open letter demanding more curatorial independence at ago after non acquisition of nan godin work collects 500 signatures 1234772059

An open letter demanding curatorial independence at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) has gathered over 500 signatures after trustee Judy Schulich reportedly blocked the acquisition of Nan Goldin's moving-image work *Stendhal Syndrome* (2024), calling the Jewish American photographer “antisemitic.” The AGO had planned to acquire the work jointly with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center, but the vote was 11–9 against acquisition. In response, curator John Zeppetelli resigned, two volunteer committee members stepped down, and Goldin herself criticized the decision as censorship driven by donor influence. The AGO has since announced a restructuring of its modern and contemporary curatorial committee, splitting it into two groups for 20th- and 21st-century art, effective in 2026.

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The article recounts the author's personal rediscovery of Art Nouveau, sparked by encountering an iron doorknob shaped like a Belgian endive at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin. It explores the movement's history, its German variant Jugendstil, and the philosophical debate between Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno over its merits—Benjamin criticizing it as a superficial escape from industrial reality, Adorno defending its utopian desire to reconcile art, nature, and technology. The piece also notes a contemporary resurgence of interest in the style.

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Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is auctioning Frank Frazetta's painting *Conan the Berserker* (1967), which he purchased directly from the artist for $1 million in 2009. The work, originally used as cover art for a paperback edition of Robert E. Howard's novel *Conan the Conqueror*, will be offered in Heritage Auctions' “Hollywood/Entertainment Signature Auction” on December 9–10, with bidding starting at $10 million. The sale follows a record-breaking Frazetta auction in September, when his oil painting *Man Ape* (1966) sold for $13.5 million.

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Steve McQueen, the Turner Prize-winning artist and Oscar-winning filmmaker, created the soundtrack for Louise Trotter's debut collection as creative director of Bottega Veneta at Milan Fashion Week. The show took place at Fabbrica Orobia, a former zinc factory in Milan, and featured McQueen's sound piece '66 – '76, which pairs vocal recordings by David Bowie and Nina Simone of the song "Wild is the Wind." McQueen attended the event with his daughter Alex, both wearing the brand's signature leather Intrecciato.

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Maurizio Cattelan has partnered with the online art platform Avant Arte for a project centered on a new sculptural self-portrait titled *We Are The Revolution* (2025), which references Joseph Beuys's felt suit. The work lampoons the self-importance of contemporary art while reflecting on the artist's evolving role. Limited to 1,000 resin editions priced at €1,500 each, the release involves a randomized draw and a scavenger hunt in New York, Amsterdam, and London, where sculptures will be hidden in market stalls, bodegas, and an antiques dealership from September 30 to October 7. Prices range from $0.99 to €9,999 depending on location.

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Brazilian sculptor Solange Pessoa is the subject of a solo exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum, featuring her evolving installation *Bags – Aspen version* (1994–2025). The work, originally created in 1994, consists of burlap sacks filled with organic materials such as coffee beans, seeds, feathers, dried peppers, and records by Brazilian musicians, arranged in towers on a dirt-covered floor. Pessoa, who has long been based in Belo Horizonte, has recreated the piece in various locations over three decades, and this iteration marks one of her few solo museum shows outside Brazil.

moma curator jodi hoptman hilma af klint botanical drawings 1234741702

MoMA has acquired a rare portfolio of 46 botanical drawings by Hilma af Klint, created between 1919 and 1920, and will present them in an exhibition titled “What Stands Behind the Flowers” from May 11 to September 27. Curator Jodi Hauptman discusses how the drawings reveal af Klint’s dual approach—traditional figuration alongside abstract diagrams—and her deep engagement with the natural world, including newly discovered evidence that she worked as a professional scientific illustrator for a mushroom specialist.

'It’s like the natural world. Nothing lasts forever': Tadashi Kawamata on creating his temporary sculptures

Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata created a temporary wooden vortex sculpture titled "Tornado" inside the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, made from 5,000 individual pieces of wood and installed on the grand staircase for just two weeks in February. The work was commissioned by Ruinart as part of its "Conversations with Nature" series, which presents a piece in Paris before permanently installing it at the champagne house's headquarters in Reims. Kawamata, who has lived in Paris for 18 years, is known for using found materials and creating site-specific, temporary interventions on or inside architecture, emphasizing spontaneity and impermanence.

New catalogues reveal Royal Collection's vast sculpture holdings—and Queen Victoria's acquisition spree

A new four-volume catalogue, authored by former royal surveyor Jonathan Marsden, documents approximately 1,800 sculptures in the Royal Collection. The publication reveals the unsystematic nature of the collection's growth, driven by royal tastes and historical opportunities, and highlights significant discoveries like a previously unknown bronze satyr by Benvenuto Cellini.

