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Novelist Ben Lerner reflects on Rose Salane’s installation '60 Detected Rings (1991–2021)' as part of a new series exploring impactful artworks. The piece consists of rings recovered by a metal detectorist over three decades in Atlantic City, which Salane subsequently analyzed through laboratory 'melt value' reports and psychic readings. Lerner describes the work as a profound exercise in 'revaluation,' where discarded objects are transformed into auratic relics through scientific and spiritual inquiry.

Greek TV Auctioneer Arrested for Trafficked Artworks, Paul Klee’s ‘Angelus Novus’ Stuck in Israel: Morning Links for March 24, 2026

Greek television art auctioneer Giorgos Tsagarakis was arrested in Athens on felony charges for trafficking forged and stolen artworks and antiquities. Authorities dismantled his alleged counterfeit network after a social media post served as evidence, seizing hundreds of paintings, many believed to be forgeries, along with artifacts and cash. Collectors had grown suspicious after recognizing their own stolen items on his TV show.

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The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) has secured a major promised gift of over 150 modern and contemporary artworks from collectors Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser. This significant bequest focuses exclusively on women artists, featuring works by major figures such as Louise Bourgeois, Julie Mehretu, and Kara Walker. To celebrate the acquisition, the museum is launching "Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection," an exhibition showcasing 65 pieces that trace the impact of second-wave feminism on artistic production.

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CORE and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary are launching "Get Up Stand Up: Artists for Jamaica and Los Angeles," a high-profile benefit auction scheduled for February 26 during L.A. Art Week. The event features over 20 works by major contemporary artists including Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, and Nari Ward, with a live sale led by auctioneer Simon de Pury. Proceeds will fund long-term recovery efforts following Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and recent wildfires in Los Angeles, as well as CORE’s ongoing emergency response work.

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Iris Cantor, the prolific art collector and philanthropist whose patronage transformed major American institutions, has died at the age of 95 in Palm Beach, Florida. Alongside her late husband, B. Gerald Cantor, she amassed one of the world's most significant private collections of Auguste Rodin sculptures, eventually donating hundreds of works to museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Her death marks the end of an era for a donor whose name is synonymous with some of the most prominent gallery spaces and wings in the United States.

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Ashley Stewart Rödder, a highly respected director at Gagosian, has passed away at the age of 42 following a prolonged illness. During her tenure at the gallery since 2019, she was instrumental in managing the careers of prominent contemporary artists including Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Stanley Whitney, Titus Kaphar, and Deana Lawson. Her career also included significant leadership roles at Salon 94 and David Zwirner, as well as board positions at the nonprofit Performa and the Children’s Art Guild.

Jewish Heirs File Suit in French Court Over Ownership of Pissarro Painting

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Seven heirs of the late department store magnate and art collector Max Julius Braunthal have filed a lawsuit in a French court, seeking to nullify the 1941 sale of Camille Pissarro's painting 'Haystacks, Morning, Eragny' (1899). They argue the sale was made under duress during the Nazi occupation of France. The painting is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which maintains Braunthal received fair market value.

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The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation has donated 14 artworks to two Parisian museums, the Musée Carnavalet and the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. The donation includes preparatory collages, silkscreens, lithographs, and a scale model related to both realized and unrealized projects by the artist duo, such as the wrapped Arc de Triomphe and Pont-Neuf, as well as early sculptures.

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Newly released documents from the Department of Justice, part of the Jeffrey Epstein case, contain email exchanges from 2013 that reference prominent art collectors Steve Tisch and Jean Pigozzi. The emails show Epstein facilitating introductions between Tisch and multiple women, with discussions about their backgrounds and travel arrangements. Tisch has stated the association was brief and expressed regret.

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The Flemish government's plan to dissolve M HKA, a contemporary art institution in Antwerp, has been met with legal opposition after the museum initiated a legal review that claims the move would be illegal. The review, presented to the press on Tuesday with artists Luc Tuymans and Otobong Nkanga in attendance, argues that the government's proposal—which would close M HKA, transfer its collection to Ghent, and rebrand S.M.A.K. as the Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art by 2028—contains "flagrant illegalities." The plan has drawn widespread condemnation from museum directors and artists, including Anish Kapoor, who demanded the removal of his work from M HKA's website.

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New York's The New School is offering voluntary retirement and severance programs to a large group of faculty and staff as part of a radical restructuring to address a $48 million deficit. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reported that 40 percent of full-time faculty, about 169 staffers, received the offers, calling it the largest attempted firing of faculty currently taking place in the nation. The school is also eliminating over thirty programs, primarily in social sciences and humanities, and plans to combine several schools into a two-college structure, including Parsons School of Design. The school faces declining enrollment and has been warned by the Department of Education over campus protests related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

