Venice Unveils Stunning New Art Spaces

During the Architecture Biennale preview in Venice, two major new art spaces opened: the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation's new home in a historic palazzo on the San Barnaba canal, and SMAC (San Marco Art Centre), a contemporary art center on Saint Mark's Square designed by David Chipperfield. Additionally, Belgian artist Luc Tuymans accepted a last-minute commission from the Abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore to replace two Tintoretto paintings with his own large-scale works. The Fiorucci Foundation's palazzo, acquired in December 2024, opened May 10 with an exhibition by Georgian artist Tolia Astakhishvili, featuring works made from found materials and drawings on walls, alongside pieces by Thea Djordjadze and Maka Sanadze. SMAC, restored by Chipperfield, currently hosts two exhibitions: one on Australian modernist architect Harry Seidler and another on Korean landscape architect Jung Youngsun.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Says He's Writing a New Musical About the Time the 'Mona Lisa' Vanished Without a Trace in 1911

Andrew Lloyd Webber, the legendary composer behind 'The Phantom of the Opera,' has announced he is developing a new musical centered on the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s 'Mona Lisa.' The production will dramatize the true story of Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian glazier who stole the masterpiece from the Louvre, leading to a two-year international search before the painting was recovered in Italy.

Meet the ‘Bop Artist’ Who Was Inspired by Dreams and Hosted Some Surreal Salons in Her Chicago Brownstone

Gertrude Abercrombie, a self-taught Chicago painter dubbed the "bop artist" by jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie for translating the spirit of bebop into visual art, is receiving her largest-ever traveling retrospective. The exhibition, "Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery," organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, highlights her dream-inspired, surrealist paintings and celebrates her role as a bohemian salon hostess who brought together iconic jazz musicians and writers in her home.

Michael Clark’s Controlled Movements

Choreographer Michael Clark's 2003 work *Satie Studs* was revived as part of the live event programme for Peter Doig's exhibition *House of Music* at London's Serpentine Galleries. Dancer Jules Cunningham performed the minimalist solo, set to Erik Satie's piano preludes, showcasing controlled, precise movements that distilled ballet and yoga poses into a stark, deliberate sequence.

In major auction night, rare Klimt painting smashes records at $236.4 million

Sotheby's held its first sale at its new US headquarters in New York, where Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" sold for $236.4 million, becoming the most valuable work of modern art ever sold at auction and the most expensive artwork ever sold by Sotheby's globally. The record-breaking 20-minute bidding war also saw strong results for works by Edvard Munch ($35.1 million) and a Klimt landscape ($86 million), while the evening's total reached $706 million. However, two top lots by Kerry James Marshall and Barkley L. Hendricks failed to sell, and Maurizio Cattelan's gold toilet "America" drew only a single bid from Ripley's Believe It or Not! for $12.1 million.

Remembering James Hayward, LA’s Adored Cowboy Painter

Abstract painter James Hayward, known for his monochromatic oil and wax impasto works, died last week at age 82. A legendary figure in the LA art scene, Hayward was equally celebrated for his magnetic personality, ribald humor, and storytelling. He rose to prominence in 1977 when included in the group show "Less is More" at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, and was admired by art-world giants such as Dave Hickey, Chris Burden, Nancy Rubins, Ed Moses, and Mike Kelley. Hayward also taught at colleges across the country, including a guest seminar at the University of Southern California, and was a longtime supporter of the LA contemporary art magazine Artillery.

Steve DiBenedetto’s Cosmic Sense of the Absurd

Artist Steve DiBenedetto presents a new body of work in his solo exhibition, "Spiral Architect," at Derek Eller Gallery. The show features 17 paintings ranging from large-scale canvases to intimate works, all characterized by a restless movement between abstraction and figuration. DiBenedetto utilizes a process-heavy technique of adding, scraping, and reworking oil paint to create dense, visionary landscapes filled with octopi, cellular forms, and Rube Goldberg-esque machinery.

David Novros’s Portable Murals

David Novros’s latest exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery showcases his "portable murals," intricate multi-paneled paintings that challenge the traditional concept of art as a mere object on a wall. Utilizing oil and murano on canvas, Novros assembles monochromatic, L-shaped, and horizontal panels with precise intervals that incorporate the gallery wall into the composition. These works are designed to be experienced kinesthetically, responding to shifting natural light and the viewer's physical movement through the space.

