as costs rise dealers in asia take a pragmatic approach to fair participation

The article reports that two major Asian art fairs, Taipei Dangdai Art and Ideas and Art Busan, are currently running through May 11, but both have seen significant drops in exhibitor numbers. Taipei Dangdai is down 32% to 53 galleries, while Art Busan is off 16% to 109 galleries. Dealers cite rising costs, geopolitical uncertainties, and fair fatigue as reasons for a more selective, pragmatic approach to participation, focusing on regional fairs and transactional value over visibility.

work of the week pablo picasso tete dhomme a la pipe

Loïc Gouzer, founder of the auction app Fair Warning, partnered with Christie's to sell Pablo Picasso's drawing *Tête d'homme à la pipe* (1971) in a hybrid in-person and digital auction on May 15. The work, estimated at $6–8 million, hammered for $6.6 million ($7.79 million with fees) to a phone bidder at Coco's at Colette in New York's GM Building, with Jussi Pylkkänen officiating. Notable attendees included collectors Alberto Mugrabi and David Mugrabi, and dealer Joseph Nahmad. The drawing, executed two years before Picasso's death, depicts a musketeer inspired by *The Three Musketeers* and had never been auctioned before.

artists pull work whitney isp show palestine performance canceled

A group of artists participating in the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program (ISP) have withdrawn their work from a capstone exhibition at Westbeth Gallery to protest the museum's cancellation of a pro-Palestine performance. The performance, titled "No Aesthetics Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance," by artists Fadl Fakhouri, Noel Maghathe, and Fargo Tbakhi, was scheduled for May 12 as part of the ISP curatorial exhibition "a grammar of attention." The Whitney canceled it after viewing a recording of an earlier presentation, citing the performers' demand that attendees who believe in Israel leave the audience and the valorization of specific acts of violence. ISP Associate Director Sara Nadal-Melsió stated that the cancellation was imposed by Whitney leadership, including director Scott Rothkopf, and that the independence of the ISP has been seriously compromised.

nea funding cuts

President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and arts organizations across the U.S. are already feeling the impact. After a White House budget request in May that excluded the NEA, dozens of institutions received abrupt termination notices for their grant applications, with the NEA citing a shift in policy priorities to focus on projects reflecting the nation's artistic heritage as prioritized by the President. In protest, many senior NEA staff resigned or were asked to retire, leaving the agency in disarray. The cuts are part of broader federal efforts to defund cultural agencies, including the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has seen a 70-80 percent staff reduction and canceled over a thousand grants. Private foundations like the Mellon Foundation and the Helen Frankenthaler and Andy Warhol Foundations have launched emergency funding programs, but the consequences for artists, educators, and community organizations are immediate and destabilizing.

tommy cash

Estonian rapper and provocateur Tommy Cash sparked controversy at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, with lyrics that parodied Italian stereotypes, leading Italy to call for his disqualification. Despite finishing third, the incident has drawn renewed global attention to Cash, who has long been a boundary-pushing figure in European art and music. Artnet News resurfaced a 2022 interview with Cash, born Tomas Tammemets in 1991, who describes himself as an artist working across music, fashion, and installation projects, blending post-Soviet visual language with high and low culture references.

gustave courbet burial at ornans public restoration

The Musée d'Orsay in Paris is undertaking a full public restoration of Gustave Courbet's monumental painting "A Burial at Ornans" (1849–50), 175 years after its scandalous debut at the Paris Salon. The 20-foot canvas will be cleaned, its poorly applied varnish layers thinned, and structural issues addressed—including cracks, tears, and deformations caused by the coarse fabric and heavy impasto. The restoration will also reveal previously hidden border portions of the canvas folded in the late 1800s, potentially adding new details to the composition.

warhol frankenthaler foundation fund nea

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation have announced an $800,000 fund to support 80 visual arts programs at small and mid-sized organizations across the United States. Each recipient, previously funded through the National Endowment for the Arts' Challenge America initiative, will receive $10,000 to advance projects stalled after the Trump administration suspended that federal program. The announcement comes amid broader cuts to federal arts funding, including the departure of all 10 NEA grant directors and the termination of grants for organizations like n+1, SculptureCenter, Queer Art, and A.I.R. Gallery, which received notices citing misalignment with the administration's priorities.

diedrick brackens

Diedrick Brackens, a Los Angeles-based artist known for his woven tapestries, is experiencing a major career moment in 2025. The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has opened a large-scale solo exhibition titled "The Shape of Survival" (on view through July 7), while another solo show, "Woven Stories," debuted at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England, marking his U.K. debut. Additionally, his works are featured in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Dallas Contemporary. Brackens's tapestries feature silhouetted figures against abstracted backgrounds, and his recent works explore themes of autobiography, history, and mythology, using moody dusk hues to reflect his personal journey from the American South to the West.

