Guest column | At the nation’s galleries, celebrations of selfhood, joy and renewal

Major American art institutions are undergoing a significant shift in perspective, prioritizing themes of diversity, selfhood, and renewal in their programming. This evolution is evidenced by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s total re-evaluation of its permanent collection display in anticipation of its new building, alongside a wave of exhibitions featuring contemporary voices like Derrick Adams and Nick Cave, and retrospectives for historical figures such as Edmonia Lewis and Isamu Noguchi.

Seeing double: Vermeer painting and its mysterious ‘twin’ go on show in London

Kenwood House in London has opened a new display, "Double Vision: Vermeer" (1 September 2025 – 11 January 2026), pairing Vermeer's "The Guitar Player" (1672) from its own collection with its mysterious "twin," "Lady with a Guitar," on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition reignites a century-old debate over which painting is the original, as the Philadelphia version has long been questioned since the Kenwood version emerged in 1927. Recent scientific analysis reveals differences in ground layers and pigment use—the Kenwood painting features ultramarine while the Philadelphia version uses cheaper indigo—and experts like former Rijksmuseum specialist Gregor Weber suggest the Philadelphia work may be an early copy.

Van Gogh's suicide: Ten reasons why the murder story is a myth

The article argues against the theory that Vincent van Gogh was murdered, asserting that he died by suicide on July 27, 1890. The murder theory, popularized by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith's 2011 biography "Van Gogh: The Life," claims that 16-year-old René Secrétan shot the artist, and that van Gogh protected him by claiming suicide. The author counters this with ten reasons, including that van Gogh's doctor Paul Gachet, his brother Theo, friends like Emile Bernard, and Paul Gauguin all believed it was suicide, and that police records support this conclusion.

Amid a wave of political hostility, the Getty Center uses photography to tell stories of queer resistance and love

The Getty Center in Los Angeles has opened a new exhibition, "Queer Lens: A History of Photography," coinciding with Pride Month amid rising political hostility toward LGBTQ+ communities. Curated by Paul Martineau over six years, the show features 300 photographs from the 19th century to the present, including works by Claude Cahun, Imogen Cunningham, and Peter Hujar, alongside anonymous and amateur images. A companion exhibition at the Getty Research Institute, "$3 Bill: Evidence of Queer Lives," displays printed ephemera from the Merrill C. Berman Collection, highlighting queer resistance and community-building.

Gulag Museum rebrand marks latest phase in Kremlin’s assault on free speech

The Kremlin is systematically erasing the memory of Soviet repression under Joseph Stalin from Russian museums. The Gulag Museum in Moscow, which documented Stalin-era crimes, has been rebranded as a "Museum of Memory" focused on Nazi war crimes, with its entire website replaced and exhibitions packed up. Simultaneously, Russia's supreme court banned Memorial, a human rights organization founded to document Stalin-era atrocities, labeling it an "anti-Russian" extremist group. The Yeltsin Presidential Center in Yekaterinburg has also removed references to Memorial from its walls, and the Sakharov Center in Moscow was disbanded and evicted from its facilities.

Did Zurbarán Believe What He Painted?

An exhibition of Francisco de Zurbarán's 17th-century religious paintings at London's National Gallery prompts a critic to question whether the artist's personal faith influenced his artistic skill. The show features monumental works from Spanish churches and monasteries, displayed dramatically against black walls, including crucifixion scenes, monks, and saints. The critic notes that no personal records of Zurbarán survive—only contracts—leaving his beliefs unknown, and compares him to Agnolo Bronzino, who painted pious scenes but wrote obscene verses. A small painting of a crucified Christ with a painter, possibly a self-portrait of Bronzino, is presented as ambiguous evidence of faith.

Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Archivists and Activists

New York- and Ramallah-based Palestinian artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme present *Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom* (2025), an hour-long four-channel film installation at The Bell/Brown Arts Institute in Providence. The work layers psychedelic imagery of figures in nature with spoken and written testimonies from Palestinians formerly detained by Israeli authorities, exploring themes of incarceration, surveillance, and resistance through fragmented montage and poetic text. The exhibition also includes drawings by Abou-Rahme’s father and printed screenshots of reflections on the genocide in Gaza.

