Art News. Vasari Codex

article culture schedule Oct 15, 2025 visibility 16 link 6 artists

art heist that inspired the mastermind

Kelly Reichardt's new film *The Mastermind*, starring Josh O'Connor, depicts a low-stakes art heist at the fictional Framingham Museum of Art, inspired by a real 1972 theft at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. In the actual heist, two robbers stole four paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso, and Gauguin, worth about $7.72 million today, and shot an unarmed guard. The film, set in the early '70s, draws on details like two schoolgirls who witnessed the crime, but Reichardt deliberately makes the cinematic version less thrilling than the real event.

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person people schedule Oct 13, 2025 visibility 18 link 1 artist

joan weinstein vice president getty wide program planning

The Getty has appointed Joan Weinstein, current director of the Getty Foundation, to the newly created role of vice president for Getty-wide program planning. Weinstein will continue as foundation director until a successor is named, and in her new position she will develop strategy across the institution’s four divisions: the Museum, Research Institute, Conservation Institute, and Foundation, focusing on art historical scholarship and community partnerships. She is best known for co-directing PST ART, a major Southern California cultural collaboration, and has overseen significant relief funds for artists affected by wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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article policy schedule Oct 12, 2025 visibility 21 link 3 artists

smithsonian closes museums government shutdown

The Smithsonian Institution has been forced to close its 21 museums in Washington, D.C., indefinitely due to a continuing U.S. government shutdown that began on October 1. The National Gallery of Art had already closed the previous weekend. The Smithsonian had initially used its own funds to stay open, first planning to close on October 6 and then extending operations through October 11, but the ongoing shutdown—stemming from disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over health care policy—has now made closure unavoidable. The shutdown also threatens upcoming programming, including a planned Grandma Moses survey at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a portraiture competition exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which has already been postponed.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 24 link 12 artists

sothebys matthew carolyn bucksbaum magritte jean dubuffett

Sotheby's will sell ten works from the Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum collection in its fall auctions, with six pieces by René Magritte, Jean Dubuffet, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee featured in the Modern Evening auction on November 20. The group of six works carries a total estimate of $18 million to $24 million, led by Magritte's *Le Jockey perdu* (1942) at $9–12 million and Dubuffet's *Restaurant Rougeot II* (1961) at $6–8 million. Sotheby's executives Julian Dawes and Grégoire Billault emphasized the rarity and importance of these works, noting that the Magritte is the only oil version of its subject and the Dubuffet is one of just three paintings of the iconic Paris restaurant.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 20 link 9 artists

claude monet venice brooklyn museum review

The Brooklyn Museum's exhibition "Monet and Venice" explores how Claude Monet's 1908 trip to Venice revitalized his creative practice, leading to 37 remarkable paintings that directly influenced his later "Water Lilies" series. The show assembles more than half of these Venice works alongside pieces by Canaletto, J.M.W. Turner, and others, tracing how the sojourn allowed Monet to see his canvases with fresh eyes after a period of creative impasse. Curated by Lisa Small and Melissa Buron, the 100-work survey opens October 11 and is the largest Monet exhibition in New York in over 25 years.

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article news schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 17 link 8 artists

national portrait gallery cancels exhibition events due to government shutdown

The National Portrait Gallery has postponed opening events for its upcoming exhibition “The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today,” originally scheduled for October 16–17, due to the ongoing U.S. government shutdown. The decision was communicated in a letter from acting director Elliot Gruber on October 7, citing the shutdown as the reason for the cancellation. The exhibition, which features 35 portraits by 36 artists selected from over 3,300 entries, is part of the museum’s seventh triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition and is still set to open to the public on October 18, pending the resolution of lapsed funding.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 17 link 4 artists

jean michel basquaits 45 m crowns peso neto to headline sothebys fall auctions in new york

Sotheby's will offer Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1981 painting *Crowns (Peso Neto)* as the headline lot of its contemporary evening sale in New York this fall, carrying a high estimate of $45 million. The work, which has never been auctioned before, debuted at Basquiat's landmark 1982 solo show at Annina Nosei Gallery and later appeared at Documenta 7. It will be exhibited in London during Frieze Week, then in Paris coinciding with Art Basel Paris, before arriving at Sotheby's new Breuer Building headquarters in New York ahead of the November 8 sale.

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article policy schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 22 link 8 artists

flemish government eliminates m hka smak museum controversy

The Flemish government has announced a plan to close the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), Belgium's oldest contemporary art museum, and transfer its collection of around 8,000 objects to the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, which will be rebranded as the Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art by 2028. The decision, part of a broader reform of Flanders' museum landscape, has sparked outrage: M HKA's board chairman Herman De Bode resigned, and staff published an open letter and launched a petition that gathered over 2,600 signatures, accusing the government of acting without transparency or consultation.

