‘He sent someone to intimidate me’: Christopher Anderson, the photographer who shot Jeffrey Epstein

Photographer Christopher Anderson has revealed the details behind his 2015 encounter with Jeffrey Epstein, whom he photographed for a cancelled New York magazine profile. Anderson describes a series of unsettling interactions, including Epstein's attempts to buy the image rights for $20,000 and the eventual dispatch of a "mafia-esque" intimidator to Anderson's studio to seize a hard drive. The photographer's email exchanges with Epstein’s staff were recently made public as part of the Department of Justice's release of the Epstein files.

Frida Kahlo Icon Headlines

frida kahlo icon headlines

Tate Modern has announced a major exhibition for 2026 titled "Frida Kahlo: The Making of an Icon," featuring over 130 artworks and archival materials. The exhibition aims to explore the cult-like following surrounding the Mexican artist and how her personal biography became inseparable from her creative legacy. This announcement follows a series of global institutional efforts to deconstruct the Kahlo myth, including recent shows at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Dallas Museum of Art.

5 Ways the Art World Can Better Support Women Artists

tarek atoui turbine hall commission tate modern

Artist Tarek Atoui has been selected for the next Hyundai Commission in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, opening October 13 and running into April 2027. The Beirut-born, Paris-based artist is known for complex installations with specially designed instruments incorporating glass, water, or ceramics, activated by touch, breath, or motors. Curators Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva will oversee the exhibition. Atoui has previously shown at S.M.A.K., Luma Westbau, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and won the Suzanne Deal Booth/FLAG Art Foundation Prize in 2022.

whitney museum new york isp open letter artists

More than 100 artists and scholars, including Emily Jacir, Hans Haacke, and Michael Rakowitz, have signed an open letter defending Dr. Sara Nadal-Melsió, the former associate director of the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program (ISP), whose position was eliminated in June 2025. The termination followed the cancellation of a pro-Palestine performance titled "No Aesthetic Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance" by artists Fadl Fakhouri, Noel Maghathe, and Fargo Tbakhi, scheduled for May 12, 2025. The museum canceled the event after viewing a recording where a performer asked attendees who "believe in Israel in any incarnation" to leave. Nadal-Melsió had published a protest letter against the cancellation, leading to her dismissal. The open letter also demands the reopening of the ISP, which was suspended for the 2025-2026 program.

superrare new york gallery digital art

SuperRare, the digital art trading platform, is opening a permanent New York gallery called Offline in the East Village at 243 Bowery, the former home of Salon 94. The inaugural exhibition, “Mythologies for a Spiritually Void Time,” curated by X.S. Hou and Jack Wedge, opens July 8 and features 15 artists working across animation, painting, sculpture, and networked media. The launch includes a week-long festival with dance performances, panels on art and A.I., and a choreographed NFT auction ritual.

10 young female artists feminism

The article profiles ten young female artists who are using their work to explore and assert feminist perspectives in the face of contemporary misogyny, particularly referencing the US president-elect's rhetoric. Featured artists include Emma Sulkowicz, known for her durational performance 'Carry That Weight' protesting campus rape culture, and Sarah Maple, a British artist whose multimedia works tackle identity and gender with provocative humor. The piece highlights how these artists address themes such as sexual violence, gender fluidity, and the reclaiming of femininity through mediums ranging from performance and video to painting and photography.

artists pull work whitney isp show palestine performance canceled

A group of artists participating in the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program (ISP) have withdrawn their work from a capstone exhibition at Westbeth Gallery to protest the museum's cancellation of a pro-Palestine performance. The performance, titled "No Aesthetics Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance," by artists Fadl Fakhouri, Noel Maghathe, and Fargo Tbakhi, was scheduled for May 12 as part of the ISP curatorial exhibition "a grammar of attention." The Whitney canceled it after viewing a recording of an earlier presentation, citing the performers' demand that attendees who believe in Israel leave the audience and the valorization of specific acts of violence. ISP Associate Director Sara Nadal-Melsió stated that the cancellation was imposed by Whitney leadership, including director Scott Rothkopf, and that the independence of the ISP has been seriously compromised.

