Vasari Art Codex

candle obituary schedule Dec 21, 2025 visibility 7 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

arnulf rainer dead 1234767718

Arnulf Rainer, the Austrian artist known for his relentless experimentation and his signature "overpaintings" (Übermalungen), died on December 18 at age 96 at his home in Austria. His death was confirmed by his gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac. Over seven decades, Rainer produced abstract works tied to the Art Informel movement, layering dense pigment over existing images—first his own, then works by artists like Emilio Vedova. He also created "blind drawings" and overpainted photographic self-portraits in series such as "Face Farces" and "Body Poses." His career included major exhibitions at Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Centre Pompidou, and he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1981 to 1995.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 8 link 12 artists, 1 gallery

art green founding figure of chicago harry who obituary 1234739912

Arthur “Art” Green, a key Chicago Imagist painter and original member of the Hairy Who, died at age 83 in April. The news was announced by Garth Greenan Gallery in New York, which represented him. Green rose to prominence in the mid-1960s alongside five fellow School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduates, exhibiting together as the Hairy Who from 1966 to 1969. Their work offered a humorous, hallucinatory take on American culture, blending Surrealism, Art Brut, and advertising conventions. Green developed a rich personal iconography featuring ice cream cones, wood grain, flames, and fingernails, and taught for decades, influencing a generation of artists.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 4 link 4 artists, 2 galleries

notre dame windows climate activists acquitted morning links 1234765897

A Swedish court acquitted six climate activists who smeared red paint on a Claude Monet painting at Sweden's Nationalmuseum in June 2023, ruling they had no intent to damage the artwork. Separately, Claire Tabouret's designs for new stained-glass windows at Notre-Dame de Paris go on public display at the Grand Palais, despite controversy over replacing original 19th-century windows. Other news includes Pantone defending its 2026 Color of the Year choice, Brussels closing its Centrale for Contemporary Art due to budget cuts, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum returning looted Thai sculptures, and curator Pi Li leaving Hong Kong's Tai Kwun to help found a new museum in Shenzhen.

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article news schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 11 link 9 artists, 3 galleries

dealers michael werner and gordon veneklasen split up russia moves to label pussy riot an extremist organization morning links for december 1 2025 1234764237

Dealers Michael Werner and Gordon VeneKlasen are ending their 35-year joint business venture, with Werner continuing to run Galerie Michael Werner in Berlin and VeneKlasen launching his own international gallery, taking over the New York, London, and Los Angeles locations. Meanwhile, Russian billionaire couple Andrey and Yelizaveta Molchanov are opening Zilart, a new private museum in Moscow on December 2, showcasing their collection of 10,000 works despite political repression and sanctions threatening other private museums. The article also reports on the Leiden Collection exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art, the Russian Ministry of Justice moving to classify Pussy Riot as an extremist organization during Nadya Tolokonnikova's performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the opening of the 24th Biennale de Arte Paiz.

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article news schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 6 link 11 artists, 7 galleries

high art paris gallery closing 1234764267

High Art, a Parisian gallery known for launching the careers of artists like Lucy Bull and Julien Creuzet, is closing its physical space after 12 years. The gallery announced on Instagram that its last exhibition closed in July and that it will transition toward collaborations, offsite exhibitions, and individual artworks. Founded in 2013 by Romain Chenais, Jason Hwang, and Philippe Joppin, High Art became a tastemaker in Paris's gallery scene, known for its challenging and often unconventional program. Many artists who showed there early, including Rachel Rose, Matt Copson, and Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, later achieved international recognition.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 12 link 27 artists, 3 galleries

portland art museum expansion renovation 1234763067

The Portland Art Museum has completed a $116 million expansion and renovation, integrating two neighboring buildings and adding nearly 100,000 square feet of public and gallery space. The centerpiece is a 21,000-square-foot glass pavilion named after Mark Rothko, who grew up in Portland and attended the museum's art school. The project, largely privately funded, unites the original 1932 Belluschi building with the 1927 Mark Building (a former Masonic Temple) via a transparent, 24-hour pedestrian tunnel. Director Brian Ferriso led the capital campaign, which also raised $30 million for the endowment, and recruited Hennebery Eddy Architects and Vinci Hamp Architects as designers.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 6 link 10 artists, 1 gallery

