christies sothebys auction houses luxury fashion art

Auction houses Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips are increasingly relying on luxury goods—such as handbags, jewelry, wine, and whiskey—to offset a sharp decline in fine art sales. Fine art sales at these houses fell 44% in the first half of 2025 compared to 2022, creating a roughly $3 billion gap. Luxury sales have surged to a 20.2% market share by value in 2025, with Christie's reporting a 30% rise in luxury sales to $468 million in the first half of 2025, and Sotheby's luxury sales topping $2 billion for three consecutive years. Notable sales include a record $10 million Hermès Birkin bag and a $72 million jewelry auction in Geneva.

art raul de nieves pioneer works

Raúl de Nieves, a queer Mexico-born artist based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is preparing for his latest institutional exhibition, “In Light of Innocence,” opening September 12 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook. The show features 40 new stained glass assemblages made from tape, acetate, and inexpensive materials, installed above a single floor-bound work—a departure from his typically maximalist style. De Nieves, who has exhibited at the ICA Boston, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, and gained prominence after the 2017 Whitney Biennial, describes the exhibition as a valediction, stating it will be the last time he creates this kind of work.

kim sajet milwaukee art museum director

Kim Sajet has been appointed as the new director of the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM), starting September 22. The announcement comes shortly after Sajet was ousted as director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. During her 12-year tenure there, she doubled attendance, raised over $85 million, and oversaw major capital improvements. Sajet previously held leadership roles at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

national museum of asian art announces first us exhibition of masterpieces from the collection of former samsung chairman lee kun hee

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) has announced it will host the first US exhibition of masterpieces from the collection of former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee this fall. Titled 'Korean Treasures', the show will feature over 200 items spanning 1,500 years, including a dozen National Treasures designated by the Korean government, many exhibited in the US for the first time. Co-organized with the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of Korea, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea, the exhibition includes ancient Buddhist sculptures, ceramics, paintings, furnishings, and modern works. Highlights include Jeong Seon’s 'Clearing after Rain on Mount Inwang' (1751) and a 1459 woodblock-print book compiled by King Sejo. Nine items from the Leeum Museum of Art will be shown exclusively at the NMAA before the exhibition travels to Chicago and the British Museum.

taipei dangdai cancels 2026 edition art assembly

Taipei Dangdai, the art fair in Taiwan, has canceled its 2026 edition as organizers undertake a "strategic re-evaluation" of the fair's model, timing, scale, and format. The fair, which held its sixth edition in May 2025, is part of The Art Assembly, a conglomerate overseeing three regional Asian fairs including Art SG and Tokyo Gendai. The number of participating galleries dropped from over 90 in its 2019 inaugural edition to 54 in 2025, with no mega-galleries participating this year. The announcement follows a similar "strategic pause" by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) for its flagship fair, The Art Show, and comes amid broader challenges for the fair's organizer, Angus Montgomery Arts, which also canceled recent editions of Photofairs in Hong Kong and New York.

art pat steir khajistan hc westermann

Pat Steir's early installation "Mirage 1975" has been restaged at Hauser & Wirth's Soho location, marking the 50th anniversary of her first-ever installation originally at the State University of New York in Oneonta. The exhibition runs through August 15, 2025, and coincides with the publication of the monograph "Pat Steir Paintings 2018–2025." Separately, the exhibition "Spasial Program by Khajistan" is on view at SculptureCenter in Long Island City through July 28, 2025, presenting a vast archive of rare, illicit, and suppressed media artifacts from the Islamicate world, curated by Lahore-born filmmaker Saad Khan.

lumin wakoa painter dead

Lumin Wakoa, a rising painter known for her hazy, memory-based works that blurred abstraction and figuration, has died at 43 after battling brain cancer. Her death was announced by her gallery, Harper’s, on Monday. Wakoa had solo shows last year at Various Small Fires in Seoul and Harper’s in New York, and her work was featured at Frieze art fair. She studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Florida, and earned an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

benin dialogue group ocotober 2018

Major European museums have agreed to loan important artifacts, including the Benin bronzes looted during the 1897 Benin Expedition, back to Nigeria for a new museum planned to open in 2021. The agreement was reached at a meeting of the Benin Dialogue Group in the Netherlands, involving representatives from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain, who committed to facilitating a rotating display at the planned Royal Museum in Benin City within three years, though specific objects and loan periods remain unconfirmed.

