Fountain from Kolbe Museum auctioned for four million euros

Brunnen aus Kolbe Museum für vier Millionen Euro versteigert

A bronze and travertine fountain by German sculptor Georg Kolbe, titled "Tänzerinnen-Brunnen" (Dancer Fountain, 1922), was auctioned at Grisebach in Berlin for €4 million, far exceeding its estimate of €1–1.5 million. The fountain, which stood in the garden of the Georg Kolbe Museum, had been restituted to the heirs of Heinrich Stahl, a Jewish insurance director who was murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Stahl had commissioned the work from Kolbe for his villa; the family was forced to sell the property under value during the Nazi era. The museum returned the piece to the heirs, who then chose to sell it at auction. The buyer's identity was not immediately disclosed, and it remains unclear whether the fountain will remain on public view.

"Das gesamte Galeriewesen ist zu groß geworden"

The Pace Gallery is cutting 50 jobs and dropping 50 artists, a move the New York Times calls perhaps the clearest sign yet of a fundamental shift in the art market. CEO Marc Glimcher says the entire gallery system has become too big, too commercial, too impersonal, and too entrepreneurial. The cuts represent about 20% of Pace's workforce. Meanwhile, a new wave of artist agents is emerging, offering career planning, museum introductions, and estate management as galleries struggle with rising costs, falling attendance, and a turbulent market. Former gallerist Jon Horrocks calls this a 'zeitgeist moment,' and consultant Allan Schwartzman notes that galleries have become more transaction-focused since the pandemic, while artists seek strategic guidance.

Disparition de la galeriste Anisabelle Berès-Montanari

Anisabelle Berès-Montanari, a prominent Parisian gallerist, has died at age 78. Born in 1948, she joined the family business Galerie Berès in 1975, which was founded by her mother Huguette Berès in 1952. Over decades, she built the gallery's reputation through scholarly exhibitions on Japanese prints, Manet, the Nabis, and overlooked modern artists like Henri Laurens and Serge Férat. In 2019, she became the first woman president of the Syndicat national des antiquaires (SNA), serving until 2023. The gallery continues under her daughters Florence Berès-Montanari and Capucine Montanari-Fleury.

Difaf gallery’s trio exhibition “Fabric of Time” is not to be missed

The article highlights a series of art exhibitions opening in Cairo, Egypt, in June and July 2025. Key shows include Difaf gallery's trio exhibition "Fabric of Time" featuring Fatma Abu-Doma, Sara Alfazayry, and Ahmed Lesi; a retrospective "Echoes of Time" by Magdy Abdel-Aziz at Dai; and the Egyptian debut of the immersive digital experience "Beyond Van Gogh" at District 5 by Marakez. Other notable exhibitions include "Her Realm" by Ahmed Dafrawy at Art Linx Karma, "Lightings" by Ruairí O'Brien at Arcade, "Generations of Art" at Duroub, and photography exhibitions at the French Institute in Egypt by Randa Shaath and by Noria Tesson and Samar Bayoumi.

An Invitation into Joan Miró’s Imagination

The article invites readers into the imaginative world of Joan Miró, the Catalan painter, by recounting his successful 1941 retrospective at MoMA and his 1945 exhibition with dealer Pierre Matisse. It highlights Miró's first visit to the United States in 1947 and his inclusion in the New American Paintings show at MoMA in 1991, with a charming anecdote from MoMA conservator Jean Volkmer about Miró blowing kisses at the artworks. The piece also notes an upcoming exhibition at The Phillips Collection from March 21 to July 5, 2026.

BRUSK, un nouveau centre d’art à visiter dans le cœur historique de Bruges

A new art center called BRUSK opened on May 8 in the historic heart of Bruges, Belgium, near the Groeningemuseum. Housed in a contemporary building by Robbrecht en Daem Architecten and Olivier Salens Architecten, it features a monumental fresco by Laure Prouvost titled "The Whispering Walls Rêve" and two temporary exhibition spaces. The inaugural show "Vision large" explores Bruges' medieval golden age, while a second space presents a generative AI installation by Refik Anadol. BRUSK also includes the BRON research center, storage for Musea Brugge's collection, and a public café.

