The article profiles seven artists whose works have recently achieved significant auction results, often far exceeding their pre-sale estimates. Nathanaëlle Herbelin, Poppy Jones, Kathleen Ryan, Eva Helene Pade, Georg Wilson, and Ding Shilun are highlighted as contemporary artists with strong market momentum, while the poster artist A.M. Cassandre is noted for a historic sale.
Artist Yto Barrada, selected to represent France at the Venice Biennale, has stated that the French government and pavilion organizers were fully aware of her political views when they chose her. This follows criticism from the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), which denounced Barrada for signing an open letter calling for Israel's exclusion from the Biennale and suggested the government should force her to withdraw her signature.
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.
Art market expert Georgina Adam's new book, 'NextGen Collectors and the Art Market,' analyzes the industry's struggle to attract and retain younger buyers like millennials and Gen Z. She examines the difficulty in defining this demographic, their shifting tastes away from traditional blue-chip artists, and their volatile, less loyal market behavior.
Musician and artist Kim Gordon answered questions from Guardian readers, reflecting on her career with Sonic Youth, her solo work, and her approach to creativity. She discussed the band's initial aim to create something new, her intuitive process, and her recent acting role in Kristen Stewart's film adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir.
Egidio Marzona, the influential German-Italian collector, publisher, and patron, has died at age 81 in Berlin. His vast collection focused on 20th-century avant-garde movements, from Dada and Bauhaus to Fluxus and Arte Povera, and was distinguished by its deep archival holdings of letters, diagrams, and ephemera that documented the intellectual processes behind the art.
Amsterdam-based fashion brand Scotch & Soda has launched a new apparel collection in partnership with the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The line features men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing adorned with the late artist’s signature motifs, including his iconic three-point crown and sketches. A central element of the collaboration is the use of Basquiat’s 1987 painting "Unbreakable," which has been adapted into prints for hoodies, jackets, and denim.
Renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei critiques the intersection of artificial intelligence and censorship, drawing parallels between AI's algorithmic limitations and the Chinese government's systematic suppression of dissent. Using the emergence of the Chinese AI model DeepSeek as a catalyst, Ai recounts how the tool refused to discuss him, mirroring the state's long-standing strategy of erasing sensitive topics from public discourse. He argues that AI's reliance on existing data sets inherently replicates societal biases and moral codes, leading to factual inaccuracies and the homogenization of human thought.
U.S. Figure Skating commissioned athlete and artist Sonja Hilmer to create custom, elegant line-drawing portraits of each member of the 2026 Winter Olympic team. The black and gold ink portraits, inspired by Italian fashion drawings, were hung above the skaters' beds in the Olympic Village as a personal touch from home.
The Joan Mitchell Foundation has announced the 31 artists selected for its 2026 residency program at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. The residencies, lasting six or 14 weeks across three seasons, will host no more than nine artists at a time, beginning February 2. The cohort includes 17 local New Orleans artists and participants from cities such as New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta, ranging in age from 27 to 75. Notable participants include Edra Soto, who also won a United States Artists Fellowship, and two leaders of New Orleans’s Black Masking Indian tradition, Kelly Pearson Boles and Efrem Z. Boles. The selection was made by a jury of artists, curators, and academics.
The Obama Foundation has commissioned artist Theaster Gates to create an expansive frieze for the Pendleton Atrium of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), set to open on Chicago’s South Side in 2026. The installation will draw from the Johnson Publishing Company image archive and the Howard Simmons photographic collections, celebrating the visual archives of Ebony and Jet magazines. Gates, who founded the Rebuild Foundation in 2009, will join nine other artists—including Kiki Smith, Nick Cave, Marie Watt, Jenny Holzer, and Idris Khan—whose works were announced in September for the OPC campus.
The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), a historic art school founded in 1871, permanently closed on July 15 after the University of San Francisco (USF) withdrew from a proposed acquisition deal. USF cited financial risks, low enrollment projections, and deferred maintenance as reasons for backing out. SFAI will continue as a small nonprofit to protect its archives and legacy, but the fate of its prized Diego Rivera fresco, valued at up to $50 million, remains uncertain.
Marina Abramović has announced production dates for her upcoming performance piece "Seven Deaths," a seven-part film incorporating death scenes from influential operas such as "Madam Butterfly" and "Carmen." The 68-year-old artist has invited controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski, along with directors Alejandro González Iñárritu, Marco Brambilla, Giada Colagrande, Yorgos Lanthimos, and screenwriter Petter Skavlan, to contribute segments. Abramović will portray singer Maria Callas, whom she describes as a muse, and plans to produce a making-of documentary and a biography on Callas's life. Lars von Trier was invited but declined due to scheduling conflicts.
