Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Jul 18, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

posthumous kaari upson retrospective copehnagen louisiana museum denmark

Kaari Upson's posthumous retrospective "Dollhouse" has opened at the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exhibition features works such as "Trespass" (2012), a simulated chain-link fence coated in flesh-toned acrylic, and "The Grotto" (2008-09), a faux-rock formation with water features and video projections of sex-doll-like figures. The show explores themes of voyeurism, transgression, and the blurring of public and private boundaries, drawing from Upson's acclaimed "Larry Project" (2005-12), which involved breaking into a neighbor's abandoned home.

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article news schedule Jul 8, 2025 visibility 20 link 8 artists, 8 galleries

tim blum gallery closure

Tim Blum, co-founder of the influential Los Angeles gallery Blum & Poe, announced the closure of the gallery last week. Blum, who took over after Jeff Poe left the business in 2023, cited personal burnout and a system-wide problem of over-expansion as reasons for the decision. In an interview with CULTURED editor-in-chief Sarah Harrelson, Blum reflected on his 35-year career, his role in building LA into an art-market capital, and his plans to stay involved in the art world in a new, alternative form.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 17 link 12 artists

diana de rosa

A rediscovered Baroque painting by 17th-century Neapolitan artist Diana de Rosa, titled *Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist*, sold for £317,500 ($436,086) at Sotheby’s Old Masters and 19th Century Paintings sale in London on July 2, more than quadrupling its high estimate. The work, previously unknown to scholars, set a new auction record for the artist and was described by Sotheby’s specialist Elisabeth Lobkowicz as a powerful image comparable to Caravaggio’s treatment of the same subject.

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article culture schedule Jul 3, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists

laocoon vatican michelangelo forgery

On January 14, 1506, Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarroti witnessed the excavation of the Laocoön Group, a monumental ancient marble statue unearthed in a Roman vineyard. The sculpture, depicting the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons battling serpents, was quickly acquired by Pope Julius II and installed in the Vatican, where it remains today at the Museo Pio-Clementino. However, art historian Lynn Catterson controversially proposed in 2005 that the statue is not an ancient artifact but a forgery created by Michelangelo himself, citing evidence such as a drawing of a torso resembling the statue's back, bank records of Michelangelo's marble purchases, and his history of producing forgeries like the lost Sleeping Cupid.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

sandy rodriguez ringling museum of art exhibition

Los Angeles-based artist and researcher Sandy Rodriguez has opened her most ambitious exhibition to date, "Currents of Resistance," at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, running through August 10. The centerpiece is "Resistance Map of the Gulf of Mexico" (2025), a 94.5-inch amate paper map from her ongoing "Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón" series. Rodriguez creates her own pigments from foraged minerals and botanical specimens, and uses handmade amate bark paper from San Pablito, Mexico, a sacred Mesoamerican material once outlawed during the colonial era. The map layers 500 years of cartographic tradition with historic and contemporary acts of resistance, including the Mixtón War, the Calusa resistance, and modern police violence in New Orleans. For this exhibition, she also introduced ocean water from the Gulf of Mexico to thin her pigments, referencing climate change as ongoing colonial aggression.

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article news schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

black portraiture peregrine tyam letter

A 17th-century British portrait at Claydon House, a National Trust property, depicts Mary Lawley and Peregrine Tyam, a Black enslaved attendant whose identity is known—one of the earliest such examples. Historian Hannah Lee published research in British Art Studies revealing new details about Tyam, including a rediscovered letter he wrote in 1699 to his enslaver John Verney, offering rare firsthand insight into the lives of enslaved people in aristocratic households. The portrait, attributed to the little-known artist Lenthall, was commissioned by Verney to mark his marriage in 1692 and shows Tyam wearing a silver collar, a symbol of enslavement.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

rachel ruyschs still lifes dutch toledo pinakothek munich mfa boston

The Toledo Museum of Art has opened the first major exhibition dedicated to Dutch Golden Age painter Rachel Ruysch, organized with the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and traveling next to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The show features Ruysch's vibrant still lifes of fruits and flowers, often animated by insects, and places her work alongside that of her sister Anna Ruysch and other female scientific illustrators like Maria Sibylla Merian. Curator Robert Schindler's rediscovery of Anna Ruysch's work helped inspire the exhibition, which also draws on botanical research to catalog the global plant species Ruysch depicted, reflecting colonial trade networks.

