An exhibition titled "Churchill the Artist" has opened at Chartwell, Winston Churchill's former home in Kent, England. The show features personal artifacts like his paint-spattered Savile Row overalls and spectacles, alongside paintings, including the first U.K. display of his work "Quiet Waters," a gift to his friend Lord Beaverbrook.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is set to open its long-awaited and highly debated new building, the David Geffen Galleries. Designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the $720 million concrete structure spans Wilshire Boulevard and replaces several older buildings with a single, elevated exhibition level. The opening marks the culmination of a decade-long project spearheaded by Director Michael Govan, featuring a non-linear layout that integrates the museum's encyclopedic collection into thematic displays rather than traditional chronological or regional divisions.
Rosalía's fourth studio album, *LUX*, features a recording of Patti Smith from a 1976 interview on the closing track "La Yugular." The article describes Rosalía's admiration for Smith, recounting a meeting where Smith complimented her dress and discussed the song. Smith's influence is highlighted through her music, memoir *Just Kids*, and her artistic practice in photography and mixed media, including her first solo exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in 2011. Smith also recently released a new memoir, *Bread of Angels*.
A major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and the Grand Palais focuses on the final, revolutionary period of Henri Matisse's career, from 1941 to 1954. The show charts his artistic reinvention following a life-threatening surgery, beginning with obsessive, reworked paintings from his Nice studio during the war and culminating in the radiant, large-scale cut-outs for which he is widely celebrated.
French contemporary artist Claire Tabouret has been commissioned to create six new stained-glass windows for the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, replacing six existing 19th-century grisaille windows designed by architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. The project, announced by President Emmanuel Macron and the Archbishop of Paris as a "contemporary gesture" following the 2019 fire, has sparked a major public and institutional controversy, with a petition against it gathering over 335,000 signatures.
Geoffrey Kelly, the FBI’s lead investigator on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist for over two decades, has released a new book titled 'Thirteen Perfect Fugitives'. Published ahead of the 36th anniversary of the 1990 theft, the book provides an insider’s perspective on the investigation into the world’s largest art heist, where 13 works valued at over $1 billion were stolen. Kelly, who retired in 2024, details the FBI's findings regarding the individuals involved and the ongoing, unsuccessful efforts to recover the missing masterpieces.
Artist Danny Cole, known for previous public stunts like covering the Hollywood sign's O with a giant cow, has launched 'Everybody's Album,' a project aiming to hack the Billboard 200 chart. The plan involves recruiting 100,000 people to each record one second of audio, paying them with a Shopify gift card that can only be used to pre-order the album, thereby exploiting chart metrics. With help from influencer Anthony Po, who has millions of followers, they have already secured 80,000 participants.
French artist Claire Tabouret is presenting her full-scale maquettes for Notre-Dame Cathedral's new stained glass windows at the Grand Palais in Paris, in an exhibition titled "In a Single Breath." The six windows, each over 20 feet tall, were selected by a committee from over 100 submissions last December, replacing 19th-century designs by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. The project has sparked controversy: conservation group Sites and Monuments launched a petition with over 328,000 signatures and a legal case arguing the replacement violates the 1964 Venice Charter and French historic monuments law. A Paris administrative court ruled in favor of the state in late November, but the group plans to appeal. Tabouret's designs are now being fabricated by the historic Atelier Simon-Marq glass workshop.
The Broad museum in Los Angeles has opened a major retrospective, "Robert Therrien: This is a Story," dedicated to the late artist Robert Therrien. The exhibition, featuring over 120 works from five decades, aims to move beyond Therrien's most famous piece—the monumental "Under the Table" sculpture—to present the full scope of his obsessively iterative practice, which transformed personal memories into universal forms.
A rare 11th-century wax seal belonging to the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor has been rediscovered in France’s National Archives after being missing for over 40 years. The artifact, known as the Saint-Denis seal, was not stolen but rather misplaced due to a clerical error during a conservation transfer decades ago. It was identified by doctoral student Guilhem Dorandeu, who noticed the misfiled item while conducting research.
The National Trust has unveiled a new exhibition titled "Churchill the Artist" at Chartwell, the former home of Winston Churchill. The show features personal artifacts including his paint-spattered Savile Row overalls and spectacles, alongside the painting "Quiet Waters" (c. 1920s), which is being exhibited in the U.K. for the first time. The work, an impressionistic river scene, was originally a gift from Churchill to the press baron Lord Beaverbrook.