Santina Semadar Panetta, a Canadian artist, is pioneering Neo-Pointillism, a contemporary evolution of the 19th-century pointillist style. She creates vibrant, intricate paintings that blend portraiture and landscape, using bold color palettes and meticulous technique. Panetta is the only Canadian artist selected for the Biennale di Palermo, Biennale di Mantova, and the Biennale of the Nations in Venice, and her work was recently featured at the LA Art Show. In an interview, she discusses her shift from journalism to art, inspired by the events of September 11, 2001, and her academic training at Académie Art et Beaux, which led her to develop a philosophical and rhetorical approach to Neo-Pointillism.
A painting in Japan's Tokushima Modern Art Museum, originally attributed to French Cubist Jean Metzinger and purchased in 1999 for 67.2 million yen ($426,000), has been confirmed as a forgery by notorious German forger Wolfgang Beltracchi. The museum withdrew the work, titled *At the Cycle-Race Track 55*, from an upcoming exhibition after experts identified synthetic pigments from after the mid-20th century. The Osaka-based seller agreed to a refund and return, completed in October and November 2024, and the painting has been removed from the prefectural government's inventory.
The Hudson's Bay Company, a historic Canadian department store chain that declared bankruptcy in March, began selling off its art collection. On November 19, 27 paintings from the retailer's trove were auctioned by Canadian auction house Heffel, all selling well above estimate. The top lot was an impressionistic painting of a Marrakech street by Winston Churchill, which sold for $1.5 million, more than tripling its low estimate. Other notable sales included Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith's 'Lights of a City Street' at $691,250 and works by William von Moll Berczy and Charles Pachter.
Two French parliamentarians, Jean-Paul Matteï and Philippe Juvin, have proposed a new tax regime on art as part of France's 2026 budget, which would make France the only major art market to impose a wealth tax on the mere possession of artworks. The French art world has strongly opposed the proposal, with 27 signatories including Art Basel, auctioneer Drouot, visual artists' rights organization ADAGP, the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art (ADIAF), and the Comité Professionel des Galeries d’Art (CPGA). Critics argue the tax is technically unenforceable, would drive collectors away, and harm the broader art ecosystem.
Private Client Select (PCS), an insurance partner for serious art collectors, highlights the growing complexity of protecting fine art and collectibles. The article details unusual but real claims—such as a conceptual artwork mistaken for trash, a fiber work unraveled by a cat, or a sculpture damaged by a housekeeper—alongside more common risks like climate damage, transit mishaps, and theft. PCS's Art Services team, led by Senior Vice President Muys Snijders, offers proactive risk management, coordinating conservators, appraisers, and storage solutions. Emerging threats include climate change (wildfires, floods), social media exposure, financial complexities (tariffs, collateral lending), and material degradation of contemporary works using nontraditional materials.
A painting long attributed to Moïse Kisling, titled *Kiki de Montparnasse* and held by Japan's Yamada Bee Company Group, has been identified as a forgery by notorious art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi. The discovery, reported by NHK, follows a wave of Beltracchi-linked fakes uncovered in Japanese museums and collections, including a purported Marie Laurencin portrait in Tokyo and a forgery of Heinrich Campendonk's *Girl with Swan* at the Museum of Art, Kochi. Beltracchi admitted to forging the Kisling around 1990, claiming he studied the artist deeply.
Dubai has announced plans for its first museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art, the Dubai Museum of Art (DUMA), designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Located along Dubai Creek, the five-story museum will feature a curved shell inspired by the sea and pearl, with a central roof opening, library, study rooms, and flexible spaces for art fairs. The project is developed by the Al-Futtaim Group with support from Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. No opening date has been set.
"Fata Morgana," an exhibition organized by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi at Palazzo Morando in Milan, presents works by 78 artists past and present who embody Marcel Duchamp's idea of the artist as a "mediumistic being." The show includes nuns, mediums, psychiatric patients, and contemporary stars like Marianna Simnett and Rosemarie Trockel, alongside avant-garde icons such as Man Ray and Duchamp himself. Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Daniel Birnbaum, and Martha Papini, the exhibition explores creativity as compulsion, featuring drawings by James Tilly Matthews, séance photographs by Stanisława Popielska, and works by Madge Gill and Emma Jung, among others.
