Vasari Art Codex

article news schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 6 link 2 artists

epstein files andres serrano 2713719

Newly released Epstein files, shared on the House Oversight Committee website, reveal direct email exchanges between artist Andres Serrano and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. In an October 2016 email, Serrano discussed voting for Donald Trump as a sympathy vote due to disgust over the outrage at Trump's sexist comments. Epstein responded briefly, and Serrano mentioned his exhibition "Torture" in Ireland. The pair had a prior acquaintance in the 1990s, and in 2018 they agreed to a trade: Serrano would photograph Epstein in exchange for a statue.

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person people schedule Nov 14, 2025 visibility 7 link 7 artists

friedrich kunath 2702451

Artist Friedrich Kunath, known for his sincere yet absurd paintings, discusses his unlikely friendship with tennis star Reilly Opelka, who is also an art collector. The two share a mutual obsession with each other's crafts—Kunath coaches Opelka in tennis, while Opelka seeks Kunath's insights on artists like Philip Guston. Kunath is preparing for his solo debut at Pace Gallery in New York this November, following his move from Blum Gallery, which closed shortly after. He reflects on the loneliness of both tennis and art, and his creative process, which draws heavily from music and film.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 23, 2025 visibility 4 link 3 artists

eames house restored reopened 2670603

The Eames House, designed by Charles and Ray Eames in the late 1940s in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades, has reopened after a six-month closure due to smoke damage from the January 2025 wildfires. The property was saved from destruction partly because hundreds of surrounding trees were removed in 2024. The restoration has expanded visitor access, opening the studio for the first time, which will host exhibitions on the house's evolution and contemporary design influences. The first exhibition may focus on community rebuilding after the fires.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 23, 2025 visibility 9 link 10 artists

art market mugrabi nahmad kenny schachter 2669458

Kenny Schachter critiques the art market's doomsaying media narrative, coining the acronym Salsa (Scribes Always Love Sensational Apocalypse) to describe clickbait-driven hype. He contrasts current market anxieties with past downturns, notably the 1991-1996 recession when the market evaporated, citing a 1991 Roberta Smith article. Schachter observes that the Nahmads and Mugrabis, once feuding families, now invest together, and he recounts his experience at Phillips during his "Hoarder 6" exhibition, where young collectors showed genuine interest. He argues that the market, though wounded, remains healthy and calls for a less transactional, more patient approach to selling art.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 2 link 2 artists

refik anadol lionel messi favorite goal ai data sculpture 2655552

Refik Anadol's A.I. data sculpture "A Goal in Life," based on Lionel Messi's favorite goal from the 2009 Champions League final, sold for $1.87 million at Christie's. The artwork uses millions of data points, including Messi's biometric voice data, breathing patterns, and heartbeat rhythms, to recreate the moment in an immersive 16K-resolution mirrored room. Proceeds benefit education programs in Latin America and the Caribbean supported by the Inter Miami CF Foundation.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 4 link 8 artists

maripol sophie bramly joopiter marketplace sale 2668796

Maripol, the French-born photographer who documented downtown New York's 1980s cultural scene, is selling selections from her archive through Joopiter's Marketplace platform in a sale titled "Downtown Archive: '80s – '90s New York." The sale includes her Polaroid portraits of icons like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Madonna, Grace Jones, Debbie Harry, and Andy Warhol, as well as ephemera such as an invitation to Fiorucci's 15th anniversary party at Studio 54. Also featured are artifacts from Sophie Bramly, creator of "Yo! MTV Raps," including her custom bomber jacket and photographs of hip-hop pioneers like Kool Herc, Run-DMC, and Keith Haring. The sale is rounded out with vintage designer fashions from Chanel, Thierry Mugler, Bob Mackie, and Donna Karan, curated by retailer Vintage Grace.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 17, 2025 visibility 4 link 10 artists

top auction results june 2025 2665014

The summer 2025 auction season concluded with total sales of $85.7 million, a significant drop from $105 million the previous year. The top lot, François-Xavier Lalanne's *Grand Rhinocrétaire II* (2003), sold for $16.42 million at Sotheby’s New York, far below last June’s $29 million top price. Other notable results include Tamara de Lempicka’s *La Belle Rafaëla* (1927) at $10.18 million, two Jean-Michel Basquiat works, and a strong showing by Jacek Malczewski’s *Reality* (1908) at Desa Unicum in Warsaw.

