Art News. Vasari Codex

article culture schedule Jan 16, 2026 visibility 15 link 4 artists

juergen teller bottega veneta summer 2026 campaign

Juergen Teller has photographed Bottega Veneta's Summer 2026 campaign, set against the iconic landmarks of Venice, including the Palazzo Contarini Polignac and the Venice Giardini. The campaign features models Liya Kebede and Anine Van Velzen, and arrives ahead of the 2026 Venice Biennale. It also marks the debut collection of Louise Trotter, who joined Bottega Veneta as creative director last year, drawing on the house's 50-year archives and reimagining signature items like the Lauren and Knot bags.

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article news schedule Jan 15, 2026 visibility 14 link 3 artists

bose krishnamachari resignation kochi biennale foundation

Bose Krishnamachari, artist and co-founder of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), has abruptly resigned, citing pressing family reasons. His departure comes during the 6th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, titled “For the Time Being,” which opened December 12, 2025, and runs through March 31, featuring 66 artists from over 20 countries. The biennial has faced multiple controversies since its 2012 debut, including financial mismanagement, sexual harassment allegations, and a recent closure in January 2026 due to religious protests over a painting by Tom Vattakuzhy referencing the Last Supper.

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article news schedule Jan 2, 2026 visibility 17 link 4 artists

kochi muziris biennale closure christian protests

India's Kochi-Muziris Biennale was forced to close briefly in late December 2024, just weeks after its mid-December opening, following protests by Christian groups over a painting of the Last Supper by artist Tom Vattakuzhy. The work was displayed not in the main biennial exhibition, “For the Time Being,” but in a side exhibition called “EDAM” at the Garden Convention Centre in Kochi. Christian organizations, including the Kerala Latin Catholic Association and the Syro-Malabar Church, condemned the painting as offensive and called for its removal, questioning the use of public funds. Vattakuzhy, who is from a Christian family, said he did not intend to offend and that the work was inspired by a play based on a poem about Mata Hari. The biennial's curators and president defended the work, refusing to remove it on grounds of censorship, and organizers announced the exhibition would reopen on January 2.

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trending_up market schedule Jan 1, 2026 visibility 14 link 6 artists

sothebys to unveil 1 b of art and luxury goods during abu dhabi collectors week in december

Sotheby's announced that $1 billion worth of fine art and luxury goods will be unveiled during Abu Dhabi Collectors' Week, running from December 2 to 5. The event includes non-selling exhibitions of high-value artworks, such as a Rembrandt drawing and Gustav Klimt's 'Dame mit Fächer,' while luxury items like McLaren racing cars, a Jane Birkin handbag, diamonds, and real estate will be offered at auction or privately, with over $150 million going to auction and $100 million in private sales.

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article news schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 20 link 5 artists

banksy new mural queens mews centrepoint london

A new Banksy mural appeared on a wall in west London on Monday, December 22, 2025, depicting two children in winter clothing lying on their backs and gazing at the sky. The stenciled artwork, located on Queen’s Mews in Bayswater near Notting Hill, was officially claimed by Banksy via Instagram. An identical version was also spotted outside the Centre Point tower in central London, though not yet claimed. The piece has sparked widespread speculation about its meaning, with interpretations ranging from a commentary on childhood imagination and wonder to a satirical critique of consumerism and the replacement of sacred values by utility.

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article news schedule Dec 19, 2025 visibility 23 link 10 artists

vienna museum exhibition religious controversy

Conservative religious groups in Austria have launched a campaign against the exhibition “You Shall Make For Yourself An Image” at Vienna’s Künstlerhaus contemporary art museum, which explores Christian iconography from critical, feminist, and queer perspectives. The backlash, including an online petition and a “prayer of atonement” protest outside the museum, has been linked to a prior attack on another religious-themed exhibition at a Jesuit Church in Vienna. The show features over 30 artists, including Martin Kippenberger, Andres Serrano, and Marina Abramović, and has drawn particular ire for works like Kippenberger’s crucified frog and Anouk Lamm Anouk’s depiction of the Virgin Mary as a transgender woman.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

christies 2025 sales results analysis

Christie's closed 2025 with $6.2 billion in projected global sales, a nearly seven percent increase from $5.8 billion in 2024 and in line with its 2023 total. Auction sales reached $4.7 billion, up eight percent year-over-year, while private sales held steady at $1.5 billion. The year's top lot was Mark Rothko's *No. 31 (Yellow Stripe)*, which sold for $62.1 million in New York. Other highlights include a record Picasso sale in Hong Kong ($25.4 million) and the Fabergé Winter Egg in London (£22.9 million). The house also saw strong performance from its automobiles business, Gooding Christie's, which delivered $234 million in sales. Geographically, the Americas grew 15 percent to $2.58 billion, while Asia-Pacific slipped 5 percent.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 19 link 2 artists

tuan andrew nguyen 2026 high line plinth commission

The High Line in New York has selected Vietnamese artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen to create its next plinth commission, titled *The Light That Shines Through the Universe*, opening spring 2026. The 27-foot sandstone sculpture reimagines one of the Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, replacing the lost hands with melted brass artillery shells. The work is an "echo" meant to invoke memory of the lost cultural treasures.

