Jasper Johns Keeps Looking

Jasper Johns’s latest exhibition at Gagosian, 'Between the Clock and the Bed,' serves as a profound meditation on the artist's career-long investigation into the 'things the mind already knows.' By revisiting his signature motifs—including flags, targets, and crosshatch patterns—the show highlights Johns’s rejection of Abstract Expressionist spontaneity in favor of a deliberate, analytical process using encaustic and collage. The works document a transformation where familiar symbols are rendered into a complex visual language that bridges the gap between memory and physical presence.

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Artnet and Morgan Stanley have released a comprehensive analysis of the photography auction market spanning 2005 to 2024. The report reveals that while the volume of photography lots sold has more than doubled over two decades, the total annual sales value has remained largely stagnant, rising from $113.4 million in 2005 to $116.9 million in 2024. When adjusted for inflation, this represents a significant 36.7 percent decline in market value, with average prices for photographs dropping by over 50 percent during the same period.

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Gagosian is set to present a solo exhibition of Nam June Paik’s work in Seoul, marking the first time in 25 years that a show in the artist’s home country has been organized in collaboration with his estate. Titled "Nam June Paik: Rewind / Repeat," the exhibition will be held at the APMA Cabinet and features approximately a dozen works, including rare early pieces from the 1960s such as "Media Sandwich" and the iconic "TV Bra for Living Sculpture."

Hiba Schahbaz: The Garden

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Hiba Schahbaz is the subject of her first major museum retrospective, "The Garden," at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. Curated by Jasmine Wahi, the exhibition features 80 works spanning 15 years, tracing the artist's evolution from traditional Indo-Persian miniature painting in Lahore to her current large-scale practice in Brooklyn. The show highlights her recurring use of the female nude—often a stylized self-portrait—navigating mystical landscapes filled with Sufi poetry, mythical creatures, and art historical references.

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Artist Amy Sherald has been named one of TIME magazine’s 2026 Women of the Year, a distinction honoring her leadership and commitment to equity. The recognition follows Sherald's high-profile decision to withdraw her solo exhibition, "American Sublime," from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., after the institution attempted to censor or alter the presentation of her painting 'Trans Forming Liberty' (2024) due to political pressure. The Baltimore Museum of Art subsequently stepped in to host the show, where it has since shattered all-time attendance records for the institution.

ADAA Art Show 2016 Review

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The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) kicked off Armory Week with its 2016 edition of The Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory. The fair is characterized by a high concentration of solo-artist presentations, featuring a diverse range of works including Milton Avery's paintings, Jasmin Sian's intricate paper deli bags, and Deborah Butterfield's bronze horse sculptures. Notable highlights include Maria Elena González’s player piano rolls based on birch bark patterns and a strong showing of female artists like Gillian Wearing and Mary Bauermeister.

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Singapore's Art SG fair featured a new pavilion called South Asian Insights, backed by India's TVS Motor Company, showcasing contemporary art from South Asia. The pavilion, which included eight galleries and featured a tapestry by Raqib Shaw sold to a Japanese collector, was crowded and highlighted the rising market for South Asian art.

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Artnet News lists 10 immersive installation artworks that are creepy enough to double as haunted houses for Halloween. Featured works include Alex Da Corte's "Die Hexe" (2015) at Luxembourg & Dayan, which transformed a townhouse into a ghostly dollhouse with a morgue; Mike Kelley's "Exploded Fortress of Solitude" (2011) at Hauser & Wirth, a sculptural interpretation of Superman's lair; Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe's "Scenario in the Shade" at Red Bull Studios, a dystopian arts festival installation; Tobias Rehberger's "Bar Oppenheimer" (2013) at Hotel Americano, featuring disorienting dazzle camouflage patterns; and Puppies Puppies' "Gollum" at Queer Thoughts, where an actor in a Gollum mask performs live.

