guaridian art critic adrian searle steps down 1234773458
Chief art critic Adrian Searle is leaving his full-time role at the Guardian after nearly 30 years, with his final article scheduled for April 1. He will continue to contribute occasional pieces to the publication.
Gagosian Gallery will open a new exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein's work titled "Painting with Scattered Brushstrokes" in March 2026. The show, drawing exclusively from the Lichtenstein family collection, will feature paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the 1970s and '80s, focusing on his recurring brushstroke motif. It coincides with a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum and follows a period of intense market activity for the artist's work.
Auction house Bonhams has opened a new 42,000-square-foot flagship headquarters in New York's Steinway Hall, launching a month of exhibitions and sales. The Philadelphia Museum of Art appointed Katherine Anne Paul as its new curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, while the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) awarded its Fund for Black Art Acquisition Prize to Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid, acquiring her painting "Horn Seller." Several galleries announced new artist representations, including Bortolami with Nathlie Provosty and Deborah Schamoni with Mariann Metsis, and auction house Freeman's appointed two senior executives.
Painter Louis Fratino has joined the mega-gallery David Zwirner, adding the powerhouse to his existing representation by Berlin's Galerie Neu and New York's Sikkema Malloy Jenkins. This multi-gallery arrangement is a departure from the typical practice of artists severing ties with smaller galleries when aligning with a global giant.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has partnered with Lego to release a $249.99 building set recreating Claude Monet's 1899 painting 'Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies.' The kit, containing 3,179 pieces, is the most expensive in Lego's Art series and launches March 4. The museum is also releasing a podcast hosted by curator Alison Hokanson to accompany the set.
A nationwide general strike, called for Friday, January 30, 2026, in protest of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis, has prompted numerous art galleries and organizations to close their doors. Major commercial galleries like Gagosian, David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Pace Gallery, alongside institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Drawing Center, are participating in the shutdown.
Art Basel has launched its first edition in Doha, Qatar, with a deliberately small and tightly controlled format. The fair features only 87 galleries, all required to mount solo presentations, with strict limits on booth size, power sources, and rehanging of works. This creates a slower, calmer atmosphere distinct from its larger, more chaotic sister fairs in Miami and Paris.
A significant number of New York art galleries, including major players like Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, and Marian Goodman, will close on January 30 to join a nationwide general strike protesting expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The strike is a response to allegations of federal overreach, including the use of deadly force against protestors and the detention of Native Americans, which have fueled widespread outrage.
A 51-page document released as part of the Jeffrey Epstein files appears to catalog the extensive private art collection of billionaire collector and former MoMA board chair Leon Black. The document, which lists works by masters from Michelangelo to Picasso under corporate entities linked to Black, reveals valuations and details of a collection largely kept from public view, including works held as promised gifts to major museums like MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Asia-Pacific art scene saw significant activity across multiple sectors. Art SG reported increased attendance and sales, while the SAM Art SG Fund acquired works for the Singapore Art Museum. JD.com announced plans for a major new museum in Shenzhen, and several appointments and award winners were named across the region. Auction houses Bonhams Hong Kong and Sotheby's Singapore posted strong sales results, with the latter setting new artist records.
The Peter Hujar Archive and Foundation has left Pace Gallery and will now be jointly represented by New York-based gallery Ortuzar and Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. The archive will continue working with Mai 36 Galerie in Zürich and Maureen Paley in London on select projects. Ortuzar founder Ales Ortuzar expressed deep personal excitement about representing Hujar, who will be the first photographer the gallery has represented since its founding in 2018. The gallery plans two concurrent exhibitions this spring: a recreation of Hujar's 1986 show at Gracie Mansion and a group show featuring artists from his circle.
David Zwirner Gallery now represents New York-based artist Amy Sillman, whose colorful paintings and drawings bridge figuration and abstraction. She previously worked with Gladstone Gallery, where her 2018 show “Mostly Drawing” was praised by critic Phyllis Tuchman. Sillman continues her relationships with Thomas Dane Gallery in London and Capitain Petzel in Berlin, and will participate in a three-person exhibition at Chantel Crousel in Paris this summer. Her first show at Zwirner is scheduled for 2027.
Artnet News published a roundup of the top five episodes of its podcast 'Art Market Minute' from 2025, hosted by Margaret Carrigan. The episodes cover key industry topics: whether artists still need galleries, how to build professional relationships in the art world, the rising market value of Jack Whitten's work, the impact of AI on the art market, and the wave of high-profile gallery closures reshaping the trade. Guests include Sonia Manalili, Brooke Lampley, Naomi Rea, Eileen Kinsella, Jo Lawson-Tancred, and Katya Kazakina.