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A new documentary titled "Pretty Dirty: The Life and Times of Marilyn Minter" premiered at the DOC NYC film festival at IFC Center, chronicling the artist's four-decade career and personal struggles. Directed by Jennifer Ash Rudick and Amanda Benchley, the film follows Minter's journey from a dysfunctional upbringing in the South—with an emotionally abusive mother and her own battles with addiction—to her eventual rise as a major figure in contemporary art. It highlights her gritty, provocative enamel-on-metal paintings, her commercial work for Tom Ford and Zara, and her cultural impact through projects like Madonna's 2009 tour and the TV show Gossip Girl. The documentary features interviews with celebrities such as Lizzo, Jane Fonda, and Miley Cyrus, as well as art-world peers like Laurie Simmons and Jeff Koons.

condo moves from hauser wirth to spruth magers and skarstedt was j m w turner neurodivergent trump squeezes arts talent pool morning link for november 10 2025 1234760829

Artist George Condo has left Hauser & Wirth and will now be jointly represented by Sprüth Magers and Skarstedt, marking a return to galleries with which he had long-standing relationships. Condo first showed with Monika Sprüth in 1984 and was represented by Skarstedt from 2004 to 2019 before joining Hauser & Wirth in late 2019. Separately, a new BBC documentary titled *Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks* explores whether J. M. W. Turner's creative genius was shaped by childhood trauma and neurodivergence, featuring commentary from artists, actors, and a psychotherapist. The article also reports that Dana Awartani will represent Saudi Arabia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, and that the Trump administration has tightened H-1B visa rules, making it harder for arts institutions to hire foreign specialists.

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Altman Siegel, a key gallery in San Francisco's art scene, will close in November 2025 after 16 years. Founder Claudia Altman-Siegel attributed the closure to a challenging market for mid-size galleries, stating it became too difficult to scale in the current climate. The gallery's final show is a solo exhibition by Shinpei Kusanagi, ending November 22. Its roster included artists such as Simon Denny, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Trevor Paglen, and others. The closure follows a trend of galleries shutting down or scaling back, including Blum and LA Louver in Los Angeles, and Clearing and Venus Over Manhattan in New York.

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Offscreen, the nomadic Parisian art salon founded by former Paris Photo director Julien Frydman, returns for its fourth edition from October 21 to 26, 2025, held concurrently with Art Basel Paris. This year, the event takes over La Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, a historic church on the grounds of a former hospital that once detained and studied women labeled as “degenerate” or “insane.” The venue previously hosted exhibitions by Anselm Kiefer, Nan Goldin, and Christian Boltanski. Offscreen features 28 artists from 27 galleries, including a guest of honor tribute to late video-sculpture pioneer Shigeko Kubota, a durational performance by Maria Stamenković Herranz, and new talks and museum acquisitions from the Centre Pompidou and ZKM.

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This tribute article recounts the profound impact of artist Dara Birnbaum's work on the author, describing a chance meeting with Birnbaum at MoMA's café and the subsequent friendship that developed. It highlights Birnbaum's pioneering role in video art, including her manipulation of single video frames and use of color bars, and cites key works like "Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman" (1978–79), "Local TV News Analysis" (1980), and "MTV: Artbreak" (1987) that deconstructed mass media and gender representation.

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Ron Rivlin, owner of Revolver Gallery in Los Angeles and a prolific collector of Andy Warhol works, lost his Pacific Palisades home and 340 artworks—including 30 Warhols and pieces by Keith Haring, John Baldessari, Damien Hirst, Alex Katz, and Kenny Scharf—to the January 2025 wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County. The fires, fueled by powerful winds and dry conditions, consumed approximately 60,718 acres and 17,291 structures, killing 30 people. Numerous other artists, collectors, and arts professionals, including Beatriz Cortez, Amir Nikravan, Salomón Huerta, and curator Paul Schimmel, also reported losing homes and artworks.

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Time magazine released its annual Time 100 list on September 20, 2025, naming the most influential people of the year across six categories. Four art world figures made the list: visual artists Yoshitomo Nara and Mickalene Thomas (categorized as an "innovator"), architect Annabelle Selldorf, and novelist/filmmaker/performance artist Miranda July. The list also includes corporate CEOs, Trump administration members, fashion designers, and athletes, with each entry accompanied by a write-up from a fellow celebrity.

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Donald Trump has ordered a national park to remove a famous 1863 photograph of an enslaved man known as 'The Scourged Back,' which shows his scarred back from brutal whippings. The Washington Post reported the order on September 15, citing anonymous sources, and noted that multiple national parks are affected by directives targeting signs and exhibits related to slavery. The specific park impacted was later identified as Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia, with the President's House Site in Philadelphia also potentially affected. The order follows a broader crackdown on what the Trump administration calls 'corrosive ideology' in American museums, including a March executive order targeting Smithsonian-run institutions.

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Vancouver-based art collector Bob Rennie has donated 61 artworks valued at C$22.8 million ($16.8 million) to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The donation includes works by Ai Weiwei, Mona Hatoum, Dan Graham, and Rodney Graham, and the museum has named a space after the Rennie family, with plans for at least one more. In other news, the Orange County Museum of Art is exploring a merger with the University of California, Irvine, and its director Heidi Zickerman will step down in December. Critics are blasting a digital projection of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Wrapped Reichstag onto the German parliament, calling it an 'aesthetic outrage.' Additionally, Iván Argote's pigeon sculpture Dinosaur on the High Line Plinth inspired a Pigeon Fest in New York, and rare copies of Lincoln's 13th Amendment and Emancipation Proclamation are heading to auction at Sotheby's.