The article presents an excerpt from Nathaniel Dorsky's book "Devotional Cinema," focusing on a chapter titled "The Illuminated Room." Dorsky explores the historical and perceptual relationship between cinema, vision, and spirituality, comparing the experience of watching a film in a dark theater to medieval conceptions of self-luminosity, as exemplified by stained glass windows in cathedrals like Chartres.
The Newport Art Museum has launched the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Society, a new fund to support ambitious exhibition programming. The initiative was previewed at the Members' Show Exhibition and will be announced at the Julie Keyes Gallery Pop Up at Palm Beach Modern Auctions on February 13. The fund will support major projects including 'Sheila Isham: Between Worlds' opening July 10 and a 2028 exhibition on Edward Mitchell Bannister developed with multiple partners. The society is named after Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a charter member of the Newport Art Association and influential arts patron.
The V&A East Museum in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will open on 18 April 2026, completing the institution's east London cultural campus. Designed by O'Donnell + Tuomey, the five-story museum will feature two free permanent "Why We Make" galleries co-curated with local youth groups, showcasing over 500 objects from the V&A collection alongside contemporary works by artists including Yinka Ilori, Tania Bruguera, Carrie Mae Weems, and Thomas J. Price. The opening exhibition, "The Music Is Black: A British Story," will chart the influence of Black British music from 1900 to the present.
Albrecht Dürer created the first printed star charts in Europe in 1515, producing two 17-inch square woodcut maps of the northern and southern celestial hemispheres. The charts depict 48 constellations, including zodiac signs, and feature portraits of ancient astronomers. Dürer collaborated with mathematician Conrad Heinfogel and imperial astronomer Johann Stabius, and the prints were patronized by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. One set sold for £361,250 at Sotheby's in 2011.
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia is opening "Henri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets" (October 19–February 22), reuniting for the first time in over a century the two largest collections of Rousseau's work—18 paintings from the Barnes Foundation and 11 from the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. The exhibition, co-curated by Nancy Ireson and Christopher Green, uses new conservation research to challenge the long-held myth of Rousseau as a naive, unworldly amateur, revealing instead a strategic artist who revised compositions, reused canvases, and actively sought an audience through Paris's open salons.
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia is opening "Henri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets" (October 19–February 22), reuniting for the first time in over a century the two largest collections of Rousseau's work—18 paintings from the Barnes Foundation and 11 from the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. The exhibition, co-curated by Nancy Ireson and Christopher Green, uses new conservation research to reveal Rousseau's tactical revisions and overpainted canvases, challenging the long-held myth of his unworldly innocence. It traces his journey from poverty and mockery to acclaim, culminating in masterpieces like *The Sleeping Gypsy* (1897).
180 Studios in London has extended two exhibitions—'Paradigm Shift' and Ryoji Ikeda's 'data-cosm [n°1]'—through February 1, 2026, due to popular demand. 'Paradigm Shift' presents moving-image works from the 1970s to the present by artists including Andy Warhol, Pipilotti Rist, Nan Goldin, and Arthur Jafa, exploring the evolution of screen culture across avant-garde cinema, TV, music video, and internet culture. Ikeda's 'data-cosm [n°1]' is a world-premiere, site-specific audio-visual installation commissioned by 180 Studios, charting data from particle physics to astrophysics.
Tate Modern in London has opened 'Nigerian Modernism,' a major exhibition tracing the modern art movement in Nigeria from the 1940s through the post-independence era. Spanning 50 years, the show features over 250 works by more than 50 artists, including Jimo Akolo, El Anatsui, Nike Davies-Okundaye, Uzo Egonu, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Ben Enwonwu, Ladi Kwali, Aina Onabolu, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke, and Obiora Udechukwu. Curated by Osei Bonsu and Bilal Akkouche, the exhibition draws from Tate’s holdings and public and private collections across Africa, the United States, and Europe, and runs from October 8, 2025 to May 10, 2026.
Deux expositions dans les galeries parisiennes
Two notable drawing exhibitions are currently on view in Paris galleries. The first, organized by dealer Nicolas Schwed on Rue Saint-Honoré, features a strong selection of old and modern master drawings, with a surprising emphasis on 18th-century French works alongside Italian pieces. Highlights include a preparatory study by Federico Zuccaro for a Roman fresco and a rare drawing of the Trinity by Cornelis Schut, which is linked to a lost altarpiece from Cologne.