frida kahlo painting sothebys record woman surrealism 1234762747

Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby's New York on November 20, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $40–60 million. The painting, consigned by the estate of Selma Ertegun, was won by a phone bidder handled by Sotheby's senior vice president Anna Di Stasi. The sale broke Kahlo's previous auction record of $34.9 million set in 2021 for *Diego y yo*, as well as the record for a Latin American artwork and the overall record for a work by a woman artist at auction, surpassing Georgia O'Keeffe's $44.4 million *Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1*.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 9 link 17 artists, 2 galleries

black arts movement photogtaphy national gallery washington 1234758567

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has opened "Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985," a major survey featuring some 150 images by Black photographers who documented the civil rights and Black liberation movements. Curated by Deborah Willis and Philip Brookman, the exhibition includes works by Doris Derby, John W. Mosley, Ming Smith, and about 100 other artists, capturing both iconic protest imagery and quieter, intimate moments of Black life. The show runs through January 11, 2026.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 4 link 2 artists, 2 galleries

amoako boafo red dress consignor jesse williams 1234761249

An Amoako Boafo painting, *Red Dress* (2017), has been consigned to Phillips’s upcoming modern and contemporary art day sale by actor and ARTnews Top 200 collector Jesse Williams. The work, estimated at $150,000 to $200,000, depicts Thelma Golden, director of the newly reopened Studio Museum in Harlem. It was previously featured in Boafo’s 2022 solo exhibition “Soul of Black Folks” at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. This marks another instance of a work from Williams’s collection appearing at Phillips, following a Noah Davis painting consigned by his ex-wife in 2024.

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candle obituary schedule Nov 5, 2025 visibility 7 link 5 artists, 5 galleries

raquelin mendieta ana mendieta estate administrator dead 1234760248

Raquelín Mendieta, the longtime administrator of the estate of her sister, artist Ana Mendieta, died on October 24 in Miami at age 79 due to a long illness. Raquelín took charge of Ana's legacy after the artist's death in 1985, organizing a retrospective at the New Museum in 1987 and partnering with Galerie Lelong in 1991 to establish a market for Ana's work. Under her stewardship, Ana's art was acquired by major museums like the Whitney Museum and included in over 600 group shows and 55 solo exhibitions, including 16 museum retrospectives.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 31, 2025 visibility 17 link 1 artist, 1 gallery

alex katz paul taylor dance gala lincoln center 2025 1234759638

On November 11, the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation will honor painter Alex Katz at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, celebrating a decades-long creative partnership between Katz and the late choreographer Paul Taylor. The collaboration began in 1960 when poet Edwin Denby introduced them for a commission at the Spoleto Festival, leading to 16 works together including "Meridian," "Scudorama," "Private Domain," "Diggity," and "Sunset." At the gala, the company will perform "Sunset," which Katz conceived after observing soldiers in Madrid’s Retiro Park. Katz is also showing new paintings at Gladstone Gallery in New York, while the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego hosts "Alex Katz: Theater and Dance," the first major survey of his stage work.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 30, 2025 visibility 6 link 7 artists, 1 gallery

matthew wong paintings venice biennale show 1234759506

A rare exhibition of works by the late artist Matthew Wong, including never-before-exhibited pieces, will open in Venice during the 2026 Biennale. Titled “Matthew Wong: Interiors,” the show is curated by John Cheim and organized by the artist’s foundation, run by his mother Monita Wong. The 35-work exhibition focuses on interior spaces, both physical and psychological, and highlights Wong’s vibrant color palette and expressive brushwork, which he developed before his death by suicide at age 35 in 2019.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 29, 2025 visibility 7 link 5 artists, 6 galleries

taipei art week taiwan market review 1234758632

The second edition of Taipei Art Week has drawn a large crowd, anchored by Art Taipei—Asia's longest-running art fair—and the 14th Taipei Biennale. Galleries have raised their ambitions, with pop-up shows, talks, and collectors' parties filling the city. However, Taiwan's art market faces significant headwinds: art imports fell 15.2% in 2024, Ravenel's spring auction sales plummeted from $14.6 million in 2020 to $3.6 million in 2025, and Taipei Dangdai announced it would cease operations after its sixth edition. Geopolitical tensions with China have reduced Chinese collector participation and visitor numbers at the National Palace Museum.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 24, 2025 visibility 6 link 9 artists, 3 galleries