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person people schedule Oct 8, 2025 visibility 22 link 13 artists

macarthur genius grants garrett bradley gala porras kim

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its 2025 class of 22 MacArthur Fellows, each receiving an $800,000 no-strings-attached grant. Among the winners are several visual artists: Garrett Bradley, known for her Oscar-nominated documentary *Time* (2020) and works centering Black resistance; Gala Porras-Kim, whose practice questions how art institutions convey or conceal information about objects; Tuan Andrew Nguyen, whose films and installations explore trauma and colonization; and Jeremy Frey, a seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basket maker whose midcareer survey is on view at the Bruce Museum. Photographers Matt Black and Tonika Lewis Johnson also received fellowships, along with archaeologist Kristina Douglass and non-artists such as novelist Tommy Orange and astrophysicist Kareem El-Badry.

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article policy schedule Oct 1, 2025 visibility 22 link 9 artists

mika rottenberg says trumps smithsonian situation is fucked up

Artist Mika Rottenberg, whose work is included in an upcoming show at the Smithsonian-run Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, called the Trump administration's interference with the Smithsonian "fucked up" in a Vanity Fair article. She praised Amy Sherald for canceling a Smithsonian show, calling it "amazing." British artist Richard Long also expressed concern about the administration "strangling everything" at the institution. The article notes that many other artists with works slated for Smithsonian presentations—including Nick Cave, Paul Chan, Olafur Eliasson, Spencer Finch, and Rashid Johnson—declined to speak to Vanity Fair, reflecting a cautious environment. Dread Scott, however, has been vocal, calling for the regime to be driven from power and urging art institutions to support dissenting artists.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 18 link 9 artists

lawrence abu hamdan munch museum exhibition golan heights

Lawrence Abu Hamdan's exhibition "Zifzafa" has opened at the Munch Museum in Oslo, featuring a politically charged exploration of sound as both a celebration of life and a tool of displacement. The show centers on a forensic audio investigation into the impact of 31 wind turbines planned for the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, or Jawlan. Key works include the video projection *Wind Ensemble* (2024) featuring saxophonist Amr Mdah, CGI animations *Tilting at windmills i, ii & iii* (2024), and the 45-minute film *Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay* (2025), which uses a video game walkthrough format to simulate the sonic pollution that will affect local homes—some as close as 115 feet from the turbines. The game incorporates field recordings by local composer Busher Kanj Abu Saleh and turbine noise from Germany, highlighting the sounds of daily life and resistance.

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article news schedule Sep 25, 2025 visibility 22 link 21 artists

aspen art museum redefining future

The Aspen Art Museum is undergoing a strategic shift under director Nicola Lees, moving away from its reputation as a collector's clubhouse toward becoming a global institution. The museum's annual ArtCrush gala and fundraiser week, once centered on wealth-displaying collector home visits and glitzy parties, now emphasizes intellectual programming like the inaugural AIR festival, a $20 million artist-led interdisciplinary initiative featuring talks by Werner Herzog and Hans Ulrich Obrist. This change comes amid soaring local real estate prices, including a $108 million home co-purchased by Steve Wynn and Thomas Peterffy, and contrasts the area's deep pockets with the museum's free admission since 2008.

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article culture schedule Sep 24, 2025 visibility 15 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

roberta smith interviews larry gagosian

Roberta Smith, the former New York Times co-chief art critic, interviews Larry Gagosian, the world's most famous art dealer, for Numero magazine. The conversation covers Gagosian's hands-on management of his 18 galleries, his admission of mistakes in closing locations in San Francisco and Geneva, and his view of his galleries as tryout spaces akin to off-Broadway. Gagosian shares anecdotes about his first Picasso purchase at Sotheby's for $900,000 (now worth $40 million), his early shows featuring David Salle and Warhol's Oxidation paintings, and his regret over selling Eli Broad's Basquiat skull painting for $80,000. Smith recalls attending Gagosian's first New York show in the 1970s, and the two reflect on their long, distant acquaintance.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 23, 2025 visibility 23 link 7 artists

leiden collection fractionalized thomas kaplan rembrandt

Billionaire investor Thomas S. Kaplan, owner of the Leiden Collection—the largest private holding of Rembrandt paintings and other Dutch/Flemish Old Masters—has announced plans to fractionalize his art holdings, potentially offering shares on a public stock exchange. In an interview with the Art Newspaper, Kaplan cited his children's lack of interest in the collection and a desire to democratize art ownership, inspired by the NFT craze of the early 2020s. The collection includes Vermeer's *Young Woman Seated at a Virginal* (ca. 1670–75) and works by Frans Hals, Gerard ter Borch, and others, and is regularly loaned to major museum exhibitions.