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article culture schedule Jun 3, 2025 visibility 15 link 3 artists

bint mbareh sound art palestinian resistance

Bint Mbareh, a Palestinian sound artist and stage name assumed around 2019, creates installations and performances that use water and sound as metaphors for Palestinian experience. Growing up in Ramallah and later studying at Goldsmiths in London, she learned geographically specific Palestinian rain-summoning songs, which she twists and destabilizes using digital technology in works like *Time Flows in All Directions: Water Flows Through Me* (2020). After October 7, 2023, she expanded her practice to include a “choir” of collaborators performing collective grief, with appearances at an Artists for Aid benefit concert in London and at Tate Modern. Recent installation works such as *Bodies of Knowledge* (Royal College of Art) and *What’s Left?* (Sharjah Biennial) incorporate water tanks vibrated by sound, evoking both childhood and displacement.

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trending_up market schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 23 link 12 artists, 1 gallery

asian artists under 35 are doing at auction

A new analysis by The Asia Pivot reveals that total global auction sales for Asian artists born between 1990 and 1999 dropped to $9.7 million in 2024, the lowest level in three years. The market for these young artists shows clear signs of cooling, with 696 lots sold out of 1,128 offered, a 62% sell-through rate, and an average price per lot falling 26.5% year-over-year to $13,905. Top-ranked artists like Raghav Babbar and Anna Park saw steep price declines, while a few consistent performers like Yukimasa Ida, Sun Yitian, and Chris Huen Sin-Kan maintained strong market recognition.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 28 link 5 artists, 57 galleries

art basel paris 2025 exhibitor list

Art Basel Paris has announced the 203 galleries participating in its 2025 edition, set to take place at the Grand Palais from October 24–26, with VIP previews on October 22–23. The fair is divided into three sections: the main Galeries section with 177 dealers, Emergence featuring 16 solo booths for emerging artists, and Premise with nine presentations from 10 galleries challenging the art historical canon. Notable blue-chip participants include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, and top Parisian galleries such as Balice Hertling, Galerie Chantal Crousel, and Mennour. The fair will also bring back its Oh La La! Initiative and public art exhibition in the Jardin des Tuileries.

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article culture schedule May 27, 2025 visibility 16 link 2 artists

op ed museums gender and pay

The article examines how gender pay disparities and the fear of a "pink-collar" profession persist in the art museum world, triggered by comments from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about "masculine energy" in the workplace. It recounts a 2020 forum where National Gallery of Art director Kaywin Feldman expressed concern that art museums becoming predominantly female could lower salaries, a remark initially seen as sexist but later contextualized by the author's investigation into the origins of such fears. The author traces the concept to a 2016 New York Times article citing research on how female-dominated fields see pay drops, and explores how even progressive leaders like Feldman can inadvertently perpetuate gender bias.

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article culture schedule May 23, 2025 visibility 12 link 3 artists

artificial intelligence robot painting

Artist Gretta Louw reflects on her year-long residency with the e-David robotic painting lab at the University of Konstanz, part of the Embodied Agents of Contemporary Visual Arts (EACVA) research group. She describes how the public conversation around AI and robotics in art is inflated and imprecise, noting that terms like "AI painting" are often misapplied to digital outputs rather than physical, materially executed works. Louw details the limitations of robotic painting, including the inability of robots to perform basic tasks like stretching canvases or mixing paints, and argues that much of what is presented as robotic painting is actually pre-programmed performance art.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 22, 2025 visibility 21 link 6 artists

louise bonnet swiss institute site santa fe

Louise Bonnet, a Los Angeles-based painter known for her cartoonish yet sophisticated depictions of the female nude, discusses her latest work ahead of two major exhibitions. Her two-person show with Elizabeth King, titled "De Anima," opens at the Swiss Institute in New York, focusing on shared approaches to figuration that balance objecthood and liveliness. Bonnet also created a new series for the next edition of the SITE Santa Fe International biennial, opening in June. In an interview with ARTnews editor Emily Watlington, Bonnet explains her shift to tighter cropped compositions emphasizing routine gestures like tying shoelaces or fastening bras, inspired by World War II British spies and films like Rosemary's Baby.

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article policy schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

whitney museum breuer building landmarked sothebys

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated the former Whitney Museum building at 945 Madison Avenue as both an individual and interior landmark. Designed by Marcel Breuer and completed in 1966, the inverted ziggurat structure with raw concrete interior served as the Whitney's home until 2015, later housing the Metropolitan Museum of Art's contemporary art annex and the Frick Collection during its renovation. Sotheby's acquired the building in 2023 and plans to relocate its global headquarters there, with renovations led by Herzog & de Meuron. Preservationist groups pushed for landmark status amid concerns about commercial alterations, and the designation now legally protects the exterior and key interior elements like the lobby and main staircase.

