From Mondrian to Man Ray, Here Are the Best-Sellers at Auction So Far This Year

The article analyzes the best-selling artworks at auction in the first half of 2025, covering Old Masters, Impressionist and Modern, and Postwar categories. Notable sales include a pair of Francesco Guardi views of Venice that sold for $10.5 million at Sotheby’s New York, a Piet Mondrian abstraction from the estate of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio that fetched just under $50 million, and a monumental rhinoceros-shaped desk by François-Xavier Lalanne that more than tripled its high estimate after a 13-minute bidding war. The report highlights that Old Masters sales were up 24% year-over-year, while top Impressionist and Modern lots saw lower prices compared to 2024.

London Gallery Weekend 2025: must-see shows for digital art lovers

London Gallery Weekend (LGW) 2025 features a strong digital art focus, with must-see shows by artists including Auriea Harvey, Tyler Hobbs, Beeple, and Robert Alice. Highlights include Beeple's interactive video sculpture *Tree of Knowledge* at the first South By Southwest London festival, LoVid's 25-year exploration of video and hand-stitched textiles at Gazelli Art House, David Salle's AI-assisted paintings at Thaddaeus Ropac, and Máté Orr's digital-first folklore paintings at JD Malat Gallery. The festival, where *The Art Newspaper* moderated a panel, underscores London's emergence as a digital art capital.

ELENA DAMIANI, XIMENA GARRIDO-LECCA AND ISHMAEL RANDALL-WEEKS: SIGNAL AND STRATA

ELENA DAMIANI, XIMENA GARRIDO-LECCA E ISHMAEL RANDALL-WEEKS: SIGNAL AND STRATA

An exhibition titled 'Signal and Strata' featuring Peruvian artists Elena Damiani, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, and Ishmael Randall-Weeks was presented at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts from February 5 to April 5, 2026. The show, examined in an accompanying essay by curator Madeline Murphy Turner, focuses on how the artists use materials like travertine, copper, and concrete to interrogate narratives of modernity, resource extraction, and the climate crisis.

Ballets of Repetition

Ballette der Wiederholung

Vivien Zhang, a painter whose work blends botany, mathematics, and migration, is now exhibiting in Berlin. Her paintings feature tongue-like petals, crystalline butterflies, dewdrops, seed capsules, chromosomes, and frozen brushstrokes, all arranged in grid-like patterns that create a ballet of repetition. The forms are technoid-organic and three-dimensional, presenting enigmatic visual puzzles that explore how shapes, identities, and systems emerge anew.

Sun, Sea, and Security

"Sonne, Meer und Sicherheit"

The Art Cologne Palma Mallorca art fair has emerged as a strategic hub for wealthy German collectors, positioning the Mediterranean island as a safe and accessible alternative to more volatile global markets. While sales have been strongest in the lower price segments, the fair's revival highlights a trend toward 'lifestyle' art events that prioritize security and leisure. Simultaneously, the German art market faces a broader crisis of regionalization, where galleries are increasingly focusing on local buyers despite declining overall sales and a lack of transformative economic growth.

Family of Nonagenarian Sculptor Is Fighting to Halt Demolition of Iconic Brutalist Fountain in Downtown San Francisco

The family of 96-year-old Quebecois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt is fighting to halt the demolition of his 710-ton concrete fountain, known as Québec Libre! or the Vaillancourt Fountain, in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Plaza. The city began dismantling the 1971 public artwork this week, citing a planned plaza renovation, and the disassembly is expected to cost $4 million. Vaillancourt’s son Alexis and the group Friends of the Plaza have filed an appellate petition challenging the city’s use of an emergency exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act, arguing that the fountain’s disrepair does not constitute a sudden emergency requiring immediate action.

studio museum in harlem to close for more than a week after sprinkler emergency 1234771150

The Studio Museum in Harlem has closed through February 7 after a sprinkler emergency forced visitors to evacuate on Friday. Water poured from a ceiling near the gift shop, creating a large pool on the floor, but no artworks or galleries were affected. The museum initially planned a weekend closure, but repairs proved more extensive after a sprinkler was damaged during preparations for a record-breaking snowstorm that dropped 11 inches on Manhattan.