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article culture schedule Jul 2, 2025 visibility 4 link 4 artists

total pixel space jacob adler a i film festival 2662774

The article reports on the third annual International A.I. Film Festival held at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York, sponsored by Runway. The festival featured 10 short films judged by directors Harmony Korine and Gaspar Noé. The gold medal was awarded to composer and artist Jacob Adler for his 9-minute essay film "Total Pixel Space," which explores the concept of a finite grid of pixelated color values containing all possible visual images, from personal memories to alien civilizations. The film uses AI-generated imagery to illustrate this philosophical idea without explicitly mentioning AI.

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article culture schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 4 link 2 artists

bob dylan point blank book 2661190

Bob Dylan, at 84, is releasing a new book titled *Point Blank (Quick Studies)* in November 2025, published by Simon & Schuster. The volume collects about 100 drawings he created between 2021 and 2022, featuring portraits, still lifes, and landscapes in black-and-white. The works were originally the foundation for his current exhibition of the same name at Halcyon Gallery in London, on view through July 6. The book includes prose contributions from writers Lucy Sante and Eddie Gorodetsky.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 11 link 10 artists

phillips modern and contemporary art by the numbers 2644759

Phillips held its marquee May auction in New York, achieving $52 million in total sales, down from $86.3 million the previous year. The top lot was a Jean-Michel Basquiat work owned by David Bowie, which sold for $6.59 million. Four lots were withdrawn before the sale, five failed to sell, and the sell-through rate was 77.5 percent. Despite a low-energy room, five artist records were set, including four for women artists: Ilana Savdie, Olga de Amaral, Kiki Kogelnik, and Grace Hartigan, and one for James Turrell.

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article news schedule Jun 19, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

casa batllo restores back facade courtyard 2658852

Casa Batlló, Antoni Gaudí’s iconic Barcelona landmark, has completed a €3.5 million ($4 million) restoration of its long-neglected back façade and courtyard. The project involved stratigraphic paint analysis to uncover original colors—revealing that the now-cream stucco was once deep gray and the windows originally green—along with restoration of trencadís mosaics, ironwork, wooden elements, and an 85,000-piece Nolla mosaic. The courtyard’s custom planters and parabola-shaped pergola were also rebuilt, returning the rear of the house to Gaudí’s original vision for the first time in over a century.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 17, 2025 visibility 2 link 3 artists

art market minute jun 16 2657259

Art Basel, the world's largest art fair, returns from June 17 to 22 amid ongoing market contraction and geopolitical instability. Meanwhile, Sotheby's London will auction the private collection of legendary art patron Pauline Karpidas in a 250-lot sale this September, estimated to fetch a record-setting $81 million. Additionally, Frieze will relocate to a new venue in Seoul for its fourth edition in the South Korean capital.

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article culture schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 4 link 3 artists

conceptual nude portraits set web abuzz 87992

Trevor Christensen, a photographer from Provo, Utah, has gained viral attention on Imgur for his "Nude Portraits" series, in which he photographs fully clothed subjects while he himself is nude. The project aims to address the inherent power imbalance between photographer and subject by shifting vulnerability onto the photographer. Christensen's subjects react with a range of emotions—embarrassment, slyness, queasiness—which he captures as unguarded moments. The series is documented on his Instagram and his website, where he invites participation from Utah and beyond.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 7 link 4 artists

new institute of sexology celebrates history of erotic art film photography 178311

The Wellcome Collection in London has opened a new exhibition titled "The Institute of Sexology," celebrating the history of erotic art, film, and photography. The show features a wide range of objects including archival material, ethnographic and medical artifacts, erotica, and works by contemporary artists such as John Stezaker, Sharon Hayes, Zanele Muholi, and Timothy Archibald. It highlights pioneers of sexology like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Marie Stopes, and marks the first exhibition after the institution's £17.5 million expansion, inaugurating a new gallery for large, year-long shows.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 7 link 6 artists

the gates christo jeanne claude 2609948

Artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude developed 'The Gates' for New York City's Central Park in 1979, but the project faced over two decades of bureaucratic hurdles before finally being installed in 2005 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The work consisted of 7,503 steel gates with orange nylon fabric along 23 miles of pathways, using 5,390 tons of steel. Now, on its 20th anniversary, a comprehensive survey titled 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates and Unrealized Projects for New York City' is being held at the Shed, accompanied by an augmented reality experience via the Bloomberg Connects app.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 8 link 4 artists

christo jeanne claude the gates ar shed 2607923

An augmented reality (AR) experience is reviving Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s iconic 2005 installation *The Gates* in New York’s Central Park. Starting in February 2025, visitors can use the Bloomberg Connects app to view virtual saffron-colored fabric panels suspended over 23 miles of park pathways, recreating the original work that featured 7,503 panels on metal arches. The project is a collaboration between the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, the New York City Parks Department, the Central Park Conservancy, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, with support from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Shed is concurrently hosting an exhibition documenting the project’s history, including original arches and a scale-model diorama.

