Arts news

• Bocelli Out For Inaugural

  20-12-2016 17:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  A source said that, by Monday, “Andrea Bocelli said there was no way he’d take the gig . . . he was ‘getting too much heat’ and he said no.” But another source told us, “Trump suggested to Bocelli he not participate because of the backlash. It’s sad people on the left kept him from performing on a historic day.”
  
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• After Splashy Venice Debut, Florentina Holzinger’s ‘Sea World’ is Coming to Berlin, Brooklyn

  24-06-2026 22:38 via artnews.com
  
  Ring an alarm bell—the buzziest performance of this year’s Venice Biennial is going on tour.An adapted version of Florentina Holzinger’s Seaworld Venice, created for the Austrian Pavilion, will be presented at Gropius Bau in Berlin in spring 2027, followed by a stop at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna that fall, before concluding its run in March 2028 at Amant in Brooklyn. Nora‑Swantje Almes, Curator for Live Programs and Outreach at Gropius Bau, who organized its Venice pr
  
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• Actress Julia Ormond Threatens Top 200 Collector Michael Ovitz With Bench Warrant

  24-06-2026 22:22 via artnews.com
  
  Lawyers for Julia Ormond are looking to have the court issue a bench warrant for the arrest of CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz for walking out of a deposition after being prodded about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.Ovitz was asked about his continuing association with Epstein after the disgraced financier’s conviction for sex crimes. At one point, Ovitz stopped engaging. “I’m not going to discuss anything about Jeffrey Epstein,” he said. “You can ask
  
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• In Open Letter, Hundreds of Artists Urge Mayor Mamdani for Two-Year Ban on AI in Classrooms

  24-06-2026 21:13 via artnews.com
  
  Hundreds of New York City–based artists and cultural workers have called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to implement a two-year moratorium on artificial intelligence in public schools.In an open letter published yesterday by the AI Moratorium Coalition, approximately 500 visual artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to prohibit the technology, describing it as “built on theft, having stolen the work of countless creatives” and arguing that it has no
  
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• Egyptian Archaeologists Unearth Two Tombs That Could Represent Early Development of Funerary Pyramids

  24-06-2026 21:07 via artnews.com
  
  Archaeologists working in Upper Egypt discovered two tombs dating to the Early Dynastic period, both of them at the fabled location known as Gabal El-Teir—or, as translated from Arabic, “Mountain of the Birds.”The tombs date from 3100 to 2686 B.C.E. and “will allow researchers to trace the development of funerary architecture,” according to Archaeology Magazine, which noted that thick walls at the bottom that taper toward the top of the structures could represent an
  
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• Australian Artist Accused of Copying Work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Nicholas Harding

  24-06-2026 19:37 via artnews.com
  
  An Australian artist has been accused of copying the work of two artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, in paintings she has won prizes for in Australia. Jane Allan, an artist based in Lennox Head, a seaside town located about two hours south of Brisbane, is at the center of a controversy regarding her paintings, as reported by multiple Australian news outlets.Earlier this week, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Philip Bacon, an art dealer based in Brisbane, had a
  
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• Since the 1960s, Marilou Schultz Has Merged Diné Weaving and Digital Worlds

  24-06-2026 18:24 via artnews.com
  
  Weaving may be the world’s oldest way of reproducing information—and computing is poised to become its final one. Across millennia, surprising similarities persist: both media operate on binary logic (over/under, on/off), are intrinsically based on counting, and are characterized by patterns that emerge structurally, not on the surface. In fact, the first automated machine, the Jacquard machine, was a loom, and weaving was a favorite metaphor employed by Ada Lovelace while she was wo
  
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• Did You Miss the Original Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius? Now You Can Experience It in Augmented Reality in Pompeii

  24-06-2026 17:47 via artnews.com
  
  A new augmented reality app will enable devotees of the ancient city of Pompeii to explore the city as it was in 79 C.E., before the disastrous eruption of Mount Vesuvius—as well as during the historic catastrophe, in which some 2,000 are believed to have perished, possibly in ghastly fashion, including asphyxiating amid clouds of ash or even having their bodily fluids vaporized by burning gas. Besides seeing the sky go dark on that fateful day, they’ll be able to see gladiators figh
  
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• Southbank Centre Director Will Leave His Post, Says Departure Is Unrelated to Social Media Controversy

  24-06-2026 17:18 via artnews.com
  
  Photographer and activist Misan Harriman has said on social media that he will leave his post as director of London’s Southbank Centre after his current contract expires in the fall. The revelation comes after considerable criticism leveled at him over some social media posts, which he alludes to in the video, saying it came after his decision was already made.“It’s semi-public knowledge that my term is coming to an end anyway, my actual term at Southbank, my second term,&rdquo
  
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• Resignations at the Southbank Centre and Canadian Human Rights Museum, and More: Morning Links for June 24, 2026