getty luis de morales christ painting restoration

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired and restored Luis de Morales's "Christ Carrying the Cross" (c. 1565), a 16th-century Spanish Renaissance painting. The work, which had been covered in discolored varnish and enlarged with wooden strips, was carefully conserved by Getty conservator Kari Rayner, who removed non-original paint to reveal the artist's original composition. The painting first appeared at auction in 2021 at Nagel Auktionen, initially attributed to Morales's studio with a €10,000 estimate, but later sold for €1.2 million before the Getty acquired it from the Daniel Katz Gallery.

pope francis contemporary art obituary

Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has died at age 88. A Jesuit priest from Argentina, he was the first pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe since the 8th century. During his papacy, he took progressive stances on social justice, migrants, the environment, and the LGBTQ community, and also engaged deeply with contemporary art. He oversaw the Vatican Museums, ordered the return of Parthenon marble fragments to Greece, restored Raphael frescoes, and became the first pope to visit the Venice Biennale, where the Vatican had its first-ever pavilion in 2013.

moma ice cream art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has launched a new exclusive ice cream flavor called "Van Dough" in its second-floor cafe and sculpture garden food stand. Created in collaboration between Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) and Caffè Panna, the flavor features vanilla ice cream mixed with MoMA chocolate chip cookie dough chunks and chocolate chips. The article traces MoMA's long history with ice cream, including its ownership of Claes Oldenburg's *Pastry Case, I* (1961–62) and *Floor Cone* (1962), a 1935 Zeroll ice cream scoop by Sherman L. Kelly in its design collection, and a 2013 ice cream social with Milk Not Jails as part of artist Caroline Woolard's project.

natural history museum vca cosmos

Ruth Angus, associate curator of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, leads a tour of the exhibition "Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels," running through January 4, 2026, in the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery. The show features over 60 pieces from the Parisian maison's archives and private collections, each inspired by cosmic phenomena such as galaxies, stars, and planetary nebulae. Angus served as curatorial advisor alongside Denton Ebel, Kate Kiseeva, and Alexandrine Maviel-Sonet, with thematic sections covering the Moon, Sun, distant galaxies, meteorites, and the Zodiac. Highlights include the Trappist transformable necklace (2021) inspired by the TRAPPIST-1 star system and the Explosion Stellaire necklace (2021) depicting a supernova.

Memory, Migration, Materiality: 12 Artists to Watch During Alserkal Art Month

Alserkal Art Month (April 18–May 18, 2026) in Dubai features a district-wide initiative of exhibitions and events, anchored by the group show "Déjà Vu" at Concrete, Alserkal Avenue (April 25–May 8). Curated by Kevin Jones, Nada Raza, and Zaina Zaarour, the exhibition brings together over 50 artists from 20 UAE-based galleries, centering on themes of memory, displacement, and cultural inheritance. The article profiles 12 standout artists, including Shahpour Pouyan and Juma Al Haj, whose works translate these tensions into materially inventive and conceptually rigorous practices.

hilmas ghost mta commission grand central

Feminist art collective Hilma's Ghost, composed of artists Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray, inaugurated a 600-square-foot mosaic mural titled "Abstract Futures" at the 42nd Street entrance to the 7 train in Manhattan's Grand Central Station. The unveiling, held during Frieze Week, included a ritual where the artists chanted whispers into the colorful glass artwork to charge it with spiritual energy. The collective, which began working together during lockdown, draws inspiration from Swedish spiritual painter Hilma af Klint and debuted at New York's Armory Show in 2021. The mosaic, commissioned by MTA Arts and Design and fabricated by Miotto Mosaic Art Studios, incorporates symbolism from tarot cards.

sarah meyohas desert x nft

Artist Sarah Meyohas has unveiled her first public art installation, "Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams" (2025), for the 2025 edition of Desert X in California's Coachella Valley. The monumental curved structure uses no electricity; instead, precisely milled mirrored discs reflect sunlight onto a white wall to form legible patterns and messages through the optical phenomenon of caustics. The work was created in collaboration with the Swiss company Rayform, which specializes in calculating caustic light patterns, pushing their technology to its largest scale yet.