naotaka hiro paintings bortolami 1234758861

Naotaka Hiro's latest paintings, on view at Bortolami gallery in New York through November 1, were inspired by a harrowing experience seven years ago when he discovered a stranger living in the crawlspace beneath his Los Angeles home. Hiro now creates his works by lying supine with his canvas suspended just 13 inches above his body—the exact height of that crawlspace—often cutting holes through the canvas and wrapping it around himself with ropes to paint from all angles. The resulting abstractions, filled with forms resembling plants, fish gills, and veins, function as a 360-degree body scanner and a form of self-exploration.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 6 link 13 artists, 3 galleries

sothebys matthew carolyn bucksbaum magritte jean dubuffett 1234756446

Sotheby's will sell ten works from the Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum collection in its fall auctions, with six pieces by René Magritte, Jean Dubuffet, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee featured in the Modern Evening auction on November 20. The group of six works carries a total estimate of $18 million to $24 million, led by Magritte's *Le Jockey perdu* (1942) at $9–12 million and Dubuffet's *Restaurant Rougeot II* (1961) at $6–8 million. Sotheby's executives Julian Dawes and Grégoire Billault emphasized the rarity and importance of these works, noting that the Magritte is the only oil version of its subject and the Dubuffet is one of just three paintings of the iconic Paris restaurant.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 4 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

claude monet venice brooklyn museum review 1234756443

The Brooklyn Museum's exhibition "Monet and Venice" explores how Claude Monet's 1908 trip to Venice revitalized his creative practice, leading to 37 remarkable paintings that directly influenced his later "Water Lilies" series. The show assembles more than half of these Venice works alongside pieces by Canaletto, J.M.W. Turner, and others, tracing how the sojourn allowed Monet to see his canvases with fresh eyes after a period of creative impasse. Curated by Lisa Small and Melissa Buron, the 100-work survey opens October 11 and is the largest Monet exhibition in New York in over 25 years.

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article policy schedule Oct 10, 2025 visibility 7 link 11 artists, 4 galleries

cimam letter museum organization m hka closure flanders 1234756432

Two leading museum organizations, CIMAM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) and L'internationale, have sharply criticized the Flemish government's decision to transfer the collection and mission of Antwerp's M HKA to a newly formed museum in Ghent by 2028. In a statement dated October 10, CIMAM's Museum Watch Committee expressed profound concern, calling the plan based on "false administrative logic" and urging the Flemish minister of culture to reverse the decision. L'internationale also published a statement condemning the lack of transparency and consultation, noting that the plan was announced without input from M HKA's leadership or stakeholders. The building housing M HKA will be renovated into a Kunsthalle, and the government has canceled a planned $151 million new building for the museum.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 3 link 8 artists, 3 galleries

lacma donation from the otto kallir family gustav klimt 1234756125

The Otto Kallir family has donated over 130 Austrian Expressionist works valued at more than $60 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The gift includes the museum's first paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Richard Gerstl, along with works by Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, Lovis Corinth, and Käthe Kollwitz. The collection spans from the turn of the 20th century through the 1920s and features paintings, drawings, prints, posters, and mixed-medium works from the Wiener Werkstätte. A selection of 24 works will go on view in the exhibition “Austrian Expressionism and Otto Kallir” from November 23, 2025, through May 31, 2026, with a comprehensive exhibition planned for 2030. The Kallir family is also donating rare Viennese books and prints to the Getty Research Institute.

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person people schedule Oct 8, 2025 visibility 6 link 13 artists, 2 galleries

macarthur genius grants garrett bradley gala porras kim 1234756063

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its 2025 class of 22 MacArthur Fellows, each receiving an $800,000 no-strings-attached grant. Among the winners are several visual artists: Garrett Bradley, known for her Oscar-nominated documentary *Time* (2020) and works centering Black resistance; Gala Porras-Kim, whose practice questions how art institutions convey or conceal information about objects; Tuan Andrew Nguyen, whose films and installations explore trauma and colonization; and Jeremy Frey, a seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basket maker whose midcareer survey is on view at the Bruce Museum. Photographers Matt Black and Tonika Lewis Johnson also received fellowships, along with archaeologist Kristina Douglass and non-artists such as novelist Tommy Orange and astrophysicist Kareem El-Badry.