Beacons in a Grim World

Two concurrent solo exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen Gallery feature the work of artists Kevin McNamee-Tweed and Tajh Rust. McNamee-Tweed presents enigmatic, tenderly absurd ceramic scenes, while Rust debuts in New York with figurative paintings that explore perception and Black identity through portraits of leisure and experimental silvered glass works.

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Expo Chicago opened on Thursday at Navy Pier Festival Hall, featuring 20 exhibitors from South Korea in partnership with the Galleries Association of Korea. The fair, acquired by Frieze in 2023 alongside the Armory Show, balances regional character with an increasingly international feel. In the 'Exposure' section spotlighting emerging artists, New York-based Palo Gallery devoted its booth to New Orleans artist Auudi Dorsey (b. 1992). By opening day, Dorsey's painting *Rumble* (2025), depicting a Black boxer, sold for $14,000. The work belongs to his 'Gunslinger' series, named after the Louisiana State Penitentiary's boxing team and inspired by boxer Clifford Etienne. Dorsey's booth, designed with wood-like wallpaper to evoke boxing gyms, drew praise. His recent group show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 'In The Game: Sports, Art, Culture,' and a forthcoming solo exhibition at Palo Gallery, 'Southern Whips' (opening May 15), underscore his rising profile.

art nicole eisenman 52 walker politics

Nicole Eisenman's solo exhibition "STY" is on view at 52 Walker in New York through January 10, 2026. The show features recent paintings including "The Auction" (2025) and "Archangel (The Visitors)" (2024), which blend styles from realism to post-Cubist caricature. Curated by Ebony L. Haynes, the gallery is transformed into a single room lined with Homasote board, creating an intimate studio-like atmosphere that includes reference ephemera from Eisenman's Brooklyn studio, such as a printout of Martin Kippenberger's 1984 abstraction.

art ej hill kate zambreno review

EJ Hill's new endurance performance, "Yearning for an Absolute" (2025), is on view at 52 Walker in Tribeca through September 13, 2025. For the duration of the exhibition, the 40-year-old Black queer artist kneels every day, all day, within a red velvet enclosure, referencing Catholic devotional practices, saintly mortifications, and his own history of durational works like "Excellentia, Mollitia, Victoria" (2018) at the Hammer Museum's "Made in LA" biennial. The installation also includes red leather kneelers for sale, framed kneeler pad paintings marked with the artist's indentations, and a neon rectangle reminiscent of Dan Flavin's church installation.

anastasia samoylova casa tua breakfast with

Anastasia Samoylova, an artist who works in photography and painting, is presenting her rarely shown "Breakfasts With" series at Casa Tua Aspen this summer. The series, begun in 2015 after she received her green card, combines breakfast food with photo books by notable creatives, creating still-life "conversations" that serve as daily creative prompts. The exhibition follows her dual show with Walker Evans at the Met, which showcased two differing visions of Florida. In an interview, Samoylova discusses how the series developed from a meditative morning ritual into a practice that helped her ground herself after leaving a tenured teaching position, and how intuitive pairings—like a cut mango with Barbara Kasten's work—emerged from spontaneity rather than conceptual planning.

Georg Baselitz ist tot

German artist Georg Baselitz has died at the age of 88. According to Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, he passed away peacefully on Thursday. Born Hans-Georg Bruno Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, Baselitz fled East Germany in 1957 after political repression and academic conflicts. His first solo exhibition in West Berlin in 1963 was shut down due to scandal, and works were confiscated. He became internationally known in the late 1960s for his radical upside-down painting, a signature inversion that destabilized pictorial logic. He also created an extensive sculptural body of work. Key career milestones include representing Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980 alongside Anselm Kiefer, multiple Documenta appearances, the Praemium Imperiale in 2004, and election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2019. Major late-career exhibitions included "Nackte Meister" at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2023.