Brooklyn Museum Treasures, History-Making Guitars—and More Collectibles to Watch

The Brooklyn Museum is deaccessioning approximately 200 objects from its collection, including American furniture, artworks, and textiles, through a sale hosted by Brunk Auctions on April 9. Highlights include a rare circa 1690 walnut dressing table, estimated at $80,000–$120,000, and a late 17th-century oak cupboard. The museum states the sale is part of an ongoing effort to convert storage spaces into galleries and that proceeds will fund collection care and new acquisitions.

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The Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) in Ghent has launched "Unforgettable," a landmark exhibition recovering the histories of over 40 women artists who were active in Belgium and the Netherlands between 1600 and 1750. The show highlights the professional success of figures like Princess Louise Hollandine and Maria Schalcken, while also acknowledging the anonymous working-class women who fueled the luxury economy through lacemaking. It challenges the long-held myth that female artists were rare exceptions during the Flemish Golden Age.

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Sotheby’s is offering María Berrío’s mixed-media collage "Act II, Scene 4: Threshold" in its "Contemporary Discoveries" online sale with an estimate of $60,000–$80,000. This specific work previously sold for $380,000 at the Two x Two for AIDS and Art charity auction in 2023, far exceeding its then-retail value of $125,000. The current auction serves as a litmus test for the artist's secondary market resilience following a period of intense speculative trading.

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Thomas Gainsborough's 1750 painting 'Mr. and Mrs. Andrews' is the centerpiece of the Frick's exhibition 'Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture' in New York. The portrait of the newlywed Suffolk gentry is celebrated as Gainsborough's earliest masterpiece, notable for its eccentric composition that gives equal prominence to the couple and their vast estate, hinting at the transactional nature of their marriage.

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Theater director Łukasz Twarkowski's new multimedia production, "ROHTKO," is set to open at London's Barbican Centre on October 2. The four-hour performance, which premiered in Riga in 2022, uses onstage action, video screens, and a techno soundtrack to explore the nature of authenticity in art, taking the Knoedler & Co. forgery scandal—which involved fake Rothko, Pollock, and Motherwell paintings—as a central narrative thread.

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Artnet News is searching for a permanent writer for its Wet Paint gossip column, with guest writers like Janelle Zara filling in temporarily. The column focuses on speculating about the identity of the anonymous Instagram account @artnotnet, which posts humorous, all-caps commentary on art world headlines, and notes the rise of art sales on platforms like Facebook Marketplace.

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James Hyman Gallery is presenting a dual-artist online exhibition titled “Signature Pots: Patrick Caulfield | Derrick Greaves,” which runs through December 25, 2025. The show brings together works by two major British artists—Derrick Greaves (1927–2022) and Patrick Caulfield (1936–2005)—exploring their shared focus on still life, color, and form. Greaves, who represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in the 1950s and was associated with the Kitchen Sink painters, later developed a graphic style linked to Pop art. Caulfield emerged in the 1960s as part of the New Generation alongside David Hockney and Bridget Riley. The exhibition highlights how both artists transformed everyday objects into iconic images, with works such as Greaves's "Still Life with White Lillies" (2021) and Caulfield's "Untitled (signature pots)" (ca.1975) demonstrating their mastery of line, shape, and color.

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The article traces the history of plein air painting, beginning with French painter Pierre Henri de Valenciennes in the 1780s, who created one of the earliest known outdoor oil sketches on the banks of the river Rance in Brittany. It follows the evolution of the practice through British painter John Constable, the Barbizon school in France, and the revolutionary impact of John G. Rand's invention of the paint tube in 1841, which enabled artists like Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir to capture light and atmosphere with unprecedented accuracy.

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The article highlights Medardo Rosso, an Italian sculptor largely overlooked despite his pioneering role in modernist sculpture. A new exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, "Medardo Rosso: The Invention of Modern Sculpture," showcases 50 of his works alongside pieces by over 60 artists including Rodin, Degas, and Brancusi, aiming to reassert his influence. Rosso's radical approach rejected monumentality for materiality and process, embracing subjects from society's fringes and anticipating 20th-century art developments. The show also revisits his bitter rivalry with Rodin, whom Rosso accused of borrowing his signature tilting effect.

George Baselitz, Purveyor of the Tortured Male Genius Myth, Dies at 88

Georg Baselitz, the influential German Neo-Expressionist painter known for his emotionally charged, often violent works and his controversial statements about women artists, has died at age 88. His final paintings will be shown in the exhibition "Eroi d’Oro" at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice starting May 6. Baselitz rose to prominence with his "Heroes" series of monumental male soldiers and his signature "upside down" paintings, which forced viewers to focus on painterly gesture over representation. He was a key precursor to Germany's Neue Wilde movement and confronted Germany's World War II trauma in works that combined expressionistic brutality with Wagnerian grandeur.

Like a concrete aircraft carrier: was LA’s giant new $724m gallery really worth all the carbon emissions?

