The Art of ‘The Christophers’: How the Film Created an Artist’s Fabled Oeuvre

Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Christophers, explores the complexities of artistic legacy and authenticity through the story of Julian Sklar, a fictional washed-up artist played by Ian McKellen. The plot follows Sklar’s children as they hire an art restorer, played by Michaela Coel, to secretly finish their father’s legendary unfinished series to capitalize on his market value. To ground the film in reality, screenwriter Ed Solomon consulted with art world figures like dealer George Barker and artists Jann Haworth and Derek Boshier, while production designer Antonia Lowe and painter Barnaby Gorton created the physical artworks seen on screen.

In The Christophers, an aging artist’s unfinished masterpieces are subjects of speculation and scheming

The Christophers is a new film starring Ian McKellen as Julian Sklar, a once-celebrated 1970s painter who has become a social pariah and reality TV villain. The plot follows a 'reverse art heist' where Sklar’s estranged children hire a restorer and former forger, played by Michaela Coel, to secretly finish a series of nine incomplete portraits of his former lover. The goal is to inflate the works' market value so they can be 'discovered' as masterpieces upon the aging artist's death.

Damien Hirst's studio has been recreated in Seoul for a major exhibition dedicated to him (including the original floor)

Lo studio del celebre artista Damien Hirst è stato ricreato a Seoul per una grande mostra a lui dedicata (c’è pure il pavimento originale)

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul has launched "Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible," the largest retrospective of Damien Hirst’s work ever held in Asia. Spanning 35 years of his career, the exhibition features over 50 iconic works, including his formaldehyde-preserved animals, diamond-encrusted skull, and a recreation of his Pharmacy Restaurant. A unique highlight is the meticulous reconstruction of Hirst’s London studio, complete with the original paint-stained floor transported to South Korea and 30 previously unseen unfinished canvases from his new "River" series.

Biennale Jogja 18 Review: Occasional Moments of Brilliance

The 18th edition of Biennale Jogja, titled 'KAWRUH: Land of Rooted Practices,' explores Javanese concepts of lived knowledge and alternative epistemologies to challenge Western, human-centric frameworks. The exhibition is split into two phases: a process-driven residency in Boro Hamlet and a larger presentation featuring 60 artists across 11 venues in Yogyakarta. While the show features standout works like Faisal Kamadobat’s mythological illustrations and Yuta Niwa’s cross-cultural mandalas, the physical experience is marred by unfinished venues and logistical hurdles.

11 Must-See Art Shows That Reframe U.S. History as the Nation Turns 250

Museums across the United States are launching a series of major exhibitions to mark the nation's 250th anniversary. These shows use art and material culture to explore the construction of American identity, featuring themes like migration, modernity, and reinterpretations of national icons.

THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF LIVING TOGETHER AT THE SWISS PAVILION

The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia has selected the project "The Unfinished Business of Living Together" to represent Switzerland at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Conceived by Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, and artist Nina Wakeford, the exhibition utilizes archival television broadcasts from the 1970s and 80s to explore the history of LGBTQ+ visibility and social coexistence. The installation will feature a spatialized video production and garden interventions that reactivate historical media moments to examine how social norms dictate public discourse.

MEMORY MOURNING AND REBELLION BETTINI AT DA2

DA2 Domus Artium in Salamanca has opened the first Spanish retrospective of Gabriela Bettini, titled "Cierta tarde, la más bella de las tardes de mi vida." The exhibition surveys the Spanish-Argentine artist's career, centering on themes of memory, exile, and the trauma of the Argentine military dictatorship. A focal point is the work "Memoria del agua," inspired by an unfinished poem found in a book belonging to her grandfather, who was disappeared during the regime.

A Rosso for the Metropolitan

Un Rosso pour le Metropolitan

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has acquired a painting by Rosso Fiorentino, a master of Italian and French Mannerism, after restoration revealed an earlier overpaint that had obscured the composition. The work, a Virgin and Child, now shows Saint John the Evangelist in the foreground at right, confirming it as an original by the artist.

