India has announced that emerging artists from its Indigenous tribes will represent the country at the 2026 Venice Biennale, marking the nation's first national pavilion since 2019. The news was delivered by Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat at a conference on conservation and tribal arts, highlighting a renewed government focus on Indigenous artistic heritage.
As part of the recent ceasefire deal brokered by the Trump Administration, Hamas returned 20 living hostages and four bodies of deceased hostages to Israel on Monday, but failed to return all 28 bodies as agreed. Among the deceased is Israeli graffiti artist and art student Inbar Haiman, known as “Pink,” who was abducted at age 27 from the Nova Music Festival on October 7. Her family is demanding the return of her remains, with her aunt Hannah Cohen emphasizing the need for closure. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum condemned the incomplete return as a violation of the agreement, and Israel has threatened consequences if the remaining bodies are not handed over.
Milton Esterow, the award-winning journalist who owned and edited ARTnews for 42 years, died on Friday at age 97. His death was confirmed by his daughter Judith Esterow, a former associate publisher of the magazine. Esterow purchased ARTnews in 1972 from Newsweek and transformed it into a news-focused powerhouse, winning a National Magazine Award and two George Polk Awards. He introduced the influential ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list in 1990 and was known for his relentless investigative journalism, particularly on Holocaust art restitution. He continued writing into his 90s, using his 1950 Royal typewriter.
Zoe Dubno's novel *Happiness & Love* is a satire of the art world, heavily borrowing from Thomas Bernhard's 1984 novel *Woodcutters*. The book follows an unnamed narrator who relentlessly criticizes the vapid, social-climbing denizens of the downtown New York scene, using the word "stupid" over twenty times. The narrator laments the art world's obsession with wealth and clout over meaning and beauty, but her own hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness are evident. The novel has received superficial coverage from outlets like *New York Magazine*, focusing on the author's lifestyle rather than the book's content.
Art Basel Paris has announced a new ultra-VIP preview program called "Avant Première" for its upcoming edition at the Grand Palais. Scheduled for Tuesday, October 21, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., the initiative allows all 203 participating galleries to invite select clients for an exclusive early viewing, ahead of the fair's official VIP days on October 22–23. The fair declined to disclose how many invitations each gallery can extend. The program was first reported by the Baer Faxt, and Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz described it as "for the market, by the market."
President Donald Trump has announced the United States will withdraw from UNESCO for the second time, effective at the end of 2026. The State Department cited the organization's focus on "divisive social and cultural causes" and its alignment with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals as contrary to America First foreign policy, as well as "anti-Israel rhetoric" within UNESCO. This follows a pattern of Trump pulling the US from multilateral bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, and continues a fraught history: the US stopped funding UNESCO under Obama over Palestine's membership, left in 2017 under Trump, and rejoined under Biden in 2023.
RM Sotheby's is hosting an online auction titled "The Champions – Schumacher and F1 Legends" from July 24 to 30, featuring 280 lots of Formula 1 memorabilia. Highlights include a Cartier Automatic watch gifted by Enzo Ferrari to Fiat executive Gianni Agnelli in 1988, estimated at €10,000–€20,000, and over 150 lots related to Michael Schumacher, such as racing suits, helmets, and boots from his career. Other notable items include watches presented to Jean Todt and Michael Schumacher, as well as memorabilia from drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna, and Fernando Alonso. A selection of 35 lots will be displayed at the Concours of Elegance in Tegernsee, Germany.
The Ford Foundation has appointed Heather Gerken, dean of Yale Law School, as its next president. She will succeed Darren Walker and become the 11th president of the foundation, as well as the second woman to lead the organization in its nearly 90-year history. Gerken will officially assume the role on November 1, following a national search launched after Walker announced his departure after 12 years.
Germany's culture minister Monika Grütters has released a 130-page code of conduct for museums, titled "Guide to Dealing With Collection Goods From Colonial Contexts," which outlines methods for identifying and confronting colonial-era artifacts in German collections. The guidelines, published by the German Association of Museums, include best practices for provenance research, a list of former and current colonies, and alternatives to full restitution such as long-term loans and joint custody agreements. The release coincides with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation's official ceremony returning nine artifacts to Indigenous Alaskan communities, and follows increased pressure from public outcry over the Humboldt Forum and similar restitution efforts by French president Emmanuel Macron.
Justin Allen celebrated the launch of his debut book *Language Arts* (2024), published by Wendy’s Subway, with a live reading at Performance Space in New York’s Lower East Side. The book merges music, dance, performance, and language, including a poem "140 BPM" that recreates nights at Bushwick’s Bossa Nova Civic Club. Allen, who grew up in Northern Virginia and moved to New York City, draws on influences from experimental punk, indie sleaze artists like Santigold and M.I.A., and his own invented language, Hatnahans, to craft a work that blends leftist critique with speculative fiction and club culture.
