Artist Jordan Wolfson has directed a new advertising campaign for Prada's Spring/Summer 2026 collection. The campaign, titled "I, I, I, I AM… PRADA," features unsettling, computer-generated birds and a bird-man hybrid alongside models including actors Carey Mulligan, Nicholas Hoult, Damson Idris, and Hunter Schafer, continuing Wolfson's signature style of disturbing digital avatars.
The New York Academy of Art has donated $66,000 in funds originally received from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), a nonprofit supporting sexually exploited girls. The move redirects all donations the school accepted from Epstein after his 2008 conviction. The academy's board chair, Eileen Guggenheim, who solicited the funds, will retire from her role a month early on April 1, following renewed scrutiny of the institution's Epstein ties.
Phillips has announced the lineup for its October London sales during Frieze Week, headlined by Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 work on paper, *Untitled (Pestus)*, estimated at £3 million ($4 million). The 26-lot evening auction on October 16 also includes Andy Warhol's diamond dust portrait of Giorgio Armani (estimate £800,000), Banksy's *Kate Moss* (estimate £1 million), and works by Jadé Fadojutimi, Flora Yukhnovich, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Sasha Gordon, and Emma McIntyre. A day sale on October 18 features pieces by Keith Haring, Warhol, Basquiat, Anselm Kiefer, and Yoshitomo Nara.
A major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and the Grand Palais focuses on the final, revolutionary period of Henri Matisse's career, from 1941 to 1954. The show charts his artistic reinvention following a life-threatening surgery, beginning with obsessive, reworked paintings from his Nice studio during the war and culminating in the radiant, large-scale cut-outs for which he is widely celebrated.
London’s art scene prepares for a major influx of high-profile exhibitions in May 2026, headlined by a comprehensive survey of Francisco de Zurbarán at the National Gallery and the grand opening of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in Clerkenwell. Other significant highlights include a sprawling outdoor installation of Henry Moore’s monumental bronzes at Kew Gardens, the debut of the 'Rising Voices' contemporary art exhibition at the newly opened V&A East, and a rare European retrospective of James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain featuring the iconic 'Whistler's Mother'.
Art in America's Summer issue features 20 emerging artists in its annual "New Talent" portfolio, selected by the magazine's editors. The issue also includes a feature on art heist stories by Jackson Arn, an essay on systems art by Emily Watlington, and a piece on tragicomic times by Eugenie Brinkema. Additional content includes a tribute to Henrike Naumann, a spotlight on Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, a book review of Trevor Paglen's latest work, and departments covering museum and gallery worker perspectives, a Frick Collection vs. Morgan Library comparison, and a summer reading list of art-themed novels.
German artist Horst Antes, born in 1936, is being celebrated with two major exhibitions timed to his 90th birthday. Galerie Koch in Hannover presents a solo show titled “Horst Antes: Exhibition Marking the Artist’s 90th Birthday,” while the Sprengel Museum Hannover concurrently mounts “A Collection,” featuring roughly 80 works from its holdings. The shows highlight Antes’s pioneering role in New Figuration, particularly his iconic “Kopffüßler” (Head-Footer) character, which appears across paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from 1969 to 2014. The Galerie Koch exhibition also foregrounds his “House Pictures,” which explore architecture through non-hierarchical color planes and ambiguous perspective.
Sotheby's May 2026 auctions in New York generated $433.1 million in sales over under three hours, a 132.7 percent increase compared to the same period last spring, despite offering fewer lots. This strong performance signals a top-heavy recovery in the art market after three years of contraction. Separately, the Neue Galerie will merge with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2028, and Art Dubai continues despite disruptions from the U.S.-Iran war.
France's minister of culture has announced the winners of an architecture competition to renovate the Louvre and build a new room for the Mona Lisa. The winning firms are STUDIOS Architecture (founded in San Francisco, now Paris-based) and New York's Selldorf Architects, with BASE handling landscaping. The project, called Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance, was delayed due to criticism over cost and necessity following the October theft of France's crown jewels from the museum. Louvre president Christophe Leribault and the culture minister have refocused the renovation on upgrading security and preserving the aging structure, with a budget of €1 billion ($1.16 billion) and construction set to begin by 2028.
The 61st Venice Biennale is underway, and while it is officially a non-commercial exhibition, market forces are increasingly influential behind the scenes. Artnet News host Margaret Carrigan reports on auction houses actively participating in opening week, and highlights Sotheby’s upcoming single-owner sale in London featuring works from billionaire Joe Lewis’s collection, expected to exceed $200 million. Meanwhile, Whitechapel Gallery has created a new economist-in-residence position to address ongoing financial strain in museums.
