british pop art originator peter phillips dies at 86

Peter Phillips, a founding figure of the British Pop art movement, died on June 23 at age 86. Born in Birmingham in 1939, he studied at London's Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj, and became known for vibrant paintings that incorporated consumer culture imagery, such as his 1961 work *For Men Only — Starring MM and BB*. His career included exhibitions at the Paris Biennale, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, and shows in New York alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. In later years he moved to Australia, and his family is raising funds to establish the Peter Phillips Foundation.

j hobermans book everything is now 1960s nyc downtown yoko ono andy warhol

J. Hoberman's new book, *Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde—Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop*, offers a sweeping cultural history of the downtown New York scene in the 1960s. The book centers on figures like Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and Jack Smith, weaving together experimental films, happenings, music, and the chaotic energy of the era. Hoberman, a longtime critic and curator, draws on his personal connections to the scene, including his mentorship under Mekas, and will present a selection of shorts from the book at Anthology Film Archives in June.

jen deluna blurred paintings bite dogs pinup

Artist Jen DeLuna creates blurred paintings based on vintage found photographs, primarily of 1970s pin-up girls and aggressive dogs. Working at PLOP residency in East London, she uses a large brush to blur wet paint, creating a hazy, memory-like effect. Her works include portraits like *Rallying Sigh* (2024) and canine pieces like *Hounding* (2024), which she hangs together to create a dialogue between femininity and animal aggression.

“I’m just a painter.” An interview with Jim Moir

Comedian Jim Moir, best known as Vic Reeves, has opened a solo exhibition titled 'Neo Fauna' at Cartwright Hall in Bradford. The show features his eclectic paintings and drawings, including watercolours of birds and the 'American Couples' series, where he paints over found family portraits. Moir insists his comedy career was an extension of his art practice, stating he is fundamentally 'just a painter.'

Thinking Infrastructurally: On Diversity of Aesthetics, Part 2

The article, part of a series on e-flux, presents a theoretical analysis of the 1965 Watts rebellion through the lens of Guy Debord's Situationist thought. It examines how the rioters' destruction and theft of commodities, like refrigerators they couldn't power, acted as a rejection of capitalist integration and exposed the false promise of consumer affluence.

Artist Valie Export, Who Saw Right Through the Male Gaze, Dies at 85

Austrian artist Valie Export, a pioneering feminist performance and media artist, died on May 14, three days before her 86th birthday. Her death was confirmed by Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery. Export, born Waltraud Lehner in 1940, rejected traditional domestic roles and adopted her iconic all-uppercase name from a cigarette brand. She created guerrilla-style performances and films that directly confronted the male gaze and patriarchal society, often using her own body as a medium. Key works include “Genital Panic” (1968), in which she walked through a Munich cinema in crotchless pants, and “Tapp und Tastkino (Tap and Touch Cinema)” (1968), where she invited strangers to touch her bare breasts through a stage strapped to her chest.

Maracas in hand, my toddler wanders freely through a gallery of priceless ceramics

A parent describes bringing their toddler to a "family-friendly drop-in" session at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where children are allowed to roam freely among priceless ceramics and other artworks. The session is child-led and loosely structured, with activities like coloring, building blocks, and musical instruments placed directly in the galleries rather than in a separate cordoned-off area.

David Novros’s Portable Murals

David Novros’s latest exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery showcases his "portable murals," intricate multi-paneled paintings that challenge the traditional concept of art as a mere object on a wall. Utilizing oil and murano on canvas, Novros assembles monochromatic, L-shaped, and horizontal panels with precise intervals that incorporate the gallery wall into the composition. These works are designed to be experienced kinesthetically, responding to shifting natural light and the viewer's physical movement through the space.

Beacons in a Grim World

Two concurrent solo exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen Gallery feature the work of artists Kevin McNamee-Tweed and Tajh Rust. McNamee-Tweed presents enigmatic, tenderly absurd ceramic scenes, while Rust debuts in New York with figurative paintings that explore perception and Black identity through portraits of leisure and experimental silvered glass works.

louvre museum closes gallery greek antiquities

The Louvre Museum in Paris has temporarily closed a gallery housing Greek antiquities and several offices after an audit revealed structural weaknesses in beams on the second level of the southern Sully wing. The affected gallery, the Campana Gallery, which displays antique Greek ceramics, was shut as a precaution, and 65 employees have been relocated while experts assess the damage. The closure comes amid a difficult period for the museum, following a $102 million theft of France's crown jewels in October and a scathing report criticizing leadership for prioritizing acquisitions over security upgrades.

Can Raising Children Make You a Better Artist? Four Artist Mothers Weigh In.