The Big Art Loop has transformed San Francisco into an open-air gallery with nearly 100 sculptures installed along a 34-mile walkable and bikeable path through the city. The project, funded by the Sijbrandij Foundation and founded by Sid and Karen Sijbrandij, features works including R-Evolution at the Ferry Building, Echoes: A Voice from Uncharted Waters by Masaki Omor, Coralée by BJB, Got Framed, Desert Shark, and a double feature by Betsabeé Romero. The loop is designed to be encountered spontaneously in daily life, with no fixed starting point, and has support from Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Tobias Pils's exhibition "Shh" at mumok in Vienna presents a decade-spanning survey of his work, marking his first major institutional show since 2013. The exhibition charts his evolution from abstraction to figuration and a broader color palette, centered on recurring motifs of fractured bodies and archetypal figures that explore the structure of pictorial language itself.
Tobias Pils has opened a major exhibition titled "Shh" at mumok in Vienna, presenting a decade-spanning survey of his work. The show, which follows his 2013 presentation at Secession, occupies three spaces and charts his evolution from abstraction to figuration and a more expansive color palette, while focusing on recurring motifs and the structure of pictorial language.
The Beauty Shop collective, a group of five female artists based in the Puget Sound region, has launched a new group exhibition titled "The Party Mix" at Gallery 110 in Seattle's Pioneer Square. Featuring works by Arni Adler, Lynette Charters, Saundra Fleming, Kate Harkins, and Ingrid Sojit, the show presents a diverse array of media unified by a "psychedelic" sense of play, intuitive creative processes, and a focus on the female figure. The exhibition, which runs through March 28, was born out of a collaborative support network that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum has launched "UNVEILED - The Rugby Art Collection in Full," a landmark exhibition featuring all 257 artworks from its permanent collection. This marks the first time in decades that the entire body of work has been displayed together, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the collection's founding in 1946. The show includes a prestigious roster of British masters such as L.S. Lowry, Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth, and Paula Rego, alongside Turner Prize winners Lubaina Himid and Gillian Wearing.
Thai artist and filmmaker Chantana Tiprachart has been awarded the 2026 Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant by the Han Nefkens Foundation. The prize provides $15,000 for the production of a new moving-image work over a nine-month period, which will subsequently tour several international institutions including the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai and Nottingham Contemporary. The jury selected Tiprachart for her ability to locate social and political narratives within quiet, everyday spaces, praising her commitment to reflection in an era of information overload.
A Statista chart published in October 2024 ranks the top ten contemporary artists by auction sales from July 2023 to June 2024, broken down by gender. Jean-Michel Basquiat leads all artists with $516.2 million in sales, followed by Yoshitomo Nara ($70.6 million), George Condo ($47.4 million), and Keith Haring ($36.2 million). Julie Mehretu is the only female artist in the top ten, with $36.0 million in sales. The data covers public auctions of paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, photographs, videos, tapestries, installations, and NFTs, excluding antiques, furniture, and anonymous cultural goods.
Nine emerging galleries from around the world are showing in the Positions sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, a dedicated platform for up-and-coming exhibitors. The article profiles several of these gallerists, including Allann Seabra and Ian Duarte of Verve in São Paulo, and Mauricio Aguirre of N.A.S.A.L. in Mexico City and Guayaquil. They discuss their gallery's growth, key milestones such as artists participating in the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, and their hopes for gaining international exposure and deepening understanding of their local art scenes.
The Grolier Club, a private members-only society for bibliophiles on New York's Upper East Side, has opened a free public exhibition titled "Paper Jane: 250 Years of Austen," tracing Jane Austen's legacy through rare books, letters, and archival material. Organized over three years by three club members—Mary Crawford, Janine Barchas, and Sandra Clark—the show draws entirely from their personal collections, charting Austen's rise from relative anonymity to literary canonization.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has opened "Dancing the Revolution: From Dancehall to Reggaetón," an ambitious exhibition exploring the historical evolution of dancehall and reggaetón as cultural movements and their influence on contemporary art. Curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, the show features over 40 international artists including Isaac Julien, Edra Soto, Alberta Whittle, Carolina Caycedo, supakid, and Lee "Scratch" Perry, tracing the genres' roots from Afro-Caribbean traditions through their emergence in Jamaica, Panama, and Puerto Rico to global mainstream dominance by figures like Daddy Yankee and Bad Bunny.