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article news schedule Sep 18, 2025 visibility 12 link 3 artists

glenn lowry moma values trump

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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candle obituary schedule Sep 17, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

saul dennison art new museum chairman dead at 96

Saul Dennison, a prominent arts patron and longtime supporter of the New Museum in New York, died on September 11 at age 96. Dennison and his wife Ellyn, who died earlier this year, were avid art collectors whose holdings ranged from new media and photography to classical sculpture and conceptual works. Dennison served as president of the New Museum's board of trustees from 1999 to 2013, then as chairman until his death, and was instrumental in the museum's 2007 opening of its permanent home on the Bowery. He also helped the museum secure a crucial challenge grant from philanthropist Vera List by suggesting artworks be accepted as donations toward the fundraising goal.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 16, 2025 visibility 18 link 4 artists

jean michel basquiat estate albino and preto collection

Fashion brand Albino & Preto has collaborated with the Jean-Michel Basquiat estate on a new collection of jiujitsu sets and lifestyle apparel featuring the artist's paintings. The limited-edition collection, released on September 10 ahead of New York Fashion Week, incorporates martial arts motifs that Basquiat often used in his work, including a reference to the jiujitsu foot lock known as "Achilles." The Basquiat estate has a history of fashion collaborations, including a previous line with H&M tied to the 2022 exhibition "King Pleasure."

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trending_up market schedule Sep 15, 2025 visibility 19 link 12 artists

leonard lauder sothebys klimt matisse

Sotheby's has secured a major consignment of approximately $400 million in art from the collection of the late Leonard Lauder, who died in July at age 92. The highlight is Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" (1914–16), expected to fetch over $150 million, potentially shattering Klimt's auction record. The sale also includes two other Klimt landscapes, six bronzes by Henri Matisse, a $20 million Edvard Munch painting, and an Agnes Martin work, totaling 55 artworks. The auction will inaugurate Sotheby's new space in the former Whitney Museum building, designed by Marcel Breuer.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 10, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists

patrizia sandretto re rebaudengo new museum commissions

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, a top European art collector and founder of a Turin-based foundation, is partnering with New York's New Museum for a series of commissions. The first commission will be realized by Italian artist Diego Marcon, known for his uncanny videos, with his work titled 'Krapfen'—a musical dance film blending American animation and Italian opera. The New Museum, currently undergoing a renovation and expansion with a seven-story annex, is set to reopen this fall. 'Krapfen' was also co-commissioned by Chicago's Renaissance Society, Paris's Lafayette Anticipations, and the Vega Foundation, run by Canadian collector Elisa Nuyten, and will debut at the Renaissance Society before its New Museum run.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 8, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

independent 20th century breuer sothebys

Independent 20th Century art fair has announced that its 2026 edition will be hosted by Sotheby’s at the auction house’s new flagship headquarters in Manhattan’s historic Breuer building. The move, first reported by the New York Times, marks a significant expansion for the fair and an unprecedented collaboration between an art fair and an auction house in the modern art market. Founded in 2022, Independent 20th Century focuses on overlooked and celebrated artists of the last century, with curatorial programming that reframes movements from women in Surrealism to Arab Modernism. The Breuer—a landmark of Modernist architecture designed by Marcel Breuer and recently renovated by Herzog & de Meuron with PBDW Architects—will allow the fair to grow to more than 50 galleries, up from 31 at its most recent edition.

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rate_review review schedule Sep 5, 2025 visibility 24 link 10 artists

stephen shore early work mack

The article reviews Stephen Shore's book *Early Work*, which collects photographs he took between the ages of 13 and 18, from 1960 to 1965. Despite his youth, the images display remarkable sophistication, a feat Shore attributes to an atypical childhood that included early access to cameras and a copy of Walker Evans's *American Photographs*. The book includes a "pre-history" essay in which Shore reflects on his formative influences, including time spent at Andy Warhol's Factory and a friendship with headmaster William Dexter, who deepened his interest in photography. The earliest image in the book is a portrait of Dexter taking a photograph, which Shore describes as a metanarrative of a photographer photographing a photographer.

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article policy schedule Aug 25, 2025 visibility 23 link 5 artists

amy sherald speaks out government censorship at the smithsonian

Amy Sherald, the painter who canceled her exhibition “American Sublime” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in July due to censorship issues, has broken her silence in a MSNBC article. Sherald canceled her September show after the museum considered removing her painting *Trans Forming Liberty* (2024), depicting model and performance artist Arewà Basit as a Black transgender Statue of Liberty. In her op-ed, Sherald explains that institutional fear shaped by political hostility toward trans lives played a role, and she cannot comply with a culture of censorship targeting vulnerable communities.

