The article is a table of contents for Issue 42 of Contemporary Art Review LA, which includes a review of an exhibition by artist Devin Troy Strother at ArtCenter. The review, written by Janelle Zara, is listed among other reviews, interviews, and features in the publication's November 2025 issue.
The 15th annual Photoville festival in New York features over 90 photographic exhibits, ranging from whimsical subjects like cosmic-looking apples in "Old Apples" to hard-hitting reportage on wildfires, water access inequalities, and ICE's impact on communities. Notable exhibits include "Special Girls," showcasing 1990s photos of trans women from the Remsen Wolff archive, and "Point of View," pairing self-portraits by Dutch college students with Rijksmuseum artworks. Other highlights include Lexi Parra's "The Avillas," documenting a family after a matriarch's self-deportation, and "Puppies Behind Bars," a photo series on incarcerated men raising service dogs at Green Haven prison.
Arthur Brand, a Dutch art detective, was contacted by a man who discovered that his family descended from Hendrik Seyffardt, a high-ranking Nazi collaborator, and that a painting looted from Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker remained in their possession. The painting, Toon Kelder's *Portrait of a Young Girl*, had hung in a relative's home near Utrecht for years. The family, who changed their name after WWII, handed the painting to Brand after the story broke in Dutch media, expressing shame and outrage over the silence surrounding their history.
The article profiles Colombian artist Delcy Morelos and her immersive earthwork installations, focusing on two major works: 'The Womb Space' in Mexico City, which has drawn over 60,000 visitors in its final month, and 'Origo', a new 24-metre-wide outdoor pavilion opening at the Barbican in London. Morelos creates vast soil sculptures sourced from specific regions, evoking sensory experiences of smell, touch, and memory, and invites visitors to contemplate their connection to the earth. The piece includes her reflections on Andean cosmovision, the sacredness of nature, and her 14-year artistic inquiry into soil as a humble yet life-sustaining material.
The 2026 Venice Biennale opened with 99 participating countries, including first-timers Somalia and Qatar, under the shadow of curator Koyo Kouoh's death. Her planned theme of "enhancement" and the main show "In Minor Keys" were disrupted by political protests: Pussy Riot objected to Russia's inclusion, and a strike against Israel's participation forced several national pavilions (UK, Austria, France) to close. Key takeaways include pervasive female nudity across pavilions, debates over Russia's presence, criticism of the US pavilion's lackluster art, maritime themes dominating several shows, and the rise of olfactory art.
Kim Kardashian wore an orange fibreglass breastplate to the 2024 Met Gala, created by the east London design duo Whitaker Malem (Patrick Whitaker and Keir Malem) in collaboration with British pop artist Allen Jones. The breastplate was cast from a mould derived from Jones's 1969 sculpture "Hatstand," finished by car bodyshop MPS Body and Paint in Kent, and paired with a hand-painted leather skirt. Kardashian directly contacted the duo in early April, flew to the UK for fittings, and chose the piece to interpret the gala's "fashion is art" dress code, which explored the dressed and undressed human body.
A collection of unseen Keith Haring works, including a crib he painted for his best friend's unborn child, is going on display at Sotheby's New York before being auctioned in May 2025. The collection belongs to Kermit Oswald, Haring's childhood friend, and features 20 works, with a 1985 self-portrait estimated at $3m-$5m and the crib valued at $250,000-$350,000. Oswald shares intimate stories of their friendship, from childhood pranks in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, to their move to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts, and Haring's later collaboration with William Burroughs.
The article reviews a salon-style exhibition curated by Matthew Higgs, director of New York's White Columns gallery, at an unnamed gallery space. The show features 43 paintings by a diverse group of artists including Denzil Forrester, Andrew Cranston, Kaye Donachie, Merlin James, Margot Bergman, Gillian Carnegie, Bill Lynch, and Adam Keay, arranged around mismatched chairs facing white windows painted on the walls. The reviewer describes moving through the space, engaging with individual works, and highlights the eclectic, unthemed curation that prioritizes personal taste and conversation over academic or political messaging.
Aipad: The Photography Show is taking place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York from April 22-26, 2026, featuring works from over 70 galleries. The exhibition highlights include Bill Brandt's 1952 nude, Rania Matar's portrait of a young woman in Lebanon, and Zanele Muholi's 2009 portrait of a lesbian pageant queen, alongside works by Tania Franco Klein, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, and others that explore themes of identity, anxiety, and alternative realities.
Victoria Miro is hosting the largest exhibition of Paula Rego’s drawings to date, curated by the artist’s son, Nick Willing. Spanning from the 1950s until her death in 2022, the show features intimate pencil sketches, pastels, and ink drawings that reveal the foundational narratives of her career, including her early childhood sketches, her fierce opposition to the Salazar dictatorship, and her advocacy for women's rights.