1000 year old sword intact river netherlands

Construction workers discovered a 1,000-year-old sword in the Korte Linschoten River on a private estate in the Netherlands in March. The blade, forged between 1050 and 1150 C.E., features a Brazil-nut-shaped pommel and copper wire inlays of spiritual symbols. After conservation, it was donated to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, where it is now on free public view through August.

lough kinale book shrine medieval manuscripts national museum ireland

In 1986, divers recovered ancient fragments from a lake in Longford County, Ireland, which were later identified as the Lough Kinale Book Shrine, the largest and oldest book shrine in Ireland. After a 39-year conservation process at the National Museum of Ireland (NMI), the 9th-century oak and bronze container is now on public display. The shrine, featuring intricate metalwork, snake-head hinges, and a permanently sealed interior, was reconstructed using photogrammetry and 3D modeling. It is part of the NMI exhibition "Words on the Wave," which showcases over 100 early medieval artifacts, including manuscripts on loan from the Abbey Library of St. Gall in Switzerland.

syria isis palmyra restoration

The Syrian government has announced plans to reopen the ancient city of Palmyra to tourists as early as next summer, following extensive damage inflicted by ISIS. The historic UNESCO World Heritage Site, once attracting 150,000 visitors annually, was occupied twice by the terrorist group, which destroyed iconic structures including the Temple of Bel, the Temple of Baal Shamin, and the Arch of Triumph, and beheaded the city's head of antiquities, Khalid al-As'ad. Restoration efforts are underway with assistance pledged from UNESCO, Russia, Poland, and Italy, focusing on repairing the Old City and restoring artifacts such as the Lion of Al-lāt statue.

jerry gogosian winds down instagram hilde lynn helphenstein

Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, the creator of the popular Instagram account Jerry Gogosian, announced she is winding down the project after seven years. The account, known for its sharp and often acerbic commentary on the art market, amassed 151,000 followers since its launch in 2018. Helphenstein initially ran the account anonymously, revealing her identity in 2020, and used it to mock dealer Larry Gagosian, comment on auction records, and document her experiences at art fairs. The account also had real-world impact, including prompting Gagosian gallery to drop a director after Helphenstein urged people to come forward with sexual harassment allegations. Helphenstein, who previously ran her own gallery in Los Angeles, said she has 'grown out' of the project and is looking toward her next endeavor.

adam eve nude restored fitzwilliam

An illuminated manuscript from 1505, *The Primer of Claude of France*, has had its original nude depictions of Adam and Eve digitally restored after a former owner crudely painted clothing over them. The restoration was achieved using an algorithm developed by Cambridge University's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, which stripped away the overpaint without damaging the original page. The manuscript is currently on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, as part of the exhibition “Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts.”

maura brewer money laundering art

Maura Brewer, a Los Angeles-based artist and academic, creates video works that expose the role of art in money laundering. Her 2021 piece *Private Client Services* demonstrates the laundering process, while *Offshore* (2024) serves as a satirical guide for artists navigating global finance, featuring locations like the Cayman Islands and Geneva Freeport. Her ongoing project *Leverage* examines art-backed loans through the case of collector Daniel Sundheim. Brewer also works as a private investigator and recently lost her home in the Eaton Fire.

secret mall apartment documentary michael townsend

A new documentary titled *Secret Mall Apartment*, directed by Jeremy Workman and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, tells the true story of eight artists who secretly built and lived in a hidden apartment inside the Providence Place mall in Providence, Rhode Island, for four years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Led by Michael Townsend, the group—including Adriana Valdez Young, Andrew Oesch, Jay Zehngebot, Colin Bliss, James Mercer, Greta Scheing, and Emily Ustach—transformed a forgotten dead zone of the corporate complex into a living space and art collective headquarters, calling the project "Malllife." The film features never-before-identified participants and footage of their discovery by mall authorities.

