The George Washington Carver Museum in Austin has unveiled its 2026 programming, headlined by the exhibition "Who Draws the Maps?" featuring three decades of work by the late artist Steven Bernard Jones. The museum is also debuting "And Still I Speak," a window installation of century-old photographs from Clarksville, one of the first freedman's communities in the United States, alongside a new core exhibition titled "The African American Presence in 19th Century Texas."
The Wang Contemporary has officially opened its doors in a landmarked Beaux Arts building at 58 Bowery in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Founded by fashion designer Alexander Wang and his mother, Ying Wang, the cultural organization debuted with a site-specific installation by the Brooklyn-based conceptual collective MSCHF titled '20,000 Variations On A Paper Plane In Flight.' The performance featured red and gold paper planes launched from the building's central oculus, blending traditional Lunar New Year symbolism with conceptual art in a space that formerly served as a bank.
The Art Auction Center is hosting a major auction titled "Art Department" at the Central Chidlom department store in Bangkok, featuring over 130 artworks. The event aims to democratize the auction experience by integrating masterpieces and contemporary works into a retail lifestyle setting, moving away from traditional, formal auction environments.
Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) held a Post-War & Contemporary Art sale featuring the private collection of Roberta and Fletcher Benton. The auction, hosted in partnership with Artsy, showcased 121 lots including significant works by California-centric artists such as John Mason, Claire Falkenstein, Peter Alexander, and Mel Ramos. Notable items included Bernar Venet’s steel sculptures, Judy Kensley McKie’s design pieces, and a series of artist-made jewelry by figures like Sonia Delaunay and Billy Al Bengston.
Christie's will auction three significant pieces of jewelry from the collection of philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund. The sale includes a 1969 brooch by Alexander Calder, a 1973 necklace by Anni Albers, and a 1970s bracelet by Louise Nevelson, all artists whose primary work is in other mediums. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Gund's philanthropic organization, the Art for Justice Fund.
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) has opened a new exhibition titled 'Yes &…', inspired by the improvisational comedy rule of accepting and building on ideas. Guest curators Donald Fodness and Tobias Fike selected 18 artists whose work emphasizes process over polish, featuring visible seams, fingerprints, and evidence of human decision-making across painting, sculpture, video, installation, and performance. The exhibition includes interactive elements, such as a sculpture with hand-carved 'ice cubes' intended for viewers to take, and runs through May 3.
Sotheby's second auction in Saudi Arabia, 'Origins II,' concluded with strong results, achieving a hammer total of $15.4 million and an 89% sell-through rate. The sale demonstrated robust demand for regional artists, particularly Arab Modernists, while some high-profile Western works were withdrawn or failed to sell. The standout lot was a 1968 painting by the late Saudi pioneer Safeya Binzagr, titled 'Coffee Shop in Madina Road,' which sold for $1.1 million, significantly outperforming a Picasso work in the same sale.
The Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah, has opened two new exhibitions, “Returning To Wonder” and “All Sketches Wish To Be Real,” featuring international and local artists. Among the featured artists is Alexandra Fuller, a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes cyanotypes of wildlife and who has ties to the Sundance Film Festival—her short film “Sister Wife” was accepted at the 2009 festival. The exhibitions also include works by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist, American artist Lia Halloran, and Utah-based artist Antra Sinha. The center will host a series of public programs, including artist talks, workshops, and a book discussion, to engage the local community.
Guild Hall in East Hampton is opening two exhibitions on Sunday: “Jason Bard Yarmosky: Time Has Many Faces,” a decade-long series of meticulously rendered portraits focusing on the artist’s aging grandparents, and “Liberty Labs: A Decade of Design,” featuring furniture, lighting, and objects by 33 current and former members of the Liberty Labs Foundation design collective. The portraits blend 17th- and 18th-century painting techniques with contemporary, often playful imagery, while the design show highlights collaborative experimentation. Museum director Melanie Crader, who curated both shows, notes that the artists share Brooklyn bases and East End ties.
A new exhibition titled "Harold Keller: Portals" opens at the Alexander Gallery in Fayetteville, Arkansas, showcasing the work of the mid-20th-century artist and educator Harold Keller. Curated by Matthew Bailey, the show features paintings, drawings, and ceramics that blend whimsy, spirituality, and magical realism, drawing from Keller's Jewish upbringing, influences like Paul Klee and Saul Steinberg, and his time teaching in Arkansas and New York. Many works come from the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith collection, and some have never been publicly displayed before.
The article argues that art and science are deeply interconnected, both relying on freedom of thought and cross-disciplinary collaboration. It cites examples like birds' colorful feathers being explained by a study supported by Schmidt Sciences, which found that birds use a layer of white and black feathers to accentuate color—a technique painters have used for centuries. The piece highlights the Artist-at-Sea programme aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too), where artists like Constance Sartor and Jill Pelto collaborate with scientists to communicate marine science to broader audiences. The author, who works with scientists and is married to one, emphasizes that both disciplines pursue truth through different but complementary methods, from Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies to medieval Islamic tilework and Alexander von Humboldt's naturalist drawings.