The problem with the Venice Biennale stems from the fact that the art world has become the space within which politics acquires its exhibition value

« Le problème de la Biennale de Venise provient du fait que le monde de l’art est devenu l’espace au sein duquel la politique acquiert sa valeur d’exposition »

Just days before the official opening of the Venice Biennale on May 9, the exhibition's jury collectively resigned in protest over the reopening of the Russian national pavilion. This echoes the 2022 resignation of Documenta's committee amid antisemitism accusations tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The article argues that both incidents reveal a deeper syndrome: the art world has been reduced to a stage for political display. It criticizes the selective outrage that targets Israel's pavilion while ignoring Russian airstrikes on civilians, China's erasure of Tibetan culture, or Senegal's anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and questions why artists are expected to represent their governments rather than themselves.

L’art vu par… Ibrahim Maalouf

Ibrahim Maalouf, a celebrated Franco-Lebanese trumpeter and composer, discusses his deep connection to visual art in an interview with Beaux Arts Magazine. He reflects on his childhood dream of becoming an architect, his inspiration from artists like David Daoud and Etel Adnan, and his favorite museums including the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay. Maalouf draws parallels between music and architecture, describing his albums as 'territories' and his concerts as 'living installations' where the audience completes the work. He also shares his definition of art as 'what remains when everything collapses' and a 'resistance to forgetting.'

Ines Rotermund-Reynard : « La recherche de provenance des œuvres spoliées pendant la guerre est devenue une urgence »

Ines Rotermund-Reynard, provenance researcher at the Musée d'Orsay, discusses her role investigating the origins of artworks looted during World War II. She explains the category of "MNR" (Musées nationaux récupération) works—some 2,200 pieces recovered from Germany after the war that were never claimed by their rightful owners and remain under the care of French national museums. The museum has opened a permanent gallery titled "À qui appartiennent ces œuvres ?" (Who Do These Works Belong To?) displaying 13 such works, including a disputed fake Cézanne, to share ongoing research with the public.

From Brueghel to Chanel, why the extraordinary bird of paradise turns all heads

De Brueghel à Chanel, pourquoi l’extraordinaire oiseau de paradis fait tourner toutes les têtes

The article explores the extraordinary bird of paradise, from its biology and courtship rituals to its cultural significance in Papua New Guinea and its impact on European art and fashion. It opens with the exhibition "Plumes du paradis" at the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, which immerses visitors in the deep, spiritual relationship between Papuan clans and these birds, where skins are exchanged as symbols of alliance and status. The narrative then traces the bird's arrival in Europe in 1522, where it sparked a centuries-long myth of legless celestial creatures, and its subsequent adoption as a motif by Golden Age painters like Brueghel, Rubens, and Rembrandt, who used its feathers to denote prestige and exoticism.

ALFREDO JAAR INDUCTED INTO THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS

Galerie Lelong, New York has announced that artist Alfredo Jaar has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, formally joining the Department of Art at a ceremony on May 20, 2026. Jaar, born in Santiago, Chile in 1956, is recognized for his innovative work across photography, film, installation, and new media, examining socio-political issues and the ethics of representation over more than four decades.

$3.7 million Cecily Brown painting to lead upcoming Christie’s London sale.

Cecily Brown's painting *The Haunter* (2010) will lead Christie's Post-War to Present sale in London on June 25th, with an estimate of £2.2 million–£2.8 million ($2.95 million–$3.76 million). The work has been held in the same private collection since 2011. The auction coincides with a major exhibition of Brown's work at London's Serpentine Galleries. In November 2025, a new auction record was set for Brown when her painting *High Society* (1997–98) sold for a higher sum.

Paul Thek at Pace Gallery

Pace Gallery is presenting an exhibition of works by Paul Thek, the influential but often overlooked American artist known for his provocative sculptures and installations that blend the sacred and the profane. The show brings together pieces from different periods of his career, including his famous "Technological Reliquaries"—glass cases containing wax casts of body parts—alongside drawings and other works that explore themes of mortality, spirituality, and the human condition.

“Eva Hesse, Lukas Heerich, Rindon Johnson” at max goelitz, Munich

Max Goelitz gallery in Munich is hosting an exhibition titled “Eva Hesse, Lukas Heerich, Rindon Johnson,” organized in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth for the Various Others 2026 event. The show pairs contemporary works by Lukas Heerich and Rindon Johnson with selected early works on paper and a painting by Eva Hesse, highlighting intergenerational dialogue around material experimentation.

Desire, Deferred: Eroticism in Southeast Asian Art

The National Gallery Singapore has opened "Passion is Volcanic: Desire in Southeast Asian Art," its first R18 exhibition, running from April 24 to August 30, 2026. The show explores eroticism in Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art, drawing inspiration from Nanyang school artist Liu Kang's 1953 essay on Bali. It features works from Singapore's national collection and the region, including Liu Kang's "Scene in Bali" (1953), Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook's video "I'm Living" (2002), and a 14th-15th century tantric Buddhist statue. The exhibition is divided into three sections—"Asian Mythos and Ritual," "Conventions of the Erotic," and "Public Arenas/Private Interiors"—and is restricted to audiences over 18 due to Singapore's media regulations, with photography prohibited.

