An anonymous artist collective known as the Secret Handshake has installed a 10-foot-tall golden toilet sculpture titled 'A Throne Fit for a King' near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The work is a satirical monument to former President Donald Trump's controversial renovation of the White House's Lincoln Bathroom, which he outfitted with gold fixtures during a government shutdown.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has finally unveiled its new flagship building, the David Geffen Galleries, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The concrete-and-glass structure famously straddles Wilshire Boulevard, featuring a continuous glass facade that offers panoramic views of the Los Angeles landscape and newly installed outdoor sculptures. Inside, the layout encourages a non-linear experience, moving visitors through varying light conditions and diverse gallery sizes that house a mix of contemporary and classical works.
A Vincent van Gogh painting, 'The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring,' stolen from the Singer Laren museum in 2020, has been restored and returned to public display at the Groninger Museum. The painting was recovered in 2023 by Dutch police and art sleuth Arthur Brand, and underwent a meticulous, months-long restoration by conservator Marjan de Visser to repair damage and remove historical overpainting.
The Kunsthaus Zurich has unveiled a comprehensive new display of the Emil Bührle Collection, featuring 205 works including five significant paintings by Vincent van Gogh and one acknowledged forgery. This reinstallation marks a shift from previous thematic displays focused on provenance research to a denser presentation of the collection's breadth. Notable works on view include a 1887 self-portrait and the masterpiece 'The Sower at Sunset,' though one Van Gogh remains in conservation and another has been withdrawn due to Nazi-era ownership complications.
Choreographer Wayne McGregor’s upcoming production at the Royal Opera House, 'Alchemies', highlights his career-long commitment to cross-disciplinary collaboration with visual artists and designers. The program features a world premiere with costumes by fashion designer Saul Nash, alongside revivals of 'Yugen' and 'Untitled, 2023'. These works incorporate significant contributions from the art world, including set designs by ceramicist Edmund de Waal and previous collaborations with figures like Tacita Dean and Olafur Eliasson.
Major international institutions have secured significant new acquisitions, ranging from intimate photographic archives to monumental silver reliefs. The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art received over 400 stereoscopic slides by Ronnie Cutrone documenting Andy Warhol’s Factory, while the Germanisches Nationalmuseum acquired Luigi Valadier’s final silver masterpiece, 'Lamentation of Christ'. Additionally, the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation donated 14 works to the City of Paris, including the early sculpture 'Package on a Luggage Rack' for the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has unveiled the David Geffen Galleries, a $724 million concrete structure designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Spanning Wilshire Boulevard, the building features 110,000 square feet of elevated gallery space characterized by curving walls and massive windows. The project marks the culmination of a nearly 20-year revitalization effort led by director Michael Govan, replacing several older buildings with a single, fluid architectural statement.
The Reina Sofía museum in Madrid has installed Dumile Feni's 1967 drawing 'African Guernica' directly opposite Pablo Picasso's iconic 'Guernica' painting. This pairing is the centerpiece of the museum's new annual exhibition series 'History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Does Rhyme,' which aims to place works from different cultural contexts in dialogue with Picasso's masterpiece.
The Getty Center in Los Angeles will close for a full year starting March 15, 2027, to undergo its first major renovation since opening in 1997. The "modernization initiatives" include updates to the galleries, a redesign of the Welcome Hall with a new café, and the replacement of the iconic tram system to increase passenger capacity. During the closure, the Getty Villa in Malibu will remain open and display highlights from the Center’s permanent collection, while additional programming will be held at a temporary space on Sepulveda Boulevard.
Christie's, Phillips, and Sotheby's spring marquee auctions in Hong Kong generated a combined $164.9 million, an 18% increase from the equivalent sales in spring 2025. The auctions, strategically timed to coincide with Art Basel Hong Kong, saw strong demand for trophy works, with Christie's leading the season at $83.8 million. Key sales included a Gerhard Richter painting for $11.77 million and a Sanyu work for $8.17 million, while Sotheby's sold a Joan Mitchell painting for $17.6 million, the season's top lot.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a major summer exhibition titled "Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur," featuring 17 sculptures by the 20th-century Swiss master Alberto Giacometti. The show, organized in collaboration with the Fondation Giacometti, will place the artist's iconic slender bronze figures within and around the first-century BCE Roman Period Egyptian temple. The installation includes significant loans such as "Femme qui marche I" and "Femme de Venise I," marking a rare dialogue between modern existentialist sculpture and ancient architectural history.
