of $34.9 million set in 2021 and potentially surpass the $44.4 million record for a woman artist held by Georgia O'Keeffe. The painting depicts Kahlo lying on a floating bed with a skeleton above, created during a turbulent period following Leon Trotsky's assassination and her divorce from Diego Rivera.

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