tony karman expo chicago director steps down

Tony Karman, the longtime director of Expo Chicago, will step down from his role at the end of June, remaining as president in an advisory capacity while the fair searches for a new director. Karman founded Expo Chicago in 2011, succeeding Art Chicago, and has led the fair through 14 editions, including its most recent one last month with 170 exhibitors and over 35,000 visitors. The transition follows Frieze's acquisition of Expo Chicago and the Armory Show in July 2023, and comes amid broader ownership changes at Frieze itself, which was recently sold to a company founded by Ari Emanuel and is now fully owned by private equity firm Silver Lake.

galerie simon blais francoise sullivan

A survey exhibition titled "Françoise Sullivan: Le temps du geste" is on view at Galerie Simon Blais in Montreal, showcasing the multidisciplinary career of French Canadian artist Françoise Sullivan. The show spans works from the 1940s to the present, including painting, sculpture, photography, and choreography, and highlights dialogues between different phases of her practice. Sullivan, who signed the Refus Global manifesto in 1948, is the only active member of that group, and the exhibition features pieces such as the watercolor "Sans titre – Turquie, Ruines de Commagène à Nemrut Dağ" (1996) and the geometric abstraction "Les damiers no. 4" (2018). The exhibition runs through June 14, 2025.

vima art fair cyprus review recap

The inaugural VIMA contemporary art fair opened in Limassol, Cyprus, at a former SODAP winery industrial site. Co-founded by Lara Kotreleva, Edgar Gadzhiev, and Nadezhda Zinovskaya, the fair aims to spotlight Cypriot and Mediterranean art, featuring a curated outdoor exhibition titled 'The Posterity of the Sun' with 17 artists, including Valentinos Charalambous, Monia Ben Hamouda, and Adrian Pepe. Curator Ludovic Delalan emphasized the site's historical and natural context.

this qing dynasty painting could sell for nearly 19 million at auction

Sotheby's Hong Kong offered the Qing dynasty imperial painting *The Blue Goats* as a single-lot sale during its Asian Art Week. Commissioned by Emperor Qianlong in the late 1750s, the seven-by-six-foot hanging scroll was created by Italian Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining) and Chinese court artist Jin Tingbiao, blending Western and Eastern techniques. Despite a presale estimate of HK$60–150 million ($7.7–19.3 million), the work sold for HK$58.9 million ($7.6 million) after fees, below the low estimate. The painting depicts a pair of gorals in a rocky landscape and is inscribed with a poem by the emperor symbolizing his military conquests.

cryptopunks bored ape yacht club yuga labs digital art nonprofit

The Infinite Node Foundation, a new nonprofit focused on digital art conservation founded by venture capitalist Meyer 'Micky' Malka and Becky Kleiner, has acquired the full intellectual property rights to CryptoPunks from Yuga Labs. The purchase price is reported to be around $20 million. CryptoPunks, created in 2017 by Matt Hall and John Watkinson, is one of the earliest and most famous NFT collections, credited with sparking the 2021 NFT craze. Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, had bought the rights in 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The foundation's advisory board includes Web3 figures such as Yuga Labs co-founder Wylie Aronow and Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon.

aral culture summit uzbeikstan

The inaugural Aral Culture Summit (ACS) took place in Nukus, Uzbekistan, organized by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF). The summit brought together around 500 attendees to explore how arts, cultural heritage, and design can support environmental regeneration in the Aral Sea region, which has suffered catastrophic ecological collapse due to Soviet-era river diversions for cotton farming. Speakers included Ivana Živković of the UNDP, Elena Kan of KIVA Center for Agroinnovations, Kazakh biodesigner Dana Molzhigit, and Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets, who discussed afforestation, climate resilience, traditional knowledge, and microclimate design.

cultural projects worth 6 13 billion were finished in 2024 a big drop from 2023 report

The 2024 Cultural Infrastructure Index (CII) reports a 17% drop in completed cultural projects (from 192 to 159) and a 29% decline in total cost, from $8.58 billion to $6.13 billion. However, the value of future projects announced in 2024 rose 47% to $8.32 billion, though the number of announced projects fell from 198 to 175, indicating fewer but more expensive buildings. The report, developed by AEA Consulting, tracks 334 large-scale cultural infrastructure projects worldwide, with museums and galleries remaining the most common building type. The U.S. led with 62 new facilities, while the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza was the most expensive completed project at $1 billion, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new modern wing topped announced projects at $500 million.