The ongoing conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran has severely disrupted the global art logistics network, particularly in Asia. A report in the Art Newspaper details soaring costs and shipping delays, with international air freight for fine art spiking up to 300% due to increased oil prices. Some exhibitions, like a Per Kirkeby show in China, have opened with fewer works, and shipments for Art Basel Hong Kong were stuck at sea for over a month. Shippers are now considering alternative routes, such as the China-Europe Railway Express, to mitigate delays and costs.
The former New York City studio building of Andy Warhol, known as The Factory, will now house a Uniqlo store. The Japanese fast-fashion brand is opening its seventh New York location on the ground floor of 860 Broadway, the same building where Warhol worked from 1974 to 1984. The brand is leveraging the site's artistic history by selling exclusive merchandise featuring Warhol's imagery to promote the opening.
Jeweled Snuffboxes Stolen in Brazen Paris Heist Go on Display
Two 18th-century jeweled snuffboxes, stolen in a 2024 axe-wielding heist at Paris's Musée Cognacq-Jay, have been restored and will go on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The boxes, part of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, were among seven luxury objects stolen; five were later recovered after an insurance payment, but a third snuffbox remains missing.
Artnet News ranks the top 10 works of Renaissance master Titian, using criteria of suggestiveness, mystery, and pop culture relevance. The list includes paintings such as "Pietà" (1575–76), "Danaë" (1544–46), "Assumption of the Virgin" (1516–18), and "The Rape of Europa" (1560–61), with commentary on their composition, history, and cultural impact.
Hazel Knapp, a self-taught artist with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, painted Vermont landscapes from her wheelchair between the 1930s and 1940s, often with her mother Elsie by her side describing the terrain. Knapp exhibited at the 1939 Museum of Modern Art show alongside Grandma Moses and Morris Hirshfield, was profiled in Sidney Janis's book *They Taught Themselves*, and sold ten paintings to Gertrude Stein, who planned an unrealized Paris exhibition. Despite this promising start, Knapp fell into obscurity after her mother's death.
Artnet News continues its exploration of famous artists' studios via Google Maps Street View, featuring nine historic homes and workspaces. Among them are Max Liebermann's lakeside Berlin villa, now a memorial museum; the modernist compound of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico City, designed by Juan O'Gorman; Dora Gordine's eclectic Dorich House in South London; and Ben Nicholson's studio in the historic Porthmeor Studios building in Cornwall, which once housed Francis Bacon and other artists. Each entry includes the location, historical context, and an interesting fact about the site.
New York's Performa biennial postponed a new work by artist Lina Lapelytė, titled *The Speech (NYC)*, just one day before its scheduled debut because the planned venue, Federal Hall National Memorial, was closed due to the U.S. government shutdown. The piece involves 100 children making primal sounds and was to be performed on Wednesday at the historic site, which is operated by the National Park Service. Performa rescheduled the performance for November 17 and is seeking an alternative venue.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is facing a new lawsuit over Vincent van Gogh's *Olive Picking* (1889), which it sold to a Greek collector in 1972. The suit, filed by heirs of Hedwig and Frederick Stern, alleges the painting was looted from the Sterns when they fled Nazi Germany and should never have entered the Met's collection. The Met bought the work in 1956 for $125,000 and later sold it to the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens, where it is now displayed. A previous 2022 lawsuit in California was dismissed on venue grounds; the heirs are now pursuing the case in New York federal court, arguing the painting was repeatedly trafficked through the city.
Artnet News published its quarterly analysis of the most exhibited living artists at over 250 U.S. museums in March 2025, identifying more than 3,700 artists. The top artist is photographer Cara Romero, who appears in multiple museum shows including a major retrospective at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College. Three of the six most featured artists have Native American backgrounds, reflecting a surge in exhibitions celebrating Indigenous art. The list excludes the late Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a Native painter and curator who died in January 2025 at age 85 and would have ranked highly.
French designer and musician Lucas Lecacheur is creating wildly unconventional yet functional surfboards and skateboards, including a split board resembling crab pincers, a stingray-like shape, and a Brutalist board. Currently in Australia for Melbourne Design Week, Lecacheur is living and working out of At The Above gallery in Fitzroy, where he is crafting new boards like the cowboy boot-nosed Château Rouge. His designs, made with traditional materials like fiberglass, push the boundaries of surfboard norms while remaining rideable.
Cartoonist and surrealist Glen Baxter has died at the age of 82. He was celebrated for his distinctive style, which blended deadpan captions with pop art-inspired scenes featuring characters like cowboys and spacemen in bizarre situations. His work appeared in major publications like the New Yorker and the Observer, and he was also a staple of humorous greeting cards.