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article culture schedule May 20, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

marsha p johnson biography art tourmaline tiny reparations

This excerpt from Tourmaline's forthcoming book "Marsha: the Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson" (Tiny Reparations, May 20) focuses on Marsha P. Johnson's use of hand-sewn banners and textile art as tools of activism and joy within the gay liberation movement. It describes her creation of banners reading "GAY POOOR PEOPLE" and "Gay Love," the latter borrowed by the Hot Peaches theater troupe, and her broader artistic practice spanning acting, performance, fashion, and songwriting. The text also notes artist Tuesday Smilie's 2018 recreation of Johnson's STAR banner for an exhibit at the Rose Art Museum.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 13 link 7 artists

bennett prize after deliberation first all women jury winner announced

Amy Werntz, a Dallas-based figurative painter, has won the fifth Bennett Prize, the largest art award for women working in figurative painting. The announcement was made at the Muskegon Museum of Art in Michigan, where an exhibition of finalists opened. Werntz, a previous finalist in 2021, received $50,000 and a solo show for her lifelike depictions of elderly people in everyday scenes. For the first time, the winner was chosen by an all-female jury, which included painter Margaret Bowland, artist Angela Fraleigh, and curator Gloria Groom. The runner-up, Nicole Santiago, won $10,000. The traveling exhibition will visit several museums across the United States through 2027.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 14, 2025 visibility 18 link 9 artists

hilmas ghost feminist witch collective

At the Armory Show in New York, psychic medium Sarah Potter is offering tarot card readings at the booth of Chicago's Carrie Secrist Gallery using a deck designed by the feminist art collective Hilma's Ghost. The collective, formed during lockdown by abstract artists Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray, created "Abstract Futures Tarot," a series of 78 gouache, ink, and colored pencil paintings inspired by pioneering abstractionist Hilma af Klint and the Rider–Waite tarot deck by Pamela Colman Smith. The works, priced at $4,000 each, are the result of 500 hours of collaborative painting, and the deck is also sold in a limited edition of 300, with 215 already sold.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

diller scofidio and renfro venice canal water coffee wins golden lion

Diller Scofidio and Renfro (DS+R) has won a Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale for "Canal Café," a project that brews espresso using water filtered from the Venetian lagoon. The installation, part of the biennale's exhibition "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective," uses a combination of biological filtration by salt-tolerant halophytes and artificial methods like reverse osmosis to purify the polluted canal water. Michelin-starred chef Davide Oldani selected the coffee blend, and the espresso is sold for €1.20. Originally conceived for the 2008 biennale but delayed due to permit issues, the project was realized with improved filtration technology and support from engineering firms Natural Systems Utilities and SODAI, as well as Webuild.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 19 link 16 artists, 3 galleries

spring break art show surprises 2025

New York's Spring Break Art Show has returned to its namesake season, opening alongside Frieze New York after abruptly canceling its Los Angeles edition due to January's devastating fires. Founded by artist duo Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, the fair is now held in a former book printing office on Varick Street, featuring offbeat emerging art and boundary-pushing installations. Roughly a third of the presentations were already planned under the theme "Paradise Lost and Found," but the accelerated timeline led to last-minute additions, with some artists joining just the night before. Standout works include Louis Sarowsky's carved stone food sculptures, Kate Rusek's zero-waste porcelain pieces molded from trash, and Colin J. Radcliffe's ceramic sculptures reimagining queer figures in classical iconography.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

new taipei city art museum interview

The New Taipei City Art Museum (NTCAM) opened to the public last weekend with fireworks and light installations after nearly eight years of development. Located in Yingge District, about 30 minutes from Taipei, the publicly funded museum cost 3 billion NTD (approximately $93 million) and spans 38 acres. Designed by Taiwanese architect Kris Yao, the 11-story building houses eight exhibition halls, a 500-seat auditorium, a public plaza, and a park for public art. Inaugural director Lai Hsiang-ling outlined the museum's vision to serve local audiences and the arts community while fostering international and regional collaboration. The opening includes the inaugural exhibition featuring the local art collective Xindian Boys and their commission "Don't Worry, Baby," which addresses ecological change, global politics, and artificial intelligence.

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article culture schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

takahashi mizuki textile art

In a recent edition of Artnet Pro's newsletter 'The Asia Pivot', the director of CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile) in Hong Kong reflects on highlights from Art Basel Hong Kong, including textile-based works by Movana Chen, Huan Po-Chi, and Ade Darmawan. The article discusses the growing engagement of contemporary artists with traditional craft practices like weaving, embroidery, and dyeing, particularly during the pandemic, and notes the distinct lineage of fiber art in Asia compared to the West, where it emerged as a subgenre of Modernism in the 1960s.

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article news schedule May 6, 2025 visibility 15 link 3 artists

water leaks from louvres roof and misses prized cimabue painting

A powerful hailstorm caused water to leak through the Louvre's roof into the Salle Rosa room, where the exhibition "A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting" is on view. The water narrowly missed Giovanni Cimabue's unprotected "Maestà" panel painting (circa 1280), but drips hit the base of Nicola Pisano's "Three Acolytes" (1264-67) on loan from Florence's Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Another near miss occurred near Duccio di Buoninsegna's "Madonna of the Franciscans" (1285-88), which was protected by glass. The museum closed the exhibition early for firefighter inspection, identified a damaged glass seal as the cause, and reopened the next morning after repairs.