guerrilla girls 40th anniversary

The Guerrilla Girls, the anonymous feminist art collective founded in 1985, are celebrating their 40th anniversary with a series of exhibitions and events. In New York, two gallery shows have been held at Hannah Traore Gallery and Mary Ryan Gallery. Later this month, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., will stage a major solo exhibition of its Guerrilla Girls holdings, titled "Discrimi-NATION: Guerrilla Girls on Bias, Money, and Art." The collective is also receiving an award at NMWA's upcoming gala and has launched a campaign to encourage donors to help the museum acquire the complete "Portfolio Compleat" of all their works.

getty luis de morales christ painting restoration

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired and restored Luis de Morales's "Christ Carrying the Cross" (c. 1565), a 16th-century Spanish Renaissance painting. The work, which had been covered in discolored varnish and enlarged with wooden strips, was carefully conserved by Getty conservator Kari Rayner, who removed non-original paint to reveal the artist's original composition. The painting first appeared at auction in 2021 at Nagel Auktionen, initially attributed to Morales's studio with a €10,000 estimate, but later sold for €1.2 million before the Getty acquired it from the Daniel Katz Gallery.

sothebys 70 million alberto giacometti

Sotheby's has secured a $70 million Alberto Giacometti sculpture, *Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego)* (1955), for its evening sale of Modern art on May 13 in New York. The bronze bust of the artist's brother Diego is the highest-priced lot known to be offered in the upcoming high-stakes auctions. Consigned anonymously from the collection of late real estate tycoon Sheldon Solow, the work is being sold by the Soloviev Foundation to raise funds for philanthropic activities, including support for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The sculpture, one of six casts, is described as the only 'richly painted' version and was included in Giacometti's 1956 Venice Biennale presentation.

pope francis contemporary art obituary

Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has died at age 88. A Jesuit priest from Argentina, he was the first pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe since the 8th century. During his papacy, he took progressive stances on social justice, migrants, the environment, and the LGBTQ community, and also engaged deeply with contemporary art. He oversaw the Vatican Museums, ordered the return of Parthenon marble fragments to Greece, restored Raphael frescoes, and became the first pope to visit the Venice Biennale, where the Vatican had its first-ever pavilion in 2013.

moma ice cream art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has launched a new exclusive ice cream flavor called "Van Dough" in its second-floor cafe and sculpture garden food stand. Created in collaboration between Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) and Caffè Panna, the flavor features vanilla ice cream mixed with MoMA chocolate chip cookie dough chunks and chocolate chips. The article traces MoMA's long history with ice cream, including its ownership of Claes Oldenburg's *Pastry Case, I* (1961–62) and *Floor Cone* (1962), a 1935 Zeroll ice cream scoop by Sherman L. Kelly in its design collection, and a 2013 ice cream social with Milk Not Jails as part of artist Caroline Woolard's project.

pope francis legacy art venice biennale restitution

Pope Francis died on April 20 at age 88, ending a transformative papacy that began in 2013. He was the first Jesuit pope, first from the southern hemisphere, and took his name from St. Francis of Assisi. Known for austerity and advocacy for the oppressed, he criticized wars in Gaza and Ukraine, apologized to Indigenous communities in Canada, and made history in 2024 by attending the Venice Biennale—the first pope to do so—visiting the Holy See Pavilion at the Women's Prison on Giudecca.

pope francis has died champion of artists

Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at his home in Casa Santa Marta at age 88, the Vatican announced. During his 12-year papacy, the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff showed strong support for artists, becoming the first pope to visit the Venice Biennale last year, where he spoke at the Vatican's pavilion held in a women's prison. He emphasized the importance of contemporary art and women creators, citing Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois, and urged artists to keep questioning and taking risks.

natural history museum vca cosmos

Ruth Angus, associate curator of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, leads a tour of the exhibition "Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels," running through January 4, 2026, in the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery. The show features over 60 pieces from the Parisian maison's archives and private collections, each inspired by cosmic phenomena such as galaxies, stars, and planetary nebulae. Angus served as curatorial advisor alongside Denton Ebel, Kate Kiseeva, and Alexandrine Maviel-Sonet, with thematic sections covering the Moon, Sun, distant galaxies, meteorites, and the Zodiac. Highlights include the Trappist transformable necklace (2021) inspired by the TRAPPIST-1 star system and the Explosion Stellaire necklace (2021) depicting a supernova.

Tina Kim Gallery announces representation of the estate of Kim Lim.

Tina Kim Gallery has announced U.S. representation of the estate of Kim Lim, the British Singaporean sculptor and printmaker. The gallery will debut Lim's work at Art Basel in June, followed by a solo exhibition in New York in spring 2027—the first solo presentation of her work in the United States. Axel Vervoordt Gallery will continue to represent the artist's estate.