bayeux tapestry fragment rediscovered in germany

A long-lost fragment of the Bayeux Tapestry, the 11th-century embroidered chronicle of the Norman Conquest of England, has been rediscovered in the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives in Schleswig, Germany. The roughly one-inch linen piece belonged to the estate of archaeologist Karl Schlabow, who had been part of a Nazi-affiliated group that re-measured the tapestry in 1941. The fragment will be repatriated to France later this year, but first it will go on public display at the Museum of Archaeology at Gottorf Castle as part of the exhibition “Viking Twilight: Turning Point in the North” from April 16 through November 2.

AT A LOW FLAME. CLAY AND NATURAL FIBERS IN THE WORK OF IBERO-AMERICAN ARTISTS

A MEDIA LUMBRE. BARRO Y FIBRAS NATURALES EN LA OBRA DE ARTISTAS IBEROAMERICANOS

The exhibition 'A media lumbre' presents a collection of works by Ibero-American artists that engage with materials and knowledge historically considered minor arts, such as ceramics, clay, wool, textiles, embroidery, and natural fibers. The show integrates sound and oral tradition as tools for transmitting memory, drawing inspiration from communal gatherings like the 'filandones.' It unfolds across four autonomous exhibitions in Valencia, Mallorca, Aragon, and Catalonia, connecting urban museums like the IVAM with rural contexts.

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.

When Shells Become Weapons

Wenn Muscheln zu Waffen werden

Swedish artist Lotta Antonsson, born in 1963, presents her exhibition "I am Everything" at Fotografiska in Stockholm, featuring around 50 works that repurpose found black-and-white photographs from 1960s and 1970s fashion and lifestyle magazines. She overlays these images of women in objectifying poses with shells, stones, and crystals, creating assemblages that obscure faces or add threatening details like crystal vampire teeth on actresses Ali MacGraw and Jane Fonda. The show opened during the Stockholm Art Fair and draws on Antonsson's extensive archive, including East German erotic magazines sourced from Berlin flea markets.

‘A watershed moment’: Major Brisbane art exhibition opens at prestigious London museum

The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) has exported a major exhibition, "Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific," to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The show, which runs until January 10, 2027, features works collected over 30 years through QAGOMA's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, including pieces by Australian artists Michael Cook, Naomi Hobson, Shirley Macnamara, Ken Thaiday Sr, and Judy Watson, as well as artists from China, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and beyond.

Prize commemorates Henrike Naumann – MMK takes over estate

Preis erinnert an Henrike Naumann – MMK übernimmt Nachlass

A new prize named after the late artist Henrike Naumann has been established by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) and the Zeit Stiftung Bucerius, coinciding with her posthumous presentation at the German Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. The €15,000 Henrike-Naumann-Preis für Bildende Kunst, plus €5,000 in production funds, will be awarded regularly starting this year to early- to mid-career artists whose work engages with social transformation, political fault lines, or transnational contexts. Meanwhile, the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt (MMK) has acquired Naumann's estate, which will be catalogued and made publicly accessible to ensure her work receives long-term scholarly and curatorial attention.

Where to go in May?

Wohin im Mai?

The article, published by Monopol magazine, previews a selection of art exhibitions and biennials opening in May. Highlights include the 61st Venice Biennale, a solo show by Lina Lapelytė at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (part of the CHANEL COMMISSION series), a group exhibition titled "Lebt und arbeitet in Wien. Contemporary Art from Vienna" at Kunsthalle Wien, and a presentation of Christoph Schlingensief's work "The African Twin Towers" (2005) at MAK Wien. Also featured is Maximiliane Baumgärtner's exhibition at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf.

Gundlach Collection to Remain in the Deichtorhallen Until 2046

Gundlach-Sammlung bleibt bis 2046 in den Deichtorhallen

The Hamburg Senate has announced a 20-year extension of the loan agreement for the F.C. Gundlach Collection at the Deichtorhallen. The prominent photography collection, which has grown to 14,000 works, will remain in the institution's 'Haus der Photografie' until 2046 and will receive a dedicated exhibition area on the first floor.