Corcoran students commemorate America’s 250th year with interactive art exhibit

Graduate students at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, part of George Washington University, have created an interactive exhibition titled “American Made” to commemorate the United States’ 250th anniversary. The exhibit, on view at the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery until May 14, combines 21 traditional artworks from GW’s collection—including photographs, pottery, and textiles—with interactive elements such as a touchscreen map and audio components. The project was developed collaboratively by students in museum studies and interactive design programs, led by professors Laura Schiavo and Sam Shelton, as part of the school’s annual NEXT Festival. Featured works include Patricia Kennedy-Zafred’s contemporary quilt “Tagged,” which addresses the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Collectors' collective: Private art enthusiasts work together to bring world-renowned artists to Daejeon

Fourteen Korean collectors have formed a collective called Arche II to jointly acquire and display works by world-renowned artists in Daejeon, a city 140 km from Seoul. Their exhibition "Tracing the Unfinished" at the multidisciplinary complex Heredium features 30 works, including 14 jointly owned pieces, by artists such as Le Corbusier, Robert Longo, Olafur Eliasson, David Hockney, Yang Hae-gue, Anicka Yi, and Choi Byung-so. The group, founded in 2017 by business leaders including a radiologist and a former prosecutor, contributes a fixed annual budget to purchase three to five works at major art fairs, focusing on emerging artists rather than established names.

Call for Artists: Join America, Unfinished?! in Providence, RI

WaterFire Providence has issued an open call for artists to participate in "America, Unfinished?!", a major group exhibition scheduled for the summer of 2026. Hosted at the 15,000-square-foot WaterFire Arts Center, the show seeks large-scale installations, multimedia works, and performances that explore the United States as an evolving and unresolved project. The curatorial framework focuses on themes of labor, migration, identity, and material culture within the context of the American landscape.

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The longtime New York City residence and studio of legendary photographer Robert Frank and sculptor June Leaf has been listed for sale at $6.5 million. Located at 7 Bleecker Street in NoHo, the 209-year-old Federal-style townhouse served as the couple's creative base for over four decades, maintaining a raw, unfinished aesthetic that mirrored their artistic sensibilities. Despite its significant art-historical pedigree, the real estate listing omits the artists' names, instead marketing the property as a redevelopment opportunity with significant buildable square footage.

Artists agonise over when a work is finished—but should we viewers care?

The article explores the perennial struggle artists face in determining when a work is complete, a process often fraught with the risk of overworking or 'wrecking' a piece. Drawing on insights from Howard Hodgkin and David Sylvester, it examines how artists like Degas, Matisse, and Cézanne navigated the boundary between a finished object and a work-in-progress, sometimes intentionally leaving canvases 'open' or 'fragmentarily complete' to preserve their emotional and visual immediacy.

Michelangelo's Pietà Altarpiece for His Own Tomb Restored and Returned to Public View

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The Opera del Duomo Museum in Florence has unveiled the newly restored Bandini Pietà, a monumental sculpture Michelangelo carved for his own tomb between 1547 and 1555. The two-year conservation project, funded by the Friends of Florence Foundation, removed centuries of accumulated dust, wax, and plaster residue from the 5,900-pound marble block, which the artist famously left unfinished after discovering flaws in the stone.

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Director Steven Soderbergh is set to release 'The Christophers', a new film centered on the London art world starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel. The plot follows a faded 1960s Pop Art star whose estranged children hire a former art forger to secretly complete his unfinished canvases to secure a future inheritance. Following its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, the movie is scheduled for a theatrical release in April.

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Construction on Barcelona’s Sagrada Família reached a historic milestone with the completion of the central Tower of Jesus Christ. The installation of a 56-foot cross atop the structure officially makes the basilica the tallest church in the world, fulfilling a key component of Antoni Gaudí’s original vision nearly a century after his death.

Ballast review: emerging artist Isabella Kennedy considers submerged histories

Emerging multidisciplinary artist Isabella Kennedy has unveiled her installation 'Ballast' at Firstdraft in Sydney, a site-specific work that blends paper sculpture, video projection, and sound. The exhibition draws on the unfinished research of her late father, journalist Les Kennedy, regarding the 1941 disappearance of the HMAS Sydney II. Through delicate stitched paper forms and immersive blue light, Kennedy explores themes of familial grief, maritime history, and the meditative acts of remembrance that bridge personal and national narratives.

London show highlights how drawing was at the heart of Lucian Freud’s practice

The National Portrait Gallery in London has opened a major exhibition dedicated to Lucian Freud's works on paper, featuring 170 drawings, etchings, and paintings. The show, drawing heavily from the Lucian Freud Archive acquired by the gallery after the artist's death, includes 48 sketchbooks, unfinished works, and childhood drawings, alongside 12 new acquisitions from the estate.

Step inside Luxembourg artist Massimo Beni’s studio

Luxembourg artist Massimo Beni gives a video tour of his home studio in Esch-sur-Alzette, demonstrating his creative process. Beni explains that his living space doubles as his workspace, allowing him to act on inspiration immediately. He shows how he uses both traditional sketching and digital tools like an iPad to develop his art, emphasizing the importance of never deleting or discarding unfinished work.