Artist David Diao reflects on his long engagement with Barnett Newman's work, from his 1966 experience as an art handler installing Newman's 'Stations of the Cross' series at the Guggenheim Museum to his own paintings that reference Newman both admiringly and critically. Diao's 1992 work 'Barnett Newman: Paintings by Title & Size' lists all 118 of Newman's paintings against a red background, treating them as inventory rather than masterpieces, while later works like 'BN: Spine 2' (2013) incorporate the worn fold of a Newman catalog cover. The article, based on a studio visit, captures Diao's matter-of-fact perspective on Newman's art and his own decades-long dialogue with the Abstract Expressionist.
Artnet News published an alphabetical in memoriam list commemorating art world figures who died in 2024, including printmaker Norman Ackroyd, museum director Hope Alswang, sculptor Carl Andre, curator and writer David Anfam, painter Frank Auerbach, and gallerist Patti Astor. Each entry includes a brief tribute highlighting their key achievements and contributions, such as Ackroyd's meticulous printmaking techniques, Alswang's diversification of the Norton Museum of Art's collection, Andre's foundational role in Minimalism, Anfam's influential scholarship on Abstract Expressionism, Auerbach's distinctive painterly style, and Astor's pioneering East Village gallery.
Sperone Westwater, the venerable New York gallery that celebrated its 50th anniversary two months ago, will close as an entity on December 31, 2025. Co-founders Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone have decided to pursue separate endeavors, affecting 28 artists and estates. The gallery, known for representing legends like Bruce Nauman and David Lynch, will continue its current Richard Long show through December 13 and attend Art Basel Miami Beach as planned. The closure follows months of rumors and comes as both partners are in their 80s.
Pace Gallery announced highlights for its Art Basel Paris presentation, including a major Amedeo Modigliani painting from 1918, *Jeune fille aux macarons (Young Woman with Hair in Side Buns)*, priced around $10 million. The work previews a new partnership between Pace and the Institut Restellini, founded by Modigliani scholar Marc Restellini. Restellini will collaborate with Pace on symposia in New York in 2026 and an exhibition in 2027, while his long-awaited Modigliani catalogue raisonné—authenticating 424 works—is set for publication in March 2025 by Yale University Press.
Galleries Sprüth Magers and Skarstedt have announced joint representation of artist George Condo, ending his six-year partnership with Hauser & Wirth. Condo has a long history with both galleries: he first showed with Monika Sprüth in 1984 and was represented by Skarstedt from 2004 to 2019. The announcement comes after a two-venue exhibition earlier this year that involved both Sprüth Magers and Hauser & Wirth. Condo's market remains strong, with recent auction sales exceeding $6 million and a current retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.
Christopher Kulendran Thomas, an artist who has been building his own neural networks for over a decade, is showing new paintings and a video installation at Gagosian's Upper East Side location, with concurrent exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and upcoming at the New Museum. His series 'Peace Core' uses AI trained on Sri Lankan painters to generate compositions that are hand-painted onto canvas, depicting Mullivaikkal beach—the site of a 2009 massacre of Tamil civilians during the Sri Lankan civil war. The Gagosian show also features a 24-screen video installation that algorithmically remixes American TV footage from the morning of September 11, 2001, before the attacks became visible.
The Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center have jointly acquired Nan Goldin's *Stendhal Syndrome* (2024), a slideshow-based video work with an original soundtrack. The acquisition was funded by the Curators’ Council Fund for Women Artists and the Jean MacMillan Southam Fund at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The work will make its Canadian debut at the Vancouver Art Gallery. First presented at Gagosian's New York gallery in September 2024 as part of Goldin's exhibition "You never did anything wrong," the piece pairs two decades of the artist's photographs with a personal voiceover, exploring the emotional power of art. It features images of classical, Renaissance, and Baroque masterpieces from institutions such as the Galleria Borghese, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Prado, interwoven with portraits of Goldin's friends, family, and lovers.
Photographer Sally Mann has spoken out about government censorship after her photographs were seized from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas earlier this year. The controversy stemmed from her 1990s images of her children, which included nude depictions that some critics characterized as "child porn," leading to their removal from an exhibition following an open letter from the conservative Christian advocacy group Danbury Institute. Though the photos were returned and charges dropped, Mann expressed deep concern about the future of American museums, warning of a "new era of culture wars" and describing the situation as "Orwellian." She noted that social media has given censors more tools, and that the Trump administration is actively rolling out policies targeting museum programs, including a review of the Smithsonian.
Marian Goodman Gallery has taken on representation of artist Edith Dekyndt, whose multidisciplinary practice spans video, sculpture, installation, and performance, with plans to debut her work at Art Basel Paris in October. In other industry moves, Salon 94 now represents Raven Halfmoon, Timothy Taylor Gallery represents Martha Tuttle, Templon adds Martial Raysse, Acquavella Galleries represents Harumi Klossowska de Rola, and Gagosian has hired Aaron Baldinger as a director. Additionally, Jennie Goldstein has been named the inaugural Kippy Stroud Curator at the Whitney Museum, and Sotheby's will sell a tranche of artworks from the collection of the late Leonard Lauder, including Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, estimated at over $150 million.
