Roland Augustine, cofounder of New York's Luhring Augustine gallery, is stepping down to focus on philanthropy. Cofounder Lawrence Luhring will continue leading the gallery alongside longtime directors Lauren Wittels and Donald Johnson Montenegro, who will become equity partners. Luhring bought out Augustine's share at the end of last year, and the gallery plans to restructure in 2026, potentially changing its name within three years.
Tobias van Gils, founder of the Zurich-based investment firm MLT Capital, discusses his art collection in an interview with The Art Newspaper. He shares his early collecting journey, recent acquisitions like a large mountainscape by Harold Ancart, and his regret over missing out on Maurizio Cattelan's blue orchid work "Meat" (2024). Van Gils also mentions launching the MLT Art Foundation with his wife to house their collection and support art programming focused on children. He offers personal insights on his decision-making process, favorite artworks, and tips for navigating Art Basel.
Lisa Phillips, director of New York's New Museum, will retire after more than 25 years in the role, as reported by the New York Times. The museum is currently in the midst of a 62,000-square-foot expansion expected to open this fall, though no date has been set. Phillips, 71, oversaw the museum's relocation to the Bowery in 2007, launched the influential New Museum Triennial in 2010, and added initiatives like New Inc and Rhizome. Her tenure also included controversies, such as criticism over a 2010 show of works owned by a trustee, staff complaints about her $900,000 salary, and tensions around the museum's unionization in 2019.
Liam Lis, a 23-year-old former child star who toured with Fifth Harmony and Zendaya, is now building a private art collection with his family in New York. In an interview with Cultured, he discusses key works in the collection, including Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Gringo Pilot (Anola Gay)" (1981), Damien Hirst's "Damnation" (2004), and Richard Prince's "A Nurse Involved" (2002), and credits his father, real estate developer Harry Lis, for nurturing his passion for art.
The article examines the meteoric rise and current cooling of the market for Labubu, the Nordic fanged monster character created by artist Kasing Lung. After a decade of slow development, Labubu exploded in popularity through Chinese toy blind-box manufacturer Pop Mart, leading to record auction sales in 2025. Yongle Auction in Beijing organized the world's first themed Labubu sale, where a mint-green sculpture sold for RMB 1.242 million and a painting, 'Pure' (2021), fetched RMB 1.61 million, setting successive records. The frenzy attracted a diverse range of buyers, from streetwear collectors to traditional ceramics enthusiasts, many of whom share their purchases on social media platforms like Douyin.
On June 24, New Yorkers will vote in the Democratic primary for mayor, with candidates including embattled incumbent Eric Adams, former governor Andrew Cuomo, and Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is gaining support from artists and art dealers. The article outlines the arts-related positions of several candidates: City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams restored $53 million in cultural funding after proposed cuts; Eric Adams has an uneven record, having proposed cuts but later launching the 'NYC Create in Place' pilot program; and Andrew Cuomo's arts stance is mentioned but not detailed.
Agosto Machado, a legendary downtown New York artist, archivist, and activist, died on March 21, 2026, at an estimated age in his 80s. The article recounts his life through a personal tribute, describing a drag performance in Chicago honoring him, and details his decades-long career as a street queen, Warhol-era fixture, and participant in the Stonewall uprising and first Gay Liberation March. Machado performed in Off-Off-Broadway plays, created solo shows, and amassed an extensive archive of ephemera, art, and photographs of his friends and community.
Collector Amitha Raman shares her journey into art collecting, which began with late-night classes at MoMA under art historian Agnes Berecz, where she explored empty galleries after hours. Her first acquisition was Mary Beth Edelson's "Hounds of Hell" (1973), and she now serves as co-chair of MoMA's Young Patrons Council and a member of its Black Arts Council. Raman's collection includes works by Rashid Johnson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tracey Emin, Jenny Holzer, and Jeffrey Gibson, and she actively loans pieces to major museums worldwide.
Pipilotti Rist's major installation *4th Floor to Mildness* has opened at the Portland Art Museum's Crumpacker Center in its West Coast premiere and only second U.S. exhibition. The immersive work features underwater film projected onto two biomorphic screens, a soundtrack by experimental musician Soap&Skin/Anja Plaschg, and raft-like beds for visitors to lie on while experiencing floating imagery and moving light circles. The exhibition was adapted from its original 2022 presentation at the New Museum in New York, with local production partners including Portland Garment Factory and Figure Plant contributing to the installation.
Contemporary Istanbul (CI) opened its 20th anniversary edition at the Tersane Istanbul complex, a restored Ottoman shipyard, bringing together 51 galleries from 16 countries. The fair coincided with the Istanbul Biennial, drawing a larger crowd of collectors and museum groups than the previous year. Works by leading Turkish artists such as Nil Yalter, Güneş Terkol, and Azade Köker were on view, with prices ranging from €1,000 for emerging artists to over €2m for a James Rosenquist painting. Despite high spirits, the fair unfolded against a backdrop of political tension following the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, ongoing protests, and increasing censorship. Galleries displayed politically and socially engaged works, including Rasim Aksan's homoerotic triptych and Fatoş İrwen's prison-made fabric piece, while collectors sought discounts amid Turkey's high inflation and economic volatility.
