Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Sep 11, 2025 visibility 22 link 15 artists

obama presidential center artist commissions jenny holzer nick cave

The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has announced nine new commissions by ten artists for its 19.3-acre campus, set to open next spring. The commissioned works include a text-based sculpture spelling 'HOPE' by Jack Pierson, a bronze sculpture by Kiki Smith, a digital mural by Jules Julien, a textile-and-sound installation by Nick Cave and Marie Watt, paintings by Jenny Holzer and Idris Khan, a sculpture by Nekisha Durrett, a mural by Aliza Nisenbaum, and an outdoor bronze by Alison Saar. These join five previously announced commissions, with plans for over 25 site-specific works total.

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trending_up market schedule Aug 19, 2025 visibility 21 link 14 artists

barbara hepworth sculpture uk national collection

The Hepworth Wakefield and Art Fund have successfully raised £3.8 million to acquire Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture *Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red* (1943). The wood and string artwork, previously in private hands and rarely seen publicly, was sold at Christie’s in London last March for £3.5 million. A temporary export bar imposed by the UK government gave the museum time to raise funds, with the deadline set for August 27. The funding came from over 2,800 donations and major grants, including £1.89 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £750,000 from the Art Fund, along with private support.

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article news schedule Aug 19, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

ai weiwei ukraine front line kyiv installation

Ai Weiwei has traveled to Ukraine's eastern front, visiting Kharkiv under Russian bombardment and meeting soldiers, poets, and cultural figures resisting the invasion. He documented the trip on Instagram with stark images and was photographed in black fatigues marked "Khartiia," a volunteer unit now part of Ukraine's National Guard. His next project is a major installation in Kyiv titled "Three Perfectly Proportioned Spheres and Camouflage Uniforms Painted White," opening September 14 at Pavilion 13, a renovated Soviet-era hall, commissioned by Ribbon International.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 23 link 3 artists

taipei dangdai nixes 2026 edition

Taipei Dangdai Art and Ideas, the annual art fair in Taiwan's capital, will not hold its 2026 edition as organizers pause to conduct a strategic evaluation of the fair's model, timing, scale, and format. The decision follows a prolonged contraction in the art market and comes days after the Art Dealers Association of America canceled its long-running Art Show in New York. The fair, which first launched in 2019 and held its sixth edition in May, had seen its exhibitor numbers decline from over 90 to around 50 this year. Co-director Robin Peckham left after the 2025 edition, and the fair's parent organization, the Art Assembly, has removed material about previous editions from its website, with its Instagram account apparently disabled.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 11, 2025 visibility 9 link 7 artists

nadya tolokonnikova interview police state la moca

Nadya Tolokonnikova, cofounder of Pussy Riot, has created a performance installation titled "Police State" (2025) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (LA MOCA). The work recreates a Russian jail cell where Tolokonnikova performs daily activities—making music, creating art, and resting—observed by visitors via security camera footage and peepholes. The installation also features artworks by current and former political prisoners from Russia, Belarus, and the United States, curated through Tolokonnikova's Art Action Foundation and the Artistic Freedom Initiative. Originally scheduled for June 5–14, the show was extended due to the museum's closure amid anti-ICE protests and National Guard deployment.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 11, 2025 visibility 16 link 6 artists

man ray rediscovered

A rediscovered watercolor sketch by Man Ray, created in 1913 when he was in his early twenties, has resurfaced after decades in an attic and sold for £18,000 ($24,000) at Dreweatts auction house in Newbury, England, on July 10. The work, titled *Nude Playing Musical Instrument [Study for “Tapestry Painting”]*, is a preparatory study for a lost larger oil-on-linen tapestry and offers rare insight into the artist's pivotal transition from traditional painting to avant-garde experimentation inspired by European modernism encountered at the 1913 Armory Show.

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article local schedule Jul 7, 2025 visibility 14 link 8 artists

manhattans beloved elizabeth street garden is saved

New York City has abandoned plans to demolish Soho's Elizabeth Street Garden for affordable housing, instead rezoning three nearby sites to build 620 units while preserving the garden. The deal, brokered with council member Christopher Marte—a former garden volunteer—ends a years-long campaign backed by celebrities like Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Patti Smith, as well as artists JR and Dustin Yellin and curator Klaus Biesenbach. The garden, filled with antique architectural remnants, was created by the late Allan Reiver and his son Joseph Reiver, who continued the fight after Allan's death in 2021.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 9 artists

glastonbury festival 2025 mark wallinger gaza children installation

At the 2025 Glastonbury Festival in the UK, Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger presented an anti-fascist installation titled "Jungle Gym" at the Terminal 1 Stage, curated by Oriana Garzón as part of the exhibition "No Human is Illegal." The work, built with chainlink fencing and using only Unicef blue, highlights the suffering of children in Gaza and the bureaucratic challenges faced by migrants. Festivalgoers entered by answering a British citizenship test question, with incorrect answers sending them to the back of the line, before passing through a cabin styled as a refugee camp to reach the installation.