"Gesundheitseffekt der Künste auf biologischer Ebene"

A roundup of art news covers multiple stories: Stefan Trinks criticizes Berlin's 'MuseumsMeileMitte' as a symptom of urban and cultural misdevelopment, where museums are co-opted by real estate marketing. At the Venice Biennale, the German Pavilion by Henrike Naumann and Sung Tieu explores East German identity and post-reunification trauma, while Patti Smith performed a 'sonic prayer' at the Vatican Pavilion curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers. A study from University College London suggests regular arts engagement may slow biological aging.

New York Court Orders Restitution of a Modigliani to the Oscar Stettiner Estate

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A New York court has ordered the restitution of Amedeo Modigliani’s 1918 painting 'Seated Man with a Cane' to the heirs of Oscar Stettiner, a Jewish art dealer. The work was seized during the Nazi occupation of Paris and sold at a forced auction in 1944 before eventually being purchased by the billionaire Nahmad family via an offshore company in 1996. Judge Joel M. Cohen ruled that the evidence of Stettiner’s prior ownership was "unusually strong" and dismissed the defense's claims that the painting was a different version or that the claim was filed too late.

Dani Guindo’s Dramatic Aerial Photos Reveal the Ghostly Outline of an Icelandic Glacier

Dani Guindo’s Dramatic Aerial Photos Reveal the Ghostly Outline of an Icelandic Glacier

Spanish artist Dani Guindo has released a striking new aerial photography series titled *Terminus*, which captures the Múlajökull glacier in Iceland. Using a drone, Guindo documented the glacier's intricate rivulets and, more significantly, a ghostly semi-circular outline etched into the rocky landscape below, revealing the glacier's former, much larger footprint.

Arts and cultural engagement ‘linked to slower pace of biological ageing’

A new study published in the journal *Innovation in Aging* finds that engaging in arts and cultural activities—such as singing, painting, visiting museums or galleries—is linked to a slower pace of biological ageing. Researchers from University College London analyzed blood test and survey data from 3,556 adults in the UK Household Longitudinal Study, using epigenetic clocks to measure biological ageing. Those who participated in arts activities at least weekly showed a 4% slower ageing process, while monthly engagement yielded a 3% slowdown. The effect was comparable to the difference between smokers and those who quit smoking.

Ali Cherri Files War Crime Case Over Israeli Airstrike on Beirut

French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, in collaboration with the International Federation for Human Rights, has filed a civil complaint in a French court regarding a 2024 Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The strike, which occurred in the Noueiri neighborhood just hours before a ceasefire, destroyed Cherri’s family home and killed seven civilians, including his parents and their domestic helper. The legal action, submitted to a specialized war crimes unit, alleges that the targeting of a civilian residence constitutes a war crime under both French and international law.

The Bennett Prize Just Raised Its Award to $75,000. These Artists Think You Should Apply.

The Bennett Prize, a biennial award dedicated to women figurative realist painters, has increased its grand prize from $50,000 to $75,000 for its fifth cycle. Founded by collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, the prize aims to bridge the gender gap in the art world by providing substantial financial support and institutional recognition. The current call for entries is open to artists who have not yet reached a specific commercial price ceiling, culminating in a 2027 exhibition at the Muskegon Museum of Art.

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The World Health Organization (WHO), Jameel Arts & Health Lab, and The Lancet have launched a global series of research papers and commissions titled the Lancet Global Series on the Health Benefits of the Arts, aimed at providing scientific evidence for the role of art in promoting physical and mental health. The first article in the series, a photo essay—the first photo essay in The Lancet's 202-year history—features 32 photographs curated by Stephen Stapleton illustrating art integration in clinical and institutional settings, including a clown school at a refugee camp in Turkey and a project by street artist JR at a California prison.

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Recent evidence suggests that Mayken Verhulst (ca. 1518–1599), the mother-in-law of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, authored works long attributed to the anonymous Brunswick Monogrammist. A key painting, *Ecce Homo* from the National Museum in Gdańsk, bears a unique double signature combining the initials of her husband, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, with her family name “Bessemer,” indicating her authorial role within the workshop. This discovery, detailed in an essay from the exhibition *The Woman Question 1550–2025* at the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, challenges centuries of art-historical attribution.