Sea change: inside LACMA’s new curatorial strategy

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is debuting a radical curatorial overhaul within its new David Geffen Galleries, moving away from traditional 19th-century departmental silos. Led by Director Michael Govan and a team of 45 curators, the museum is implementing a cross-disciplinary approach that organizes the collection around "oceanic nodes"—the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific. This strategy allows for the juxtaposition of disparate media and cultures, such as contemporary photography alongside ancient textiles, to highlight the historical circulation of ideas and people across bodies of water.

New York Art Week 2026 Frieze And TEFAF Report

New York Art Week 2026 featured major art fairs including Frieze New York at The Shed, which drew 25,000 visitors from 75 countries and launched the Sherman Family Foundation Acquisition Fund, placing works by four artists into the Brooklyn Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art. TEFAF New York at the Park Avenue Armory presented over 90 international galleries across historic period rooms, while satellite fairs Independent, NADA New York, and 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair offered focused alternatives. Auction houses Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips opened free spring sale previews featuring highlights such as Roy Lichtenstein's 'Anxious Girl' and the Lewis Collection.

Sotheby’s $433 Million Contemporary Evening and Mnuchin Sales Kicked Off New York’s May Marquee Auctions

Sotheby's held two major evening sales in New York—the Mnuchin collection sale and The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction—generating a combined $433.1 million. The Mnuchin sale achieved a white-glove result of $166.3 million, led by Mark Rothko's *Brown and Blacks in Reds* (1957) which sold for $85.8 million, while the contemporary auction reached $266.8 million, with Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)* as the top lot. The results fell within presale estimates but marked a 133% increase over last May's contemporary sales.

First Look: See What’s Inside the Met Gala’s “Costume Art” Exhibition

Vanity Fair art and style correspondents Nate Freeman and José Criales-Unzueta preview the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition "Costume Art," which inaugurates the Condé M. Nast Galleries. The exhibition arrives amid controversy over the Met Gala being sponsored by Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Jeff Bezos, leading to boycott calls and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani skipping the event. Despite this, Anna Wintour and Met director Max Hollein announced the gala raised a record $42 million. Head curator Andrew Bolton presents fashion as art, pairing garments with artworks like Warhol's Skull and Sarah Lucas's Nud Cycladic 9.

Art Events May You Cannot Miss in London

An Artlyst guide highlights several major art exhibitions opening in London in May 2026. Key shows include 'Zurbarán' at the National Gallery (the UK's first major monographic exhibition of the Spanish master in over 30 years), 'Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific' at the V&A (a collaboration with QAGOMA featuring 40 artists), a James McNeill Whistler retrospective at Tate Britain (the first major European show in 30 years), and 'Winston Churchill: The Painter' at the Wallace Collection. Photo London is also moving to Olympia this year.

Art Basel unveils Basel Exclusive and further program highlights for its flagship show in June

Art Basel has announced new program highlights for its flagship fair in Basel this June, including a new initiative called Basel Exclusive. Developed in dialogue with galleries, Basel Exclusive requires participating exhibitors from the main Galleries sector to reserve at least one major work—or an entire presentation—from all pre-fair previews, online viewing rooms, and pre-sales, unveiling them publicly for the first time during the VIP opening on June 16. The fair also revealed the lineup for Unlimited, its platform for large-scale works, which will feature 59 projects by 66 international galleries, curated for the first time by Ruba Katrib of MoMA PS1. Unlimited Night returns on June 18 with extended hours and special performances.

Portland Art Museum

The Portland Art Museum (PAM), the oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest, has recently completed a significant 100,000-square-foot expansion to enhance its public and gallery spaces. The museum's diverse collection of over 50,000 objects is particularly noted for its holdings in Native American art, English silver, and graphic arts. Current highlights include the Joe and Shelley Voboril Gallery’s focus on Plains regional works and the 'Conductions: Black Imaginings II' series of in-gallery activations.

New York Galleries: Openings and Closings (03/09-03/15)

New York City’s gallery scene is set for a major wave of activity between March 10 and March 15, 2026, with dozens of new exhibitions opening across Manhattan. High-profile showcases include Sam Gilliam and Chuck Close at Pace Gallery, Maria Lassnig at Petzel, and Paul Chan at Greene Naftali. The week features a diverse range of media, from David Armstrong’s portraiture at Artists Space to Bat-Ami Rivlin’s industrial installations at Management.