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article news schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 15 link 7 artists

marina abramovic and roman polanski team up for new film

Marina Abramović has announced production dates for her upcoming performance piece "Seven Deaths," a seven-part film incorporating death scenes from influential operas such as "Madam Butterfly" and "Carmen." The 68-year-old artist has invited controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski, along with directors Alejandro González Iñárritu, Marco Brambilla, Giada Colagrande, Yorgos Lanthimos, and screenwriter Petter Skavlan, to contribute segments. Abramović will portray singer Maria Callas, whom she describes as a muse, and plans to produce a making-of documentary and a biography on Callas's life. Lars von Trier was invited but declined due to scheduling conflicts.

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article culture schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 18 link 8 artists

art bites sistine chapel michelangelo critics

The article recounts the creation and controversy surrounding Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgement on the west wall of the Sistine Chapel. While the chapel attracts 25,000 daily visitors and is celebrated as a pinnacle of Renaissance art, the west wall initially provoked scorn from church officials and critics like Biagio da Cesena and Pietro Aretino, who objected to its nudity, pagan imagery, and perceived idolatry. Michelangelo retaliated by painting his detractors into the fresco—Da Cesena as King Minos with donkey ears and a snake biting his genitals, and Aretino as Saint Bartholomew holding flayed skin resembling the artist.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 15 link 4 artists

francis ford coppola watch sale

Francis Ford Coppola sold a collection of seven personal watches at Phillips New York in early December 2025, raising millions to offset financial losses from his film Megalopolis (2024). The sale was led by a unique watch he co-designed with F.P. Journe, known as the FFC, which sold for $10.8 million—ten times its estimate and a world record for the brand. Other timepieces, including a Patek Philippe and a Breguet, also far exceeded their high estimates.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 23 link 9 artists

nairy baghramian katarzyna kobro isamu noguchi wiels brussels

Nairy Baghramian's exhibition "nameless" at Wiels in Brussels engages in a sculptural dialogue with the Polish avant-garde artist Katarzyna Kobro, whose work was largely destroyed during and after World War II. Baghramian riffs on Kobro's forms with unpainted steel variations that double as plinths for her own works, while also referencing other displaced sculptors such as Isamu Noguchi, Louise Bourgeois, and Jean Arp. The show deliberately leaves works untitled and undated, inviting viewers to discover art-historical references while enjoying the material playfulness of the sculptures.

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article news schedule Dec 5, 2025 visibility 16 link 9 artists

stevenson gallery closing johannesburg branch

Stevenson Gallery is closing its Johannesburg branch after 17 years, with the last day on December 12. The final exhibition, Tofo Bardi's "Underground: Nothing to Hold," will close early. The gallery's Cape Town and Amsterdam locations will remain open. Founded in Cape Town in 2003 by Michael Stevenson, the Johannesburg outpost opened in 2008 and moved several times before settling in Parktown North in 2019.

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article culture schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 22 link 6 artists

pantone color of the year white

Pantone has announced 11-4201 Cloud Dancer, a soft shade of bright white, as its 2026 Color of the Year. This marks the first time the company has chosen a white hue since launching the initiative in 1999, following last year's Mocha Mousse. The decision, announced by Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman, is framed as a symbol of calm and a desire for a fresh start in a frenetic society, drawing comparisons to Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist compositions and Robert Ryman's white paintings. The announcement has sparked debate over its cultural and political implications, with critics noting the choice's potential elitism and its resonance amid ongoing racial tensions.

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article news schedule Dec 3, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

pan african flags queen elizabeth portrait larry achiampong

British Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong responded to controversy after two of his pan-African flags from the "Relic Traveller: Phase 1" series replaced a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in the UK Foreign Office. The flags, titled "Pan African Flag For The Relic Travellers’ Alliance (Motion)" and "Pan African Flag For The Relic Travellers’ Alliance (Community)", were hung by Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy. Conservative MP Lee Anderson criticized the move, while Achiampong dismissed the outrage as "deeply problematic" in an interview with the Guardian.