A valuable work on paper by Pablo Picasso, titled *Still Life with Guitar* (1919), has gone missing during transport from Madrid to Granada, Spain. The piece was part of a shipment of 57 artworks destined for the exhibition 'Still Life. The Eternity of the Inert' at the CajaGranada Cultural Center. The vehicle transporting the works made an unusual overnight stop just 20 miles from its destination, and despite video surveillance at the delivery site, the Picasso was discovered missing during inventory the following Monday. Insured for €600,000 (around $700,000), the work belongs to an unnamed private collector, and police are investigating the presumed theft, though no arrests have been made.
Kiran Nadar, a prominent Indian collector, revealed she purchased M.F. Husain's 1954 painting *Untitled (Gram Yatra)* for $13.8 million at Christie's New York, making it the most expensive work of Indian modern art ever sold at auction. The painting, estimated at $2.5–3.5 million, was originally owned by Norwegian surgeon Leon Elias Volodarsky and later donated to Oslo University Hospital, which consigned it after a 13-year deaccessioning process.
The Kochi-Muziris Biennial, South Asia's largest contemporary art biennial, has announced the 66 artists from over 20 countries participating in its 2025 edition, titled “For The Time Being.” Running from December 12 to March 31 across venues including Aspinwall House and Pepper House in Kochi, India, the event features around 50 new commissions and a theme centered on the body, memory, and temporality. The announcement comes after the 2023 edition was marred by controversy, with more than half of its 90 artists signing a public letter alleging communication breakdowns, unpaid fees, and production issues, as well as the Kerala government reportedly pulling out of a deal to acquire the main venue.
The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on billionaire philanthropist George Soros, with the Justice Department calling for an investigation into his Open Society Foundations. The foundations, which provide substantial grants to artists and human rights organizations globally, are accused of potential racketeering, wire fraud, and material support for terrorism, based on allegations from the conservative Capital Research Center. Soros, a major Democratic donor, has previously been targeted by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who claim the foundations fund leftist protests. The Open Society Foundations have awarded $100,000 fellowships to numerous prominent artists, including Firelei Báez, Yto Barrada, and Nicholas Galanin, and provided $1.2 billion in funding in 2024 alone.
A new retrospective at Kunsthaus Zurich, soon traveling to Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, spotlights Suzanne Duchamp (1889–1963), a French artist often overshadowed by her brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Villon. The exhibition, titled “Suzanne Duchamp: Retrospective,” showcases her highly individual painterly practice rooted in Cubism and Dada, featuring works like *Radiation of Two Solitary Separates Apart* (1916–20) and *Marcel’s Unhappy Readymade* (1920), which reappropriates her brother’s readymade concept. The show includes a new catalog commission by painter Amy Sillman, who created digital drawings inspired by Duchamp’s formal dynamics.
The New Yorker has commissioned six contemporary photographers—Marilyn Minter, Awol Erizku, Ryan McGinley, Collier Schorr, Camila Falquez, and Alex Prager—to reimagine historical illustrated covers for the magazine’s centennial. Each photographer created a celebrity portrait inspired by a past cover, such as Erizku’s photo of Spike Lee as Eustace Tilley and Minter’s recreation of a 1925 cover featuring actress Sadie Sink. The project marks only the third time in the magazine’s history that photography has been used for its cover.
The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has announced nine new commissions by ten artists for its 19.3-acre campus, set to open next spring. The commissioned works include a text-based sculpture spelling 'HOPE' by Jack Pierson, a bronze sculpture by Kiki Smith, a digital mural by Jules Julien, a textile-and-sound installation by Nick Cave and Marie Watt, paintings by Jenny Holzer and Idris Khan, a sculpture by Nekisha Durrett, a mural by Aliza Nisenbaum, and an outdoor bronze by Alison Saar. These join five previously announced commissions, with plans for over 25 site-specific works total.
Ai Weiwei has traveled to Ukraine's eastern front, visiting Kharkiv under Russian bombardment and meeting soldiers, poets, and cultural figures resisting the invasion. He documented the trip on Instagram with stark images and was photographed in black fatigues marked "Khartiia," a volunteer unit now part of Ukraine's National Guard. His next project is a major installation in Kyiv titled "Three Perfectly Proportioned Spheres and Camouflage Uniforms Painted White," opening September 14 at Pavilion 13, a renovated Soviet-era hall, commissioned by Ribbon International.
Phillips auction house announced a new fee structure for fall 2025 called "priority bidding," which offers lower buyer's premium rates to bidders who place written bids at least 48 hours before a live sale. The move aims to encourage early engagement and generate more spirited bidding, while also providing certainty for sellers. The house is simultaneously raising its standard buyer's premium to as high as 29 percent on works up to $1 million, making it the highest among major auction houses. CEO Martin Wilson, who took over in January, hopes the program will mitigate risk and shore up sales of mid-priced works.