mellon foundation emergency funding state councils neh cuts 1234740188

The Mellon Foundation, the largest funder of the arts and humanities in the U.S., announced $15 million in emergency funding to the Federation of State Humanities Councils (FSHC). The funds will be distributed to state councils in all 50 states and six jurisdictions, with each council receiving a $200,000 one-time grant totaling $11.2 million, plus $2.8 million in challenge grants requiring local matching. This comes after the Trump administration cut $65 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities budget that was earmarked for these councils, threatening severe deficits or closures. The cuts were justified by the federal government as necessary for fiscal priorities, with $17 million redirected to a Trump-designated National Garden of American Heroes.

studio museum in harlem sprinkler mishap 2740973

The Studio Museum in Harlem has temporarily closed due to water damage caused by a sprinkler emergency during a snowstorm. The incident, which affected the gift shop near the entrance, prompted an evacuation of staff and visitors. The museum will remain closed through February 7 for repairs, with all programs and events cancelled and refunds issued to ticket holders. No artworks or galleries were affected, according to a museum representative.

art market minute dec 8 2725081

The article reports strong sales across Miami art fairs, particularly at Art Basel Miami Beach, where Beeple's "Regular Animals"—robotic dogs with hyper-realistic heads of billionaires—were a major attraction in the new digital art section Zero10. It also notes that three art-world heavyweights are launching a new gallery focused on secondary market sales, and that the Art Dealers Association of America is launching a new art fair after canceling its long-running Art Show.

Italy’s Uffizi Hit by Cyberattack, Says Security Wasn’t Compromised

The Uffizi Galleries in Florence suffered a significant cyberattack in February, with hackers reportedly stealing access codes, internal maps, CCTV camera information, and the institution's entire photographic archive. The attackers issued a ransom demand to director Simone Verde. In response, the museum moved valuable jewels to the Bank of Italy, sealed emergency exits at the Palazzo Pitti with bricks, and closed a section of the palace, though it attributes some actions to planned renovations and fire-safety compliance.

Legendary Looks: My Ballroom Story Felix Rodriguez

Filmmaker Felix Rodriguez's archival work is featured in "Legendary Looks: My Ballroom Story," a multi-site exhibition running across Pioneer Works, ArtsWestchester, and City Lore throughout summer 2025. Co-curated by prominent ballroom leaders Jonovia Chase Lanvin, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, and Michael Roberson Maison-Margiela, the exhibition explores the artistry and cultural legacy of the house ballroom community. Rodriguez has documented this community since 1991, amassing an encyclopedic archive of New York's ballroom figures, and his multimedia installation at Pioneer Works highlights the role of commentators who live-narrate balls, presented along a red carpet evoking ball runways.

New exhibition at Buxton reveals insights into Chinese conceptual art

The University of Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary has opened a new exhibition titled "Poetry goes no further than language," which examines the emergence of conceptual art in China during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Featuring works by the Beijing collective New Measurement Group and Shanghai artist Qian Weikang, the show also includes a new commission by Victorian College of the Arts graduate Darcey Bella Arnold. Curated by Dr. Carol Yinghua Lu, Director of Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum, together with artist Liu Ding, the exhibition brings previously inaccessible or little-known works to Australia for the first time.

Buxton Unveils Chinese Conceptual Art Exhibition

The University of Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary has opened "Poetry goes no further than language: A historical moment of art becoming art again," an exhibition examining the emergence of conceptual art in China during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. It features works by the Beijing collective New Measurement Group and Shanghai artist Qian Weikang, alongside a new commission by Victorian College of the Arts graduate Darcey Bella Arnold. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Carol Yinghua Lu, Director of Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum, and artist Liu Ding.