Arghavan Khosravi’s Intricate Paintings Find Hope amid Oppression

Arghavan Khosravi creates intricate, surreal three-dimensional paintings that blend sculptural elements with painted canvases, featuring hidden details such as creased book spines, concealed female figures, and glowing bullets. In an interview at her Connecticut studio, she explains her preference for works that reveal themselves gradually over time, rather than shouting for attention.

Art Dubai’s 20th edition rallies its local art community amid regional tensions.

Art Dubai, the UAE's premier art fair, opened its 20th edition as a scaled-down "Special Edition" from May 14–17 at Madinat Jumeirah, after being postponed due to the Iran–Israel war. For the first time, entry was free, and the lineup was pared to 50 galleries, most from the region, including Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Jeddah, Ramallah, and Dubai.

11 Contemporary Emirati Artists To Know

The article highlights 11 contemporary Emirati artists, providing an overview of their practices and significance within the Gulf's evolving art scene. It contextualizes this list against recent major events in the region, including the debut of Art Basel Qatar in early February and the subsequent U.S. attacks on Iran, which caused turmoil across the Gulf, disrupted airline operations, and forced Art Dubai to scale back its event to a smaller fair in mid-May. Artists and galleries in the Gulf also had to temporarily close.

5 Standout Artworks at Carnegie International 2026

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has unveiled the 59th edition of its Carnegie International exhibition, featuring a monumental series of murals titled *Orogenic* (2026) by Abraham González Pacheco. The newly commissioned work, made of concrete, metal, and pigment, depicts a maelstrom of archaeological objects inspired by the museum’s collection and sets the tone for the exhibition.

How to Buy Minimalist Art

Artsy Editorial offers a guide on buying Minimalist art, explaining the movement's core principles of geometric shapes, limited color palettes, and material reduction. The article highlights key artists such as Carl Andre and Polly Apfelbaum, and emphasizes that Minimalism focuses on the idea behind the work rather than the artist's technical skill.

British ’90s art and fashion exhibition heading to Tate Britain in fall 2026.

Tate Britain will mount the first major exhibition exploring the transformative impact of fashion, art, and photography on 1990s Britain. Curated by former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, the show titled “The 90s: Art and Fashion” will bring together over 100 works—including photographs, paintings, films, sculptures, objects, and garments—from nearly 70 artists. It runs from August 8, 2026 through February 14, 2027.

Why Contemporary Photographers Are Rejecting the Camera

Contemporary photographers are increasingly rejecting traditional cameras in favor of alternative, camera-less techniques such as photograms, cyanotypes, and chemigrams. These artists draw inspiration from early scientific experiments with light-sensitive materials, like those of Johann Heinrich Schulze and Thomas Wedgwood, who created temporary images using silver nitrate and sunlight before photography was formally invented.

The 5 Best Booths at miart 2026

The 30th edition of miart opened its doors at the Allianz MiCo convention center in Milan, marking a significant milestone for Italy’s premier international modern and contemporary art fair. As the city continues its ascent as a global art capital, the 2026 fair attracted a diverse continental crowd of collectors and professionals ahead of the upcoming Venice Biennale.

Julie Mehretu Captures Our Contemporary Chaos in Shimmering Abstract Paintings

Julie Mehretu has established herself as a preeminent voice in contemporary abstraction by creating dense, multilayered canvases that synthesize architectural drawings, maps, and media imagery. Her work is characterized by a meticulous accumulation of marks that transform sociopolitical data and historical events into ethereal, gestural compositions. By layering information until it reaches a point of abstraction, she explores how individual and collective identities are shaped by the built environment and global shifts.

How to Take Great Photographs of Art, According to Artists

Contemporary gallery-going has become synonymous with digital documentation, as visitors increasingly use smartphones to capture paintings, sculptures, and installations. This shift from passive observation to active photography serves as a method of personal archiving, allowing viewers to preserve the fleeting experience of a physical exhibition and share it within their social circles.

5 Ways the Art World Can Better Support Women Artists

Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley dies at 99.

Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley dies at 99.

Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley, a self-taught artist renowned for his monumental abstract wood sculptures, has died at the age of 99. Working for decades in his Pittsburgh basement, Mosley used locally sourced felled trees and traditional hand tools to create dynamic, asymmetrical forms that channeled both modernist principles and African artistic traditions. His prolific career, which began in his 30s, gained significant institutional recognition only in his later decades, culminating in a major 2022 solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Cosima von Bonin’s sculptures star in Loewe’s fall/winter 2026 runway show.

Cosima von Bonin’s sculptures star in Loewe’s fall/winter 2026 runway show.

German artist Cosima von Bonin’s large-scale, fabric-based sculptures were integrated directly into Loewe’s fall/winter 2026 runway show during Paris Fashion Week. Creative director Jonathan Anderson placed her oversized, characteristically enigmatic soft sculptures—including a giant lobster and a crumpled cigarette—amidst the models, transforming the presentation into a moving exhibition. This collaboration continues Anderson’s practice of merging high art with high fashion on the runway.