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article culture schedule Nov 28, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

art bites monet water lily pond

Claude Monet’s iconic water lily pond paintings are the subject of a new article exploring the artist’s deep passion for gardening. The piece details how Monet, after moving to Giverny in 1883, spent decades transforming his property into a lush, Japanese-inspired garden, complete with a pond, wisteria bridge, and exotic plants. He hired up to eight gardeners, studied botanical journals, and even faced protests from local farmers when he diverted a river to create the pond. The garden became his sole artistic focus for the last 20 years of his life, producing around 250 paintings of the water lilies.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists

john oliver bob ross auction public media

A 1987 Bob Ross painting, *Cabin at Sunset*, sold for $1.04 million in a benefit auction hosted by late-night comedian John Oliver, setting a new auction record for the artist. The work was painted during the second episode of the 10th season of Ross's television series *The Joy of Painting*. The online sale, which concluded November 24, included 65 eclectic lots—from presidential wax figures to a signed bucket of dolls—and raised funds for the Public Media Bridge Fund, which supports independent broadcasters amid federal cuts to public broadcasting.

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gavel restitution schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

family says firm funding its legal battle for stolen paintings sought control of lawsuits

The son of late Palestinian businessman Uthman Khatib, Prince Castro Ben Leon, is suing LitFin Capital, the Prague-based litigation funder that financed his family's legal battle to recover 135 Russian avant-garde paintings allegedly stolen by Israeli Russian Mozes Frisch. The paintings, attributed to El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, and Wassily Kandinsky, are valued at $323 million. A Paris court secured the works in January after they were seized from Paris-based authenticators ArtAnalysis, which had been holding them for Frisch. Castro claims LitFin is now refusing to pay legal bills unless it gains control of the lawsuits, violating their funding agreement. LitFin denies the allegations, stating it has always honored its contractual obligations.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

phillips evening sale 2025 stats

Phillips held its Modern and contemporary art evening sale in New York on Wednesday night, achieving $67.3 million in total sales—a 24.4 percent increase from the same auction last November. The sale featured 33 lots with a 94 percent sell-through rate, including a triceratops fossil that sold for $5.4 million through a partnership with natural history dealer Christian Link. Top lots included Francis Bacon's *Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer* (1967) at $16 million with premium, Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Exercise* (1984) at $3.8 million, and two works by Ruth Asawa. Only one artwork, a Jadé Fadojutimi, failed to sell, and there were no withdrawals.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 31 link 12 artists

phillips modern contemporary art auction report francis bacon

Phillips held its modern and contemporary evening sale in New York on Wednesday, following Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions that had already generated nearly $1.4 billion. The 33-lot sale achieved $67.3 million, a 24% increase from the equivalent sale last year, with a 94% sell-through rate. Headlining lots included an untitled Joan Mitchell painting ($14.3 million), a Francis Bacon diptych ($16 million), and a juvenile triceratops skeleton that sold for $5.3 million, exceeding its high estimate. Only two lots failed to sell, and notable results included works by Ruth Asawa, Firelei Báez, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Max Ernst.

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article news schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 26 link 10 artists

school of art institute of chicagos video data bank

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) laid off three of five staff members of its Video Data Bank (VDB), including director Tom Colley, as part of 20 total layoffs across the institution. The cuts, announced on November 12, eliminated leadership and key distribution and digital management roles, sparking outcry from the new-media art community. VDB, founded in 1976, is a leading archive of video art with over 6,000 works by artists including Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, and Pipilotti Rist, distributed worldwide via subscription streaming.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

klimt waldabhang unterach attersee lauder sale

Gustav Klimt's landscape painting *Waldabhang in Unterach am Attersee* (1916) sold for $70.8 million at Sotheby's on Tuesday night, hammering at $61 million. The work was the third Klimt painting sold by Sotheby's from the collection of the late mega-collector Leonard A. Lauder, and was the first Klimt landscape Lauder ever purchased. The sale comes after Lauder's other Klimt landscapes achieved record prices, including *Blumenwiese* ($86 million) and his portrait of Elisabeth Lederer ($236.4 million).

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trending_up market schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists

liebermann resituted gurlitt auction

Max Liebermann's painting *Two Riders on a Beach* (1901), recently restituted to the Rosenburg family from the Cornelius Gurlitt hoard, will be auctioned at Sotheby's in London on June 24, with an estimated price of up to £500,000 ($850,000). The work is one of the first two artworks returned from the trove discovered in Gurlitt's Munich apartment in 2012; the other, Henri Matisse's *Woman with a Fan* (1932), was also handed back to the Rosenburg family last week.