Inside the Studio of Abdelkader Benchamma, Cartographer of Invisible Worlds

Dans l’atelier d’Abdelkader Benchamma, cartographe des mondes invisibles

French-Moroccan artist Abdelkader Benchamma is preparing for his upcoming solo exhibition, "Signs and Wonders," at Galerie Templon in Paris. Working from his sun-drenched studio in Montpellier, Benchamma has transitioned from his signature black-and-white ink drawings to large-scale canvases that incorporate celestial blues and earthy mineral tones. The new body of work draws inspiration from 15th and 16th-century manuscripts, specifically the Kitab al-Bulhan and the Book of Miracles, creating a "giant book" of visual narratives that blur the lines between abstraction and figuration.

Marietta Museum of Art & Whimsy closing for summer, but 37 other exhibitions on view at museums in May

The article provides a roundup of museum exhibitions on view in Southwest Florida during May, highlighting five new openings, eight closings, and 25 continuing shows across museums from Sarasota to Naples. Featured exhibitions include Molly Hatch's site-specific ceramic installation "Amalgam" at Sarasota Art Museum, Jillian Mayer's interactive "Slumpies" sculptures, a group show "Something Borrowed, Something New" with works by Louise Bourgeois, Chuck Close, David Hockney, Yoko Ono, Kara Walker, and Ai Weiwei, and Maria A. Guzman Capron's solo textile exhibition "Penumbra." The Marietta Museum of Art & Whimsy is noted as closing for the summer.

Warhol / Basquiat: Paintings' Exhibition Poster (30th Anniversary Edition) , 2015

A limited edition 30th-anniversary exhibition poster for the historic Warhol/Basquiat collaboration is currently being offered for sale. The work, an offset lithographic poster published by the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 2015, commemorates the iconic 1985 exhibition that brought together the king of Pop Art and the rising star of Neo-Expressionism. Signed by the publisher Tony Shafrazi, the piece is part of an edition of 300 and is being shipped from Hong Kong.

‘An incredible instinct for contemporary art’: Doris Lockhart, the overlooked figure behind the Saatchi collection, has died aged 88

Doris Lockhart, the US-born art collector who played a pivotal role in shaping the Saatchi collection and championing contemporary art in the UK, has died at age 88. Alongside her then-husband Charles Saatchi, she helped introduce postwar American artists like Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg to British audiences, and was instrumental in recognizing the Young British Artists (YBAs) of the 1990s, including Damien Hirst and Gary Hume. After their divorce in 1990, Lockhart continued collecting independently, backing emerging talents and expanding her interests to architectural models and drawings.

Here's what's at Southwest Florida museums during July

Southwest Florida museums, from Sarasota to Naples, present a robust July lineup: two exhibitions open, one closes, and 24 continue. Highlights include Chris Friday's first solo museum show "Where We Never Grow Old" at Sarasota Art Museum, featuring large-scale chalk drawings and a site-specific installation exploring safe havens. Other notable shows include "Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press," with works by Martin Puryear and Kerry James Marshall; Jillian Mayer's interactive sculpture series "Slumpies"; Lillian Blades' immersive mixed-media maze "Through the Veil"; and Molly Hatch's site-specific ceramic installation "Amalgam" (2023-24). The Ringling Museum also highlights a newly acquired painting by Juana Romani.

Art Lender Accuses Maddox Gallery of Inflating Value of Art Used as Collateral—’Bizarre and Irrational’ Claim, Says Gallery

Luxury Asset Capital (LAC) has filed a civil complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York accusing Maddox Gallery of inflating the value of artworks used as collateral for loans. The dispute stems from a 2023 deal in which Maddox provided substitute collateral—works by Duncan McCormick and Albert Willem—in exchange for a George Condo painting previously held by LAC. LAC alleges that Maddox engaged in a "pump and dump" scheme, artificially bidding up auction prices for McCormick and Willem works to 10–15 times pre-sale estimates, then using those inflated values to justify trades. After the alleged bid-rigging stopped, auction prices fell, and LAC claims it is left with works worth only a fraction of what Maddox represented. Maddox Gallery co-founder Nick Sharp denies the claims as "bizarre and irrational," calling the lawsuit a baseless attempt to unwind a voluntary agreement.

Was Jeffrey Epstein’s Copy of a Modernist Painting Available for Sale on eBay?