London's Incubator gallery has opened 'Notes from the Studio', a group exhibition featuring 45 visual artists, writers, musicians, and fashion designers. Each participant contributed one item currently taped or pinned to their studio wall, ranging from personal objects and notes to postcards, sketches, and reference images. Contributors include Tracey Emin, Michael Stipe, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Harland Miller, and Ben Okri. The gallery preserved the original tape or tack used to attach each item and installed the pieces within drawn charcoal 'frames'.
Furman University's Department of Art has announced its spring 2026 exhibition schedule at the Thompson Art Gallery, featuring three shows: Jessica Lambert's "Sportsball" (Jan. 12-Feb. 13), Alexa Wheeler's "ToastLab" (Feb. 19-March 27), and the 2026 Senior Thesis Exhibition. Wheeler will also serve as the spring 2026 True Inspiration Artist in Residence, working in an open studio and collaborating with university departments and the Greenville community. All events are free and open to the public.
Washington and Lee University's Art Museum and Galleries is hosting five temporary exhibitions through Winter Term 2026, including "Edward Burtynsky: Taking Place" at the Reeves Museum of Ceramics, "Moffat Takadiwa: Recoded Memories" at the Watson Galleries, and "Luminous Layers: Glazed Surfaces and the Art of Reflection" alongside "Points of Exchange: Asian Ceramics in the Reeves Collection" at the Reeves Museum, plus "Expressions of Color: Paintings by Evelyn Dawson" at the McCarthy Gallery. The museum is also offering free public programming such as Artful Yoga sessions and an MLK Week Open House featuring artworks connected to the Civil Rights movement.
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Strauss & Co has launched its year-end auctions, featuring five concurrent timed online sessions from 20 November to 8 December 2025, plus a separate contemporary sale titled 'In the Now' running until 9 December. The auctions offer a wide range of modern and contemporary works at accessible price points, including pieces by major South African artists such as Irma Stern, William Kentridge, Sam Nhlengethwa, Norman Catherine, and Alexis Preller. Sessions include 'Re/View' with works from previous auctions, focused sessions on paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, and an 'Art Club' session curated by Strauss & Co specialists.
Kat Lyons has opened her first US institutional solo show, "Full Earth," at Marquez Art Projects (MAP) in Allapattah, Miami. The exhibition features newly commissioned large-scale oil paintings that draw on the ecology, history, and mythology of the Florida Everglades, blending personal narrative with environmental commentary. Lyons, who rarely depicts humans, instead populates her canvases with native and invasive animal species, using them as protagonists in visual fables that explore humanity's relationship with nature.
The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at UConn Avery Point presents "Sight and Sound: Artists Consider Long Island Sound," a group exhibition curated by Richard Klein featuring 14 artists including Brechin Morgan, James Prosek, Martha Willette Lewis, and Marion Belanger. The show explores the ecology, cultural history, and geology of Long Island Sound through diverse media, with works inspired by personal experiences and scientific insights about the body of water.
The Philadelphia Art Museum (PhAM) opens "Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100," a traveling exhibition celebrating the centennial of surrealism. The show features works by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Leonora Carrington, and Man Ray, including Dalí's lobster telephone and pieces inspired by Greek mythology. It is the final and only American stop on the tour, previously shown in Brussels, Paris, Hamburg, and Madrid, and runs through February 16, 2026.
The St. Louis Art Museum has opened "Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea," the first American survey of the German-born artist's work in 20 years. The exhibition features five monumental 30-foot-tall paintings, including the 2024 work "Lumpeguin, Cigwe, Animiki," inspired by Kiefer's 1991 visit to St. Louis and his memories of the Mississippi River. Museum Director Min Jung Kim curated the show, which explores Kiefer's signature use of texture, sculpture techniques, and themes of ruin and resurrection.
William Kentridge's award-winning chamber opera *Waiting for the Sibyl* (2019) makes its New York premiere this week at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn, as part of the inaugural Powerhouse: International arts festival. The opera, which won an Olivier Award in 2023, features an original score by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd, and incorporates Kentridge's animated ink drawings, collages, text projections, and sculptures. Inspired by the Cumaean Sibyl of ancient legend, the work explores themes of fate and uncertainty, with paper leaves from texts like Dante's *Divine Comedy* symbolically blowing through the action. The production was originally commissioned by the Rome Opera as a companion piece to Alexander Calder's 1968 *Work in Progress*.