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Archaeologists from the Penn Museum and Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University have discovered an 8th-century B.C.E. royal tomb in Gordion, Turkey, containing 88 well-preserved objects including bronze cauldrons, vessels, and iron tools. The tomb, located near the famous Midas Mound, suggests a connection to the legendary King Midas or his family, and its cremation burial method predates previous evidence of elite cremation in the region by over a century.

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Archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) have uncovered one of the largest collections of painted Roman wall plaster ever found in London at a development site in Southwark. The fragments, which shattered into thousands of pieces, were discovered in a pit and took three months to reassemble by senior building material specialist Han Li, who described it as assembling "the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle." The plaster includes rare evidence of a painter's signature, unusual Greek alphabet graffiti, and a crying face graffito, along with vibrant yellow panel designs featuring birds, fruit, flowers, and lyres.

Art Gallery Shows in Bangkok to Check Out in April

Bangkok's art scene is hosting several high-profile exhibitions this April, highlighted by the opening of Harper’s Bangkok, the first Southeast Asian outpost of the New York-based Harper’s gallery. The new space debuts with 'Lost and Found,' a solo exhibition by American artist Joel Mesler featuring his signature typographic and symbolic paintings. Other major shows include a large-scale group exhibition at MOCA Bangkok titled 'ICONOSTASIS: No Masters, No Icons,' which pits handmade mastery against AI-generated art, and a solo presentation by Filipino painter Jason Montinola at La Lanta Fine Art.

All 3.5 Million Pages of the Epstein Files Are Now on View at This Pop-Up Exhibition

The Institute for Primary Facts has transformed New York's Mriya Gallery into the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Reading Room, a pop-up exhibition displaying all 3.5 million pages of the released Epstein files in 3,437 bound volumes. Open from May 8 to May 21 in Tribeca, the installation is the group's first live project, requiring visitors aged 16 and over to book appointments via a platform called Trumpsonian. Only accredited press, Congress, law enforcement, and victims' advocates may open the volumes, due to the Department of Justice's failure to properly redact victims' names.

Christie's Hong Kong autumn sale drops 46% from last year but makes Picasso's record in Asia

Christie's 20/21st Century Autumn sale in Hong Kong on 26 September generated $72.6 million, a 46% drop from the same sale last year and roughly flat compared to its March sale. Despite the decline, a Picasso painting, *Buste de Femme* (1944), set a new Asia record at HK$196.75 million ($25.4 million) after a fierce bidding war. Other top lots included Zao Wou-ki's *17.3.63* (HK$85.2 million) and Yayoi Kusama's *Pumpkin [TWAQN]* (HK$34.66 million). The sale marked the first anniversary of Christie's Asia headquarters in the Henderson building. Sotheby's and Phillips also held autumn sales that weekend, with Sotheby's totaling HK$335.7 million and Phillips achieving HK$160 million.

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Thieves have stolen nearly 2,000 gold and silver coins from the House of Enlightenment, Denis Diderot, in Landres, France, in a nighttime break-in. The heist occurred just hours after a daylight robbery at the Louvre, where eight Napoleon-era jewels worth approximately $102 million were taken from the Galerie d’Apollon. Authorities are investigating possible connections to a series of recent museum burglaries in France, including incidents at the Jacques Chirac Museum in Sarran, the National Adrien Dubouché Museum in Limoges, and the Natural History Museum in Paris.

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London art dealer Oghenochuko Ojiri has been sentenced to two years and six months in prison for failing to declare that he sold artworks to Nazem Ahmad, a collector sanctioned by the US government since 2019 for financing Hezbollah. Ojiri pleaded guilty in May to eight charges of failing to disclose potential terrorist financing under the Terrorism Act 2000, marking the first conviction under this specific offense. Evidence showed Ojiri researched Ahmad's identity, saved him as 'Moss Collector' in his contacts to obscure the relationship, and ignored a colleague's warning, all while continuing transactions to boost his gallery's reputation.

