Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Aug 27, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

See Ai Weiwei’s Largest-Ever U.S. Exhibition in Seattle Before It’s Gone

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has opened 'Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,' the largest-ever U.S. exhibition of the Chinese-born artist-activist, featuring 130 works from the 1980s to the 2020s. Organized in three thematic sections—'Introducing the Rebel,' 'Material Disruptions,' and 'Watching Ai Watching Power'—the retrospective includes performance, photography, sculpture, and installations. Additionally, Ai Weiwei's 'Water Lilies' (2022), a Lego-based work referencing Monet, is on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The exhibition runs through September 7, 2025.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 26, 2025 visibility 20 link 4 artists

Epic Palmer Museum exhibition explores 30 years of ecology and art

The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State is opening "Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld" on August 30, the first survey of the two artists' work spanning three decades. The exhibition features sculptures, paintings, works on paper, and a new collaborative diorama, exploring themes of ecology, environmental collapse, invasive species, and climate change through scientific and artistic lenses. Both artists, who met in New York in the 1980s, combine intensive research, dark humor, and museum display methods to subvert traditional narratives about nature and humanity.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 22, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

Magnum Photos agency’s first exhibition, lost for a half-century, to make its North American debut

The Image Centre in downtown Toronto will stage the North American debut of Magnum Photos' first-ever exhibition, originally titled 'Gesicht der Zeit' (Face of Time) and shown in Austria in 1955-56. The show, lost for half a century, was rediscovered in 2006 in the basement of the Institut Français in Innsbruck, Austria, along with its original poster and hanging instructions. It features 83 original gelatin-silver prints by legendary Magnum photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Inge Morath, Ernst Haas, and Marc Riboud. The exhibition will run concurrently with 'Chim’s Children of Europe,' a show devoted to Magnum co-founder David 'Chim' Seymour's 1949 Unesco project on postwar European children.

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article policy schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

Trump accuses Smithsonian of being too focused on ‘how bad slavery was’

US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social accusing the Smithsonian Institution of focusing excessively on negative aspects of American history, specifically citing exhibits about slavery and the struggles of marginalized groups. He claimed the organization is "out of control" and instructed his attorneys to review its museums, mirroring recent actions against universities. The White House has initiated a four-month review of eight Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Portrait Gallery, with a directive to replace "divisive or ideologically driven language" with "unifying, historically accurate" descriptions.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 17 link 23 artists

Something from Everything leads current excellent array of exhibitions at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) is presenting five exhibitions, including an outdoor public art installation, with the highlight being "Something from Everything" (on view through Jan. 3, 2026). This exhibition features works from 19 artists that use mundane, discarded, and overlooked materials, exploring the evolving medium of sculpture. Key pieces include Lee Bontecou's 1959 "Untitled" relief (on loan from the Art Bridges Foundation) and Charlotte Posenenske's modular "Vierkantrohre (Square Tubes)" from 1967, alongside contemporary works by Nolan Flynn, Patrick Durka, Ricardo Rendón, and Leonardo Drew.

newspaper The Utah Review open_in_new Read original

article policy schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

Trump administration’s anti-woke campaign targets Smithsonian museums

The Trump administration has launched a campaign targeting Smithsonian museums, accusing them of promoting an "anti-American agenda" through exhibits that focus on oppression rather than national achievements. A White House document, obtained by the Guardian, lists problematic exhibits at seven museums, including a Benjamin Franklin display linking his scientific work to slave ownership and a film about George Floyd's murder. The administration has demanded content corrections and threatened to remove what it calls "woke" ideology from the institution.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 18, 2025 visibility 14 link 10 artists

This Week at LACMA

LACMA announces a week of programming from August 18–24, headlined by the opening of *Now Showing: Youssef Nabil’s I Saved My Belly Dancer*, an exhibition featuring the artist’s 2015 video starring Tahar Rahim and Salma Hayek, alongside related photographs and Egyptian movie posters. Member previews run August 21–23 before the public opening on August 24. Other highlights include a mindful evening with Buddhist art tied to the ongoing exhibition *Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia*, plus concerts, workshops, and family programs.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 18, 2025 visibility 16 link 3 artists

London's Dulwich Picture Gallery prepares to reveal £5m redevelopment

Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London will open a newly transformed sculpture garden to the public on 6-7 September, as the centerpiece of its £5m Open Art project. The redevelopment reclaims previously underused green space for a rotating programme of contemporary art on two-year loans, alongside permanent works including a land art piece by Kim Wilkie, an ArtPlay Pavilion designed by HoLD Collective and Carmody Groarke, and a new entrance restoring elements of John Soane's 1811 plans. The project is funded by principal donor The Lovington Foundation, The Julia Rausing Trust, the Manton Foundation, and a public campaign, as the gallery receives no regular government funding.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 14, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