Nonagenarian painter Joan Semmel is preparing for a major career moment with a retrospective at the Jewish Museum and a dual-city exhibition, 'Continuities', at Alexander Gray Associates in New York and Brussels. At 93, Semmel continues to produce large-scale, vibrant works from her SoHo studio that focus on the aging female nude, using her own body as a primary reference. The new works, including 'Here I Am' (2025), maintain her lifelong commitment to depicting the female form through a non-idealized, authentic lens that rejects the traditional male gaze.
Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta is hosting "Gordon Parks: The South in Colour," a major exhibition curated by photographer Dawoud Bey. The show features over 30 works from Parks’ seminal 1956 "Segregation Story" series, including several previously unshown images of the Thornton, Causey, and Tanner families in Alabama. The exhibition coincides with the 70th anniversary of the series' original publication in Life magazine and the 20th anniversary of The Gordon Parks Foundation.
Recent psychological research confirms that engaging with visual art provides significant physical and mental health benefits, including the alleviation of depression, anxiety, and stress. Studies indicate that viewing art can also enhance cognitive functioning and social skills, prompting new initiatives to explore the specific mechanisms behind these wellness improvements.
The 2026 edition of EXPO Chicago opened at Navy Pier with a renewed sense of energy, marking its third year under Frieze ownership and its first under the leadership of director Kate Sierzputowski. Early reports from the VIP preview suggest a successful revitalization of the fair, which has successfully re-engaged longtime Midwestern collectors while simultaneously attracting a more robust international audience.
The Gordon Parks Foundation held its annual Awards Dinner and Auction at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City, raising nearly $2 million to support its mission of social justice through the arts. The gala honored a distinguished group of changemakers, including activist Angela Davis, painter Amy Sherald, philanthropist Clara Wu Tsai, producer Crystal McCrary, and businessman Raymond McGuire. Hosted by Kaseem Dean (Swizz Beatz) and Executive Director Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., the event celebrated the enduring legacy of Gordon Parks and his commitment to documenting and advancing civil rights.
The Studio Museum in Harlem hosted a star-studded gala at the Glasshouse in Manhattan, raising $3.7 million to support its upcoming reopening. The event marked a significant milestone for the institution, which has been undergoing extensive renovations for seven years and is scheduled to open its new doors on West 125th Street on November 15. Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden described the evening as a 'threshold' moment, celebrating the museum's legacy of shaping cultural history since its founding in 1968.
New York's major auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, are gearing up for their spring sales with high-value consignments from prominent collections. Sotheby's will auction Mark Rothko's "Towering Brown and Blacks in Reds" (1957), estimated at up to $100 million, from the estate of investment banker Robert Mnuchin. Christie's is offering works from the collection of the late gallerist Marian Goodman, including Gerhard Richter's "Kerze" (1982) valued at up to $50 million and "Mohn" (1995) around $15 million, alongside pieces from the estates of publisher S. I. Newhouse and collector Agnes Gund, with a Constantin Brâncuși sculpture and a Jackson Pollock painting each estimated at $100 million, and another Rothko at $80 million.
Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery is presenting a new exhibition that offers fresh insights into the work of Domenico Gnoli, the Italian painter known for his meticulous, oversized depictions of everyday objects and figures. The show highlights both his perfectionist technique and a playful, goofy side to his caricatures of reality, capturing the essence of la dolce vita.
Ralph Lemon's exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery presents 13 black-and-white photographs and three short videos focusing on sites in the Mississippi Delta connected to the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till. Rather than dramatizing the incident, Lemon records physical traces of the locations—such as Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, the barn where Till was killed, the Tallahatchie River, and a funeral home—capturing dilapidated buildings and landscapes that suggest history slipping away. The show includes the titular video "From Out of Space" (2018–21), which offers closeups and drone footage of these sites, creating a meditative, detective-like examination of memory and erasure.
The 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, titled 'Yield Strength,' features 24 artists across three venues, curated by Ellie Buttrose. The exhibition explores resilience under political and social pressures, with works like Erika Scott's fused assemblages from discarded domestic items, Jennifer Matthew's steel construction that manipulates visitor movement, and Nathan Beard's silicone arms critiquing exoticization of Thai culture. The title borrows an engineering term for the point at which materials transform under stress, reflecting the show's focus on art that strains formal boundaries without breaking.