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article culture schedule Jun 26, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

28 years later antony gormley angel of the north

The article examines the appearance of Antony Gormley's iconic 1998 sculpture *Angel of the North* in the zombie film *28 Years Later*. The Cor-Ten steel work, which towers 66 feet tall near Gateshead, appears in an overgrown field as a symbol of post-apocalyptic abandonment, reflecting the film's themes of failed quarantine and societal collapse. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland use the sculpture to critique conservative British politics, with the film's ending making explicit reference to a British celebrity posthumously accused of rape.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 26, 2025 visibility 16 link 13 artists

carlos agredano fume los angeles nomadic art division

Artist Carlos Agredano, who grew up near the 105 Freeway in Lynwood, California, has created a traveling sculpture titled "FUME" (2025) that uses air quality sensors mounted on his 1992 Toyota Pickup to measure pollution from vehicle exhaust and ambient air. The work was exhibited at the Los Angeles Nomadic Art Division (LAND) and is part of Agredano's broader practice examining how the LA freeway system has harmed working-class communities of color through toxic drift and destructive urban planning. His research draws on sources including Eric Avila's book "Folklore of the Freeway" and studies from UCLA's Center for Occupational & Environmental Health.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 26, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

ai weiwei major installation ukraine

Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei will debut a major new installation in Kyiv, Ukraine, this fall at Pavilion 13, a Soviet-era glass exposition hall that recently reopened as a cultural venue after renovation by architectural firm Forma. The work, titled *Three Perfectly Proportioned Spheres and Camouflage Uniforms Painted White* (2025), features metal spheres inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's mathematical illustrations, encased in camouflage fabric thinly painted white, exploring themes of concealment, reality, and war. Commissioned by the nonprofit Ribbon International, the installation will be on view from September 14 to November 30, 2025, alongside a site-responsive intervention by Berlin-based artist Sam Lewitt.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 26, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

lempicka rafaela nude auction

Tamara de Lempicka's portrait of her lover, *La Belle Rafaëla* (1927), sold for £7.47 million ($10.05 million) at Sotheby's London Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale on June 24. The work, estimated at £6–9 million, hammered just above its low estimate to a buyer in the room. It had last appeared at auction in 1985, when it sold for $242,000, then a record for the artist. The painting depicts Rafaëla, a sex worker Lempicka encountered in Paris's Bois de Boulogne, who became her lover and muse.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 11, 2025 visibility 25 link 85 artists

2025 bienal de sao paulo artist list

The Bienal de São Paulo has announced the 120 artists for its 2025 edition, titled “Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice,” opening September 6 at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion. Curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, the selection was inspired by bird migration patterns and rivers, aiming to avoid nation-state classifications. Notable participants include Isa Genzken, Firelei Báez, Wolfgang Tillmans, Forensic Architecture, and 19 Brazil-based artists, alongside 20 deceased figures such as Bertina Lopes and Ernest Cole.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

new institute of sexology celebrates history of erotic art film photography

The Wellcome Collection in London has opened a new exhibition titled "The Institute of Sexology," celebrating the history of erotic art, film, and photography. The show features a wide range of objects including archival material, ethnographic and medical artifacts, erotica, and works by contemporary artists such as John Stezaker, Sharon Hayes, Zanele Muholi, and Timothy Archibald. It highlights pioneers of sexology like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Marie Stopes, and marks the first exhibition after the institution's £17.5 million expansion, inaugurating a new gallery for large, year-long shows.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 12 link 6 artists

moca los angeles geffen nadya tolokonnikova

Artist Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founding member of Pussy Riot, began a durational performance titled *Police State* at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles on Thursday, inhabiting a cell and sewing clothing. The following day, protests erupted in the city after ICE raids in the garment district, leading to clashes with police and the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops by President Donald Trump. MOCA closed its Geffen branch early on Sunday for safety, while Tolokonnikova continued her performance, live-streaming audio from the protests into her installation.