National Museum of Asian Art Presents “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared”

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art will present "Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared" from November 8, 2025 to February 1, 2026, marking the first U.S. exhibition of masterpieces from the Lee Kun-Hee Collection. Featuring over 200 works including a dozen Korean National Treasures, the exhibition spans 1,500 years of Korean art—from ancient Buddhist sculptures and ceramics to Joseon dynasty furnishings and 20th-century modern paintings. The collection, donated to the Republic of Korea in 2021 by the family of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee, comprises more than 23,000 works accumulated over 70 years. The exhibition is co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of Korea, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, with additional loans from the Leeum Museum of Art shown exclusively in Washington, D.C.

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museum exhibitions schedule Aug 13, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

Behind the scenes of assembling SAM's large-scale Ai Weiwei exhibition

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) team faced an extraordinary challenge installing the retrospective “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,” which required handling eight tractor-trailers of artwork—far more than the usual two—within just three weeks. The exhibition features 130 complex works, including a giant tree sculpture, a life-size jail cell replica, and a Lego rendition of the Mueller report, many arriving without instruction manuals and requiring creative assembly by a 12-person crew led by lead preparator Joshua Gosovich.

newspaper The Seattle Times open_in_new Read original

gavel restitution schedule Aug 6, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

Ancient marble bust returned to Italy following seven-year legal battle

A first-century CE marble bust, known as the "Head of Alexander," was returned to the Italian government on August 5, ending a seven-year legal battle. The bust, believed stolen from an Italian museum decades ago, was seized in 2018 by the Manhattan District Attorney's Antiquities Trafficking Unit from Safani Gallery in New York. The gallery filed multiple lawsuits against Italy and the Italian Ministry of Culture, claiming unlawful taking and seeking compensation, but all claims were dismissed. The bust, excavated in the early 1900s along Rome's Via Sacra, had passed through multiple cities and auctions, including sales at Sotheby Park Bernet and later for $150,000 by Safani Gallery in 2017.

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article culture schedule Aug 5, 2025 visibility 19 link 8 artists

Five new art books to look out for this autumn, including publications on US monuments and Vermeer close-ups

Five new art books are set for release this autumn, covering topics from US monuments and Vermeer's techniques to post-war British culture and contemporary Pakistani-American art. Titles include 'Closer to Vermeer' (Thames & Hudson), 'Monumental: How a New Generation of Artists Is Shaping the Memorial Landscape' (MIT Press), 'British Blonde' (Paul Mellon Centre), 'Art Is: A Journey into the Light' (Yale), and 'Shahzia Sikander' (Lund Humphries), each offering fresh scholarship or monographic depth.

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person people schedule Aug 4, 2025 visibility 25 link 8 artists

Influencer, politician, museum director: what Eike Schmidt did next

Eike Schmidt, the German-born museum director who led Florence's Uffizi Galleries from 2015, has taken on a series of high-profile and controversial roles. After restructuring the Uffizi and nearly leaving for Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum in 2019, he stayed on, then moved to Naples' Museo di Capodimonte in 2024. Months later, he ran for mayor of Florence as a centre-right independent backed by far-right parties, losing in a run-off. Now settled at Capodimonte, he reflects on his unpredictable career with no regrets.

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candle obituary schedule Aug 1, 2025 visibility 25 link 14 artists

Robert Wilson, experimental playwright, director and artist, has died, aged 83

Robert Wilson, the visionary experimental playwright, director, and visual artist known for his highly stylized theatrical productions, has died at age 83. He passed away at his home in Water Mill, New York, on July 31 following a brief acute illness, according to a statement from the Watermill Center, the arts organization he founded. Wilson's most famous works include the silent opera *Deafman Glance* (1970) and the epic collaboration with composer Philip Glass, *Einstein on the Beach* (1976). He was also a prolific visual artist, creating drawings, sculptures, and video portraits, including a series featuring Lady Gaga, Pope.L, and Isabella Rossellini, and his work was exhibited at institutions such as SFMoMA, the Centre Pompidou, and the Louvre.