Kulapat Yantrasast to Helm 2027 Bukhara Biennial

The Bukhara Biennial has appointed Kulapat Yantrasast as artistic director for its second edition, scheduled to run from September 3 to November 21, 2027. Yantrasast, a Bangkok-born architect trained under Tadao Ando and founder of WHY Architecture, brings experience from projects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, and Milan Design Week 2026, where he collaborated with the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) on the exhibition "When Apricots Blossom." The inaugural 2025 edition, founded by ACDF chairperson Gayane Umerova and curated by Diana Campbell, drew approximately 1.8 million visitors and featured artists including Antony Gormley, Marina Perez Simão, and Subodh Gupta.

Two of the Biggest Names in American Patronage Have Kept Their Homes Private—Until Now

Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman, prominent American philanthropists and art collectors, have opened their private Hamptons home to the public for the first time through a new Phaidon book, *Collecting Contemporaries: The Fuhrman Collection*. The volume reveals their extensive collection of works by artists such as Simone Leigh, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, and Amoako Boafo, displayed across their Sagaponack property, which also features outdoor sculptures by Roxy Paine and Elmgreen & Dragset. Glenn Fuhrman, founder of the FLAG Art Foundation and a board member at MoMA and Tate, discusses the discomfort of losing privacy but acknowledges the practical need to eventually sell or donate pieces as he ages.

The New Crystal Bridges Tells a More Honest Story About American Art

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, is opening a 114,000-square-foot expansion designed by Moshe Safdie on June 6, increasing exhibition space by 50%. The addition features a new David Booth Gallery dedicated to contemporary American art, a creative learning center called the Hub, and a prominent installation of Jeffrey Gibson's beaded sculpture "The Enforcer" (2025), originally shown at the 2024 Venice Biennale. The museum's predominantly female curatorial team, including Indigenous art curator Jordan Poorman Cocker, has intentionally centered diverse voices—showcasing works by Native American, Black, Latinx, and Asian American artists alongside canonical figures like Donald Judd and Yayoi Kusama.

When I claim my black Britishness in this age of intolerance, here is the music that goes with it | Hugh Muir

Hugh Muir describes his experience at "The Music is Black" exhibition at the V&A East in London, where visitors wear headphones and move through galleries listening to different clips of Black British music, creating a shared, immersive encounter. The exhibition highlights the centrality of Black music to British culture, featuring reggae, lovers rock, and other genres, and coincides with the death of Kanya King, founder of the MOBO Awards.

The Guardian view on the UK’s first centre for illustration: visual literacy, and the sheer joy of images, matter | Editorial

The Guardian editorial announces the opening of the UK's first permanent centre for illustration, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, housed in a repurposed 17th-century waterworks in London's Clerkenwell. The centre is the largest of its kind in the world and is the brainchild of 93-year-old Sir Quentin Blake, who is donating his archive of 40,000 drawings. Inaugural exhibitions include "Queer as Comics," tracing the mainstreaming of once-marginalised voices in illustration, from Tove Jansson's Moomin to Alice Oseman's Heartstopper.

MC Escher review – hallucinatory insights from the master of the mind-bending staircase

The Guardian reviews a major MC Escher exhibition at Somerset House in London, part of a world tour. The show presents over 100 works, including the iconic 1958 lithograph *Belvedere*, early nature studies, and cultural artifacts like Pink Floyd's *Ummagumma* album sleeve, revealing Escher's precise geometric vision and his journey from a patient observer of nature to a pop-culture phenomenon. The exhibition features videos, installations, and immersive environments to deepen the viewer's experience of his paradoxical spaces.

Newly Unearthed John Lennon Drawings Make Their Public Debut

Some 240 rediscovered drawings by John Lennon, created in the 1960s for an animated Beatles music video, are being publicly displayed for the first time at the Liverpool Beatles Museum. The drawings were made in collaboration with artist Stephen Verona and feature lyrics from the Beatles' 1964 hit "I Feel Fine." They were used to produce a short lyric video called "She Said So," described as the first music video. The trove recently surfaced at auction in London, where it was acquired by pop culture memorabilia expert Joseph Robert O'Donnell, who recognized its significance.

