ulysses jenkins dead video artists

Ulysses Jenkins, a pioneering video artist, muralist, and performer, has died at the age of 79. His passing was confirmed by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the institution that hosted his major 2022 retrospective, "Without Your Interpretation." Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jenkins dedicated his career to using the camera as a tool for social commentary, famously documenting the Watts Festival to counter negative media stereotypes and exploring the complex relationship between mass media and Black American identity.

Georg Baselitz ist tot

German artist Georg Baselitz has died at the age of 88. According to Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, he passed away peacefully on Thursday. Born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, Baselitz fled East Germany in 1957 after political repression and academic conflicts. His first solo exhibition in West Berlin in 1963 was shut down due to scandal, and works were confiscated. He became internationally known in the late 1960s for his radical upside-down painting, a signature inversion that destabilized pictorial logic. He also created an extensive sculptural body of work. Key career milestones include representing Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980 alongside Anselm Kiefer, multiple Documenta appearances, the Praemium Imperiale in 2004, and election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2019. Major late-career exhibitions included "Nackte Meister" at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2023.

German artist Thomas Zipp, who explored the dark side of humanity, dies at 60.

German artist Thomas Zipp, a prominent figure in the Berlin art scene known for his dark, immersive installations, has died at the age of 60. His longtime representative, Galerie Barbara Thumm, confirmed his passing on April 4th, noting that the artist died far too soon. Zipp gained international recognition for his multidisciplinary approach, blending painting, sculpture, and performance into theatrical environments that often felt like unsettling psychological experiments.

Raghu Rai’s masterful images of Indian life – in pictures

Raghu Rai, the celebrated Indian photographer who was recruited to Magnum Photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1977, has died at the age of 83. Over five decades, he produced defining images of Indian life, ranging from intimate portraits of Mother Teresa to stark documentation of the Bhopal disaster. His work captured both the grand and the everyday, from crowds at Mumbai's Churchgate railway station to slums in Dharavi, and he published more than 18 books, receiving multiple awards for his unflinching human gaze.

korean dansaekhwa artist chung sang hwa dies

Chung Sang-hwa, a leading figure of the Korean Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement, died on January 28 at the age of 93. His death was reported by the Korea Times following a prolonged illness.

Ten must-see works in Art Basel Hong Kong's new section

Art Basel Hong Kong has launched a new curated section called 'Echoes,' dedicated to presenting works created within the past five years. The section features focused presentations from galleries worldwide, highlighting ten standout works by artists such as Hyun Nahm, Leelee Chan, and Tiffany Chung, who explore themes from digital consumption to colonial histories through diverse mediums.

Jasmine Little, Los Angeles Painter and Ceramicist, Dies at 41

jasmine little painter dead

Los Angeles-based artist Jasmine Little has passed away at the age of 41, as confirmed by her gallery, La Loma. Known for her versatile practice that spanned lush still-life paintings and intricate sgraffito ceramic vessels, Little's work often blended historical references with personal mythology. Her gallerist, Kirk Nelson, remembered her as a "force of nature" who produced monumental sculptures and detailed narratives through intense, dedicated periods of creation.

Calvin Tomkins, Who Profiled Giants of Modern Art, Dies at 100

Calvin Tomkins, the longtime New Yorker staff writer renowned for his profiles of major 20th-century artists, has died at the age of 100. His career spanned more than six decades at the magazine, where he produced intimate and influential portraits of figures like Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg, and authored several books including "Living Well Is the Best Revenge."

Renowned gallerist Marian Goodman has died, aged 97

Marian Goodman, the renowned contemporary art dealer, died on 22 January at the age of 97. Her eponymous gallery confirmed she passed peacefully of natural causes. Over a 60-year career, Goodman built a reputation for representing challenging, conceptually ambitious artists, including Gerhard Richter, Nan Goldin, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, and Nairy Baghramian. She opened her first gallery in New York in 1977 and later expanded to Paris and London, before closing the London space in 2020. In her final decade, the gallery saw high-profile departures but also added new artists and opened a Los Angeles location in 2023 and a new Tribeca space in 2024. A succession plan was announced in 2021, and the gallery is now led by partners Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng.

Ten essential works of art to see at the National Gallery in London

The National Gallery in London, home to over 2,300 paintings spanning Western European art from Giotto to Cézanne and including early modernism by Picasso, has recently completed a comprehensive rehang of its collection at its Trafalgar Square site. This coincides with the reopening of the Sainsbury Wing after a two-year renovation. The article highlights ten essential works to see, including Jan van Eyck's *The Arnolfini Portrait* (1434), Leonardo da Vinci's *The Burlington House Cartoon* (around 1506-08), and Paolo Veronese's *The Adoration of the Kings* (1573), emphasizing the gallery's free admission and its role as a cultural treasure.