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Artnet News examines the top five auction results for Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose meteoric rise and tragic death at age 27 fueled a legendary market. The list includes works such as "Versus Medici" (1982), which sold for $50.82 million at Sotheby's in 2021; "El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile)" (1983), which fetched $67.1 million at Christie's in 2023; and "Untitled" (1982), which reached $85 million at Phillips in 2022. The article highlights the artist's synthesis of graffiti and Renaissance aesthetics, his relationships with figures like Andy Warhol, and the explosive growth of his market over the past decade.

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David Hockney's double portrait *Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy* (1968) sold for $44.34 million at Christie's New York on November 17, 2025, just shy of its $50 million high estimate. The sale ranks among the highest prices ever for the artist at auction. The article also reviews Hockney's top five auction results, including *The Splash* (1966), which fetched $29.92 million at Sotheby's London in 2020, and *Nichols Canyon* (1980), which sold for $41.07 million at Phillips New York in 2020. All five of Hockney's most expensive works have sold within the past seven years, reflecting sustained demand for his early and mid-career masterpieces.

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Barbara Chase-Riboud, now 86, reflects on her transformative 1958 trip to Egypt, which she undertook on a dare as a 19-year-old student at the American Academy in Rome. The journey, during which she explored the pyramids and temples of Luxor and Karnak alone, profoundly influenced her artistic practice, leading her to create abstract bronze sculptures that evoke ancient Egyptian forms. The article traces her remarkable career as a sculptor and writer, highlighting her many firsts: the first Black female artist acquired by MoMA (at age 16), the first Black woman to earn an MFA from Yale, the first living female artist to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the only visual artist to appear on the cover of Ebony.

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Jenny Saville, the British painter known for her monumental depictions of flesh, is the subject of her first major U.S. museum exhibition, "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting," now on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. The show, which previously opened at London's National Portrait Gallery in June, brings together 45 works from across her career, including charcoal drawings and large-scale oil paintings. In a rare interview, Saville discusses seeing older works like *Plan* again and how the Fort Worth museum's architecture suits her largest canvases. The exhibition runs through January 2026, ahead of a major 2026 showcase in Venice.

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Sperone Westwater, the venerable New York gallery that celebrated its 50th anniversary two months ago, will close as an entity on December 31, 2025. Co-founders Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone have decided to pursue separate endeavors, affecting 28 artists and estates. The gallery, known for representing legends like Bruce Nauman and David Lynch, will continue its current Richard Long show through December 13 and attend Art Basel Miami Beach as planned. The closure follows months of rumors and comes as both partners are in their 80s.

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Y.Z. Kami's painting *Messenger (The Forrest)*, priced around $300,000, is currently on offer at Gagosian's Beverly Hills gallery. The work is part of a series the artist began in 2022 based on photographs taken during travels in India. Kami, born in Tehran in 1956 and based in the U.S. since 1984, is known for large-scale portraits in oil on linen. The painting is featured in Kami's exhibition 'The Domes' at Gagosian, which runs through August 8 and includes three Messenger paintings, one already sold. The show marks his first West Coast solo exhibition since 2016–17 at LACMA.

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The sixth edition of New York's Upstate Art Weekend, founded by Helen Toomer in 2020, runs July 17–21 across the Catskills and Hudson Valley, featuring 158 participating art organizations—a dramatic increase from 23 in its first year. Highlights include a Kishio Suga solo show at Dia Beacon, Sonia Gomes's first U.S. outdoor installation at Storm King Art Center, a group exhibition of seven women artists at Toomer's new project space Upbringing, Tomokazu Matsuyama's homage to Edward Hopper at the Edward Hopper House Museum, and a comparative show of Georgia O'Keeffe and Thomas Cole at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.

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British artist Jenny Saville has received her first major solo exhibition at a London museum, titled "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting" at the National Portrait Gallery. The show spans three decades of her practice across some 50 paintings and drawings, tracing her evolution from a Young British Artist (YBA) known for vast, sensitive paintings of women's bodies to her recent digital-era heads. The exhibition will travel to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas in October. The article also highlights Saville's record-breaking 2018 sale of *Propped* for $12.4 million at Sotheby's London, which made her the highest-selling living female painter at the time, and notes recent auction results including *Juncture* selling for $7.3 million.