Call my agent: why artist management companies are making a comeback

Artist management companies are making a comeback as the traditional gallery model faces upheaval. Recent launches include Cristopher Canizares's Artist Legacy Bureau (after leaving Hauser & Wirth), Dina Mostovaya's Sensity Studio in London, Julia Bassiri's Art+Mgmt in Miami, Anne Verhallen's KUNST Agency, Spencer Young in New York, and Jon Horrocks's agency focused on museum partnerships. These agents operate without physical spaces, keeping overheads low, and offer sliding-scale fees for services like career development, estate planning, and museum acquisitions.

How Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn—a Painter, Collector, and Collaborator of Carl Jung—Mined the Archive and Her Subconscious

Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, a painter, collector, and close collaborator of Carl Jung, is the subject of a new article exploring her life and work. Born in London in 1881 to Dutch parents, she studied art history at the University of Zurich and later married musician Iwan Hermann Fröbe. After his death in a plane crash and the disappearance of her disabled daughter under the Nazi regime, she channeled her trauma into art, creating screenprints she called 'meditation drawings' and sketches described as 'visions.' She founded the Eranos Foundation in 1933 and amassed a vast collection of archetypal images sourced from libraries and archives across Europe and North America, driven by a desire to connect human experience with universal truths.

Faiza Butt on Representing Pakistan at the 61st Venice Biennale

Faiza Butt, the artist representing Pakistan at the 61st Venice Biennale (2026), discusses her plans for the national pavilion in an interview with ArtReview. Her project draws from the cultural history of Punjab, incorporating folk crafts, intergenerational textile techniques, natural dyes, and collaboration with women artisans. The pavilion will be located at Spazio 996/A, Fondamenta Sant’Ana, and the Biennale runs from 9 May to 22 November 2026. Butt emphasizes a two-pronged approach: preserving historic knowledge and engaging socially through art.

Audain Art Museum Celebrates Takao Tanabe's Centennial with Landmark Retrospective

The Audain Art Museum is opening "Takao Tanabe 100: Inside Passage," a landmark retrospective celebrating the 100th birthday of Canadian painter Takao Tanabe on September 16, 2026. The exhibition features over fifty works spanning six decades, including his iconic coastal and prairie landscapes as well as lesser-known series like the "White Paintings" and "Emperor" paintings. Co-organized with the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the show will travel to Ottawa and Victoria through 2027.

What Is The Game of Exquisite Corpse, and Why Do Artists Still Play It?

The article explains the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse (cadavre exquis), where participants collaboratively draw sections of a human body on folded paper without seeing each other's contributions, resulting in strange, hybrid figures. Originating in 1925 at Marcel Duhamel's Paris home, the game was developed by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert, and Yves Tanguy, taking its name from a phrase generated in an earlier writing game. The Surrealists used it to access automatism and the unconscious, fostering wild experimentation through low-stakes materials.

Twice a Week, David Haskell Leaves New York Magazine To Throw Clay

David Haskell, editor in chief of New York Magazine, is holding his first solo exhibition of sculptures titled "Boom Beach" at Donzella Ltd. in New York City. The show features 68 works, mostly ceramics, along with bronzes and glass sculptures, created over the past several years. Haskell, who works as a sculptor twice a week at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, began working with clay as a teenager and returned to it in 2013, evolving from making planters to abstract forms that he describes as a personal exploration of shape and balance.

Elfie Semotan, Austrian Fashion Photographer, Dies at 84

Elfie Semotan, an Austrian fashion photographer renowned for her long collaboration with designer Helmut Lang, died unexpectedly on Saturday at age 84 in Jennersdorf, Austria. Born in Wels in 1941, Semotan studied fashion in Vienna, worked as a model in Paris, and launched her photography career in the 1970s with provocative ad campaigns for Palmers lingerie and Römerquelle mineral water. She also shot portraits of art-world figures including Louise Bourgeois, Maria Lassnig, Daniel Richter, and Martin Kippenberger, to whom she was briefly married. Her work appeared in magazines such as the New Yorker, Vogue, and Esquire, and she taught at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the International Summer Academy in Salzburg.

Mildred Howard on her first retrospective in a major museum: ‘My art is part of who I am as a person’

Oakland-based artist Mildred Howard, now 80, will receive her first major museum retrospective, "Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory," at the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) starting June 12. The exhibition spans her 50-year career and includes works such as her "Untold Histories / Hidden Truths" series, which reimagines monuments to slaveholders and colonizers, and public installations like "Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges." Howard's home and studio in West Oakland—a 15,000 sq ft warehouse—blurs life and art, filled with samples and cast-offs from her large-scale public artworks.