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article news schedule Jun 6, 2025 visibility 12 link 4 artists

closed sfai campus casa artist residency center

The former San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) campus has been transformed into a privately funded nonprofit arts center called the California Academy of Studio Arts (CASA). Backed by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, who purchased the Chester Street campus for $30 million last year, CASA will host 30 emerging artists annually in an unaccredited studio program. Artists will have access to private studios, shared workspaces, and professional mentors, with no tuition fees. The center is led by director Abbye Churchill and plans seminars for participants. SFAI, one of the oldest art schools in the U.S., suspended operations in 2022 and filed for bankruptcy after a failed merger with the University of San Francisco.

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article culture schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 12 link 10 artists

inside peter paul rubenss secret life as a spy

Peter Paul Rubens, the renowned Baroque painter known for dramatic altarpieces and 'Rubenesque' figures, also led a secret career as a diplomat and spy for the Holy Roman Empire and Spanish Habsburgs. The article details his early life, education, and apprenticeship, and reveals how he used his artistic access to European courts to gather intelligence, including while working on commissions for Marie de' Medici in France. His diplomatic efforts helped broker peace between Spain and England, and he was appointed Secretary of the Flanders' Council.

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article culture schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 9 artists

salvador dali mustache origin

Salvador Dalí's iconic mustache, voted the Most Famous Mustache of All Time in a 2010 Telegraph survey, originated in the 1940s after he initially sported a more subdued "Menjou" style in the 1930s. The artist developed his flamboyant upturned mustache, first appearing in his painting *Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon* (1941), and maintained it with meticulous daily grooming using date-based wax. Dalí treated the mustache as a personal logo and creative symbol, even co-authoring a 1954 book with photographer Philippe Halsman titled *Dalí's Mustache*, featuring 28 surreal photographs.

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trending_up market schedule May 9, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

justin sun david geffen feud heats up

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun and entertainment mogul David Geffen are locked in an escalating legal battle over Alberto Giacometti's sculpture *Le Nez*. Sun purchased the work for $78.4 million at Sotheby's in 2021, but claims his former art adviser Sydney Xiong fraudulently sold it to Geffen for $10.5 million in cash and two paintings, using forged documents and fictitious lawyers. Sun filed suit in New York in February; Geffen countersued in April, calling the allegations "bizarre and baseless" and accusing Sun of "seller's remorse." Sun's legal team now asserts that Xiong has been detained in China since February, while Geffen's camp points to inconsistencies in Sun's story and his broader financial and legal troubles.

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article culture schedule May 9, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

the art angle art frames

Artnet News published a podcast episode featuring writer and editor Katie White, who discusses her article "Bordercore: Why Frames Became the New Frontier in Contemporary Art." White explores how contemporary artists are reimagining picture frames as surreal, sculptural, and symbolic elements that actively comment on, disrupt, or extend the artwork beyond its traditional boundaries. She cites examples like Stephanie Temma Hier's 2021 work "Sparks and Tremors," which combines oil on linen with glazed stoneware sculpture, and notes that statement frames are increasingly appearing at art fairs and exhibitions after a long period of frameless display.

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article news schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 8 link 1 artist

smith partner art investment firm 11m fraud

Smith and Partner, a London-based art investment firm, has been accused of defrauding over a thousand investors out of $11 million through a scheme involving high-pressure sales of limited edition art prints with promises of future returns that rarely materialized. The company, founded by Austrian citizen Peter Paul Adam in 2015, faced complaints from 2020 onward, leading to its bank freezing accounts and an investigation by British Trading Standards. Liquidators are seeking $17 million in compensation, and a High Court judge has upheld asset freeze orders against former director Luke Sparkes and his company Zeno Fine Art, which allegedly inflated print prices by nearly 500 percent.

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article culture schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

who was joan shogren computer art

Joan Shogren, a chemistry graduate from San José State University (SJSU) in the early 1950s, created some of the world's first computer-generated art in 1963 while working as a secretary in the chemistry department. Collaborating with graduate student Jim Larson and assistant professor Ralph Fessenden, she developed a theory that computers could create art if given "rules" of proportion, balance, and center of interest. Fessenden translated her "laws of art" into code on an IBM 1620 computer, producing artworks that were printed as number arrays and later hand-colored by artist Marvin Coon. Shogren exhibited these works in May 1963 at the campus bookstore, recognized as the first public display of computer art. Two decades later, she was commissioned by software company T/Maker to create the first clip art, "ClickArt," released in 1984 for Macintosh computers, designed pixel by pixel.