Materials for the Arts (MFTA), a program of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, provides free art supplies and tools to over 4,500 organizations, including public schools, nonprofits, and social justice groups. By diverting millions of pounds of materials from landfills—ranging from film production sets to high-end fabrics—the organization has reallocated over $40 million worth of goods to the creative community. The program's leadership is now advocating for an expansion of this model, envisioning dedicated reuse centers in every borough to meet the growing demand for accessible creative resources.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has opened the exhibition 'Frida and Diego: The Last Dream,' a collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera tied to its upcoming production of the opera 'El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.' The show, designed by stage and costume designer Jon Bausor, transplants theatrical elements like a tree-of-life set model and blue tarp drapes into the gallery, alongside a reshuffling of key Kahlo and Rivera works from MoMA's collection.
Galleries and museums in Gulf states like the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are reopening and projecting normalcy despite the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran, which has entered its fourth week. Major events like Art Dubai have been postponed, and institutions like the Sharjah Art Foundation have delayed gatherings, but many cultural venues are operating with adjusted formats or by appointment.
A guide highlights ten notable art exhibitions opening in Chicago this spring, focusing on shows at smaller, community-focused, and artist-run spaces like Good Weather, Hyde Park Art Center, and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Featured exhibitions include Hunter Foster's "Involition," which repurposes a Cold War siren to comment on infrastructure and threat, and Alison Ruttan's ceramic installation "The Paradox of Inaction," which visualizes climate disaster.
Jean-Marc Bottazzi, a Japanese bond trader and collector based in Hong Kong, discusses his philosophy of collecting in an interview with The Art Newspaper. He emphasizes deep, focused support of artists rather than acquiring a superficial variety, citing his extensive holdings of over 100 works by the 96-year-old Japanese artist A-Yo and deep collections of Abstract Expressionism, Gutai, and conceptual photography.
Le mostre da non perdere a Milano durante i giorni dell’Art Week 2026
Milan Art Week 2026 features a series of major solo exhibitions across the city's premier contemporary art institutions. Fondazione Prada is hosting site-specific installations by Mona Hatoum exploring global instability alongside Cao Fei’s multimedia investigation into the technological revolution of agriculture. Meanwhile, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents Benni Bosetto’s architectural exploration of the female body and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s interactive examination of authorship and communal space.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has launched Access O’Keeffe, a comprehensive digital catalogue raisonné that makes over 2,000 of the artist’s works available to the public for free. Based on the definitive 1999 scholarship by Barbara Buhler Lynes, the platform includes paintings, sketches, and letters, featuring advanced search tools that allow users to filter by color, medium, and theme. The project was completed despite a significant funding scare when a federal grant was briefly rescinded during the Trump administration before being restored via legal action.
Tout ce qu’il faut savoir sur Henri Matisse, star du Grand Palais ce printemps
The Grand Palais in Paris is hosting a major retrospective focusing on the final masterpieces of Henri Matisse, the pioneer of Fauvism. The exhibition highlights the artist's late-career reinvention between 1941 and 1954, featuring his innovative gouache cut-outs, illustrated books, and stained glass designs created while he was bedridden in Nice.
La National Gallery s'agrandit avec Kengo Kuma
The National Gallery in London has commissioned renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to lead a significant expansion and redesign project. The initiative aims to modernize the museum's infrastructure and create more fluid, accessible spaces for its world-class collection of European paintings.