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trending_up market schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 17 link 6 artists

national gallery mysterious altarpiece 20 million

London's National Gallery has acquired a mysterious altarpiece painted by an unknown artist around 1510, paying £16.4 million ($21.8 million) for the work titled *The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret*. The painting, arranged via a private sale by Sotheby's and funded by the American Friends of the National Gallery London, features unusual details including a uniquely expressive dragon beneath baby Jesus's feet, playful angels, and subtle symbolic references. The acquisition marks the museum's bicentennial and will go on public display on May 10 in the rehung Sainsbury Wing.

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article news schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

trump inauguration donors major art patrons warren stephens

Major art collectors Warren Stephens, Ken Griffin, Paul Singer, and Charles and Helen Schwab were among the top individual donors to President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration fundraising committee, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and Open Secrets. Stephens, a major donor to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art, gave $4 million, the largest individual contribution, while Griffin, Singer, and the Schwabs each donated $1 million or more. The article also details additional political donations from these collectors, including Griffin's $100 million in conservative election spending, and notes that many large corporations like Amazon and BlackRock also contributed.

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article news schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

just what happens to the sistine chapel during a papal conclave

The Sistine Chapel has closed to the public in preparation for the papal conclave beginning May 7, where cardinals will elect a successor to Pope Francis. The chapel, adorned with Michelangelo's frescoes including the ceiling (1508–1512) and *The Last Judgement* (1536–1541), has been the permanent seat of the conclave since 1878. Preparations include installing a chimney and stove for the smoke signals that announce voting results, as well as modern facilities like chemical toilets added after the 2013 conclave.

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trending_up market schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 14 link 9 artists

national gallery acquires curious altarpiece by unknown artist for 20 m

London's National Gallery has acquired a $20 million altarpiece, *The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret and Two Angels* (1500-10), by an unknown artist. The purchase, funded by the American Friends of the National Gallery of London and brokered by Sotheby's, was made from a private collection to celebrate the museum's bicentenary. The painting, first documented in 1602 in Ghent, Belgium, features iconographical oddities including a unique dragon and a bawdy scene, and is painted on Baltic oak, suggesting a Netherlandish origin despite French elements like the fleur-de-lis.

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article culture schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 12 link 9 artists

why is art history filled with miserable brides

The article examines the recurring theme of unhappy brides in 19th-century painting, focusing on works like Vasily Pukirev's *The Unequal Marriage* (1862) and Auguste Toulmouche's *The Reluctant Bride* (1866). It notes how these depictions of devastated brides and depressing nuptials have gone viral on social media, with 21st-century audiences—especially women—relating to the emotional tenor of the images despite the historical distance.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

wes anderson london design museum highlights

The Design Museum in London will host the first institutional exhibition dedicated to filmmaker Wes Anderson, opening this fall. Titled "Wes Anderson: The Archives," the show features over 600 items from Anderson's personal archives, including costumes, props, paintings, sketches, and models from films such as *The Grand Budapest Hotel* (2014), *Moonrise Kingdom* (2012), *Fantastic Mr Fox* (2009), and *Isle of Dogs* (2018). Highlights include the original model of the Grand Budapest Hotel, the painting *Boy with Apple* by Michael Taylor, and costumes worn by actors like Gwyneth Paltrow and Tilda Swinton. The exhibition will also screen Anderson's first short film *Bottle Rocket* (1993) and trace his career chronologically.

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article culture schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

dar kuen wu taiwan digital art

The article examines the rise of Taiwanese contemporary art on the international stage, focusing on its growing prominence in digital and technological art. It traces the evolution of digital art in Taiwan through three phases: video art in the 1990s with pioneers like Wang Jun-Jieh and Yuan Goang-Ming, digital media experimentation in the 2000s driven by the tech sector, and a recent phase of internationalization and interdisciplinary integration fueled by the semiconductor industry and government support. Key factors include Taiwan's hardware industry, cultural liberalization after the lifting of martial law in 1987, and sustained policy support from institutions like the National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF), the Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), and the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA).

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article policy schedule Apr 24, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

metropolitan museum of art trump dei programs

Metropolitan Museum of Art director Max Hollein stated in an interview with French publication Le Quotidien de l'Art that the Trump administration's push to eliminate federal DEI programs will not affect the Met, as it is a private organization not subject to those executive orders. The interview, conducted during the Centre Pompidou's 'TransFORMS' exhibition dedicated to Hollein's father, architect Hans Hollein, also covered deaccessioning, repatriation, and the upcoming opening of the renovated Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.

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