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Sotheby’s held its annual modern and contemporary art sale in Singapore on Sunday, achieving $13.1 million across 62 lots with a 94% sell-through rate. The top lot was Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres’s *Weavers* (1953) at $1.2 million, followed by Takashi Murakami’s *Blue Signals* (2017) at $1.06 million. New artist records were set for Pacita Abad, whose *Assaulting the eye with Ecstasy* (1984) sold for $389,400, and Singaporean artist Anthony Poon, whose *Colour Waves* (1986) fetched $129,800. Bidders came from Southeast Asia, the US, the UAE, Europe, South Korea, Japan, India, and China.

Miles Davis Emerged From Middle America to Become the ‘Picasso of Jazz’ and Taught Us All How to Be Cool

Miles Davis, born in 1926 in Illinois, rose from a middle-class background to become a transformative figure in jazz. He left formal studies at Juilliard to play with Charlie Parker, but soon forged his own iconic sound characterized by intimate tone and phrasing, most famously on the seminal *Birth of the Cool* sessions. His career was defined by constant reinvention, pioneering multiple major movements from cool jazz and modal recording to jazz fusion, earning him the nickname "the Picasso of Jazz" from Duke Ellington.

At the New Museum, Parallel Visions of Humanity’s Future Emerge

The New Museum's latest exhibition explores the evolving definition of humanity through the lens of technological advancement and ancestral wisdom. The show juxtaposes the anxieties of modern machine labor—exemplified by Simon Denny’s Amazon worker cage—with Indigenous epistemologies and animist traditions that offer alternative ways of inhabiting the world. By featuring artists like Jaider Esbell and Santiago Yahuarcani, the exhibition highlights how hybridity and relationality can resist the rigid hierarchies of Western modernity.

Top Hudson Valley Art Exhibitions to See in January 2026

The article surveys five notable art exhibitions opening in the Hudson Valley region in January 2026, each exploring how artists connect to place, time, and memory. Shows include "Earth Endures, Stars Abide" at Carrie Haddad Gallery, featuring five painters interpreting local landscapes; "Notes from Here" at O+ Exchange, presenting intimate works by 15 O+ artists; "Wish You Were Here" at the Tremaine Art Gallery, pairing Fern Apfel and Colleen McGuire in a meditation on memory and observation; and "Connecting Emergence" at Lace Mill Galleries, showcasing Paul Keskey's layered oil paintings of nature and imagination.

Boulder County’s latest art exhibits

The Boulder County arts community is hosting a diverse array of exhibitions across its galleries and museums this spring. Key highlights include Jorge Vinent’s environmentally focused works at Ana’s Art Gallery, the group exhibition "Yes &…" at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and a historical exploration of segregation at the Collective Community Arts Center. The region is also showcasing student work from the Boulder Valley School District and various solo presentations by local artists like Rodney Carswell and Jessica Rohrer.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a series of sweeping tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, ruling in a 6-3 decision that the executive branch exceeded its authority. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, stated that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not grant the president the power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited scope and duration. While tariffs on steel and aluminum remain, the ruling removes the 10 percent global blanket tariff and the 25 percent reciprocal tariffs previously levied against Canada, China, and Mexico.

Here’s what’s on Boulder County’s art gallery walls

A roundup of current and upcoming exhibitions at over 20 galleries and art spaces in Boulder County, Colorado, is provided. Listings include lithographs by Santa Fe artist Rodney Carswell at 15th Street Gallery, Jorge Vinent's recycled-material works at Ana's Art Gallery, Margaret Johnson's "Emergence" at BMoCA at Frasier, and group shows at Liminal Light Gallery and the New Local Gallery, among many others. Exhibition dates range through mid-2025, with venues spanning commercial galleries, nonprofit centers, libraries, and museum spaces.

Boulder County art exhibits on display this week

This article lists dozens of current and upcoming art exhibitions across Boulder County, Colorado, featuring a wide range of venues from commercial galleries like 15th Street Gallery and Ana’s Art Gallery to nonprofit spaces such as Art Parts and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA). Highlights include lithographs by Santa Fe artist Rodney Carswell, Jorge Vinent's recycled-material works in "We Choose Earth," and student showcases at Canyon Theater and Gallery. The roundup also covers community-focused shows like "Racism & Discrimination at the Lafayette Swimming Pool 1934" and group exhibitions at Liminal Light Gallery and The New Local Gallery.