  24-06-2026 15:55 via artnews.com
  
  Good Morning!Misan Harriman, chair of London’s Southbank Centre, is resigning following accusations of sharing antisemitic posts.The Louvre and Eiffel Tower close early due to crushing heatwave.Murals from the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project in Manhattan’s Bellevue Men’s Shelter could be lost for good.The Headlines YOU CAN’T FIRE ME, I QUIT. The chair of London’s Southbank Centre, Misan Harriman, is resigning following accusations
  
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• New Museum and Korea’s Ulsan Art Museum Inaugurate Partnership with Ho Tzu Nyen Commission

  23-06-2026 22:55 via artnews.com
  
  Though separated by roughly 6,000 miles, the New Museum and Korea’s Ulsan Art Museum have never been closer.The two institutions today announced a multi-year partnership as part of the Hyundai Translocal Series, an initiative by the Hyundai Motor Company. The collaboration begins with a new commission by Singaporean multimedia artist and writer Ho Tzu Nyen. The work will be installed in the glass elevators of the New Museum’s recently inaugurated OMA redesign, and in Ulsan, a coastal
  
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• Manhattan Borough President Plans to Use His $50 M. Budget Toward the Arts, as Rebuff to the Trump Administration

  23-06-2026 22:47 via artnews.com
  
  Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal announced Tuesday that he will dedicate $50 million, the entirety of his discretionary budget for the next fiscal year, toward the arts, reports the New York Times.Hoylman-Sigal, who assumed office in January, told the Times that this decision came as a direct response to President Donald Trump and his attempts to remake the nation’s cultural institutions. During his second administration, Trump has taken over the Kennedy Center and attempted
  
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• National Trust, Mid-Fight with Trump over White House Ballroom and Kennedy Center, Elects New President

  23-06-2026 22:41 via artnews.com
  
  The board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Congressionally chartered nonprofit involved in lawsuits against Donald Trump’s plans for a new White House ballroom and a reimagined John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, elected Brent Leggs as its new president and chief executive.As reported by the New York Times, Leggs—who has worked for the organization for more than 20 years—“becomes the 11th leader of the trust since it was formed in 1949&n
  
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• R.M.S. Titanic’s Plan to Sell Salvaged Artifacts at Auction Faces Ongoing Opposition

  23-06-2026 22:14 via artnews.com
  
  Back in May, R.M.S. Titanic’s plan to bring 100 artifacts recovered from the shipwreck to auction became public. R.M.S. Titanic is the name of the company that owns exclusive sales rights to the notorious shipwreck. The objects in question were among those rescued from the ocean floor in 1987, two years after the wreck was discovered and 75 years after the ship sank in the North Atlantic.Various government entities in the US and France had previously voiced objection to the company’s
  
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• Artists Facing Censorship Can Turn to This New Guideline for Guidance

  23-06-2026 22:06 via artnews.com
  
  As accusations of censorship mount at museums nationwide, a new resource has emerged to help artists safeguard freedom of expression. The Artist’s Guide to Defending Artistic Freedom, from the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), outlines strategies for artists facing canceled exhibitions, demands to alter works, and contract negotiations—situations that the guide notes are increasingly shaped by shrinking institutional space for risk-taking art.In its introduction, the NCAC
  
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• Charles Hinman, Known for His Sculptural Paintings, Has Died at 93

  23-06-2026 21:13 via artnews.com
  
  Charles Hinman, known for his three-dimensional shaped canvases, died on May 29 in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was 93. The news was first reported by the New York Times.Born in 1932 in Syracuse, New York, Hinman received a BFA from Syracuse University before moving to New York to study at the Art Students League. By the early 1960s, he was living on Coenties Slip, in Lower Manhattan, which had become home to a cast of artists—among them James Rosenquist, Agnes Martin, and Ellsworth Kelly&m
  
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• Masterpieces from the Reuben Collection to Go on View at the Courtauld Gallery in London

  23-06-2026 20:46 via artnews.com
  
  The Courtauld Gallery in London announced this week that it will put on view works from the Reuben Collection alongside works from its own holdings this fall.Opening September 18, the exhibition, titled “Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections,” will feature works by Paul Cezanne, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso.Cezanne’s Turning Road (1905) and Modigliani’s Nude (ca.1916), fr
  
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• Paris Drug Bust Recovers Stolen $17 M. Picasso Canvas

  23-06-2026 19:11 via artnews.com
  
  Police raiding a house in the Paris suburb of Champigny-sur-Marne on June 15 got a welcome surprise when they stumbled upon a stolen Pablo Picasso painting. Though the specific canvas has not yet been identified, it is reported to depict the artist’s lover and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, reports Le Parisien, which indicates that the canvas, valued between about $13.7 million and $17.1 million, belongs to a collector from Singapore. It was allegedly stolen by a worker at an art
  
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• How Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch’s Lunch With Trump Actually Went Down

  23-06-2026 16:45 via artnews.com
  
  The Smithsonian Institution, and its Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, have been under pressure for well over a year, with President Donald Trump and his administration trying a variety of tactics to compel the Institution to change its framing or approach to US History. That campaign reached its highest flashpoint last summer when Bunch and the president sat for a two-and-a-half hour lunch over their differing views on museum curation.Now, in a profile of Bunch for the Atlantic, writer Clint Smith
  