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The first U.K. public institutional solo exhibition of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara opened at London's Hayward Gallery in June 2025, featuring over 150 works spanning four decades. The retrospective includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations, such as the large-scale painting "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" (2017), which sold for $12.3 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong. Notable visitors include artist Takashi Murakami and collector RM of BTS. The exhibition runs through August 31.

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Tracey Emin, the renowned British artist and former YBA, is the subject of a major new exhibition titled "Sex and Solitude" at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy—the first comprehensive show of her work in the country. Curated by the museum's director general Arturo Galansino, the exhibition features some 60 works spanning 30 years, including paintings, drawings, film, photography, embroidery, sculptures, and neon installations. Emin created a new neon piece for the facade, and many works are being shown in Italy for the first time. In a video interview, she emphasized the show is not a retrospective but a living, present-focused exploration of her themes of sexuality, love, trauma, and solitude.

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A judge has sentenced two men for stealing Maurizio Cattelan's 18-carat gold toilet, titled "America," from Blenheim Palace in England during a 2019 raid. Michael Jones received 27 months in prison for burglary, while James Sheen was sentenced to four years, added to his existing 19-year term for other crimes. The theft took less than five minutes, causing major flooding and water damage when the toilet was ripped from the plumbing. Police arrested four men in November 2023, with evidence including DNA, phone messages, and CCTV footage leading to convictions. Fred Doe received a suspended sentence, and Bora Guccuk was found not guilty. None of the gold has been recovered and is believed to have been chopped up and sold.

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Celine is partnering with the Centre Pompidou to offer free public access on four select days this summer, coinciding with Wolfgang Tillmans's major exhibition "Nothing Could Have Prepared Us – Everything Could Have Prepared Us." The initiative, "Accès Libre par Celine," launches June 13 and continues on July 3, August 28, and September 22. Tillmans's exhibition occupies the museum's entire second floor, typically home to the Bibliothèque publique d'information (Bpi), and runs through September 22. Rather than a chronological retrospective, the installation engages directly with the building's architecture, repurposing library furniture and redesigning partitions. The show follows Tillmans's traveling retrospective "To Look Without Fear" at MoMA in 2022 and a recent solo presentation at David Zwirner.

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The Nahmad family sold a Francis Bacon painting titled *Pope* (1958) for $15 million at the VIP opening of Art Basel. The work, which had been purchased by Helly Nahmad gallery for $6.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2019, was the second-highest known price at the fair, trailing only a $40 million Louise Bourgeois *Spider* sold by Hauser & Wirth.

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Artnet News' Wet Paint gossip column presents a selective summer guide for the art world, highlighting key exhibitions and social hotspots. In Manhattan, the Upper East Side offers the Park Avenue Armory's Diane Arbus photo exhibition, the Met's John Singer Sargent show, and the newly opened Frick with its Westmoreland café. Downtown, Bar Oliver in Two Bridges has become an art world haunt, co-created by Olmo and Cy Schnabel. The column also previews themed group shows: "Hope is a dangerous thing" at P.P.O.W. and "CAKE" at Olympia Gallery, featuring edible artworks. Exclusive news reveals the engagement of Lucas Zwirner to Charlotte Lindemann, merging two powerful art-dealing families. Additionally, Sky High Farm in Germantown, New York, is launching a new biennial with works by Anne Imhof, Rudolf Stingel, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

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An enormous painting of Leonardo DiCaprio by Damien Hirst, titled *Beautiful Leonardo DiCaprio Looking Away Painting* (2016), sold for $1.3 million at the amfAR Gala in Cannes, France, on May 25. The work, a colorful spin painting signed by both the actor and artist, was donated by collector Christian Levett and auctioned by Simon de Pury. The gala raised $17 million total, with the top lot being a $1.6 million Aston Martin DB12, and also featured artworks by Claire Tabouret, Cecily Brown, Andres Valencia, and Robert De Niro.