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The Sunday Times's 2025 'Rich List' shows that Top 200 collector and art patron Leonard Blavatnik's net worth fell by more than £3.5 billion to £25.725 billion, dropping him to #3 on the UK wealth ranking. The list includes over a dozen collectors from ARTnews's 2024 Top 200 Collectors list, such as James Dyson, Idan Ofer, Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, Alan Howard, and Mohammed Mahdi al-Tajir, with Ofer noted as one of the top five individuals whose wealth rose most. Other figures mentioned include Simon Reuben, John Fredriksen, Sri Prakash Lohia, Lakshmi Mittal, Elton John, and former Christie's stakeholder Joe Lewis.

Major Greek contemporary art non-profit Neon to close after 14 years

Neon, a major Greek contemporary art non-profit founded by businessman and patron Dimitris Daskalopoulos, is closing after 14 years, stating it has fulfilled its cultural and social mission. Between 2012 and 2026, the organization presented 44 exhibitions across museums, historical sites, and public spaces, commissioning 105 works by Greek and international artists. Notable projects include donating Antony Gormley's sculpture 'RULE II' (2019) to the island of Delos—the first contemporary work permanently installed at an ancient site—and funding the €1.4m renovation of the Lenorman Street Tobacco Factory in Athens into a cultural center. Neon will present its final exhibition, the third installment of 'Michael Rakowitz & Ancient Cultures,' later this year at the Old Acropolis Museum.

A Brush With... Lorna Simpson—podcast

Artist Lorna Simpson joins the 'A Brush With...' podcast to discuss the vast array of cultural influences that have shaped her conceptual practice. From her early photo-text works to her recent large-scale paintings, Simpson details how she subverts conventional framing of identity and navigates the boundaries between reality, fiction, and historical archives. She highlights the specific impact of figures such as David Hammons, Francisco de Zurbarán, and filmmaker Chantal Akerman on her evolving visual language.

From technology to Gen Z collectors, Adrian Cheng shares the key trends in Hong Kong’s art scene

Adrian Cheng, a key figure in Hong Kong's art world, identifies major trends shaping the city's art scene ahead of Art Basel Hong Kong. He highlights the convergence of major art fairs, auction house sales, and new gallery openings during the 'Art March' period, drawing a global audience with high-profile exhibitions by international artists like Mary Weatherford, Nicole Eisenman, and El Anatsui.

2026 Whitney Biennial Lineup Announced

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The Whitney Museum of American Art has announced the artist lineup for the 82nd edition of its prestigious biennial, scheduled to open on March 8, 2026. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, the exhibition will feature 56 artists, duos, and collectives selected after more than 300 studio visits. The upcoming edition is currently untitled and focuses on the theme of "relationships," exploring everything from family ties and technology to geopolitical entanglements and interspecies connections.

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Advanced imaging and material analysis have officially reattributed the 1633 painting "Vision of Zacharias in the Temple" to Rembrandt van Rijn. The work, which had been dismissed by scholars in the 1960s as the product of a collaborator, underwent a rigorous two-year study by the Rijksmuseum’s conservation department. Using macro-XRF scanning and dendrochronological analysis, researchers identified characteristic pentimenti and period-accurate materials that confirm it as a masterpiece from the artist's early Amsterdam period.

Trump Arts Impact 2025

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The Trump administration has initiated a sweeping overhaul of the American cultural landscape, marked by aggressive oversight of the Smithsonian Institution and the termination of numerous National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants. Key actions include the disbanding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the removal of leadership at the National Portrait Gallery, and the implementation of content audits to remove references to Trump's impeachments and information regarding slavery from federal sites. These moves are part of a broader effort to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and enforce 'American values' in cultural programming ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary.

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The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has opened a major exhibition, 'Henri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets,' featuring around sixty works, including the institution's own iconic Rousseau paintings. The survey, co-curated by Nancy Ireson and Christopher Green, aims to present a cohesive look at the self-taught artist's career.

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Nan Goldin used the opening of her retrospective “This Will Not End Well” at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie to deliver a forceful 14-minute speech condemning the Israel-Gaza war and criticizing Germany’s censorship of pro-Palestinian voices. She called for a phone-free moment of silence for the dead in Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon, and framed her exhibition as a test case for artistic freedom. The event drew a large crowd, police presence, and was widely shared on social media by figures like Ai Weiwei and Wolfgang Tillmans.

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Johannes Vermeer's iconic painting *Girl with a Pearl Earring* will travel to Japan for the first time in over a decade, on view at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka from August to September. The loan is necessitated by the closure of its permanent home, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, for renovations. The Mauritshuis had previously pledged not to lend the painting again after its 2012–2014 tour of Japan, Italy, and the U.S., making an exception only for the Rijksmuseum's 2023 Vermeer exhibition. Director Martine Gosselink called the trip a unique opportunity to share the work with the Japanese public, possibly for the last time.