The National Gallery of Art (NGA) has received a historic $116 million donation from the Mitchell P. Rales Family Foundation to permanently endow its 'Across the Nation' lending program. This initiative loans artworks from the NGA's collection to smaller regional museums across the United States, covering all associated costs. In its pilot year, the program reached an estimated 900,000 visitors at ten institutions, bringing works by artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Rembrandt, and Mark Rothko to communities from Alaska to Michigan.
Artist Mark Leckey piloted a free month-long art course called Music and Video Lab this summer in Redruth, Cornwall, aimed at attracting people aged 18 to 25 who lack access to formal art education. The course, costing £15,000 with support from Arts Council England, was initiated by curator Teresa Gleadowe of CAST and artist Liam Jolly of Auction House, with final works screened at CAST from August 5 through September 3.
The Katy Trail, a prominent 3.5-mile urban greenway in Dallas, has announced the launch of the KTX Biennial, a new public art initiative set to debut in Spring 2027. Curated by Jovanna Venegas, currently of New York’s SculptureCenter, the inaugural edition will feature site-specific commissions and sculptures installed along the trail for up to 18 months. The project is an evolution of a pilot public art program started in 2021 by the Friends of the Katy Trail, intended to integrate contemporary art into the daily experience of the park's two million annual visitors.
Art in General, the New York non-profit art space that closed its physical location in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, is returning after a five-year hiatus. It will stage a pop-up exhibition at Yve Yang Gallery in Soho starting August 22, led by new director Xiaoyu Weng, who also serves as artistic director of the Tanoto Art Foundation in Singapore. New board members include artist Paul Pfeiffer, digital strategist Jiajia Fei, and gallerist Yve Yang. The organization plans to host pop-up exhibitions, talks, and events while searching for a permanent space.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) laid off three of five staff members at the Video Data Bank (VDB), a renowned video art distribution organization, on November 12. Former director Tom Colley announced the dismissals of digital collection manager Elise Schierbeek and distribution assistant Nicky Ni, and stated that acquisitions and programming would cease. SAIC cited financial pressures from federal policy changes and enrollment declines, insisting the VDB is not closing but needs adjusted staffing to protect its teaching mission. The VDB, founded in 1976 and approaching its 50th anniversary, holds works by major artists including Nam June Paik, Pipilotti Rist, and Bruce Nauman, and has historically received NEA funding.
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.
A collection of 450 objects owned by the late filmmaker David Lynch was auctioned by Julien's Auctions, achieving a white-glove sale totaling $4.25 million. The top lot was a group of scripts from Lynch's unrealized film project *Ronnie Rocket: The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence*, which sold for $195,000. Other notable sales included scripts for *Mulholland Drive* ($104,000), *Twin Peaks* pilot ($91,000), and *Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me* ($78,000), as well as Lynch's director chair ($91,000), a personal 35mm print of *Eraserhead* ($52,000), and his La Marzocco espresso machine ($45,500).
Burnaway's May 2026 Calls for Artists roundup lists multiple opportunities with deadlines in early May. These include the Joan Mitchell Center's call for figurative works, the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography for Gulf Coast photographers, the Center for Craft Teaching Artist Cohort offering $10,000 grants to mid-career craft artists, the Hopper Prize grants totaling $13,000, residencies at The Studios of Key West and Trillium Arts, and the National Performance Network Creation & Development Fund. Each opportunity has specific eligibility, fees, and deadlines ranging from May 3 to May 18, 2026.
A new exhibition at MoMu in Antwerp, guest-curated by Geert Bruloot, explores the enduring legacy of the 'Antwerp Six'—a group of visionary designers who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s. The show features dedicated rooms for members including Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Van Saene, showcasing their distinct aesthetics ranging from maximalist rave-wear to surrealist runway recreations. It traces their journey from a self-funded trip to a London trade fair in 1986 to becoming global icons who challenged the dominance of Parisian couture.
London gallery owner Patrick Matthiesen consigned a Gustave Courbet painting, *Mother and Child on a Hammock* (1844), to the Nicholas Hall Gallery in New York for Tefaf Maastricht 2023, listed at $650,000. After it failed to sell, Matthiesen was contacted by a man calling himself Thomas Doyle (also A.J. Doyle), who claimed to be a former US Air Force pilot, government contractor, and art dealer with family ties to Doyle Auctions. Despite Doyle having 11 prior fraud convictions—including stealing a bronze Degas statue in 2007—Matthiesen was convinced by artworks Doyle sent for inspection, including works attributed to El Greco, Rubens, and a Michelangelo drawing. In 2024, Doyle borrowed the Courbet to show a potential buyer and never returned it. Doyle has now been arrested for the theft.