The fourth edition of Frieze Seoul opened with strong collector turnout and solid first-day sales, despite a turbulent global art market. High-profile attendees included MoMA PS1 director Connie Butler, Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 cocurator Wassan Al-Khudhairi, and Top 200 Collectors Lonti Ebers, Yassmin Ghandehari, and Qiao Zhibing, alongside K-pop stars Lisa (BLACKPINK), RM (BTS), and The8 and Vernon (Seventeen). Major sales included Hauser & Wirth’s $4.5 million sale of Mark Bradford’s triptych "Okay, then I apologize" (2025) and a George Condo painting for $1.2 million, while White Cube, Thaddaeus Ropac, Pace Gallery, and others reported significant transactions. International blue-chip galleries with Seoul spaces are doubling down, presenting top-tier shows of star artists like James Turrell, Antony Gormley, and Lee Bul, with Korea’s private museums also mounting blockbuster exhibitions.
Kadist, a Paris-based nonprofit art organization, announced the closure of its San Francisco gallery after 14 years of operation. The space, which opened in 2011, was known for commissioning and exhibiting works by international artists such as Hank Willis Thomas, Jota Mombaça, and Ad Minoliti. Joseph Del Pesco, Kadist’s Americas director, stated that the closure was not due to funding issues but rather a strategic shift toward international collaborations with museums across the Americas and beyond. The organization will continue to operate its original space in Paris and maintain its collection of over 2,000 artworks.
Y.Z. Kami's painting *Messenger (The Forrest)*, priced around $300,000, is currently on offer at Gagosian's Beverly Hills gallery. The work is part of a series the artist began in 2022 based on photographs taken during travels in India. Kami, born in Tehran in 1956 and based in the U.S. since 1984, is known for large-scale portraits in oil on linen. The painting is featured in Kami's exhibition 'The Domes' at Gagosian, which runs through August 8 and includes three Messenger paintings, one already sold. The show marks his first West Coast solo exhibition since 2016–17 at LACMA.
Raymond Saunders, a multimedia artist known for his enigmatic, sociopolitical paintings and assemblage style, has died at age 90. His passing was announced jointly by his representing galleries—Casemore, Andrew Kreps, and David Zwirner—on Instagram. Saunders's work often explored the Black American experience through extensive use of black paint and complex narratives, as articulated in his influential 1967 essay "Black Is a Color." His first career-spanning retrospective, "Flowers from a Black Garden," recently closed at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, his hometown. Saunders had a long teaching career in the Bay Area and received numerous honors, including a Rome Prize Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted a video on social media showing off a new tequila bottle, but the backdrop featured a painting from Rashid Johnson's "Anxious Red" series. The artwork, confirmed by Hauser & Wirth as an authentic Johnson piece purchased on the secondary market, sparked criticism online due to the irony of Lutnick—a Trump appointee whose administration has cut public health funding—owning a work born from pandemic-era anxiety. The series originally supported the WHO's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund through a 2020 charity auction, the same organization Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his first day in office.
This week's art industry news covers major auction results, gallery changes, and restitution developments. At Christie's Old Masters evening sale in London, Canaletto's "The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" set a new auction record for the artist at £31.9 million ($43.9 million), leading the sale to a total of £60.8 million. Sotheby's Old Masters evening sale brought in £14.5 million, with three new records including Diana de Rosa's "Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist" selling for £317,500. A rare early watercolor by Man Ray, "Nude Playing Musical Instrument" (1913), resurfaced after decades and will be auctioned at Dreweatts. In gallery news, Blum gallery laid off most of its staff and plans to cease brick-and-mortar operations, while Waddington Custot announced a new Paris space, and Company Gallery hired Subhas Kim Kandasamy as executive director. White Cube now represents Firenze Lai, and JD Malat Gallery launched a new initiative for UAE artists. In restitution, the Netherlands returned 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, transferred two Benin works to the Oba of Benin.
Jordan Wolfson's latest virtual reality artwork, *Little Room* (2025), debuted at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel during Art Basel. The piece requires participants to undergo a full-body scan using 96 cameras, creating a detailed 3D model that is uploaded into a VR environment. Once inside, pairs of participants find they have swapped bodies, experiencing a disorienting and intimate encounter where they watch their own body being controlled by another person. The work involves a lengthy, ritualistic queue and a twelve-minute VR session that explores themes of identity, voyeurism, and technological mediation.
Tracey Emin, the renowned British artist and former YBA, is the subject of a major new exhibition titled "Sex and Solitude" at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy—the first comprehensive show of her work in the country. Curated by the museum's director general Arturo Galansino, the exhibition features some 60 works spanning 30 years, including paintings, drawings, film, photography, embroidery, sculptures, and neon installations. Emin created a new neon piece for the facade, and many works are being shown in Italy for the first time. In a video interview, she emphasized the show is not a retrospective but a living, present-focused exploration of her themes of sexuality, love, trauma, and solitude.