Exhibit Features Works by Ward Nichols

An exhibition titled “From Reality to Realism, A Lifetime Perspective,” featuring works by veteran artist Ward Nichols, opened at the Wilkes Art Gallery in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina on April 17. The opening event included a jazz performance by the Todd Wright Trio, hors d’oeuvres and drinks, and a street closure on C Street / Ward Nichols Way. Nichols, a full-time professional artist for over 60 years, has participated in 200 group shows, more than 170 solo exhibitions across 94 galleries and museums in 24 states, and has received 30 major awards including the Grumbacher Award of Merit from the El Paso Museum of Art. The exhibit runs through June 17.

Why global museums like LACMA are turning their attention to India’s art market

Global museums like LACMA are increasingly turning their attention to India’s art market, which has matured significantly in recent years. This is evidenced by heightened interest from international galleries and institutions in Indian art fairs, high auction prices for works by the Bombay Progressives, and growing global engagement with events such as Art Mumbai.

Southern Plains Indian Museum to Open 2025 Fall Exhibition

The Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma, announced the opening of its 2025 fall exhibition, "Newly Acquired Contemporary Works from the Southern Plains Indian Museum Collection," running from September 8, 2025, through January 8, 2026. The exhibition features two- and three-dimensional works by 14 Native American artists from the Southwest, Northern Plains, and Southern Plains, including Jack Anquoe Jr., Beth Bush, Nocona Burgess, and others, showcasing oil and acrylic paintings, ledger drawings, beadwork, quillwork, silverwork, pottery, and textiles.

‘Our pattern, our document’: this Indigenous Australian community is using design to assert its rights

A new exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in Sydney, titled 'Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala', showcases the work of 90 Yolŋu artists from the remote community of Yirrkala in Australia's Northern Territory. The exhibition highlights how the community's art centre, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, has produced sacred clan designs known as miny'tji for eight decades, and how these patterns were used as legal and political documents to assert land and sea rights. Key moments include the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition, the Saltwater Project (1996) initiated by artist Djambawa Marawili, and the subsequent 2008 High Court ruling recognizing Indigenous ownership of the intertidal zone under the Land Rights Act.

Column | I road-tripped the Midwest’s best art museums. It was anything but an escape.

Art critic Sebastian Smee embarked on a summer road trip to visit seven major art museums across five Midwestern cities over five days. The column reflects on how the rapid succession of artworks and ideas from these institutions—ranging from the Art Institute of Chicago to the Cleveland Museum of Art—creates oblique connections and correspondences, both among the works themselves and between art and the outside world. Smee describes the experience as anything but an escape, as the art continually mirrors real-world events and emotions.

Fire-damaged room at Castle Howard brought back to life by meticulous restoration

The Tapestry Drawing Room at Castle Howard, a historic stately home in Yorkshire, England, has been meticulously restored after being gutted by a fire in 1940. The room, originally adorned with early 18th-century tapestries woven by John Vanderbank and based on scenes by David Teniers, was reduced to a scorched shell. Nick Howard, whose family has lived in the house for three centuries, oversaw the restoration, which involved reinstalling the original tapestries—found rolled up in the attic—after conservation by Alison Stanton. The centerpiece, a painting by Marco Ricci titled *Judgment of Paris*, and a newly built fireplace based on archival photographs complete the revival.

Modern and Contemporary African and Middle Eastern Art: Olympia Auctions’ Largest Sale to Date

Olympia Auctions will hold its largest-ever sale of Modern and Contemporary African and Middle Eastern Art on May 7, 2025, in London. The auction features over 100 lots including works by pioneering Nigerian artists appearing at auction for the first time, Egyptian modernists from the Zulficar collection, classic South African paintings from a major collection, and Botswanan works on paper. Highlights include a portrait of Oum Kalthoum by George Bahgoury (estimate £25,000-30,000) and satirical portraits by Kingsley Obasi. Olympia Auctions expert Janet Rady, who has led the secondary market for Middle Eastern art since 2013, curated the sale.

Guillermo Del Toro Scored a Different Prize at the Oscars: A Rare Frankenstein Painting

Guillermo del Toro received a rare painting of Frankenstein's Monster by the late British artist Josh Kirby as a gift from collaborators during Oscars festivities, despite his film not winning Best Picture. The painting, which depicts Boris Karloff's iconic portrayal, was previously owned by famed horror collector Forrest J. Ackerman and was sourced through a gallery specializing in pop culture art.