A secret, invitation-only auction for a single Andy Warhol portrait of Brigitte Bardot was held at a private bar in New York on November 19, 2025, during the major public auction week. Organized by the online platform Fair Warning and presided over by former Christie's auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen, the event attracted elite collectors and resulted in a $16.7 million sale, making it the most expensive Warhol of the season.
The ninth edition of the Palm Beach Modern and Contemporary (PBM+C) art fair opened with a VIP preview benefiting the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens. The fair, presented by Art Miami, features 55 international galleries showcasing a mix of blue-chip modern works, contemporary art, and emerging talent, with highlights including special exhibitions dedicated to Russell Young's Marilyn Monroe centennial works and a satellite exhibition at the sculpture garden.
The Christophers is a new film starring Ian McKellen as Julian Sklar, a once-celebrated 1970s painter who has become a social pariah and reality TV villain. The plot follows a 'reverse art heist' where Sklar’s estranged children hire a restorer and former forger, played by Michaela Coel, to secretly finish a series of nine incomplete portraits of his former lover. The goal is to inflate the works' market value so they can be 'discovered' as masterpieces upon the aging artist's death.
The article previews the spring 2026 visual arts season in San Diego County, highlighting a diverse range of exhibitions and events. It announces the return of Art Gallery Month, a collaborative effort involving 11 local galleries aimed at boosting the visibility of the commercial gallery ecosystem and encouraging local art collecting. Key exhibitions featured include Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya's first California solo museum show, 'In the Garden of Earthly Delights: I Bend to Paradise,' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the La Jolla Historical Society's 'Space Maker,' which explores the intersection of art and architecture. The preview also notes Richard Allen Morris's work at R.B. Stevenson Gallery and lists numerous participating commercial galleries.
2025 Art21 at the Movies
On October 8 and 10, 2025, Art21 hosted its second 'Art21 at the Movies' event in New York. The two-day program featured film premieres, artist talks, and screenings at venues including the Metrograph and the Museum of Modern Art. It highlighted artists from the 'Art in the Twenty-First Century' series and included discussions with filmmakers and curators.
On Curating Carnage
The Berlin-based art journal *OnCurating* published a September 2025 issue titled "Let’s Talk About… Anti-Democratic, Anti-Queer, Misogynist, Antisemitic, Right-Wing Spaces and Their Counter-Movements." The article critiques this publication, arguing it uses the language of feminism, anti-racism, and anti-Semitism as a political tool to unconditionally support Israel and demonize the Palestinian cause, thereby aligning with German state policy and a specific strain of leftist thought known as Antideutsch.
The Vancouver Art Gallery has unveiled 'Highlights from the Collection,' a major long-term exhibition featuring 200 works selected from its permanent holdings of over 13,000 items. Curated by a team led by Eva Respini, the show marks a strategic shift for the institution by committing to a semi-permanent display that will remain on view until 2030. The exhibition includes iconic pieces ranging from Gathie Falk’s ceramics to Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe prints and Claes Oldenburg’s sculptures.
Gagosian is set to expand its footprint at 980 Madison Avenue by opening a new ground-floor gallery space on April 25, 2026. The inaugural exhibition features a landmark presentation of Marcel Duchamp’s iconic readymades, including "Fountain" and "Bicycle Wheel." This selection specifically highlights the 1964 editions produced with Arturo Schwarz, returning these works to the exact building where they made their American debut at the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery over sixty years ago.
Gagosian is set to inaugurate its new ground-floor gallery space at 980 Madison Avenue with a major exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s work, opening April 25, 2026. The presentation features the artist’s iconic 1964 readymade editions, including "Fountain" and "Bicycle Wheel," returning them to the exact historic location where they made their American debut at Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery sixty years prior. The show coincides with a major Duchamp retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Michael Armitage is the subject of a major solo retrospective at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, marking his largest exhibition in Europe to date. Organized by the Pinault Collection, the show features monumental paintings that blend African identity, local Kenyan chronicles, and mythological narratives. Armitage’s work is noted for its physical scale and its ability to transform the chaos of human affairs into a syncretic epic, utilizing traditional materials like Lubugo bark cloth to ground his contemporary subjects.
The Victoria & Albert Museum has launched the V&A Storehouse in East London, a massive open-storage facility housing over 250,000 objects, 1,000 archives, and a vast library. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Austin-Smith:Lord, the space eschews traditional curated narratives in favor of a dense, immersive environment where visitors navigate four stories of artifacts arranged by cataloging logic rather than art-historical themes.
The Menil Collection in Houston is showcasing "The Gift of Drawing: Cy Twombly," an exhibition featuring 27 works selected from a massive donation of 121 pieces by the Cy Twombly Foundation. The show spans four decades of the artist's career, from the mid-1950s to 2005, highlighting his experimental approach to collage, painting on handmade paper, and drawing. Many of these works have never been previously exhibited in the United States, filling significant gaps in the museum's already extensive Twombly holdings.
British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen has been awarded the 2024 Erasmus Prize by the Dutch Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. The prize includes a cash award of 150,000 euros (approximately $172,000) and a specially designed booklet featuring the script of the 16th-century scholar Desiderius Erasmus.
Christie's auction house is launching a major sale titled 'Sublime Shadows' in London on June 11, featuring 93 works of South Asian Modern and contemporary art from an anonymous private collection. This marks the auction house's first dedicated South Asian Modern art sale in London since 2019, highlighting a surge in market activity and curatorial interest for the category.