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is set to open its new $724 million David Geffen Galleries, designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The massive concrete structure, which spans Wilshire Boulevard like a bridge, represents a twenty-year effort led by director Michael Govan to create a non-hierarchical, single-level museum space. The building's design features eight massive pavilions supporting a sprawling 110,000 square foot gallery floor, intended to house the museum's diverse permanent collection in a transparent, fluid environment.

Art21 and CHANEL Culture Fund Introduce an Original Series of Documentary Shorts Designed for Social Media Platforms

Art21 and the CHANEL Culture Fund have partnered to launch 'IRL/url,' a new series of over 30 short documentary films designed for social media. The series, premiering in November 2025, profiles eight contemporary artists—including Neïl Beloufa, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Xin Liu—exploring their work across physical and digital realms. The films will be released on TikTok, YouTube, and Art21's website.

MoMA Survey Shows How Marcel Duchamp Changed the Art Game

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has launched a comprehensive survey of Marcel Duchamp’s work, highlighting the artist's revolutionary impact on the definition of art. The exhibition traces Duchamp's transition from traditional painting to his radical 'readymades,' which prioritized intellectual concepts over aesthetic craftsmanship.

Notes from New York: Rotting Meat

Artist Jen Liu’s solo exhibition 'Pound of Flesh' at Silverlens New York explores the dehumanizing nature of digital labor through visceral imagery of raw meat. The show features paintings where human consciousness is replaced by butcher-shop cuts and an animated video based on Liu’s research into microworkers—individuals who perform repetitive, low-paid tasks to train AI models. By juxtaposing the biological reality of the body with the clinical extraction of data, Liu highlights the physical and psychological toll of the 'Agentic Age.'

Museum as Networked Modality

The article examines the evolving and often problematic relationship between museums and digital art. It highlights the institutional struggle to define and categorize works that use contemporary technologies like AI, blockchain, and robotics, noting that canonical figures like Leo Villareal, Jenny Holzer, and Andreas Gursky are often excluded from the "digital art" label. The piece cites specific examples, from Harold Cohen's early algorithmic work to Sougwen Chung's robotic collaborations and Rhea Myers's responsive NFTs, to illustrate the diverse and transmedia nature of these practices.

Rirkrit Tiravanija to Assemble “A Gathering of Remarkable People” for Qatar Pavilion at Venice Biennale

Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija will headline the Qatar Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale with a collaborative project titled “Untitled (a gathering of remarkable people).” Curated by Tom Eccles and Ruba Katrib, the exhibition will be housed in a temporary tent in the Giardini on the site of Qatar’s future permanent pavilion. The presentation features a multidisciplinary roster including filmmaker Sophia Al-Maria, sound artist Tarek Atoui, sculptor Alia Farid, and chef Fadi Kattan, blending live performance, cinema, and Middle Eastern culinary traditions.

The Asian Market Carries Art Basel Hong Kong

Le marché asiatique porte Art Basel Hong Kong

Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 concluded with strong attendance and significant sales, demonstrating the fair's central role in the Asian art market. The event attracted over 91,000 visitors and featured 240 galleries, with a strong presence from the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and the United States. Major international galleries like Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner reported multimillion-dollar sales of works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Liu Ye, and Marlene Dumas, alongside notable transactions for works by Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley.

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The House Oversight Committee has released a crude drawing that President Donald Trump reportedly gave to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. The sketch, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, features a marker outline of a naked woman with Trump's apparent signature placed where her pubic hair would be. Trump has denied creating the drawing, claiming he has never drawn, and has filed a $10 billion libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch. The New York Times compared Trump's signature on the drawing with his correspondence from 1987 to 2001 and found they "closely matched."

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Ariana Papademetropoulos has debuted a new solo exhibition titled "Glass Slipper" at Thaddaeus Ropac’s gallery in Paris. The show features a diverse range of works, including hyper-realistic paintings of dry-cleaned dresses, surrealist landscapes featuring floating chairs, and a central immersive installation. This centerpiece consists of a mattress and a fish tank filled with 150 kissing fish, accompanied by a commissioned ambient soundtrack by Nicolas Godin of the band Air, designed to evoke a meditative, ritualistic experience.

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Lebanese-born artist Ali Cherri discusses his latest exhibition, "Last Watch Before Dawn," currently on view at Almine Rech in New York. The show centers on his new film, *The Sentinel* (2025), which explores the psychological and physical toll of military service through the figure of a French soldier. This exhibition marks a shift in Cherri’s practice, as he integrated the creation of sculptures and watercolors directly into the filmmaking process, allowing the gallery space to function as an extension of the cinematic set.

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Mernet Larsen, whose painting *Getting Measured* (1999) appears on the cover of the Winter 2025 issue of *Art in America*, discusses the work's origin and evolution in an interview from her home in Tampa, Florida. She explains how the painting marked a turning point from abstraction to a representational style inspired by 12th-century Japanese narrative painting and the parallel perspective technique used by architects, while also incorporating elements from her own abstract works and a self-portrait titled *Indecisive Woman*.