180 Studios presents 'Paradigm Shift', a major exhibition at 180 Strand in London that transforms the venue's subterranean spaces to showcase acclaimed moving image works from the 1970s to the present. Curated by Jefferson Hack and Mark Wadhwa, the show features over a dozen artists including Ryan Trecartin, Nan Goldin, Andy Warhol, Pipilotti Rist, and Arthur Jafa, drawing from avant-garde cinema, TV, music video, performance, fashion, gaming, and internet culture. New commissions by 180 Studios sit alongside iconic historical works, tracing revolutions in moving image culture from Warhol's 1970s 'Fashion TV' to TELFAR TV today.
The inaugural exhibition at the newly renovated Intuit Art Museum in Chicago, titled "Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago," brings together 75 works by 22 self-taught immigrant artists who have shaped the city's cultural landscape. Featured artists include Carlos Barberena, Drossos P. Skyllas, Charles Warner, Alfonso "Piloto" Nieves Ruiz, and others, with works spanning linocuts, hyperrealistic paintings, found-object sculpture, and mixed media. The show runs through January 11, 2026.
Artist Precious Okoyomon discusses how learning to fly a propeller plane has influenced their artistic practice, from dioramas depicting aerial perspectives to a video work reading poetry from the cockpit. Their first exhibition with Mendes Wood DM in Paris, titled 'It’s important to have ur fangs out at the end of the world' (through 17 January), features sculptures, wallpaper, a fable, and three lightbox dioramas that draw on sky studies taken while flying. Okoyomon earned their pilot’s license before their driver’s license as a teenager in Ohio, and continues to fly when visiting family, finding the experience a reset for their nervous system.
The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in New York has opened a new exhibition titled 'Stories and Set Designs for The Sopranos.' The show delves into the creation of the landmark HBO series, featuring original research materials, concept art, ground plans, and scripts that reveal the intense preparatory work by creator David Chase and his team. It reconstructs key locations like the Soprano home, the Bada Bing strip club, and Dr. Melfi's office to illustrate the show's transition from pilot to full series production.
Art critic Tabish Khan selects five must-see exhibitions closing before the end of 2025. Highlights include "Paradigm Shift" at 180 Studios, featuring video works by Pipilotti Rist, Gillian Wearing, Arthur Jafa, and Cao Fei; Alison Wing Yin Poon's "A Constructed Home" at Tache, exploring Malayan-Chinese heritage through lacquered vases and ceramics; Noemie Goudal's "The Story of Fixity" at Borough Yards, a layered projection installation by Artangel; Mircea Teleaga's "Paradise" at LBF Contemporary, with glowing surreal landscapes; and Arch Hades' "We're all just passing through" at 8 Berkeley Square, blending poetry and sculpture.
The Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), a sustainability charity founded in London in 2020, has launched a new consultancy called Climate Action Services International (Casi) to help galleries, museums, and cultural organizations turn climate commitments into measurable action. Casi offers services such as carbon auditing, decarbonisation strategies, governance advice, and staff training, and follows a pilot phase working with institutions including English Heritage, Hauser & Wirth, and Art Fund. The consultancy is structured as a mission-driven social enterprise that will reinvest 51% of its profits into GCC.
Billionaire collector and National Gallery of Art trustee Mitchell P. Rales has donated $116 million to the museum. The gift, the largest programming endowment in the institution's history, will fund the 'Across the Nation' initiative, which loans works from the National Gallery's permanent collection to small and midsize museums across the United States for two-year periods at no cost to the borrowing institutions.
Jemima Wyman's retrospective "Deep Surface" surveys three decades of her work exploring DIY aesthetics of concealment, protest iconography, and political solidarity. Born in Sydney and based in Los Angeles since 2004, Wyman is known for collages of masked protesters, activist signage, and street rally residues, as seen in works like *Aggregate Icon (RBW)* (2016) and *Mass Monument (Y & B)* (2018). The exhibition highlights her early inspiration from Fluxus, Minimalism, and Yayoi Kusama, as well as the influence of Brisbane's late-1990s art scenes and postcolonial Indigenous Australian art debates. Wyman, who has Indigenous (Palawa) heritage, uses camouflage and disguise to blur boundaries between visibility and concealment, figure and ground.
The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum is hosting "Luigi Ghirri: Endless Landscapes," the first Asian museum solo exhibition dedicated to the Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri (1943–1992), running from July 3 to September 28, 2025. The exhibition presents a wide range of Ghirri's work, from his early masterpieces to his late pieces, including his famous series on Giorgio Morandi's studio. It also features works and materials by his wife, graphic designer Paola Borgonzoni (1954–2011), highlighting her crucial role in his career. Related events include a symposium with Ghirri's daughter Adele Ghirri and curator Ilaria Campioli, gallery talks, and the Japanese premiere of the documentary film "Infinito."
The article reports on the impact of President Javier Milei's anarcho-capitalist economic policies on Argentina's cultural sector since his December 2023 election. Public museums like the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes face frozen budgets and loss of autonomy, the cultural ministry has been shuttered, and a climate of fear and retribution has led many in the art world to speak anonymously. The piece focuses on artist Liv Schulman's film and exhibition "Un círculo que se fue rodando" (2024) as a psychological portrait of the nation under Milei, and includes observations from a Buenos Aires gallerist and journalist about the dismantling of civic institutions.