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trending_up market schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

gustav klimt portrait failed auction sale fraulein lieser

The sale of Gustav Klimt's *Portrait of Fräulein Lieser* (1917), which fetched €35 million ($37.51 million) at im Kinsky in Vienna in 2024, has collapsed after the anonymous Hong Kong buyer withdrew. The buyer had attempted to negotiate indemnification settlements with all known heirs of Adolf and Henriette Lieser for 60% of the sale proceeds, but one heir refused to sign, causing the deal to fall through. The auction house now faces estimated losses of at least €1.5 million ($1.7 million).

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person people schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 12 link 3 artists

amalia ulman magic farm film art

Amalia Ulman, who gained fame in 2014 for her Instagram performance "Excellences and Perfections," is now an accomplished filmmaker. Her second feature, "Magic Farm," starring Chloë Sevigny, follows a crew of American journalists traveling to Argentina to record an episode about a musician, only to encounter locals affected by pesticide pollution. The film is an absurdist satire of American hipsters, continuing Ulman's pivot from visual art to cinema after her debut dark comedy "El Planeta" (2021).

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article local schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 5 artists

luka doncic vandalized kobe and gigi mural

Luka Dončić, the newest star player for the Los Angeles Lakers, quietly funded the restoration of a mural depicting Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna (Gigi) Bryant after it was vandalized in downtown Los Angeles. Dončić donated $5,000 to a GoFundMe campaign organized by artist Louie Palsino, who created the mural titled "Mambas Forever" at 14th and Main Streets. The donation covered the full cost of restoring the defaced artwork, which honors the Lakers legend and his daughter who died in a 2020 helicopter crash.

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article culture schedule Apr 29, 2025 visibility 13 link 7 artists

kamala culture failure

Ben Davis, an art critic, analyzes the failure of Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign through the lens of its visual culture, particularly a MoveOn.org poster in Brooklyn that renders Harris's face entirely from emojis—smiley eyes, fist-bump skin, octopus lips, and coconut necklace. He argues this poster epitomizes the campaign's reliance on incoherent internet vibes and substance-free memes, contrasting it with Shepard Fairey's uninspired "FORWARD" poster and the self-parody of "Brat Summer" aesthetics. Davis blames Democratic Party consultants for wasting over $1 billion on a campaign that failed to connect with voters on economic anger, instead offering wonkish proposals and appeals to nonexistent Liz Cheney Republicans.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 8, 2026 visibility 18 link 8 artists

Khaled Sabsabi is finally at the Venice Biennale: ‘Being here is already a win’

Khaled Sabsabi has opened his exhibition 'conference of one’s self' at the Australian Pavilion of the 61st Venice Biennale, alongside a second installation 'Khalil' in the Arsenale. This follows a tumultuous period in which Creative Australia rescinded his appointment as Australia’s representative in February 2025, sparking widespread backlash from the art community. After being reappointed in July 2025, Sabsabi presents two monumental multimedia works inspired by Sufi practice, created in Bangkok and described as 'one body with two limbs'.

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article culture schedule May 5, 2026 visibility 18 link 2 artists

Women behind the lens: ‘After state massacres, I began burning the prints as an act of mourning’

Iranian-Canadian visual journalist and artist Parisa Azadi describes her process of creating protest photographs during the 2022 Iranian revolution from exile in Dubai. Unable to return to Iran, she used open-source protest footage from social media, isolating frames and printing them with a Fujifilm instax camera to transform ephemeral digital images into physical objects. In January 2026, after state massacres and executions, she began burning these prints as an act of mourning, scarring their surfaces to echo the violence they depict.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 28, 2026 visibility 26 link 15 artists

‘The doorbell went at 5am. Six masked men were outside’: Belarus Free Theatre bring totalitarian terror to the Venice Biennale

Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), an exiled troupe based in London, is presenting its first major visual art project, titled 'Official. Unofficial. Belarus.', at the Venice Biennale. The installation, masterminded by the founders' daughter Daniella Kaliada, features contributions from former political prisoners, painters, sculptors, composers, and world-renowned chef Rasmus Munk, who created a dish evoking detention under an authoritarian regime. The work includes a giant ball of banned books, surveillance cameras attached to an iron crucifix, and a custom scent of a freshly dug grave, all reflecting the terror of life under Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

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candle obituary schedule Apr 16, 2026 visibility 15 link 4 artists

Chris Mullen obituary

Chris Mullen, a distinguished educator and historian of art and design, has died at the age of 81. Throughout a career spanning over three decades at the Norwich School of Art and the University of Brighton, Mullen became a pivotal figure in integrating contextual studies with studio practice. He was renowned for his vast personal archive of printed ephemera and his digital project, "The Visual Telling of Stories," which served as a vital resource for generations of students and researchers.

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