Gardar Eide Einarsson’s latest exhibition at Maureen Paley’s East London space presents a haunting exploration of dissociation and coded information. The show features two distinct series: 'Closed Caption,' a collection of monochrome black gouache paintings featuring isolated subtitles from films, and 'Incendiary Test Area,' a set of hyperrealistic woodblock prints created in collaboration with master Shoichi Kitamura. These prints depict the interiors of mock 'Japanese' houses built by the US Army for fire-bombing tests during World War II.
Artist Jen Liu’s solo exhibition 'Pound of Flesh' at Silverlens New York explores the dehumanizing nature of digital labor through visceral imagery of raw meat. The show features paintings where human consciousness is replaced by butcher-shop cuts and an animated video based on Liu’s research into microworkers—individuals who perform repetitive, low-paid tasks to train AI models. By juxtaposing the biological reality of the body with the clinical extraction of data, Liu highlights the physical and psychological toll of the 'Agentic Age.'
Artist Isabel Nolan will represent Ireland at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with an exhibition titled 'Dreamshook' in the Arsenale. Her presentation will feature a room of tapestries, sculptures, and drawings, inspired by late Medieval European humanist thinkers who questioned inherent human goodness and sought meaning in earthly life.
Artist Craig Jun Li's solo exhibition features collagist wall-works and installations that deconstruct photographic technology. Works like the 2025 silicone sheets incorporate altered dye-transfer prints, Polaroids, and actual camera parts like SX-70 film cartridge springs, redirecting focus from pictorial representation to the mechanical apparatus of image-making.
Thaddaeus Ropac Milan is hosting a landmark exhibition titled "Dialogues are mostly fried snowballs," marking the first-ever joint presentation of Marcel Duchamp and Sturtevant. The show stages a cerebral confrontation between Duchamp’s original readymades, such as "Porte-bouteilles" and "Trébuchet," and Sturtevant’s radical repetitions of his work. By showcasing these pieces alongside archival materials and films, the exhibition traces how Sturtevant used Duchamp’s style as a medium to investigate the canonization and "understructure" of conceptual art.
Richard Hambleton, the Canadian street artist known as the "Godfather of Street Art," is the subject of a new feature by Sphere Gallery, which has championed his legacy. The gallery, founded in New York in 2015 and now based in Laguna Beach, California, specializes in artists who shaped contemporary visual culture, including Hambleton. The article highlights Hambleton's early "Image of Mass Murder" body outlines from the 1970s and his iconic "Shadowman" paintings from the early 1980s, which appeared in cities worldwide. It also discusses his relationships with Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring, as seen in his 2016 work *The Four Friends*. Gallery founder Philippe Hoerle-Guggenheim shares his personal encounters with Hambleton's work and explains why the "Shadowman" series remains significant for its raw, psychological intensity and its embodiment of 1980s New York City.
Art Basel Miami Beach has undergone a last-minute lineup change, with gallery Ross + Kramer being replaced by Ross + Co. following an unexplained split between principals Todd Kramer and Ryan Ross. Ryan Ross, who has been in the art business for decades and runs Arcature Fine Art in Palm Beach, will now show under the new name at the fair, which opens to VIPs next week. The change was reported by ARTnews, which noted that the fair's 2025 participant list still links to Ross + Kramer's website, and Ross + Co.'s page features outdated branding.
In March 2025, major auction houses, particularly in London, achieved strong sales despite the month typically being quiet. Christie’s and Sotheby’s sold ten high-value lots, led by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s *Sabado Noche* (1984) at £8.4 million ($14.5 million). A standout result was M.F. Husain’s *Untitled (Gram Yatra)* (1954), which sold for $13.75 million at Christie’s New York, marking the first time an Indian Modern artwork exceeded $10 million at auction. Other notable sales included works by René Magritte, Yoshitomo Nara, Francis Bacon, Tamara de Lempicka, Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Delvaux, Michael Andrews, and Lisa Brice.
Ed Ruscha's 2014 lithograph "Angel" is being offered for sale through Leslie Sacks Gallery in Santa Monica. The work is a unique color trial proof from an edition of 60, measuring 23 by 16 inches, hand-signed and numbered by the artist, and includes a certificate of authenticity. The listing appears on Artsy, where the price is available on request, and notes increased collector interest over the past 14 days.
Creative New Zealand (CNZ) explicitly states on its website that it does not fund fashion design, classifying it as primarily part of the commercial creative industries. The article highlights the contradiction that while major institutions like The Dowse Art Museum, Auckland Art Gallery, and World of WearableArt treat fashion as art, CNZ denies funding to fashion designers, with rare exceptions for non-commercial, cross-cultural, or collaborative projects. Fashion designer Doris de Pont, founder of The New Zealand Fashion Museum, notes that even when her trust received CNZ support, it was for the art connection, not the fashion itself.