The artist Fabien Verschaere, creator of joyful shambles, has passed away at age 50

L’artiste Fabien Verschaere, auteur de joyeux capharnaüms, s’est éteint à l’âge de 50 ans

The French contemporary artist Fabien Verschaere has passed away suddenly at the age of 50. Known for his dense, colorful, and highly personal visual language, Verschaere was scheduled to receive the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres distinction just days after his death. His work, which drew heavily from childhood imagery and his own experiences with chronic illness, created a bridge between dreams and nightmares through a cast of recurring characters like ghosts, superheroes, and hybrid creatures.

Beyond the prompt: when the medium is generative AI, the artist becomes a systemic director

Oltre il prompt: quando il medium è l’AI generativa l’artista diventa regista sistemico

The article argues that as AI-generated images become more spectacular, the role of the artist is often misunderstood as merely writing prompts. Instead, the author contends that the most significant generative artworks are systems—predetermined rule-based environments where the artist designs the conditions for images to emerge. Works like Hans Haacke's "Condensation Cube" (1963-1965) and Refik Anadol's "Unsupervised" (2022) exemplify this shift from object to process, where the artwork is the behavior or architecture itself.

Acclaimed Wilkes Artist Ward Nichols dies

Ward Hampton Nichols, a celebrated artist from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, died on May 5 at the age of 95 at the Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home, surrounded by his children. A few weeks before his passing, a celebration of his life, legacy, and art was held at the Wilkes Art Gallery. Nichols, born in 1930 in Welch, West Virginia, taught himself to draw as a child and later served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict, where he designed a NATO shoulder patch and co-founded a shipboard newspaper. After his service, he pursued a lifelong passion for art, painting until January of this year, and was also an avid aviator and sports car enthusiast.

Charlotte Gere obituary

Art historian Charlotte Gere has died at the age of 88. A specialist in 19th-century art and design, she was the author of seminal works like 'Victorian Jewellery Design' and played a key role in rediscovering the lost jewels of architect William Burges, turning her research into compelling detective stories.

katya kazakina front page award

Artnet News senior reporter and columnist Katya Kazakina has won the Newswomen’s Club of New York’s 2025 Front Page Award for specialized reporting in arts and entertainment for the second consecutive year. The award recognizes her July story “Keeping Up With the Clients: The Art World Lifestyle Can Be Dangerously Alluring,” which investigated how dealers and advisors overextend themselves financially and legally to maintain social ties with wealthy patrons. The piece grew out of her earlier scoop on dueling lawsuits between ultra-high-end art advisors Barbara Guggenheim and Abigail Asher.

congress funding bill nea neh

Congress has unveiled a bipartisan partial funding package that would keep the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) budgets steady at $207 million each, despite President Donald Trump's proposal to eliminate both agencies. The three-bill "minibus" package faces a House vote and then Senate consideration, as the government seeks to avoid another shutdown after last year's record 43-day closure.

trump reappoints mary anne carter nea chair

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Mary Anne Carter as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) by a 53–43 party-line vote, returning the same political operative to the post she held during Trump’s first term. Carter, who has no professional arts experience and previously worked for the Heritage Foundation (author of Project 2025), was nominated in May amid a tumultuous period when the Trump administration sought to defund the NEA, senior leaders left en masse, and hundreds of arts organizations had promised grants cut or delayed.

trump fires national council on the humanities

The White House fired the vast majority of the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory body for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), on Wednesday during a government shutdown. A letter from Mary Sprowls of the Presidential Personnel Office informed council members that their positions were terminated effective immediately. Only four members remain—all white men—despite a statutory requirement for equitable representation of women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities. The council typically comprises 26 scholars and humanities leaders appointed for six-year terms, and its meetings require at least 14 members. The dismissals come as the NEH has already faced severe cuts, including a two-thirds staff reduction in June and a proposal to eliminate the agency entirely in the 2026 budget.

king tutankhamen egyptian artifact auction grasshopper

An intricately carved ivory and wood grasshopper from the Age of Tutankhamun, known as the 'Guennol Grasshopper,' is set to be auctioned by Apollo Art Auctions in July with an estimate of £300,000–£500,000. Egyptian art historians, including German Egyptologist Christian Loeben, have raised concerns that the cosmetic vessel may have been stolen by British archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered King Tutankhamen’s tomb and allegedly kept some items for his own collection. The auction house states there is no documented evidence linking the object to the tomb, and it has been cleared against the Art Loss Register, but experts like former Met director Thomas Hoving have long connected it to the pharaoh’s burial.

neh staff layoffs trump administration

The Trump administration laid off approximately 100 employees from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) on June 10, part of a broader reduction in force that has left fewer than 60 staff remaining at the agency. The cuts follow earlier funding freezes and a $65 million budget reduction by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with funds redirected to President Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes. The NEH’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, has condemned the restructuring as an existential threat to institutions that rely on NEH grants for research, preservation, and education.