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article news schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 18 link 13 artists

preservationists petition to save wilbur building the sistine chapel of new deal art

Preservationists are petitioning to save Washington, D.C.'s Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, known as the 'Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art' for its 20th-century murals by Philip Guston and Ben Shahn. The Trump administration has listed the building for sale under an 'accelerated disposal' program, raising fears it could be demolished. The nonprofit Living New Deal launched a petition demanding transparency and public participation, as the building is one of 45 federal properties slated for swift sale. The structure, completed in 1940, houses ten New Deal-era artworks including frescoes, relief sculptures, and murals, and has been home to Voice of America since 1954.

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person people schedule Nov 6, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

sara friedlander christies chairman post war contemporary art

Sara Friedlander has been named chairman of Post-War & Contemporary Art for the Americas at Christie's. In an interview, she discusses her philosophy of prioritizing client relationships and the art itself over market speculation, criticizing the trend of 'wet paint' sales that inflate young artists' prices. She has overseen major private collection sales including the Edlis | Neeson Collection, which will anchor Christie's 21st Century Sale, and has set records for artists like Ernie Barnes and Joan Mitchell.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 28, 2025 visibility 19 link 1 artist

canaletto 2026 christies old masters sale

A Canaletto painting titled *Venice, the Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day* (ca. 1754) will lead Christie’s Old Masters sale in New York this February 2026, with an estimate of over $30 million. The monumental canvas, commissioned by the King family (later Earls of Lovelace), is the last known version of this subject by the artist. It last sold at Christie’s 20 years ago during the Champalimaud Collection sale, setting a record. The work will tour exhibitions in New York, Hong Kong, and London before returning to New York for a pre-sale exhibition.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 28, 2025 visibility 16 link 7 artists

sothebys records highest ever totals in france for surrealist and modern sales during art basel paris week

Sotheby's Paris achieved record-breaking totals for surrealist and modern art auctions during Art Basel Paris week, with combined sales of €89.7 million ($104 million) across its Surrealism and Its Legacy and Modernités sales—a 50 percent increase over the same event last year. The top lot was Amedeo Modigliani's *Elvire en buste* (1918-1919), which sold for €27 million ($31.3 million), the highest auction price for a painting by the Italian artist in France and the most valuable work ever sold by Sotheby's Paris. Other highlights included Modigliani's *Raymond* (1915) at €10.6 million, René Magritte's *La Magie Noire* (1934) at €10.7 million, and a complete set of Pablo Picasso's *Séries 347* etchings, which set a French auction record for any print by the artist.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 23, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists

christies modern british and irish evening auction in london nets 23 m marking 20 percent increase on 2024s sale

Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art evening sale in London on Wednesday achieved £17.3 million ($23 million), a 20 percent increase over the equivalent sale in 2024. The top lot was Barbara Hepworth’s *The Family of Man (Figure 9, The Bride)* (1970), which sold for £3.9 million ($5.2 million). The sale had a 90 percent sell-through rate by value and 81 percent by lot, with 39 percent of works exceeding their high estimates, though the total fell short of the £22.6 million high estimate. Other notable results included Hepworth’s *Vertical Wood Form* (1968) at £1.4 million, Stanley Spencer’s *The Meeting* (1933) at the same price, and Bridget Riley’s *Dendera* (1983-2002) at £1.2 million.

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article local schedule Oct 22, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

stretch of downtown manhattan renamed jean michel basquiat way

A stretch of Great Jones Street in downtown Manhattan between Bowery and Lafayette has been officially renamed "Jean-Michel Basquiat Way" in a ceremony co-organized by the Basquiat estate and the New York City Council. The street naming honors the late artist, who lived and worked in a second-floor space at 57 Great Jones Street from 1983 until his death in 1988, a property he rented from Andy Warhol. The event featured remarks from Basquiat's sisters Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, along with city officials and cultural figures.

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article policy schedule Oct 17, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

east tennessee state university cancels exhibition political art

East Tennessee State University (ETSU) has canceled its annual juried exhibition of politically-themed art, "The Fletcher Exhibit of Social and Politically Engaged Art," at the Reece Museum. The show, established in 2013 in memory of ETSU art student Fletcher Dyer, featured works that criticized conservative figures including Charlie Kirk, Mitch McConnell, and Mike Johnson. The cancellation follows backlash from the ETSU chapter of Turning Point USA and Republican officials in Tennessee. Dyer's family, who endowed a scholarship for politically engaged art students, expressed feelings of betrayal, with the university stating its goals "no longer coincided" with theirs but refusing to provide written explanation.

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