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candle obituary schedule Oct 8, 2025 visibility 6 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

ken jacobs film artist dead 1234755856

Ken Jacobs, a pioneering experimental filmmaker who blurred the boundaries between cinema and visual art, died at 92 in New York from kidney failure, according to his son, filmmaker Azazel Jacobs. A key figure in the postwar New York underground alongside Jack Smith and Jonas Mekas, Jacobs challenged conventional filmmaking through works like "Blonde Cobra" (1963) and "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (1969), using techniques such as live radio accompaniment, slow motion, and looping to deconstruct the medium. He studied painting under Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann and described his own work as "Abstract Expressionist cinema," often drawing direct comparisons between film and painting.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 4 link 6 artists, 1 gallery

marina abramovic venice accademia 2026 1234753848

Marina Abramović will celebrate her 80th birthday with a career-spanning exhibition titled "Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy" at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice from May 6 to October 19, 2026, coinciding with the 61st Venice Biennale. The show, previously staged at the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai in fall 2024, features 150 works including furniture-sculpture hybrids made from quartz, amethyst, and tourmaline. Abramović's "transitory objects" will be installed throughout the 14th-century building alongside the museum's permanent collection of Renaissance masterpieces by Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione, and Mantegna, with a notable pairing of her 1983 photograph *Pietà (with Ulay)* and Titian's *Pietà* (1575–76).

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trending_up market schedule Sep 25, 2025 visibility 8 link 11 artists, 7 galleries

untitled houston fair sales report 1234752806

The inaugural edition of Untitled Art, Houston, opened with 88 galleries—half the size of its Miami Beach counterpart—and generated strong sales and high attendance. Los Angeles-based Megan Mulrooney sold out its booth entirely, while Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino led sales with a Carlos Cruz-Diez work for $415,000. Other notable transactions included a bronze piece by Clare Rojas for $150,000 at Jessica Silverman and two John Alexander paintings at McClain Gallery fetching $70,000–$125,000. Most galleries reported consistent mid-market sales in the $25,000–$50,000 range, with collectors from Houston, Dallas, Austin, the Bay Area, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Francisco actively acquiring.

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article news schedule Sep 23, 2025 visibility 4 link 8 artists, 2 galleries

judy chicago pussy riot nadya tolakonnikova artwashing 1234753074

A group of 50 artists and cultural figures has sent a letter to Judy Chicago and Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova, accusing them of “artwashing” for their collaborative exhibition “What If Women Ruled the World?” scheduled to open September 25 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The letter calls for the exhibition’s cancellation, arguing that it is hypocritical to present a feminist show at an Israeli institution while Israel’s military actions in Gaza have killed over 28,000 women and girls since October 2023, according to UN Women. Tolokonnikova has stated she is not involved in decisions about the work’s current venue, while museum director Tania Coen-Uzzielli rejected the idea that canceling exhibitions is a meaningful response to the conflict.

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article news schedule Sep 23, 2025 visibility 3 link 7 artists, 1 gallery

danish museum gentileschi red hook fire morning links 1234753049

A massive fire ripped through a 19th-century warehouse at 481 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, destroying artist studios and artworks. Over 200 firefighters battled the blaze, which was still smoldering by Friday. Artist Rebecca Spivack, who had worked in a third-floor studio since 2009, expressed long-held fears about fire risk in the aging buildings. Meanwhile, the Nivaagaard Collection, a small museum in rural Denmark, acquired Artemisia Gentileschi's monumental painting "Susanna and the Elders" amid stiff international competition, marking a major coup for the institution. In other news, Ai Weiwei accused Die Zeit of censoring his article, Florida's removal of street art continues to stir controversy, Thaddaeus Ropac opened a new Milan gallery, and the world's oldest synagogue paintings in Syria were confirmed safe. The Vagina Museum in London stopped shipping to the US due to Trump's trade tariffs.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 20, 2025 visibility 5 link 10 artists, 2 galleries