LACMA, Lucas Museum, Dataland… Los Angeles engagée dans une folle course à la culture
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries building, a massive, controversial structure designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. The $835 million project, funded in part by philanthropist David Geffen, spans Wilshire Boulevard and replaces four older modernist pavilions, sparking a decade-long debate over its design, cost, and the loss of the previous buildings.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired a recently rediscovered Renaissance painting, 'Madonna and Child with Saint John the Evangelist,' by Rosso Fiorentino. The work, believed lost for centuries, was identified after conservation removed layers of overpaint, revealing the figure of Saint John. The Met has already placed the painting on view in its European painting galleries.
Two cars painted by Keith Haring in the 1980s are being exhibited together in New York for the first time. The 1963 Buick Special and 1971 Land Rover are on display at the new West Village gallery Free Parking, operated by the platform CART Dept., from April 9 to 19. The exhibition, "Keith Haring: In The Street," coincides with the release of the book *Keith Haring in 3D* and is owned by collector Larry Warsh.
During Singapore Art Week, the merger of the boutique fair S.E.A. Focus into the larger Art SG fair sparked quiet concern among some participants. Dealers worry the move is a precursor to S.E.A. Focus being absorbed entirely, potentially sidelining its regional focus and making participation more expensive for Southeast Asian galleries. The future of the Singapore Biennale was also debated after a local newspaper article called for its termination.
A major solo exhibition of work by the celebrated artist and activist Tourmaline has opened at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne. Titled "Transcendent," the show is curated by Sophie Prince and runs from December 12, 2025, through March 15, 2026. It features new and existing works, including film, photography, and archival installations that explore themes of Black trans history, joy, and liberation.
Nos 5 expos coups de cœur à voir en galeries ce printemps à Paris
Paris is experiencing a vibrant gallery season this spring, marked by the arrival of major international players and the rediscovery of overlooked artists. Highlights include the opening of Singapore’s Cuturi Gallery at the Palais-Royal with a cross-disciplinary show on decadence, and the London-based Waddington Custot establishing a new space in Saint-Germain-des-Prés with an exhibition bridging Nabis masters and contemporary painters. Other notable shows include a first-ever public look at the surrealist collages of Roland Sig and a dialogue between neo-impressionism and contemporary art at Galerie Pavec.
Salvador Dalí's 1936 painting 'Necrophiliac Spring' will be exhibited in the UK for the first time as part of the 'Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art' exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The show, dedicated to designer Elsa Schiaparelli, runs from March 28th to November 8th.
Chicago's diverse landscape of pop culture and contemporary art is highlighted through a curated list of seven key destinations in the metropolitan area. The selection ranges from the Volo Museum’s collection of Hollywood vehicles and Titanic artifacts to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s extensive permanent collection of over 2,000 modern works and high-tech media displays.
Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser, a Berkeley-based couple, are debuting their private collection of women artists at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Titled "Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection," the exhibition features highlights from a half-century of collecting, including works by Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, and Jacqueline Humphries. The show coincides with the couple's significant donation of nearly 150 artworks to the museum, marking the first time these pieces have been displayed outside their home.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has unveiled the David Geffen Galleries, a $724 million concrete-and-glass structure designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. Spanning Wilshire Boulevard, the 110,000-square-foot horizontal gallery space floats 30 feet above ground and features a non-chronological layout intended to encourage wandering. The interior is characterized by pigment-infused concrete walls, floor-to-ceiling windows with specialized metal curtains by Reiko Sudō, and a lack of traditional white-cube galleries.
Abu Dhabi is celebrating World Art Day 2026 with a series of high-profile events centered in the Saadiyat Cultural District, most notably the exhibition "Picasso, the Figure" at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Running until May 31, the show features loans from the Musée National Picasso-Paris and the Musée du Louvre, exploring the artist's lifelong obsession with the human form. The festivities also include documentary screenings, olfactory art experiences, and extensive community workshops at Manarat Al Saadiyat covering ceramics, textiles, and printmaking.
The Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art have co-organized a major exhibition and catalogue exploring Marcel Duchamp’s complex relationship with art institutions. Despite his reputation as a skeptical iconoclast who famously claimed to avoid the Louvre, Duchamp spent decades actively reshaping how museums function through his "portable museum" projects, curatorial collaborations, and the strategic placement of his legacy within permanent collections.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has launched a comprehensive retrospective of Marcel Duchamp, marking the first major American survey of the artist's work in five decades. The exhibition follows a chronological path through Duchamp’s radical career, featuring early pen-and-ink drawings, his transition through Cubism and Dadaism, and his revolutionary "readymades" like the urinal titled Fountain. Highlights include the rare gathering of all three versions of Nude Descending a Staircase and documentation of his final, secretive installation, Étant donnés.
The UAE art scene is currently hosting a diverse array of exhibitions across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah, despite regional disruptions. Key highlights include a major Picasso retrospective at Louvre Abu Dhabi, a 10th-century anniversary celebration at 421 Arts Campus titled 'Rays, Ripples, Residue,' and the inaugural photography exhibition at Sharjah Art Foundation’s new Al Manakh venue. These shows range from historical surveys of the human form to contemporary explorations of UAE’s urban development and climate change.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is preparing for the public debut of its $724-million David Geffen Galleries, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. Ahead of the April 19 member opening, public discourse has intensified following a series of reports detailing the building's architecture, the reinstallation of Alexander Calder’s "Three Quintains (Hello Girls)," and the project's massive budget. Reader reactions remain deeply polarized, reflecting a two-decade-long debate over the structure's unconventional design and its impact on the urban landscape.
Artist Shana Moulton is set to discuss her multidisciplinary practice at the "Humanities Decanted" event on April 21. The talk will focus on her long-running 'Whispering Pines' series and her recent site-specific installation at MoMA’s Kravis Studio, which features her iconic alter ego, Cynthia. Developed in collaboration with composer Nick Hallett, the project utilizes performance and video to explore a multi-chapter narrative centered on themes of wellness and consumerism.