Playinghouse Presented the Téte-a-Téte Exhibition at MDW 2026

Playinghouse, an emergent New York art and design platform, presented the group exhibition "téte-a-téte" at two locations during Milan Design Week 2026: Villa Pestarini and Certosa District. Curated by Margherita Dosi Delfini, assistant curator at the Design Museum, the show featured site-responsive works by independent talents including Anna Dawson, Romain Basile Petrot, Caleb Engstrom, Liyang Zhang, Atelier Fomenta, Maha Alavi, and Francesco Rosati. The exhibition emphasized contextualized domestic settings over sterile white cubes, with pieces in eggshell, glass, rubber, and metals that responded to each venue's architectural history.

In 2025, new ‘independent and nimble’ art fairs began redrawing the market map

In 2025, several established art fairs were cancelled or postponed, including the Art Dealers Association of America's Art Show in Manhattan, Taipei Dangdai, Photofairs Hong Kong, and the India Art Fair's Mumbai expo. Amid these retrenchments, a wave of smaller, alternative art fairs emerged in cities like New York, Paris, and the Berkshires, organized by gallerists and curators seeking new formulas focused on coalition, affordability, and intimacy. Examples include Esther in Manhattan (co-founded by Margot Samel and Olga Temnikova), the Arrival Art Fair in North Adams (co-founded by Yng-Ru Chen, Crystalle Lacouture, and Sarah Galender Meyer), 7 rue Froissart in Paris (organized by Sara Maria Salamone and Brigitte Mulholland), and Post-Fair in Santa Monica (founded by Chris Sharp).

What’s Left to Learn from Marcel Duchamp?

The article examines Marcel Duchamp's enduring influence on contemporary art, focusing on his readymades such as "Fountain" (1917) and "Bicycle Wheel" (1913/1951). It notes that a major survey co-organized by the Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 70 years after Duchamp predicted his true public would emerge in 50 to 100 years, reaffirms his status as the most influential artist of the past century. The piece discusses how Duchamp's practice of selecting and presenting ordinary objects as art—from a urinal to a snow shovel—once shocked the art world but now seems quaint compared to later works like Maurizio Cattelan's taped banana.

New exhibition highlights work from '80s art superstars

The Lévy Gorvy Dayan Gallery on Manhattan's Upper East Side has opened "Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties," an exhibition co-curated by Brett Gorvy and legendary downtown gallerist Mary Boone. The show features works by iconic 1980s New York artists including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Julian Schnabel, Barbara Kruger, Jeff Koons, Francesco Clemente, Kenny Scharf, the Guerilla Girls, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, and Louise Lawler. Admission is free, and the exhibition runs through December 13.

Korean Cultural Center New York Presents the Major Exhibition "Lee Kang So: A Field of Becoming"

The Korean Cultural Center New York (KCCNY) presents the major exhibition "Lee Kang So: A Field of Becoming," on view from May 13 to June 20, 2026. The show features the work of pioneering Korean contemporary artist Lee Kang So (b. 1943), who since the 1970s has worked across photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, resisting fixed forms to explore how art emerges through process, material, and context. The exhibition includes key works from his 1970s performances and installations, as well as later sculptures and paintings that foreground gravity, chance, and bodily gesture. Lee, who was active in New York in the 1980s and participated in MoMA PS1's Studio Artist Program, returns to the city with this exhibition at KCCNY's expanded venue.

Here’s what’s on the gallery walls in Boulder County

Boulder County’s art scene is currently hosting a wide array of exhibitions across its museums, galleries, and community centers. Highlights include the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art’s eclectic group show "Yes &…," a historical examination of segregation at the Lafayette Swimming Pool in the 1930s at the Collective Community Arts Center, and a showcase of Indigenous ecological knowledge at the Dairy Arts Center. The region is also emphasizing local talent through the Boulder Valley School District student showcase and various member exhibitions at the Louisville Art Association and Liminal Light Gallery.