Jonathan Crockett, deputy chairman of Phillips in Asia, reflects on the auction house's 10-year journey in the region, from a small Hong Kong office to a major presence in the West Kowloon Cultural District. He recounts his career path from Christie's and Sotheby's to founding his own advisory firm, then joining Phillips to launch its Asian operations, overcoming brand confusion and building a robust client network.
A farmer in southern Mexico discovered the first Olmec head in the late 1850s while clearing land for corn cultivation. Since then, 17 colossal stone heads have been unearthed, primarily at the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan archaeological site in Veracruz. Carved by the Olmec civilization between 1200 and 400 B.C.E., these basalt monuments range from 3.5 to 11.5 feet tall and weigh up to 45 tons. Each head features unique facial expressions and is thought to depict individual Olmec rulers, possibly serving as funerary monuments. The heads are now held by institutions such as the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology.
Endeavor Group Holdings has sold Frieze, the company behind the influential art magazine and several international art fairs, to a new company formed by former Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel. The deal, valued at nearly $200 million, is expected to close by the third quarter of this year. Frieze's current leadership, including CEO Simon Fox, will remain in place. The sale follows Endeavor's full privatization by Silver Lake and marks the end of a long-rumored ownership transition. Notably, two tennis tournaments initially bundled in the negotiations—Miami Open and Madrid Open—are not included in this deal.
Chicago-based collectors Mamadou-Abou and Catherine Sarr discuss their art collection, which spans works from West Africa, France, and the U.S., in an interview with Cultured. The couple, an investor and a jewelry designer, share how their collection began with Mamadou-Abou's discovery of contemporary African photography and emphasize a patient, conviction-driven approach to acquiring art. They also detail the SARR Prize, an initiative supporting emerging France-based artists with cash awards and a residency at Villa Albertine in Chicago.
Harmonia Rosales, an Afro-Cuban artist known for reimagining Renaissance and baroque iconography with Black bodies, and Ingrid Best, an Afro-Latina wine entrepreneur and art collector, discuss their friendship and mutual support in an interview for Cultured. They first connected at Rosales’s 2022 show at UTA in Los Angeles, where Best was part of a collective that purchased Rosales’s work, including the piece *Strangler Fig: Adam and Eve*. Rosales later became the first artist to invest in Best’s wine business, IBEST Wines, which sources from underrepresented regions. Their conversation covers ownership, community, and creating structures that sustain women’s legacies beyond mere representation.
Elin Kling and Karl Lindman, the Swedish couple behind the womenswear brand Toteme, discuss their design philosophy and the opening of their first flagship store in mainland Europe, located on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. The article, accompanied by photography from Mikael Jansson, details how the brand has resisted trends like "quiet luxury" and minimalism labels, instead focusing on precision, restraint, and timeless essentials. The Paris store, designed by Stockholm-based Halleroed, features art-gallery-white walls, Italian limestone floors, and works by Marc Newson, Lucie Gottlieb, and Jansson, reflecting the brand's serene, uncluttered aesthetic.
Jonathan Anderson made his debut as the new men's artistic director of Dior with the Men's Spring/Summer 2026 collection, presented in June. The collection riffs on French history while incorporating Anderson's signature gestures: painstaking handiwork, reverence for craft, and touches of the absurd. Highlights include a collaboration with textile artist Sheila Hicks on the Lady Dior bag, literary tributes on the Book Tote (featuring works by Bram Stoker, James Joyce, and Charles Baudelaire), and intricate embroidery requiring up to 3,271 hours per coat. The collection also features Brandebourg detailing, sculptural silhouettes, and reimagined heritage pieces like a 1960s-inspired cape.
Last Thursday, an intimate panel conversation took place at the sales gallery of the Jean-Georges Miami Tropic Residences in the Miami Design District, bringing together leaders from visual culture. Panelists included CULTURED Editor-at-Large Julia Halperin, designer Glenn Pushelberg, artist Marcel Dzama, and art advisor Jamie Stagnitta, who discussed how art, design, and culture shape contemporary living. Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten surprised guests by arriving at the event.
Sharon Maidenberg, who became the Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director & CEO of the Contemporary Austin in summer 2020, reflects on her five-year tenure in an interview with CULTURED. Under her leadership, the museum has navigated the pandemic, deepened programming, expanded accessibility with an ADA ramp and offerings for visually impaired and neurodivergent visitors, launched sustainability initiatives with the Teiger Foundation and Rute Collaborative, and hosted its annual Art Dinner featuring a Benefit Art Auction with works by Lubaina Himid, Ed Ruscha, RF. Alvarez, and others. Current exhibitions include “The Canvas Can Do Miracles,” “HOST: Raul De Lara,” and “Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art.”