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Milan is briefly opening access to a rare Leonardo da Vinci mural inside the Sforza Castle during the 2026 Winter Olympics. From February 7 to March 14, visitors can climb a 20-foot scaffold in the Sala delle Asse to see conservators restoring the unfinished wall and ceiling painting, which was begun around 1498 and long hidden under plaster. The castle has also launched a new multimedia installation on the room's history and reopened a gallery dedicated to Leonardo's students and followers, the Leonardeschi.

The unfinished gaze

Artist Lawrence Buttigieg's exhibition 'Desire & its Excess' is on view at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta until March 1, curated by Gloria Lauri-Lucente. The show brings together painting, box-assemblage, and film to explore desire as an embodied, relational force that resists closure, focusing on the reciprocal exchange between artist and female subject within the studio space.

St. Albert’s VASA creates love letter to drawing

The Visual Arts Studio Association (VASA) in St. Albert is presenting 'Urban Sketching,' an exhibition featuring over 60 sketches by local artists including Lily Jeong, Julie Daly, Luise Mendler-Johnston, Elena Vlassova, Sandra Soucy, Angie Sotiropoulos, and Otto Mestinsek. The show focuses on landscapes and buildings rendered in basic, primitive styles, highlighting the artists' experimentation with simple tools like watercolours, pen and ink, and acrylic on wood. Works range from Vlassova's unfinished campus scene to Jeong's urban landscapes of Edmonton landmarks and Mendler-Johnston's mini sketches of everyday life.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced that its first exhibition in the newly-annexed Breuer building, formerly home to the Whitney Museum, will be titled "Unfinished" (working title) and will explore unfinished works of art from the Renaissance to the present. The show, drawn partly from the Met's own collection, opens March 7, 2016 and runs through September 5, focusing on the historical debate and admiration for the non finito aesthetic.

The Best Art Shows of 2025

A roundup of the best art shows of 2025 highlights standout exhibitions across New York galleries and museums. Notable shows include Reverend Joyce McDonald's first major exhibition at the Bronx Museum, Laura Owens' interactive takeover at Matthew Marks Gallery, and Harkawik's refrigerator-mounted photo display featuring 280 artists. Other featured shows include Maxwell Gallery's unsold works, Elisabeth Kley's curator-driven show at White Columns, Cady Noland's sculpture at Gagosian, and Falcon Art Collective's group show in an unfinished midtown building. The article also mentions Alannah Farrell's trans-themed work in Chinatown, Bradford's blue-field paintings at Canada gallery, and the reopening of institutions like the Frick Collection.

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Researchers from Binghamton University, at the request of an indigenous community group on Easter Island, have created a high-resolution 3D model of the Rono Raraku quarry, where 95 percent of the island's moai statues were carved. Using drone flights and over 11,000 overlapping photographs stitched together via photogrammetry, the model documents the quarry in unprecedented detail, including 133 quarried voids, 400-plus unfinished moai, and evidence of 30 distinct clan-based carving areas. The model is freely available online and was motivated by a 2022 wildfire that threatened the site.

Live conservation reveals hidden surprises of unfinished Spencer painting

A new exhibition at the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, titled *Revealing Genius, Conserving Art: Stanley Spencer’s Final Masterpiece*, offers visitors a rare chance to watch conservator Olivia Leake work on Spencer’s unfinished painting *Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta*. The large canvas, which Spencer labored over for over a decade but left incomplete at his death in 1959, has been lowered from its usual high hanging for live conservation. Using UV light and paint analysis, Leake has discovered surprising details: extremely thin paint layers, a green water area later overpainted in blue, and multiple changes to underdrawings—contradicting anecdotes that Spencer never altered his initial drawings.

Live conservation reveals hidden surprises of unfinished Spencer painting

A new exhibition at the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, titled *Revealing Genius, Conserving Art: Stanley Spencer’s Final Masterpiece*, features the unfinished painting *Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta* (c. 1950s). The large canvas, which Spencer worked on for over a decade and left incomplete at his death in 1959, has been lowered from its high hanging position so that conservation student Olivia Leake of the Courtauld Institute can study it up close. Using UV light and paint analysis, Leake has discovered that Spencer used extremely thin paint layers, made multiple changes to underdrawings (contradicting his own statements), and overpainted a green water area with blue. She is also investigating a possible mold stain in the top left corner.