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Artist Brad Kahlhamer prepares for his first solo exhibition with Venus Over Manhattan at 39 Great Jones Street, featuring energetic paintings on bedsheets that blend Plains Indian winter counts, pop-cultural graphics, and Manhattan's post-punk scene. The article follows Kahlhamer through the week leading up to the show, including his visit to TEFAF New York at the Park Avenue Armory, where his work "American Horse" was displayed in the gallery's booth, and his reflections on the installation process and the portable bedsheet medium inspired by Indigenous traditions.

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Frieze New York 2025 is approaching, and Artnet News has published a guide to must-see museum and gallery shows across the city. Highlights include dual exhibitions by Kennedy Yanko at Salon 94 and James Cohan, a solo show by Salman Toor at Luhring Augustine, two concurrent Picasso exhibitions at Gagosian and Almine Rech, and a major survey of Rashid Johnson at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The guide covers emerging and established artists, with shows running from April through July 2025.

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Rashid Johnson's mixed media work *Untitled Escape Collage* sold for $292,100 at Phillips's Modern and contemporary art day sale in New York on May 14, falling short of its low estimate and representing a 72 percent loss in value for the consignor, who had purchased it for $816,500 at the same auction house in 2022. The disappointing result coincides with Johnson's solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

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This roundup covers multiple developments across the Asian art world. Notable events include the death of Korean artist Suki Seokyeong Kang at age 47; Robin Peckham leaving his role as co-director of Taipei Dangdai; Lucy Liu becoming a partner at Rachel Uffner Gallery, which will rebrand as Uffner and Liu; STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery presenting the first Southeast Asian solo show for Cuban artist Wifredo Lam; Art Week Tokyo returning with Adam Szymczyk curating its AWT Focus platform; Japanese painter Yu Nishimura joining David Zwirner; and the Rijksmuseum inviting Fiona Tan to curate a major exhibition. Other highlights include the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Tate Liverpool's planned 2027 reopening with a Chila Kumari Singh Burman retrospective, a Louvre-Doraemon collaboration, Boo Ji-hyun's permanent installation in Japan, Christie's Hong Kong Spring Asian Art Week sales totaling HK$567.6 million, and Sotheby's postponing a controversial Hong Kong auction of Buddhist relic-linked jewels. Hyundai Artlab named Jiaying Sim and Elvia Wilk as its 2025 Artlab Editorial Fellows.

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The article reveals the little-known friendship and correspondence between Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and American modernist Georgia O'Keeffe. In 1955, a 26-year-old Kusama, inspired by O'Keeffe's work, wrote to her from Japan seeking guidance. O'Keeffe replied within 20 days, offering advice and encouragement, including urging Kusama to move to the United States and show her art widely. Their decades-long correspondence helped Kusama make her career-defining move to America, though the two met only once, in New York, six years after their first exchange.

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Christie’s marquee auction on Monday night in New York generated $488.8 million in total sales, led by Piet Mondrian’s 1922 painting *Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue*, which sold for $47.6 million—just shy of the artist’s $51 million auction record. The sale featured the Leonard & Louise Riggio collection, the largest single collection of the season, comprising 39 works estimated at $252–326 million; after one withdrawal and one unsold lot, the group achieved $271.9 million. Many high-profile lots, including works by Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Barbara Hepworth, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol, sold on single bids to third-party guarantors, reflecting a cautious market.

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This article explores the growing trend of artist-made furniture, which blurs the line between functional design and fine art. It highlights how artists like Salvador Dalí, Isamu Noguchi, Donald Judd, Tracey Emin, and the duo Les Lalanne have created pieces that invite physical interaction—such as sitting or touching—while retaining high art status. Gallerist Massimo de Carlo notes that collectors are drawn to this merging of art and life, and that such works offer both conceptual depth and investment value. The article also notes market disparities, with editions of furniture costing far less than unique works, though some pieces, like a François-Xavier Lalanne rhinoceros desk, have sold for nearly $20 million at auction.