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article policy schedule Jul 31, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

Yale University Art Gallery withdraws federal funding applications over anti-diversity regulations

The Yale University Art Gallery has withdrawn two federal grant applications submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for an upcoming exhibition on African art exploring the migration of Nguni peoples, scheduled for 2026. The gallery objected to new anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, which require that funded projects do not promote certain ideologies based on race or gender. The gallery will instead use Yale University's $46 billion endowment to cover the $200,000 exhibition costs. This follows a previous instance where the gallery opted out of NEA funding, and a separate $30,000 NEA grant for the exhibition "Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textile" was rescinded, though that show will proceed with support from the Robert Lehman Endowment Fund.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 30, 2025 visibility 11 link 13 artists

New Smithsonian exhibit highlights American fairs, including crop art, butter from Minnesota

A new exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution spotlights the history and artistry of American state and county fairs, featuring unusual exhibits such as crop art and butter sculptures from Minnesota. The show explores how these community events have long served as platforms for creative expression, agricultural pride, and local tradition.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 29, 2025 visibility 13 link 6 artists

Elizabeth Catlett: “A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies”

The Art Institute of Chicago announces a major retrospective of Elizabeth Catlett, titled “A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies,” on view from August 30, 2025, through January 4, 2026. The exhibition brings together over 100 works spanning Catlett’s career as a sculptor, printmaker, feminist, and social activist, highlighting her enduring influence and her commitment to addressing poverty, racism, and imperialism through art and activism.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 27, 2025 visibility 18 link 16 artists

Roaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918–1939

The Saint Louis Art Museum is presenting "Roaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918–1939," a major exhibition on view from April 12 to July 27, 2025. Curated by Genevieve Cortinovis, the show brings together automobiles, haute couture, painting, sculpture, photography, film, and decorative arts to explore the intertwined evolution of fashion and car design in early 20th-century France. Highlights include a 1917 painting by Henri Matisse depicting the view from his Renault, juxtapositions of Alfa Romeo and Citroën logos with works by Piet Mondrian and Charles Loupot, and a c. 1927 dress by Suzanne Talbot inspired by Tutankhamun's funerary mask. The exhibition draws heavily from local and midwestern collections, including the Missouri Historical Society.

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article news schedule Jul 24, 2025 visibility 20 link 5 artists

Artist Amy Sherald has canceled her upcoming show at the Smithsonian

Artist Amy Sherald has canceled her upcoming solo exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, scheduled to open September 19. The cancellation stems from a dispute over her painting *Trans Forming Liberty* (2024), which depicts a trans woman with pink hair and a blue gown holding a torch. Sherald stated that the museum expressed concerns about including the portrait, leading to discussions about removing it. She claims the Smithsonian planned to replace the painting with a video of people reacting to it, which she opposed as it would debate the value of trans visibility. The Smithsonian denies the painting was to be replaced, saying the video was meant to provide context. Sherald's exhibition, *Amy Sherald: American Sublime*, was organized by SFMOMA and is currently on view at the Whitney Museum.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 24, 2025 visibility 18 link 22 artists

The new era of fashion’s art exhibitions

LACMA's upcoming David Geffen Galleries, opening in 2026, will feature over 130 costumes and textiles in its inaugural installations—more than any other time since the museum opened in 1965. The museum also plans exhibitions such as 'Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity' (with mannequins by Jason Wu) and 'Fashioning Fashion' (1900–2025). Other major fashion exhibitions include 'Virgil Abloh: The Codes' at Paris's Grand Palais, 'Westwood Kawakubo' at the National Gallery of Victoria, and 'Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art' at London's V&A. The article notes that fashion exhibitions are increasingly popular and profitable for museums, citing the Met's Costume Institute and its record-breaking Met Gala fundraising.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 23, 2025 visibility 31 link 29 artists, 3 galleries

Waddington Custot to open in Paris ahead of Art Basel Paris

Waddington Custot has announced it will open a new gallery at 36 rue de Seine in Paris, occupying the historic space formerly home to Lansberg Gallery in the 6th arrondissement. The gallery is set to open in October 2025, ahead of Art Basel Paris, and will be managed by Isaure de Roquefeuil and Antoine Clavé. The inaugural exhibition will focus on the Nabis painters, followed by a group show of modern and contemporary artists. The 200-square-meter space is located in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district. (Note: The opening has since been rescheduled to early 2026.)

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 22, 2025 visibility 10 link 7 artists

Allegory and Abstraction: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Drawings and Prints has installed a new rotation in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery titled "Allegory and Abstraction." The exhibition features up to 100 works on paper, including Henri Matisse's 1947 series "Jazz," Louise Bourgeois's "He Disappeared into Complete Silence" (1947), and watercolors by J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Girtin marking the 250th anniversary of their births. The show explores how artists embed complex meanings through symbols (allegory) or through line, color, and pattern (abstraction).

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 21, 2025 visibility 18 link 4 artists

Exhibition at The Met Highlights Role of Photography in Cross-Dressing Community in 1960s New York

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition "Casa Susanna," on view from July 21, 2025 to January 25, 2026, brings together approximately 160 photographs and publications created by and for a community of cross-dressers who gathered in New York City and the Catskills Mountains during the 1960s. The works, discovered at a Manhattan flea market in 2004, document safe spaces provided by Susanna Valenti and Marie Tornell at two modest resorts, where guests used cameras—especially Polaroids—to affirm their femme identities and connect a nationwide community. The exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Les Rencontres d’Arles in collaboration with The Met, and includes collections from the Art Gallery of Ontario, artist Cindy Sherman, and donor Betsy Wollheim.