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article policy schedule Aug 22, 2025 visibility 19 link 3 artists

white house smithsonian artworks list refugees fauci

The White House published an article on its website denouncing a range of artworks, exhibitions, and objects at the Smithsonian Institution, continuing President Donald Trump's protest against the museum network. The list included previously criticized shows, such as one about sculptures as signifiers of power at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture's displays on 'white dominant culture.' It also named new targets: a painting of a Black trans woman as the Statue of Liberty by Amy Sherald (which was pulled from a National Portrait Gallery show due to alleged censorship), Rigoberto A. González's 2022 painting 'Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas,' a stop-motion portrait of Anthony Fauci commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, and a papier-mâché Statue of Liberty from a workers' rights protest. The administration also objected to wall texts at the National Museum of the American Latino and the National Museum of American History's LGBTQ+ History display.

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person people schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 21 link 2 artists

brian ferriso named director dallas museum of art

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has appointed Brian Ferriso, the longtime director of the Portland Art Museum (PAM), as its next director, effective December 1. Ferriso succeeds Agustín Arteaga, who left last year to lead the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. During his 18-year tenure at PAM, Ferriso grew the endowment by $40 million, eliminated $7 million in debt, doubled curatorial staff, and made the museum free for visitors 17 and under. He also oversaw major collection diversification, co-commissioned Jeffrey Gibson’s U.S. Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, and will open a 100,000-square-foot expansion funded by a $140 million capital campaign.

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article news schedule Aug 13, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

frank lloyd wright building conservancy price tower bartlesville

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy has acquired 11 original pieces designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, including the lobby direction board, an armchair, three copper tables, two stools, and four embossed copper panels. The acquisition, funded by donors, was made to prevent further sale and dispersal of the items after they were sold without the conservancy's permission in spring 2024, despite being protected under a preservation easement. The artifacts are currently stored in the Dallas area, and the conservancy intends to return them to Price Tower.

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

aspen air festival 2025

The inaugural AIR festival took place in Aspen as part of Aspen Art Week, featuring a mix of talks, performances, and a closed-door retreat for artists, writers, scientists, and theorists. Highlights included a pack of panting huskies, a psychoanalysis talk in a psychedelic chapel, an artist conversing with his AI doppelganger, and a whispery musical performance on a museum rooftop. The festival kicked off with a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul accompanied by composer Rafiq Bhatia, followed by discussions on dreaming and catastrophe, and site-responsive works by Jota Mombaça and Paul Chan.

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article news schedule Aug 4, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

amy sherald trans forming liberty the new yorker cover

Amy Sherald's portrait of a Black transgender Statue of Liberty, titled *Trans Forming Liberty* (2024), has appeared on the cover of *The New Yorker* after the artist canceled a planned iteration of her traveling survey at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, alleging censorship. Sherald said museum leadership objected to the painting and proposed replacing it with a video discussion that would include anti-trans views. The work is currently on view at the Whitney Museum, where her survey 'American Sublime' runs through August 10. The Smithsonian later stated it sought to contextualize rather than replace the work, while the Trump administration praised the removal as a 'principled and necessary step' amid broader scrutiny of the institution's exhibitions.

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candle obituary schedule Aug 3, 2025 visibility 24 link 14 artists, 2 galleries

robert wilson theatre director artist dead

Robert Wilson, the influential playwright and artist known for his spare, slow-moving productions that blurred the line between performance art and theater, died Thursday at age 83 in Water Mill, New York. His death was announced by the Watermill Center, the arts center he founded, which stated he died of a brief but acute illness. Wilson's career spanned stage works like the landmark 1976 opera *Einstein on the Beach* (with Philip Glass and Lucinda Childs), video portraits of figures such as Lady Gaga and Brad Pitt, and sculptures, all characterized by stillness and a radical use of time.

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article policy schedule Aug 3, 2025 visibility 20 link 3 artists

smithsonian trump impeachment display update history museum

The Smithsonian Institution has addressed the removal of a display at the National Museum of American History that mentioned President Donald Trump's two prior impeachments. The display, which had been on view since 2021 alongside references to Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Richard Nixon, was altered to a 2008 version that predated Trump's presidency. The Smithsonian stated the display will be updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in U.S. history, denying any external pressure from the Trump administration. The controversy follows earlier tensions, including Trump's firing of National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet and artist Amy Sherald's cancellation of her traveling survey due to staff fears of political pushback.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 28, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

sam barsky sweaters kohler r u still painting

Sam Barsky, a self-taught knitter who learned from a library book in 1999 after dropping out of nursing school due to chronic illness, creates intricate pictorial sweaters entirely freehand without patterns. His sweaters depict landscapes and landmarks—such as Central Park, the London Bridge, and the Twin Towers—and he often photographs himself wearing them at the actual sites. His first museum solo exhibition, “It’s Not the Same Without You,” recently closed at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin, and his work also appeared in the group show “R U Still Painting???” in Manhattan alongside artists like assume vivid astro focus and Uri Aran.

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