Beyond the prompt: when the medium is generative AI, the artist becomes a systemic director

Oltre il prompt: quando il medium è l’AI generativa l’artista diventa regista sistemico

The article argues that as AI-generated images become more spectacular, the role of the artist is often misunderstood as merely writing prompts. Instead, the author contends that the most significant generative artworks are systems—predetermined rule-based environments where the artist designs the conditions for images to emerge. Works like Hans Haacke's "Condensation Cube" (1963-1965) and Refik Anadol's "Unsupervised" (2022) exemplify this shift from object to process, where the artwork is the behavior or architecture itself.

A New York si è svolta un’asta di oggetti di design con risultati clamorosi (specchi da 30 milioni e altro ancora)

On April 22, 2026, Sotheby's in New York auctioned the first part of the Jean and Terry de Gunzburg collection, comprising around 125 exceptional design and contemporary art pieces. The sale, held at the Breuer Building, achieved a complete sell-out and became the most valuable design auction ever in the United States, totaling $96 million. A highlight was a new auction record for Claude Lalanne: a set of fifteen mirrors originally commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent sold for over $30 million, surpassing the previous record set by her husband François-Xavier Lalanne's Hippopotame Bar.

Remembering John Sailer, the gallerist and champion of Austrian art, who has died, aged 87

John Sailer, the founder of Vienna's Galerie Ulysses and a key champion of Austrian avant-garde art, has died at age 87. Sailer opened the gallery in 1974 with Gabriele Wimmer in a garage space before moving to its permanent location at Opernring 21. Over five decades, the gallery showcased Austrian artists such as Hans Hollein, Maria Lassnig, Walter Pichler, Arnulf Rainer, and Fritz Wotruba, alongside American greats like Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Helen Frankenthaler. Sailer also worked to promote Austrian and German artists in US museums, notably organizing a Rainer exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum and the Menil Collection, and successfully introducing Lassnig to the New York market at age 70.

Everything to know about David Geffen Galleries as a new LACMA emerges

The Los Angeles Times reports on the upcoming David Geffen Galleries, a new building that will become the centerpiece of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as it undergoes a major transformation. Designed by architect Peter Zumthor, the structure is part of a long-delayed, multi-billion-dollar renovation project that aims to modernize the museum's campus and consolidate its collection under one roof. The article details the timeline, design features, and the controversies surrounding the project's cost and scope.

The Sistine Chapel Is Coming to a Mall in Suburban New Jersey

A traveling exhibition featuring high-definition, full-scale replicas of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes is opening for an indefinite run at the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, New Jersey. The show, "Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition," presents all 34 ceiling and altar masterpieces using advanced printing techniques, allowing visitors to view the works up close without the crowds and time constraints of the Vatican.

May 2026 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists

Colossal's May 2026 opportunities roundup lists multiple open calls, residencies, and grants for artists worldwide. Featured opportunities include the Scenerium 2026 Art Award (deadline May 7), the Hopper Prize offering $4,500 and $1,000 artist grants (deadline May 12), and the SaveArtSpace Billboard Art Open Call curated by Gigi Chen (deadline May 7). Other listings include the YICCA Art Prize, CIFRA Award, Cass Art Prize for the U.K. and Ireland, Sunshine Coast National Art Prize in Australia, an opportunity to get published in Artistonish magazine, and the Abbey Mural Prize.

Harper’s Bangkok Gallery Opens its Doors, Bringing Western Artists to Thailand

Harper's Bangkok, a new outpost of the New York-based gallery group founded by Harper Levine, opened in late March 2026 on the ground floor of the Siam Pathumwan House building. Its debut exhibition, 'Lost and Found', is a solo show by American artist Joel Mesler featuring 18 new vibrantly colored works, marking his first presentation in Southeast Asia. The gallery is the first major Western commercial gallery to establish a permanent space in Bangkok, joining a rapidly maturing local art ecosystem.

East Boulder County Artists studio tours on tap; plus Boulder County’s latest art exhibits

The East Boulder County Artists spring studio tour returns this weekend, offering a self-guided tour of 54 artists across 37 locations in Longmont, Niwot, Gunbarrel, Louisville, and Lafayette. The tour features demonstrations in painting, ceramics, glass, jewelry, mixed media, encaustic, fiber, wood, and sculpture, with free maps available at local businesses and libraries. Additionally, the article lists numerous current and upcoming art exhibitions in the Boulder area, including shows at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 15th Street Gallery, Ana's Art Gallery, and several other venues.