Four artist mothers—Hope Atherton, Jessi Reaves, Sam Moyer, and Sarah Morris—share candid reflections on how raising children has shaped their art practices. They discuss fractured time, heightened decisiveness, evolving rituals like bedtime reading, and the guilt and power that accompany balancing motherhood with studio work. Atherton describes a new sense of urgency and efficiency, while Reaves and others offer personal anecdotes about the interplay between caregiving and creativity.

art fashion cato ouyang zoe gustavia anna whalen

The New Museum in New York is reopening on March 21 with a major expansion—a 60,000-square-foot addition designed by OMA, doubling its footprint. To celebrate, the museum paired three artists featured in its inaugural exhibition "New Humans: Memories of the Future" with three independent fashion designers for studio conversations. The article presents one such dialogue between artist Cato Ouyang and designer Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen, who discuss their New York origin stories and the challenges of creative life in the city.

art fashion ivana basic claire sullivan interview

Cultured magazine pairs three artists with three independent fashion designers to mark the reopening of the New Museum on March 21, 2026, following a 60,000-square-foot expansion by OMA. In this installment, Serbian sculptor Ivana Bašić, whose work *Blossoming Being #2* appears in the inaugural exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” meets designer Claire Sullivan of Miss Claire Sullivan. Their conversation covers their New York origin stories, the city’s affordability crisis, and the challenges of making a creative life in the city.

art fashion camille henrot collina strada interview

Camille Henrot and Hillary Taymour, wearing Collina Strada, are featured in a Cultured magazine interview marking the reopening of the New Museum on March 21, 2026, after a 60,000-square-foot expansion by OMA. The conversation is part of a series pairing three artists from the inaugural exhibition "New Humans: Memories of the Future" with three downtown fashion designers. Henrot discusses her New York origin story, her film *In the Veins* premiering in the show, and her upcoming play *Commedia dell’Arte* at the Aspen Art Museum’s AIR Festival, while Taymour recounts moving from Los Angeles to New York in 2010 to pursue fashion design.

art lauren halsey los angeles park

Lauren Halsey, an artist known for immersive architectural projects rooted in South Central Los Angeles, is expanding her civic engagement with a new sculpture park titled "sister dreamer," opening in March in collaboration with the nonprofit LAND. The article, presented as a studio visit, details her creative process, influences, and upcoming projects, including a limited-edition cycling jersey with Rapha and the Miami Design District to raise funds for cancer research. It also highlights her recent exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Venice Biennale, and the Serpentine Galleries.

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.

Uncertainty in the Art Market is Currently Extreme

"Im Moment ist die Verunsicherung auf dem Kunstmarkt extrem"

Prominent Cologne gallerist Gisela Capitain is celebrating her 40th anniversary amid a period of significant market volatility. In recent interviews, she reflects on her career—defined by long-term artist relationships like that with Martin Kippenberger—while critiquing the current state of the art world. She notes that buyers have become increasingly hesitant and deliberate, describing the current level of uncertainty in the art market as extreme and calling for reforms to institutions like Art Cologne.

Inside the Studio of Abdelkader Benchamma, Cartographer of Invisible Worlds

Dans l’atelier d’Abdelkader Benchamma, cartographe des mondes invisibles

French-Moroccan artist Abdelkader Benchamma is preparing for his upcoming solo exhibition, "Signs and Wonders," at Galerie Templon in Paris. Working from his sun-drenched studio in Montpellier, Benchamma has transitioned from his signature black-and-white ink drawings to large-scale canvases that incorporate celestial blues and earthy mineral tones. The new body of work draws inspiration from 15th and 16th-century manuscripts, specifically the Kitab al-Bulhan and the Book of Miracles, creating a "giant book" of visual narratives that blur the lines between abstraction and figuration.

SFMOMA reimagines our connection to 250 works of art across four floors.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has unveiled "Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10," a major reinstallation of approximately 250 works from 35 artists across four floors. The project was led by project assistant curator Ted Mann and chief education and public engagement officer Gamynne Guillotte, who collaborated to transform how the collection is presented. Changes include rotating galleries, such as the Agnes Martin room, to improve sightlines, and incorporating artists' voices, archival video, and interpretive tools to make abstract works more accessible. The reinstallation marks the tenth anniversary of the Fisher Collection's long-term loan to SFMOMA, originally arranged in 2009 and later extended to 100 years.

Rene Matić wins 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize

Rene Matić has won the 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, becoming the first British winner in over a decade. The announcement was made at The Photographers’ Gallery in London on May 14, 2025, where Matić received £30,000 for their exhibition *AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH*, which uses photography, installation, and sound to explore identity and belonging. Matić was nominated for the show at the Center for Contemporary Arts Berlin (CCA Berlin) and is also a recent Turner Prize nominee. The prize exhibition runs at The Photographers’ Gallery until June 7, alongside works by fellow shortlisted artists Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, and Amak Mahmoodian.