Seventy-three artists and curators participating in the main exhibition of the 2024 Venice Biennale have issued an open letter objecting to the organizers' decision to relocate the Israeli national pavilion to the Arsenale. They argue this move creates an intimidating atmosphere contrary to the late curator Koyo Kouoh's vision of "radical solidarity" and will necessitate a heightened security presence. The signatories, which include key curators tasked with realizing Kouoh's exhibition, also call for the exclusion of Israel, Russia, and the United States from the event, citing their governments' alleged commission of war crimes.
The Hopi-Tewa artist Nampeyo (1859–1942) is being celebrated as a foundational figure in modern ceramics for her role in the Sikyátki Revival. By studying ancestral pottery shards from archaeological excavations, Nampeyo revitalized centuries-old techniques and motifs, transforming Pueblo pottery into a globally recognized art form. Her career spanned from selling works at regional trading posts to becoming a celebrated figure who demonstrated her craft at the Grand Canyon and exhibited at major fairs in Chicago.
The National Gallery in London has successfully reached a target of £2 million in annual savings following a voluntary redundancy program and a recruitment freeze. Initiated in February to address a projected £8.2 million deficit, the voluntary exit scheme allowed the institution to avoid compulsory redundancies among its nearly 500 employees. While the gallery has met its initial savings goal, it must still find ways to bridge a remaining multi-million pound shortfall through non-staff cost reductions.
The National Gallery in London has selected Japanese architecture firm Kengo Kuma and Associates to design a new £350m wing, scheduled to open in the early 2030s. Chosen from a shortlist of six finalists, Kuma’s design features a Portland stone exterior and will be constructed on the site of the soon-to-be-demolished St Vincent House. The extension will provide nearly double the space for temporary exhibitions and an additional 1,500 square meters for the permanent collection, connected via bridges to the existing Sainsbury Wing and Wilkins building.
British artist Anne Hardy presents a suite of floor-based installations and assemblage sculptures titled "Interloper" at Visual. The exhibition features a series of "Beings"—twisted, life-size humanoid entities constructed from rusted wire, crushed cans, soil, and the artist’s own cast body parts and clothing. These figures, often posed in yoga-like positions or meditative stances, appear as hollow, faceless outlines that blend a sense of vitality with physical disintegration.
Ari Hodara, a 58-year-old engineer from Paris, has won a Pablo Picasso painting valued at approximately $1 million after purchasing a raffle ticket for just 100 euros. The artwork, a 1941 gouache-on-paper titled "Head of a Woman," depicts the artist's muse Dora Maar and was provided by Opera Gallery. The raffle sold 120,000 tickets globally, successfully raising significant funds for charity.
The 13th edition of Expo Chicago has opened at Navy Pier with a streamlined selection of 130 international exhibitors. This year’s fair features a more curated and manageable scale, drawing a significant crowd of museum directors, curators, and collectors to the Windy City. Notable presentations range from contemporary Canadian artist duos to rare historical artifacts, reflecting a high bar for quality across diverse media.
Art world provocateur Kenny Schachter addresses the current climate of anxiety within the industry, touching on everything from the existential threats of advanced AI tools like Anthropic’s Mythos to the 'doomster' narratives of market analysts. Amidst reports of dwindling demand and galleries struggling with non-paying clients, Schachter highlights the enduring value of historical works, such as a 1799 Goya etching, while dismissing claims that screens are replacing physical art in the home.
Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Christophers, explores the complexities of artistic legacy and authenticity through the story of Julian Sklar, a fictional washed-up artist played by Ian McKellen. The plot follows Sklar’s children as they hire an art restorer, played by Michaela Coel, to secretly finish their father’s legendary unfinished series to capitalize on his market value. To ground the film in reality, screenwriter Ed Solomon consulted with art world figures like dealer George Barker and artists Jann Haworth and Derek Boshier, while production designer Antonia Lowe and painter Barnaby Gorton created the physical artworks seen on screen.
The Trisha Brown Dance Company is reviving Robert Rauschenberg's first choreographed dance, 'Pelican,' for the first time in 60 years. The single-night performance will take place at the vintage Xanadu roller rink in Brooklyn as part of a 'Pelican Gala,' which also features two long-unseen dances by Trisha Brown. The event coincides with the centennial of Rauschenberg's birth.