Spurs owner Joe Lewis to sell US$25m of School of London works at Sotheby’s

Billionaire Joe Lewis, the former owner of Tottenham Hotspur, is set to auction four significant works from the School of London at Sotheby’s London on March 4. The selection is headlined by a 1972 Francis Bacon self-portrait estimated at £8 million, alongside major paintings by Lucian Freud and Leon Kossoff. This marks the first time Lewis has publicly sold works from his renowned collection, which is estimated to be worth approximately $1 billion and is famously housed in part on his superyacht.

Must-see Chicago museum openings, exhibitions and events in 2026

Chicago's cultural institutions are preparing a diverse slate of exhibitions and openings for 2026. Highlights include the Art Institute of Chicago presenting Henri Matisse's complete 'Jazz' book of cutouts for the first time, a survey of Dominican artist Firelei Báez at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art exploring the history of Mexican railroad workers, and a costume design exhibition featuring Paul Tazewell's work at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. The year also features the grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center and a Barbara Nessim survey at the DePaul Art Museum.

12 Collectors on the Artists, Shows, and Trends to Watch in 2026

Artsy spoke with 12 leading collectors about the artists, exhibitions, and trends they are most excited to follow in 2026. Highlights include the re-centering of women artists, the rise of South Asian and LGBTQ+ artists, and the impact of AI on gallery operations. Collectors point to major institutional milestones such as LACMA's new campus, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Venice Biennale, and Art Basel's expansion into Qatar, as well as specific shows like Claire Tabouret's stained-glass commission for Notre-Dame and the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The 10 Best Booths at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025

Art Basel Miami Beach returned for its 23rd edition on December 3, 2025, with VIP previews at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The fair features 283 galleries from 43 countries, alongside nearly 20 satellite fairs including NADA and Untitled Art. Notable sales include a $5.5 million Gerhard Richter painting at David Zwirner and a $15 million Frida Kahlo miniature self-portrait at Weinstein Gallery. Director Bridget Finn expressed optimism about the fair's energy and its role in connecting contemporary art with music, fashion, and film.

20 Must-See Monographic Museum Exhibitions Feature Artists Allan Rohan Crite, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Jackson, Woody De Othello, Theaster Gates & More

Fall 2025 brings a wave of major monographic museum exhibitions worldwide, featuring artists such as Allan Rohan Crite, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Jackson, Woody De Othello, and Theaster Gates. Highlights include the first mainstream museum shows for Crite in his hometown of Boston, the first solo museum exhibition for Gates in Chicago, and the first U.S. retrospective for Lam at MoMA. Other notable shows include surveys of Robert Colescott, Coco Fusco, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, and Cauleen Smith, spanning institutions from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.

Strong sales and digital art buzz mark Art Basel Miami Beach opening

Art Basel Miami Beach opened with a VIP preview that saw strong sales across price points, from blue-chip acquisitions to mid-range works. David Zwirner led with a Gerhard Richter painting for $5.5 million, while Hauser & Wirth sold a George Condo for $4 million. The debut of Zero 10, a platform for digital art, sold out its presentation. Other notable sales included works by Alice Neel, Josef Albers, Louise Bourgeois, and Andreas Gursky, with galleries like Pace, White Cube, and Gladstone also reporting significant transactions.

Mon oncle d’Amérique

Art Basel Paris officially opened on October 22, 2024, with a new VIP tier called 'Avant-Première' granting early access to favored collectors. The fair saw a shift in mood from socializing to business-focused transactions, with multimillion-dollar works on offer, including a Gerhard Richter painting reportedly sold for over $20 million by Hauser & Wirth. Pre-fair events included dinners hosted by Marian Goodman for artist Paul Sietsema, gallery openings at Salon 94's new Palais-Royal space, and a VIP evening at the Musée d'Orsay for a Bridget Riley exhibition. American galleries and collectors dominated the week's parties, with events by David Zwirner, Gladstone, and others.