A skateboarder’s lament: the dismantling of San Francisco’s iconic and divisive fountain

San Francisco's Vaillancourt Fountain, a controversial concrete sculpture and centerpiece of Embarcadero Plaza since 1971, caught fire during its dismantling in early May 2025 after the city voted to potentially replace it with a grassy park. Designed by artist Armand Vaillancourt, the fountain was a landmark for the city's skateboarding scene in the 1980s and 1990s, but fell into disrepair and became a flashpoint in debates over modernist public art. The removal, costing $4 million for storage and assessment, was mourned by skateboarders and preservationists who saw it as a loss of cultural and architectural heritage.

sperone westwater dealers lawsuit gallery closure

Three months before announcing the closure of Sperone Westwater after 50 years, co-founder Gian Enzo Sperone sued his partner Angela Westwater, alleging a "parasitic deadlock" and accusing her of wresting control of a corporation holding a 50 percent stake in the gallery. The lawsuit claims Westwater mishandled funds, withheld records, mismanaged rent payments, and increased her own salary without approval. The gallery, founded in 1975 as Sperone Westwater Fischer, has represented major artists including Bruce Nauman, Francesco Clemente, and Richard Long, and will close this December.

us mashal auction basquiat picasso diane arbus 1mdb scandal

The US Marshals Service is auctioning four artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Diane Arbus that were surrendered to the US Department of Justice in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. The online-only auction, run by Gaston and Sheehan auction house in Texas, began on July 16 and closes on September 4, with no buyer's premium. The works include Basquiat's *Self Portrait* (1982) and *Red Man One* (1982), Picasso's *Tête de taureau et broc* (1939), and Arbus's *Child with a Toy Hand Grenade* (1962). The pieces were linked to fugitive financier Jho Low and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who surrendered them after they were located in Switzerland.

newsmakers valentina akerman gallery sardine hamptons

Valentina Akerman, an art director and architect, opened Sardine gallery in a weathered Amagansett rental last summer with her husband, artist Joe Bradley. What began as an improvised experiment has grown into a Hamptons success story, now in its second season with a Summer 2025 program featuring film series, residencies, dinners, and four exhibitions pairing painters with sculptors. The gallery also hosted a pop-up in Paris during Art Basel Paris and is organizing a group show at Le Consortium Museum’s summer space in Burgundy.

galerie eva presenhuber franz west

Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich has opened "Franz West, Die Frühen Werke / Early Works," the gallery's twelfth exhibition dedicated to the late Austrian artist Franz West (1947–2012). The show surveys West's output from 1975 to 1990, highlighting his early sculptures, drawings, collages, and his signature interactive "Passstücke" (Adaptives)—pieces designed to be moved, worn, or played with by viewers. The exhibition runs through October 3, 2025.

heidi hahn not your woman

Artist Heidi Hahn discusses her recent exhibition "Not Your Woman" and the emotional journey behind the paintings in an interview with Thalia Stefaniuk. Originally scheduled to open at Mitchell-Innes & Nash's Chelsea gallery, the show was cancelled when the gallery suddenly closed, leaving Hahn feeling discarded and forcing her to rethink the work. The resulting large-scale canvases feature abstract, monumental female bodies rendered in muted oranges, reds, and blues—figures that are faceless, exaggerated, and more like totems or memories than recognizable women. The conversation explores themes of disappointment, failure, and the tension between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear.

bowman sculpture joanna allen subconcious playground

British sculptor Joanna Allen is the subject of her debut solo exhibition, “Subconscious Playground,” at London’s Bowman Sculpture, on view through May 30, 2025. The show features works in bronze, marble, clay, and plaster that explore the terrain between conscious and unconscious mind, moving between morphed figuration and pure abstraction. Allen discusses the influence of Surrealism, particularly the 100th anniversary of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, and cites mid-century artists like Picasso, Bacon, and Giacometti as inspirations for her raw, psychologically rooted practice.

art basel air de paris

The French gallery Air de Paris has publicly withdrawn from Art Basel in Switzerland after being assigned a booth position its founders considered unfavorable. In an open letter, owners Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino stated they were offered a choice between their usual stand and a new one, only to have the rejected option imposed. The gallery, which has participated in Art Basel since 1999, accused the fair of prioritizing managerial efficiency over longstanding relationships. Art Basel defended its placement process, citing curatorial vision and logistical factors. Bonnefous, who served on the fair's selection committee, confirmed the gallery will still participate in Art Basel Paris in the fall.

Meet the London Perfumer Building a Collection Around Humor and Instinct

Cherry Cheng, a London-based perfumer, has curated a personal art collection in her Notting Hill flat that reflects her instinctive and humorous approach to collecting. The collection features works by artists such as Beau Gabriel, Miranda Keyes, Sarah Pucci, Juliette Teste, Araki Nobuyoshi, Katrien de Blauwer, Lucile Littot, Leo Costelloe, Sebastian Espejo, and Joline Kwakkenbos, displayed throughout her home like a diary of her tastes.

What Every Collector Should Know About Buying Performance Art

Artsy Editorial explores the complexities of collecting performance art, explaining that ownership typically involves acquiring documentation, scores, or rights to reactivate a performance rather than the live event itself. The article outlines how artists, dealers, and collectors navigate transactions for this ephemeral medium, addressing the challenges of preservation, display, and market value.