New and relaunched satellite fairs spread across Los Angeles during Frieze

A wave of new and relaunched satellite art fairs is debuting in Los Angeles to coincide with Frieze Los Angeles, offering lower-cost alternatives for galleries and artists. Newcomers like the Indianapolis-based Butter Art Fair, the photography-focused Show LA, and the New York-centric Enzo Art Fair are positioning themselves as intimate, artist-centric, or zero-fee options. These ventures aim to capitalize on the influx of global collectors while bypassing the high overhead costs associated with major international fairs.

Medieval triptych ventures out of Dorset to sell for £5.7m in London Old Master auctions

A late 15th-century Netherlandish triptych, *The Five Miracles of Christ*, sold for £5.7 million at Sotheby’s London Old Master auction. The work, kept for centuries at St. John’s Almshouse in Sherborne, Dorset, had never before appeared on the market. The charity sold it to fund affordable housing, and the buyer—an unnamed Christian charitable foundation—plans to keep the painting publicly viewable in the town. Other highlights included a Rembrandt reattribution, *Saint John on Patmos*, which sold for £6.8 million, and a record £3.2 million for a Hans Eworth portrait of the 4th Duke of Norfolk.

Bay Area Then

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco presents 'Bay Area Then,' an exhibition running from August 1, 2025, to January 25, 2026, that surveys the Northern California art scene between 1990 and 2005. Guest curated by Eungie Joo, the show features works by nineteen artists or collaborations, including Manuel Ocampo, Margaret Kilgallen, Bill Daniel, Ruby Neri, and Carolyn Castaño, mixing historical pieces with recent productions by artists who emerged during that era.

In a risk-averse market, Paris Photo offers diversity

Paris Photo returns to the Grand Palais for its 28th edition, featuring 220 exhibitors from 33 countries, including 178 galleries and 42 publishers. The fair opens amid a risk-averse market where dealers report slower acquisitions, increased production costs, and reduced collector risk-taking, yet attendance reached 81,000 in 2024. Notable trends include a resurgence of Japanese galleries after a five-year absence, strong Latin American presentations from Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Santiago, and Mexico City, and a rise in women artists to 39% of practitioners, up from 20% in 2018. Highlights include MEM's exhibition of the August 6 Hiroshima Day student photography project and Claudia Andujar's Yanomami works shown by Galeria Vermelho.

How Third-Party Guarantees Are Quietly (But Significantly) Rewriting the Rules of the Art Auction

The article reports that the New York Spring Marquee auctions in May 2025 generated $1.27 billion, an 8% decline from $1.38 billion in May 2024, followed by a 26% drop in London June auctions to £98 million. In response to this volatile market, auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s are increasingly relying on third-party guarantees (or irrevocable bids), where a buyer agrees in advance to purchase a lot at a set price if no higher bid emerges. Data from Pi-eX Ltd shows that third-party guarantee coverage surged from near zero in 2021 to a record 73% in May 2025, with the Leonard & Louise Riggio collection being 99% backed by such guarantees.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Legendary Artists, Are Back in Spirit

The article revisits Christo and Jeanne-Claude's iconic 1983 "Surrounded Islands" project in Miami's Biscayne Bay, where they wrapped 11 small islands in hot pink plastic. It describes how the spectacle drew global attention and marked a turning point for Miami, which was then struggling with crime and a negative image. The piece also notes that the couple's work is being seen again in Florida, New York, and Germany, with a related exhibition at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale.

Getty Museum Acquires Two Significant Dutch Still Lifes

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired two significant 17th-century Dutch still life paintings. The first is Jan Davidsz. de Heem's 'Glass Vase with Flowers and Fruit' (c. 1673–74), a work the museum had sought for over twenty years, which recently emerged from a private German collection. The second is Pieter Claesz's 'Still Life with Assorted Fruit' (1597/98–1660), a 'fruitagje' painting purchased at a Sotheby's auction for $1.64 million.

trump cuts museums funding aam report 1234761254

A new survey from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) reveals that one-third of American museums have lost government grants and contracts since President Donald Trump took office. Based on responses from 511 museum directors, the report documents funding cuts from federal agencies including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). These losses have forced museums to defer infrastructure improvements, cancel programming for underserved communities, and lay off staff. Some institutions have taken legal action, and a court ruling in May halted further dismantling of the IMLS. The Mellon Foundation has offered emergency grants, but two-thirds of surveyed museums have been unable to replace lost funding, with a median grant loss of $30,000.