An eBay seller listed a giclée print of Kees van Dongen's painting "Femme Fatale" (ca. 1905), claiming it once hung above Jeffrey Epstein's desk in his Upper East Side townhouse. The listing, titled "Documented by Federal Prosecutors," sought $50,000 and reached $25,000 in bidding before eBay removed it for violating its policies. The print had previously sold at Millea Bros. Auctioneers for $275. The New York Post first reported the listing, which referenced federal documentation of Epstein's art collection.

Radiohead Spectacle in Brooklyn Teems with World-Building Paintings, Sculpture, and Film

Radiohead has launched a multimedia installation, exhibition, and screening experience titled "Motion Picture House KID A MNESIA" at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, running through June 28. The immersive event features artwork related to the band's albums Kid A and Amnesiac, including screenprints, a video array with vintage TVs, and a 25-foot-tall sculpture of the band's recurring "Stickman" figure. The centerpiece is a hour-plus film set in a black-and-white woods, accompanied by the band's music, with no dialogue or wall text, allowing visitors to freely explore the darkened space. Tickets are $72, and the experience will travel to Chicago, Mexico City, and San Francisco.

Two Monet Paintings, Unseen for a Century, Resurface at Auction

Two significant paintings by Claude Monet, unseen by the public for over a century, are being offered at auction by Sotheby's Paris. The works, *Les Îles de Port-Villez* (1883) and *Vétheuil, Effet du Matin* (1901), have been held in private collections for 115 and over 100 years respectively, with the former last exhibited in the early 20th century at Paul Durand-Ruel's New York gallery. Their combined estimates make them the most valuable Monet paintings to appear at auction in France since 2001.

korean dansaekhwa artist chung sang hwa dies 1234771675

Chung Sang-hwa, a leading figure of the Korean Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement, died on January 28 at the age of 93. His death was reported by the Korea Times following a prolonged illness.

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Lorena Levi, a British artist known for her narrative portraits painted on wood, died on January 8 at age 29 after battling pancreatic cancer. Her death was announced via Instagram. Levi gained rapid momentum in the UK art scene over the past few years, staging a show in Milan with M+B gallery, participating in the V.O. Curations program, and being added to Marlborough Gallery's roster shortly before it closed in 2023. Her work is held in the British government's national collection. She was born in Istanbul in 1997, raised in Tel Aviv and the UK, and studied at Art & Guilds in London and Edinburgh College of Art.

mark leckey art school 2151468

Artist Mark Leckey piloted a free month-long art course called Music and Video Lab this summer in Redruth, Cornwall, aimed at attracting people aged 18 to 25 who lack access to formal art education. The course, costing £15,000 with support from Arts Council England, was initiated by curator Teresa Gleadowe of CAST and artist Liam Jolly of Auction House, with final works screened at CAST from August 5 through September 3.

rosenfeld gallery miami 2666270

Rosenfeld Gallery, founded by Michelle Rosenfeld in New York in 1970, has undergone a significant transformation under the leadership of her son Jason Rosenfeld. In 2020, the gallery relocated from New York to Miami’s Design District, and in 2023 it shifted from a public gallery space to a private operation. The gallery now operates as a leading secondary-market contemporary art purveyor, dealing in works on paper, paintings, sculpture, and editions, with a focus on long-term relationships and bespoke client service.

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Artist Heidi Hahn discusses her recent exhibition "Not Your Woman" and the emotional journey behind the paintings in an interview with Thalia Stefaniuk. Originally scheduled to open at Mitchell-Innes & Nash's Chelsea gallery, the show was cancelled when the gallery suddenly closed, leaving Hahn feeling discarded and forcing her to rethink the work. The resulting large-scale canvases feature abstract, monumental female bodies rendered in muted oranges, reds, and blues—figures that are faceless, exaggerated, and more like totems or memories than recognizable women. The conversation explores themes of disappointment, failure, and the tension between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear.

hunter biden art 1988251

The article discusses the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden's art career, focusing on his upcoming exhibition at Georges Bergès Gallery in October. Despite limited public exposure to his work, Bergès is pricing Biden's drawings at $75,000 and paintings at $500,000, placing him in the top tier of emerging artists. The White House issued ethics guidelines requiring buyer identities to remain secret from both Biden and the administration, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. The author questions the wisdom of selling the art given Biden's public struggles with addiction and his family's political prominence.

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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.