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gavel restitution schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 3 link 4 artists

frida kahlo art missing at casa azul allegations 2654311

Hilda Trujillo Soto, the former longtime director of the Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul), has alleged that numerous artworks by Frida Kahlo are missing from the museum's collection and may have been sold at auction in the U.S. to private collectors. In a blog post, she accused the Casa Azul board of ignoring evidence of missing art uncovered during her 18-year tenure, and claimed that the sale or transfer of works from the Diego Rivera inventory would violate both the artist's bequest to the people of Mexico and Mexican law. Several missing works, including the painting *Peoples' Congress for Peace* (1952), which sold for $2.66 million at Sotheby's in 2020, appear to have passed through Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art in New York.

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trending_up market schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 6 link 3 artists

lost gustav klimt portrait african prince tefaf maastricht 2621432

A long-lost Gustav Klimt portrait of an African prince, missing since World War II, has resurfaced and is now on view at TEFAF Maastricht with a €15 million ($16.4 million) price tag. The painting, titled *Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona* (1897), was brought to W&K – Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Gallery in 2023 in poor condition, but a stamp from Klimt's estate led to its identification by catalog raisonné author Alfred Weidinger, who had searched for it for two decades. The work depicts an Osu prince from present-day Ghana, created after Klimt attended an ethnographic exhibition at Vienna's Tiergarten am Schüttel where Osu people were put on display. The painting had been owned by Ernestine and Felix Klein, Jewish collectors who fled the Nazis, and is now being shown after a restitution settlement with Klein's heirs.

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trending_up market schedule May 20, 2025 visibility 4 link 5 artists

art basel qatar 2647140

Art Basel is expanding to the Middle East with a new fair in Doha, Qatar, set to launch in February 2026. The inaugural edition will feature around 50 galleries from local and international scenes, held across two venues: M7 and the Doha Design District. The fair is a partnership between Art Basel, Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), and QC+, a cultural commerce collective under Qatar Museums. A new artistic director will be announced soon, and the fair aims to scale up over time, with additional art activations in outdoor spaces like Msheireb Museums and Barahat Msheireb square.

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article culture schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 4 link 10 artists

inside peter paul rubenss secret life as a spy 2628889

Peter Paul Rubens, the renowned Baroque painter known for dramatic altarpieces and 'Rubenesque' figures, also led a secret career as a diplomat and spy for the Holy Roman Empire and Spanish Habsburgs. The article details his early life, education, and apprenticeship, and reveals how he used his artistic access to European courts to gather intelligence, including while working on commissions for Marie de' Medici in France. His diplomatic efforts helped broker peace between Spain and England, and he was appointed Secretary of the Flanders' Council.

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article culture schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 5 link 9 artists

salvador dali mustache origin 2628935

Salvador Dalí's iconic mustache, voted the Most Famous Mustache of All Time in a 2010 Telegraph survey, originated in the 1940s after he initially sported a more subdued "Menjou" style in the 1930s. The artist developed his flamboyant upturned mustache, first appearing in his painting *Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon* (1941), and maintained it with meticulous daily grooming using date-based wax. Dalí treated the mustache as a personal logo and creative symbol, even co-authoring a 1954 book with photographer Philippe Halsman titled *Dalí's Mustache*, featuring 28 surreal photographs.

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trending_up market schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 5 link 7 artists

by the numbers despite 70 million giacometti failure sothebys made money at modern evening sale 2644393

Sotheby's Modern art evening sale in New York generated $186.4 million in total sales after fees, but the headline was the failure of Alberto Giacometti's 1955 sculpture *Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego)*, estimated at $70 million, which failed to receive a single bid. Despite the high-profile flop, Sotheby's walked away with $34.4 million in buyer's premium net of fees paid to third-party backers, and because it did not guarantee the Giacometti, it faced no financial risk from the unsold lot. The top seller was Pablo Picasso's *Homme assis* (1969), which sold for $15.1 million with fees. The sale's sell-through rate was 76.9 percent, and the hammer total of $152 million fell $88.3 million below the presale low estimate.