Ira Sachs's new film *Peter Hujar's Day* dramatizes a 1974 interview in which photographer Peter Hujar recounted his day to journalist Linda Rosenkrantz. The transcript, originally intended for a book project, was rediscovered and published by Magic Hour Press in 2021. Starring Ben Whishaw as Hujar and Rebecca Hall as Rosenkrantz, the film is set entirely in a Westbeth apartment, capturing the texture of New York's downtown art scene through Hujar's anecdotes about figures like Susan Sontag, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg.
French artist Mimosa Echard presents "Facial," a new exhibition at Amant in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, running through February 16, 2026. The show features a series of palimpsest-like canvases and a video work of Times Square, inspired by Echard's pedestrian observations of New York City. Key motifs include ginkgo trees—which she links to survival, ancient sexuality, and the city's olfactory character—and the repetitive eye imagery found on beauty salon facades, which she interprets as a form of "sweet surveillance." Echard, who won the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2022, created the works during a two-month residency in the neighborhood, drawing on her characteristic blend of botanical and digital themes.
CULTURED magazine hosted a September issue launch party at FOOD, a revived 1970s art-world restaurant now run by artist Lucien Smith and the estate of Gordon Matta-Clark. The event, co-hosted by legendary model and activist Bethann Hardison and CULTURED Editor-in-Chief Sarah Harrelson, drew a crowd of fashion and art insiders including designers, stylists, artists, and editors. Guests enjoyed family-style dishes, Lagavulin cocktails, and left with copies of the magazine's latest covers featuring Julia Fox, Anthony Edwards, Vicky Krieps, Sophie Calle, and Lucien Smith.
Colette Thiebaud and Leon Barhoum founded Artmosphere, a nonprofit that delivers curated art education boxes called ARTicles to underserved schools across five U.S. states. Launched as a tribute to Thiebaud’s grandfather, the late artist Wayne Thiebaud, the organization recently received its largest donation from philanthropist Maria Manetti Shrem and has partnered with FOG Design+Art to debut a family program. The founders are now planning an event at Art Basel Miami called Confections & Connections for emerging collectors and patrons.
Margherita Maccapani Missoni, the 41-year-old granddaughter of the founders of the Italian fashion house Missoni and founder of her own brand Maccapani, discusses her art collection in an interview. She grew up surrounded by intense collectors, including her mother and grandmother, and her own collection now focuses on female painters whose work explores the cultural history of the body. She highlights a Caroline Walker painting in her home and credits Mariuccia Casadio, a Vogue Italia writer, with teaching her to navigate the art world. She names Corita Kent, Katherine Bradford, and Isabella Ducrot as artists she is particularly excited about.
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.
Jamie Robertson’s solo exhibition, "soft heat," at the Houston Center for Photography presents a series of infrared photographs documenting Southern wetlands, including Caddo Lake and the Great Dismal Swamp. Using archival pigment prints and a zine titled "Alligatorwatergreen," Robertson utilizes thermosensational imagery to transform dense marshlands into ethereal, snow-like landscapes. The work incorporates archival figures, such as a liberated formerly enslaved man named Osman, to highlight the historical role of swamps as sites of maroonage and Black resistance.
Maine-based environmental painter Janice Kasper will headline the first 'Bartlett Art Talk' of the 2026 season on April 22 at the Bartlett Woods Retirement Community. The event coincides with the exhibition "Chickadees, Alligators, and Stonehenge," which showcases Kasper’s dramatic oil paintings alongside works by Cicely Aikman and Dirk McDonnell. Kasper’s practice focuses on the tension between human technology and the preservation of wildlife and natural landscapes.
"Der Backlash ist da"
Kathleen Reinhardt, the curator of the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, has announced her concept featuring artists Sung Tieu and Henrike Naumann under the title "Ruin." The exhibition will use East Germany as a prism to explore themes of power, history, and the present. Reinhardt was invited to submit a concrete concept and specific artists for this edition of the pavilion.
"Die Leere, die noch da sein wird, sollte der Krieg morgen enden"
The group exhibition "Looking into the Gaps" at the Jam Factory in Lviv presents works by artists living in Ukraine or in exile, as well as by those killed on the front lines. Curated by Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan, it is the fourth installment of a series exploring the fractures and diverse experiences within Ukrainian society, with this iteration focusing on the theme of loneliness rather than collective identity.
Ins Offene
The Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung is presenting a comprehensive survey of female Bauhaus photographers at the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin. The exhibition highlights how these artists utilized avant-garde techniques and unconventional perspectives to document a rapidly changing world, featuring works that span from the innovative interwar period to the post-war era, such as Elsa Thiemann’s 1950s captures of the Wannsee lido.