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The Humboldt Forum in Berlin is tightening security after two violent knife attacks near the cultural complex left one man dead and several others injured. The most recent incident occurred on a Friday evening when a group of about 15 people attacked three others near the museum, resulting in the death of a 20-year-old Syrian man. A previous knife fight between two groups at the same location left six men injured, one requiring emergency surgery. The Forum stated the attacks were not directly related to the institution but emphasized it is taking the situation seriously and coordinating with police and local authorities.

getty villa reopen june 27 palisades fire 1234742808

The Getty Villa will reopen on June 27 after closing on January 7 due to the Palisades Fire, which burned 23,448 acres and destroyed many homes of artists and art professionals. Seventeen Getty staff members volunteered to stay on site to protect the museum, sealing galleries and extinguishing small fires, while LAFD water drops and firefighting efforts helped spare the institution. The reopening will feature the exhibition "The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece," showcasing over 230 works from the Late Bronze Age, including clay tablets in early Greek script and the Pylos Combat Agate sealstone dating to 1450 BCE.

trump aims to eliminate the national endowment for the humanities 1234740525

The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal seeks to eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The proposal follows recent cuts that have already halted 2025 funding, slashed $65 million from the NEH's $210 million budget, and fired roughly 65% of its staff. A lawsuit filed by three humanities-focused organizations aims to reverse the cuts, and a judge has issued a temporary restraining order to block the dismantling of the IMLS. The Mellon Foundation has provided $15 million in emergency funding to state humanities councils to prevent closures.

True Origins of King Tut ‘Curse’ Emerge in Newly Sold Letter

A three-page letter written by archaeologist Howard Carter, which disputes the origins of the famous "Curse of the Pharaohs" linked to King Tutankhamun's tomb, has sold at auction for $16,643. In the letter, Carter explicitly blames journalist Arthur Weigall for inventing the sensationalist myth out of professional pique after being excluded from exclusive coverage of the 1922 discovery.

DRIFT celebrates LACMA's gallery opening with a glowing swarm of dancing drones

The artist duo DRIFT launched their 'Franchise Freedom' performance, a swarm of over 1,000 illuminated drones, above the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The event celebrated the public opening of the museum's new Peter Zumthor-designed David Geffen Galleries, creating a dialogue between the dynamic, airborne artwork and the building's horizontal, sand-toned concrete architecture.

Museum: Art, Collections, and Exhibits

Museum - Art, Collections, Exhibits

This comprehensive overview traces the historical evolution of the museum from its origins as private royal collections and 'cabinets of curiosities' to the modern public institutions of the 21st century. It details the emergence of landmark spaces like the Ashmolean, the British Museum, and the Louvre, while examining how the 'museum boom' of the 20th century expanded these institutions globally across the United States, Asia, and Africa.

Storied media arts centre launches emergency fundraising appeal to avoid closure

Vivo Media Arts Centre, a storied media arts centre in Vancouver, has launched an emergency fundraising appeal to avoid closure after five decades of operation. The centre faces a 30% rent increase imposed by the city of Vancouver, which consumes all of its operating revenue from the city, leaving nothing for staff or programming. It has raised nearly C$9,500 of the C$50,000 needed by the end of the year to sustain operations through early 2026.

To make up for NEH grants cancelled by Trump, Mellon Foundation gives $15m to US humanities organisations

The Mellon Foundation has announced $15 million in emergency funding for humanities councils in all 50 US states and six territories, after the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cancelled approximately $65 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH cuts, which affected over 6,600 local organizations, were redirected toward presidential priorities including a planned patriotic sculpture park called the "National Garden of American Heroes" and a new "Celebrate America!" grant program for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Mellon Foundation's president, Elizabeth Alexander, stated the funds aim to preserve the operational integrity of museums, libraries, and historical societies nationwide.