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article news schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 1 link 1 artist

smith partner art investment firm 11m fraud 2568860

Smith and Partner, a London-based art investment firm, has been accused of defrauding over a thousand investors out of $11 million through a scheme involving high-pressure sales of limited edition art prints with promises of future returns that rarely materialized. The company, founded by Austrian citizen Peter Paul Adam in 2015, faced complaints from 2020 onward, leading to its bank freezing accounts and an investigation by British Trading Standards. Liquidators are seeking $17 million in compensation, and a High Court judge has upheld asset freeze orders against former director Luke Sparkes and his company Zeno Fine Art, which allegedly inflated print prices by nearly 500 percent.

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article policy schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 4 link 15 artists

national garden of american heroes analysis 2636464

President Trump is moving forward with the National Garden of American Heroes, a monument featuring 250 life-size statues of American historical figures, to be built for the U.S. semiquincentennial in 2026. The project, first announced in a 2020 executive order, has released grant guidelines offering $200,000 per sculpture, with $34 million diverted from the NEA and NEH. The list of 244 subjects includes figures like Hannah Arendt, Neil Armstrong, and John Singer Sargent, with six remaining to be chosen by a presidential aide. The statues must be realistic, using materials like marble or bronze, and the location is still undecided, though South Dakota is a strong contender.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 29, 2025 visibility 4 link 3 artists

baishui resonating with water 2584963

At Art Basel Miami Beach, Shanghai- and Hong Kong-based artist Baishui debuted seven large-scale mirrored stainless-steel sculptures titled "Raindrop 1-7" (2024), which invert the scale of raindrops to become enormous, solid forms that slow viewers down and invite reflection. The works were presented as part of the Land Art Forward platform alongside Alan Sonfist's "Burning Forest" (2024), forming a collaborative project called "Rebirth in the Inferno" that explores the fusion of water and fire in response to climate change.

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rate_review review schedule May 5, 2026 visibility 5 link 3 artists

Lubaina Himid’s British pavilion at the Venice Biennale review – alienation in a green and pleasant land

Lubaina Himid's installation at the British pavilion of the Venice Biennale presents monumental paintings and a wall of painted oars depicting tailors, cooks, architects, gardeners, and sailors—figures who shape Britain. The work is accompanied by an audio piece of bucolic country sounds, but the black figures in the paintings exchange sideways glances of discomfort, questioning whether they truly belong. The exhibition is anchored by 26 philosophical questions on the wall, such as "Can flies settle here?" and "Can poison taste delicious?"

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article policy schedule Apr 22, 2026 visibility 8 link 4 artists

Art for art’s sake, but for people’s health too | Letter

Art Fund director Jenny Waldman responds to a philosophical article about art's intrinsic value, arguing that while art should be enjoyed for its own sake, promoting its measurable health benefits can serve as a crucial entry point for new audiences. She cites the organization's National Art Pass adverts and recent research with King's College London, which demonstrated immediate physiological responses to viewing original art, as tools to invite people who might otherwise feel excluded from cultural institutions.

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article news schedule Apr 15, 2026 visibility 5 link 5 artists

Bridget Jones statue becomes permanent resident of Leicester Square: ‘She makes Londoners feel seen’

A bronze statue of the iconic literary and film character Bridget Jones has been granted permanent residency in London’s Leicester Square. Originally intended for a three-year temporary stay, the sculpture was unveiled in November as part of Westminster Council’s 'Scenes in the Square' trail, joining other cinematic figures like Harry Potter and Mary Poppins. The decision to make the installation permanent coincides with the 25th anniversary of the first film's release.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 13, 2026 visibility 8 link 2 artists

And this one shows the police evicting me: the fabulous fabric visions of Elizabeth Allen

The British textile artist Elizabeth Allen, who lived in a dilapidated hut and gained brief international fame in the 1960s after being discovered by artist Patrick Heron, is the subject of a major rediscovery. A new exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire features works that have been hidden in storage or private collections for nearly fifty years, including the first public display of 'Autobiraggraphy,' a textile work documenting her wrongful eviction in 1934.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 7, 2026 visibility 16 link 6 artists

‘Even more beautiful than I imagined’: the nifty Japanese printing gadget uniting artists worldwide

Designer Gabriella Marcella has curated a new exhibition at Glasgow’s Glue Factory Galleries celebrating the global community of risograph printing. The show highlights work from her 'Riso Club' initiative, a non-profit program that distributes monthly sets of artist-designed postcards from cities ranging from Kyiv to Damascus. Originally developed in Japan in the 1980s as an affordable office tool, the risograph has been reclaimed by independent creatives for its unique soy-ink aesthetic and tactile, screenprint-like quality.

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