Form in the Age of Living Materials. Interview with Curator Pablo José Ramírez

LA FORMA EN LA ERA DE LOS MATERIALES VIVOS. ENTREVISTA AL CURADOR PABLO JOSÉ RAMÍREZ

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is presenting "Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials," an exhibition curated by Pablo José Ramírez running until August 23. Featuring 22 artists from the Americas, the show explores materials such as avocado, cacao, achiote, cochineal, stone, clay, and natural dyes that evolve, degrade, or transform over time. Organized into three acts, the exhibition challenges conventional notions of the art object by treating these materials as living agents with memory and agency, rooted in Indigenous knowledge and the concept of "brownness." In an interview, Ramírez discusses how these materials destabilize extractivist logics and institutional frameworks, forcing a rethinking of conservation protocols and the very conditions of exhibition-making.

Got an Idea About Who Robbed the Gardner Museum? Get in Line.

The 1990 theft of 13 artworks from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains unsolved, generating countless theories about the perpetrators. A new book by the former FBI agent who led the investigation for over a decade systematically debunks many prominent public theories, arguing they distract from the actual investigation.

Settlement allows Institute of Museum and Library Services to continue operations

The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have reached a settlement with the Trump administration to restore the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The agreement follows a year-long legal battle sparked by an executive order that placed the agency's entire staff on administrative leave and attempted to dismantle the federal body. The settlement ensures the IMLS can resume awarding grants, conducting research, and operating programs while reversing previous staff terminations and grant cancellations.

Billboards celebrating peace will arrive in L.A. as part of the Broad's Yoko Ono exhibit

Yoko Ono will install seven digital billboards across Los Angeles bearing peace messages like "THINK PEACE" and "IMAGINE PEACE," as part of her upcoming exhibition "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind" at the Broad museum opening May 23. The billboards echo her 1969 "WAR IS OVER!" campaign with John Lennon. Ancillary programming includes re-creations of her performance works "Cut Piece" (1964) and "Sky Piece to Jesus Christ" (1965), plus a concert series "Yoko Only" guest-curated by Yuka Honda featuring Yo La Tengo, Nels Cline, Sleater-Kinney, and others.

Meet four artists behind the public art you'll see at L.A. Metro's new D Line stations

L.A. Metro opened the first phase of its D Line extension on Friday, May 1, 2026, adding three new underground stations connecting downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills: Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax, and Wilshire/La Cienega. The stations feature nine site-specific public artworks by artists including Mariana Castillo Deball, Eamon Ore-Giron, Ken Gonzales-Day, Todd Gray, Karl Haendel, Soo Kim, Fran Siegel, Susan Silton, and Mark Dean Veca. The competitive selection process began a decade ago, drawing over 1,200 applicants, with finalists judged by a panel of art professionals including curators from Miracle Mile museums. Metro deputy executive officer Zipporah Yamamoto leads the agency's public art program, which is funded by a 0.5% construction budget set-aside.

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.

Douglas Lees obituary

Douglas Lees, a dedicated architect and community figure, has died at the age of 94. Born in East London and overcoming the physical limitations of Erb’s palsy, Lees spent his career designing diverse structures across England, ranging from new town developments in Merseyside to prison facilities for the Home Office. In his later years, he became a fixture in the village of Hatfield Broad Oak, where he contributed to local planning and captured the local scenery through watercolor painting.

egidio marzona dead avant garde collector archive

Egidio Marzona, the influential German-Italian collector, publisher, and patron, has died at the age of 81 in Berlin. Renowned for his intellectual approach to collecting, Marzona focused on the 20th-century avant-garde, including movements such as Bauhaus, Dada, Fluxus, and Arte Povera. Unlike traditional collectors, he prioritized the preservation of archives, letters, and ephemera alongside physical artworks, viewing the "paper trail of ideas" as essential to understanding artistic history.

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."

Flowery Films Whose Plant Life Lingers in the Mind

Ten prominent artists and designers have curated a selection of cinematic flora that has significantly influenced their creative practices. From the surreal, hand-shaped topiaries in *Edward Scissorhands* to the symbolic, scene-setting bouquets in *The Age of Innocence*, these creators analyze how botanical elements on screen transcend mere decoration to become vital narrative and aesthetic tools.