Week in art: 0417

The Boulder area is hosting a diverse array of art exhibitions and events across various local institutions and galleries. Highlights include Rodney Carswell’s lithographs at 15th Street Gallery, Jorge Vinent’s eco-conscious works at Ana’s Art Gallery, and the group exhibition "Yes &…" at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Other notable shows include a historical examination of racism at the Lafayette Swimming Pool and a student showcase from the Boulder Valley School District at the Canyon Gallery.

David Klein Gallery opens new Ferndale headquarters with grand opening celebration

David Klein Gallery, a prominent contemporary art space in Michigan, is relocating to a new 3,000-square-foot headquarters at 678 Livernois Ave. in Ferndale. The move consolidates its previous Birmingham and Detroit operations into a renovated warehouse with natural lighting and dedicated parking. A grand opening celebration is scheduled for July 11-12, 2025, featuring an evening reception with wine and music, followed by an open house and artist talk. The inaugural exhibition will showcase new works by Ferndale-based artist Susan Goethel Campbell and Detroit-based ceramicist Ebitenyefa Baralaye, with both shows running through August 23.

United States

The Art Newspaper has launched a digital newsletter offering a daily digest of essential news, views, and analysis from the international art world, delivered directly to subscribers' inboxes. The announcement, published under the title "United States," invites readers to subscribe for curated coverage of the global art scene.

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An unidentified 34-year-old man died after jumping from the Whitney Museum in New York on Wednesday evening, shortly before the museum closed. Whitney director Scott Rothkopf informed staff via email, stating that authorities confirmed the individual jumped from Whitney property onto the plaza below. The New York Police Department responded to a 911 call at 5:26 p.m. and found the man unconscious and unresponsive with injuries indicative of a fall; he was pronounced dead at the scene. The museum delayed its opening to noon on Thursday to allow staff time to process the incident, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is investigating.

Lost Parthenon Piece Unearthed From Lord Elgin’s Shipwreck

A small marble fragment from the Parthenon has been recovered from the wreck of the Mentor, a ship owned by Lord Elgin that sank in 1802 while transporting sculptures from the Acropolis to Britain. The fragment, discovered off the Greek island of Kythira by the Greek Ministry of Culture's underwater antiquities unit, is a decorative gutta likely from the temple's entablature or roof edge.

Taína Cruz Interview

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Taína H. Cruz has emerged as a central figure in the 2024 New York art season, achieving the rare feat of being featured simultaneously in the Whitney Biennial and MoMA PS1’s "Greater New York." A 2023 Yale MFA graduate, Cruz has become the literal face of the Whitney Biennial, with her painting "I Saw the Future and It Smiled Back" displayed on a massive billboard outside the museum. Her work, which often explores Black female identity through a lens of folklore, horror, and celebrity culture, is characterized by a moody and unsettling atmospheric quality.

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The Syrian government has announced plans to reopen the ancient city of Palmyra to tourists as early as next summer, following extensive damage inflicted by ISIS. The historic UNESCO World Heritage Site, once attracting 150,000 visitors annually, was occupied twice by the terrorist group, which destroyed iconic structures including the Temple of Bel, the Temple of Baal Shamin, and the Arch of Triumph, and beheaded the city's head of antiquities, Khalid al-As'ad. Restoration efforts are underway with assistance pledged from UNESCO, Russia, Poland, and Italy, focusing on repairing the Old City and restoring artifacts such as the Lion of Al-lāt statue.

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Monument Lab and Bryn Mawr College have unveiled a permanent public artwork by Nekisha Durrett titled "Don't Forget to Remember (Me)" in the school's Cloisters courtyard. The installation features 9,000 custom pavers arranged in an intertwined knot pattern, with 250 of them engraved with the names of Black staff whose labor was essential to the college's early operations but went unrecognized. The project emerged from a multiyear initiative called Art Remediating Campus Histories, which included symposia, lectures, and community consultations to address the institution's histories of systemic exclusion.