A massive fire destroyed Claudia Kaatziza Cortínez's Brooklyn studio in the Beard and Robinson Stores building in Red Hook on September 18, just days before her solo exhibition "Salt and Bone" opened at the Furnace: Art on Paper gallery in Falls Village, Connecticut. The blaze, which required 250 firefighters and a barge to contain, consumed 15 years of archives, tools, and equipment, leaving only the 10 works in the exhibition as the entirety of her art practice. The cause remains under investigation, and the building is off-limits.
Studio Sessions, a group exhibition featuring works from Vanderbilt Studio Arts and the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) faculty and staff, concludes its run on September 30, 2025, in Space 204. A closing reception will be held on October 1, 2025, from 3pm to 5pm, offering a final chance to view the works, alongside a live performance by musician and composer Reza Filsoofi, a master of traditional Iranian music and instruments. The exhibition brought together 15 studio art faculty and several staff members, who typically work in their own studios and exhibit elsewhere.
A man was killed on September 17 on the National Mall in Washington, DC, while unloading a 1979 BMW M1 Art Car custom-painted by Andy Warhol. The vehicle was being prepared for the pop-up exhibition 'Cars at the Capital,' scheduled to run from September 17-23 in temporary pavilions near the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. A winch holding the car on a flatbed truck came loose, pinning the victim, who was pronounced dead at the scene; his identity has not been released. Exhibition organizer Hagerty Drivers Foundation canceled the event out of respect for the deceased.
The Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis has opened its largest-ever exhibition, "Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection." The show features over 80 works by nearly 70 artists, with a focus on women artists and artists of color. A centerpiece is a monumental diptych by Joan Mitchell, her last completed work before her death in 1992. The exhibition, which previously traveled from New York City to Berkeley, California, will be on view through January 5.
The 36th Bienal de São Paulo, titled *Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice*, takes its name from a poem by Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. Chief curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside curators Alya Sebti, Keyna Eleison, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, has organized an edition featuring 125 artists, 28 of whom are Brazilian. The biennial includes a new performance program called Tributaries, created with the cultural center Casa do Povo, and debuts on September 5, 2025, with the public run from September 6, 2025 to January 11, 2026.
PhotoIreland, the organization behind Ireland's longest-running photography festival, will open the International Centre for the Image in Dublin's east docklands on July 17. The 1,000-square-metre underground venue, located beneath a mixed-use complex developed by Kennedy Wilson, will feature an inaugural exhibition titled Foreword, showcasing works by artists including Anna Safiatou Touré, Alex Prager, and Basil Al-Rawi. The space includes a studio, artist workspace, and PhotoIreland's library, which is relocating from its Temple Bar location. The project is jointly funded by Kennedy Wilson and Ireland's Arts Council.
Nadya Tolokonnikova, co-founder of Pussy Riot, began a durational performance titled "Police State" at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles on June 5, 2025. Inside a mock prison cell at the Geffen Contemporary, she screams, plays a pink toy piano, synthesizer, and laptop, and layers live music with sampled prison noises to create an 80-hour experimental soundscape. The performance, running until June 15, references her own 2012 imprisonment in Russia for an anti-Putin protest. On the fourth day, MOCA closed due to clashes between ICE agents, the California National Guard, and protesters over immigrant raids, prompting Tolokonnikova to post: "Police State exhibit closed today due to police state."
Ten graduating seniors from Northwestern University's art, theory and practice (ATP) program are presenting a group exhibition titled "Peristeronic" at the Dittmar Gallery, running from May 22 through June 2. The show features work by Lulu Abathra, Isabella Bartling, Alex Bremauntz, Quentin Colson, Helaina Harris, Maggie Musgrave, Lucie Paul, Natalia Tapia Moreno, Grace Wang, and Julianne Zane, with faculty facilitator Lane Relyea. The artists explore themes of community, transition, and personal growth, using techniques such as screen printing, oil painting, spray paint, and digital art.
Christie's Spring Marquee Week, held May 12–15, 2025 in New York, generated $693 million in total sales, exceeding the low estimate by 123% and surpassing the auction house's totals from both May and November 2024. The week featured six evening and day sales, led by the $272 million Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works sale, with the top lot being Piet Mondrian's *Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue* (1922) selling for $47.6 million. Marlene Dumas' *Miss January* set a new auction record for a living female artist at $13.6 million, and additional records were set for Simone Leigh, Emma McIntyre, Louis Fratino, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varo. The overall sell-through rate was 88% by lot, with strong bidding across all price bands.
Sotheby's high-stakes Modern evening sale on Tuesday night ended in shock when Alberto Giacometti's bronze bust "Grand tête mince (Grand tête de Diego)," estimated at $70 million, failed to sell. Bidding stalled at $64.25 million, well below the reserve, and auctioneer Oliver Barker withdrew the lot. The consignment came from the Soloviev Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the late real estate mogul Sheldon Solow, who had declined an auction guarantee. The sale ultimately brought in only $152 million, far short of the $240 million low estimate, with the Giacometti representing nearly 30% of that target.