The article reviews the joint exhibition "Hunks" at Bureau gallery in New York, featuring works by painter Julia Rommel and photographer Lucas Blalock. Rommel's post-minimalist abstract paintings, created through folding and stapling canvases, explore color and texture with a personal touch, while Blalock's digitally manipulated photographs blend studio effects and surreal editing. The show runs through February 21, 2026, at the gallery's 112 Duane Street location.
This week's Critic's Table column highlights three New York gallery and museum shows. Painter Sam McKinniss praises Helene Schjerfbeck's first major U.S. institutional survey, "Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, calling the Finnish modernist more fascinating than Edvard Munch. Critic Johanna Fateman argues that Joan Semmel's career-spanning exhibition "In the Flesh" at the Jewish Museum proves her recent icon status is well-deserved and long overdue. Artist Ajay Kurian reviews Marguerite Humeau's mythic ecosystems at White Cube.
Cultured's fall gallery show guide for New York highlights five exhibitions opening in September 2025. Christopher Kulendran Thomas presents 'Peace Core' at Gagosian, featuring an AI-auto-edited video of pre-9/11 TV footage alongside paintings of a Sri Lankan massacre. Catharine Czudej's 'God is Good' at Meredith Rosen Gallery combines corrupted QR codes and religious imagery with a line of merchandise. Florian Krewer's 'cold tears released' at Michael Werner explores animalistic human nature through thickly layered oils. Ohad Meromi's 'At Rest' at 56 Henry focuses on moments of inactivity and reflection. Nayland Blake's three-part exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery includes a retrospective on the AIDS crisis and new sculptural works.
The article is a summer exhibition guide for the Hamptons, highlighting seven shows running from August through October 2025. Featured artists include Mary Heilmann at Guild Hall, Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers at Pollock-Krasner House, Alix Pearlstein at Arts Center at Duck Creek, Sarah Sze at Landcraft Garden Foundation, Joseph Hart at Halsey McKay, and Francesco Clemente at Tripoli Gallery in collaboration with Vito Schnabel Gallery. Each entry provides dates, a brief description, and insider tips for visitors.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced its 2025 cohort of MacArthur Fellows, awarding 27 recipients—including visual artists Gala Porras-Kim, Jeremy Frey, Matt Black, Garrett Bradley, Tonika Lewis Johnson, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen—with $800,000 each over five years. The artists span conceptual institutional critique, Indigenous basketry, documentary photography, film, and social practice, with several currently holding major solo exhibitions or biennial features.
The article introduces *Art of Luxury*, a biannual magazine published by *The Art Newspaper* that examines the intersection of high-end fashion, jewelry, travel, and lifestyle with the visual arts. It covers how luxury brands engage with artists, the art market, and museums and heritage institutions.
La notte dei record di Christie’s a New York. Ecco com’è andata la mega asta d’arte da più di un miliardo di dollari
On May 18, 2026, Christie’s in New York held a landmark evening auction that surpassed $1.1 billion in total sales, driven by two sessions: Masterpieces: The Private Collection of S.I. Newhouse and a sale of 20th-century art. The Newhouse collection alone brought in $631 million, making it the second most valuable collection ever sold at auction, behind Paul Allen’s $1.7 billion sale in 2022. Record prices were set for Jackson Pollock’s Number 7A, 1948, which sold for $181.2 million, and Constantin Brancusi’s Danaïde (1913), which fetched $107.6 million, a record for a sculpture at auction. Other artists achieving strong results included Mark Rothko, Joan Miró, and Alice Neel.
New York City is hosting a packed week of art fairs in May 2025, including Frieze at The Shed, Independent Art Fair at Pier 36, TEFAF New York at the Park Avenue Armory, and NADA New York at the Starrett-Lehigh Building. The fairs feature hundreds of international galleries, with Frieze emphasizing Central and South American exhibitors, Independent exploring a dystopian theme, TEFAF offering antiquities and fine art, and NADA celebrating its 12th edition with 121 galleries. The article also notes recent major exhibitions at the New Museum, Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1, The Met, and MoMA, and includes a guide to Upstate New York art destinations.
On May 8, thousands marched through Venice and more than two dozen national pavilions were partially or fully shuttered during a 24-hour strike organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance and local activist groups. The strike, which included Palestinian flags draped over artworks, marks the first cultural strike in the Venice Biennale's 131-year history. Italian police beat back protesters as Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara reported from the scene. Separately, a nesting seagull near the Polish pavilion became an unexpected star, and the LA Art Book Fair opened with a focus on archival materials.