sothebys karpidas sale white glove smashes estimate 1234752603

Sotheby's achieved a white-glove sale of Pauline Karpidas's collection on Wednesday night, far exceeding its $53 million high estimate to reach $100 million. All 55 lots sold, with 70% surpassing their high estimates, marking the highest total for a designated auction held in London. Two additional sales from the collection are ongoing: a day auction of 193 lots and an online sale of 97 lots, with a combined presale estimate of $80 million. The auction featured 23 Surrealist works, including pieces by René Magritte, and replicated Karpidas's London home in the salesroom.

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article news schedule Sep 18, 2025 visibility 3 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

glenn lowry moma values trump 1234752653

Glenn Lowry, the longtime director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), delivered a farewell speech in June 2025 at MoMA's Party in the Garden, implicitly addressing the Trump administration's attacks on cultural institutions. He urged the museum to defend values of pluralism, freedom of expression, and minority rights, warning that the coming years would present consequential choices not seen since World War II. The article notes that while Trump has not directly targeted MoMA, he has threatened the Smithsonian Institution, and artist Amy Sherald canceled a National Portrait Gallery survey alleging censorship. Under Lowry, MoMA mounted a 2017 exhibition critical of Trump's travel ban, but has otherwise avoided explicit political programming.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 17, 2025 visibility 4 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

cuban museum wont lend wifredo lam works to moma 1234752354

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has failed to secure loans from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana for its upcoming Wifredo Lam retrospective, “When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream.” The Havana museum declined to lend works due to fears that artworks entering the United States could be seized by a US court as part of claims by Cuban exiles and others seeking compensation for property confiscated during the Cuban Revolution. The exhibition, curated by MoMA director Christophe Cherix and Latin American art curator Beverly Adams, will feature 150 artworks from the Afro-Cuban Surrealist’s life, including several rediscovered pieces, but without the Cuban museum’s contributions.

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article news schedule Sep 10, 2025 visibility 7 link 8 artists, 1 gallery

david wojnarowicz mural rediscovered kentucky 1234749395

In 1985, David Wojnarowicz and other New York artists traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, to create site-specific murals for a weeklong fundraiser benefiting the Kentucky Child Victims' Trust Fund. The murals were expected to be destroyed after the event, but in 2023, the Wojnarowicz Foundation discovered that Wojnarowicz's mural, titled 'The Missing Children Show' Mural, had survived behind a false wall. However, the work has since been covered again, leaving its fate uncertain.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 10, 2025 visibility 8 link 17 artists, 4 galleries

cristin tierney marks 15 years tribeca 1234750653

Cristin Tierney, a seasoned art dealer, has opened a new gallery space in New York's Tribeca district, marking her fourth relocation in fifteen years. The inaugural exhibition, titled “Fifteen,” is a group show featuring over 30 artists who have shaped the gallery's identity, including Dread Scott, Mary Lucier, Judy Pfaff, and Shaun Leonardo. Tierney's move comes amid widespread reports of gallery closures, positioning her expansion as a strategic bet on the viability of midsize, independent dealers. The gallery's model combines a conceptual front-room program with secondary-market sales, a practice Tierney likens to the legacy of Leo Castelli.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 9, 2025 visibility 3 link 9 artists, 3 galleries

donald locke spike island exhibition review 1234748211

A major survey of Donald Locke's work, titled "Resistant Forms," has opened at Spike Island in Bristol, England, in collaboration with Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and Camden Art Centre in London. Featuring over 80 works spanning five decades, the exhibition includes early biomorphic ceramics, monochromatic black paintings from the 1970s, collage paintings, mixed-media sculptures, and personal writings and photographs. Highlights include the black paintings series addressing colonial subjugation, such as "The Cage" (1976–79), and later whimsical works like "Reconstructed Bottle with Pearls #11 (Pearls for Mahalia)" (2008). The show traces Locke's journey from his birth in Guyana, his time in the UK as part of the Windrush Generation, and his eventual move to the US, where he lived until his death in 2010.

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