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article policy schedule Jul 20, 2025 visibility 12 link 13 artists

Can you mount an art exhibition about race in the age of Trump?

The article reports on the exhibition "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, which challenges visitors to reconsider how American sculpture has reinforced racist social orders. The show features 82 works from 1792 to 2023, including John Rogers’ 1864 sculpture "The Wounded Scout, a Friend in the Swamp," and includes interpretive prompts about race as a human invention and a tool of power. President Donald Trump issued an executive order condemning the exhibition for promoting "divisive narratives," and Vice President JD Vance, who sits on the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, has been tasked with stopping government funding for exhibits that do not align with a celebratory national agenda. The Smithsonian has begun a review of content across its museums, raising concerns about future candid discussions of race and history.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 18, 2025 visibility 16 link 9 artists

“She’s a Real 20th Century Figure”: Thelma Golden on the ICA’s Mavis Pusey Retrospective

The Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem, has opened "Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images," a retrospective of the Jamaican-born abstract artist Mavis Pusey (1928–2019). The exhibition spans two floors of Pusey's paintings and archival materials, showcasing her geometric abstractions that translate urban construction and gentrification into fractured planes and rhythmic blocks of color. The show was sparked by Studio Museum director Thelma Golden's discovery of Pusey's work in an online auction catalog a decade ago, leading to a collaboration with curator Hallie Ringle.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 18, 2025 visibility 18 link 8 artists

Sea State: restored Norfolk mansion puts on water-themed exhibition by Maggi Hambling and Ro Robertson

Wolterton Hall, an 18th-century Palladian country house in Norfolk, England, has reopened to the public after a restoration completed by its new owner Richard Ellis. The estate is launching a water-themed exhibition titled "Sea State," featuring site-specific works by artists Maggi Hambling and Ro Robertson. Robertson's outdoor steel sculpture "The Swell" will be the first permanent outdoor artwork on the grounds, while Hambling presents new pieces from her "Wall of Water" series and an installation called "Time" dedicated to her late partner. The exhibition is co-curated by Simon Oldfield and Gemma Rolls-Bentley.

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person people schedule Jul 17, 2025 visibility 13 link 15 artists

Moving On Up: 24 Museum Curators and Art Leaders Who Took on New Appointments in First Half of 2025

Culture Type has published its annual list of new appointments among museum curators and arts leaders for the first half of 2025, highlighting two dozen hires and promotions at major institutions. Notable appointments include Deana Haggag as program director for arts and culture at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ann Collins Smith as chief curator at the New Orleans Museum of Art (the first Black American in a full-time curatorial role there), and Vincent van Velsen as head of exhibitions at Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. The list also features curators such as Alisa Chiles at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Brittany Webb at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 15, 2025 visibility 14 link 6 artists

Appreciation and demand for Minnesota artist's work surges as The Met opens solo exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will open "The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York" on July 17, the first solo exhibition for the late Minnesota-born Ojibwe artist. The show features over 30 works by Morrison, an abstract expressionist who painted alongside Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline, and whose large wood-and-granite collages, totems, and paintings are widely installed across Minnesota and internationally. The exhibition coincides with a surge in demand for his work, driven by recent high-profile gallery shows and a 2022 USPS Forever Stamp series.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 11, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists, 3 galleries

Capitalism, cityscapes and the climate crisis take centre stage at Luma Arles

Peter Fischli's exhibition "People Planet Profit" at Luma Arles presents hundreds of cheap, poorly designed business books he photographed over seven years, exploring the tension between capitalism, climate crisis, and social wellbeing. The show includes sculptures and screen prints that critique late-stage capitalism and mass tourism. Alongside it, landscape architect Bas Smets presents "Climates of Landscape," a practical exhibition proposing urban ecological solutions to rising temperatures and tides, featuring a microclimate installation within the former industrial building.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 4, 2025 visibility 14 link 16 artists

Turner painting bought last year for £500 sells for almost £2m at Sotheby's

At Sotheby's Old Master paintings evening sale in London on July 2, a Turner painting purchased last year for £500 sold for nearly £2 million, highlighting the sector's resilience. The auction achieved £11.5 million hammer total (£14.5m with fees), with 81% of lots sold, including a rediscovered 14th-century Byzantine icon that far exceeded estimates and three new artist records for Lorenzo di Credi, Corneille de Lyon, and others. The sale contrasted with Christie's previous evening's £46.2 million total driven by a record Canaletto.

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