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• Art Loss Register Recovers 17th-Century Flemish Painting Stolen in 2020

  23-06-2026 16:10 via artnews.com
  
  The London-based Art Loss Register said Tuesday that it had recovered a 17th-century Flemish painting that had been stolen in September 2020 from a private residence in Canada.The missing painting was reported to police and logged with the Art Loss Register shortly after its theft. The stolen painting, Interior of a Collector’s Cabinet: An Allegory of Sight (ca. 1660) by Jan van Kessel the Elder and Abraham Willemsens, was identified in October 2023 ahead of a planned sale at Sotheby&rsquo
  
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• Studio Museum’s Connie H. Choi Named Chief Curator of the Barnes Foundation

  23-06-2026 16:05 via artnews.com
  
  The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has named Connie H. Choi as chief curator and vice president for art and education, the latter being a newly created position. She succeeds Nancy Ireson, who held the title of chief curator and deputy director for collections and exhibitions and left the position in November. Choi begins at the Barnes on September 8.Choi is currently curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she has worked for nearly a decade. At the Studio Museum, she worked closely wit
  
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• Artist Helen Cammock Removes Controversial Video Referring to Churchill from London’s National Portrait Gallery: Morning Links for June 23, 2026

  23-06-2026 15:15 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good morning!Helen Cammock removed her video claiming Churchill starved Indians during the Bengal famine from London’s National Portrait Gallery.Charles Hinman, known for his three-dimensional sculpted canvases, has died at age 93.The top ten sales at Art Basel last week were revealed.The Headlines UNDER PRESSURE. Following heated backlash, artist&
  
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• The World’s First AI Art Museum Has a Strange Way of Honoring the Rainforest

  23-06-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  It’s no surprise that the world’s first museum of AI art isn’t a museum in the traditional sense. Dataland—co-founded by husband-and-wife artist duo Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkiliç—is nestled in downtown Los Angeles’ museum mile, where massive open-source models, along with visitors’ real-time biometric data, project maximalist AI-generated installations across its galleries.It’s also no surprise that those installations rely on the breathles
  
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• Chicken Road: Rapid Roadway Multiplier Madness for Quick Wins

  23-06-2026 03:42 via zouchmagazine.com
  
  Immergiti nel Road RumbleLa prima volta che avvii il gioco, una brillante chicken gialla si avvicina a un incrocio trafficato, sbattendo le ali in attesa di una fuga rapida. L’interfaccia è pulita: un singolo tap per impostare la tua stake, un altro tap per iniziare a attraversare, e un rapido tap ancora per incassare a un multiplier scelto. Questo non è un marathon; è uno sprint in cui ogni decisione conta istantaneamente. Per chi desidera scosse di adrenalina, questo
  
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• The Top Sales at Art Basel 2026, From a $2.3 M. Yves Klein to a $35 M. Picasso

  22-06-2026 23:36 via artnews.com
  
  With the close of business on Sunday, the 2026 edition of Art Basel in Switzerland is a wrap. For most collectors, it’s time to jet off to Mallorca—though for the true diehards, there’s always another convening point. (The London sales or Upstate Art Weekend, anyone?)Coming off two lackluster years, the first half of 2026 had stronger than expected activity. The May sales showed robust bidding across categories, with truly stellar results for museum-grade trophy works. That gra
  
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• The Netherlands and Germany Agree to Return 2,000 Artifacts to Ghana

  22-06-2026 23:20 via artnews.com
  
  Germany and the Netherlands have agreed to return 2,000 culturally significant artifacts to Ghana, which were taken from the country during the colonial era. The announcement was made at Next Steps, a conference held last week in the Ghanaian capital of Accra.The conference, hosted by John Dramani Mahama, the president of Ghana, was organized in response to the United Nations’ declaration, on March 25, 2026, that the trafficking of enslaved Africans and subsequent racialized chattel enslav
  
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• Kennedy Center Tells Court It Won’t Reschedule Cancelled Shows, Even as Two-Year Closure Is Blocked

  22-06-2026 22:08 via artnews.com
  
  The chaos and confusion that have roiled the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since President Donald Trump set it in his sights continues as the institution’s management said it won’t reschedule shows even though its proposed closure was blocked by a federal judge.As reported by U.S. News & World Report, “Kennedy Center lawyers said the institution plans to ‘maintain an operational model’ after the July 5 date when it was initially scheduled to shu
  
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• Israeli Artist Yaacov Agam, Known for His Optical and Kinetic Artworks, Has Died at 98

  22-06-2026 22:06 via artnews.com
  
  Israeli artist Yaacov Agam, known for his optical and kinetic artworks, has died at 98. The news was reported by outlets including the Times of Israel, Haaretz, and the Jerusalem Post.The son of an Orthodox rabbi, Agam was born Yaacov Gipstein in Rishon LeZion, Palestine (now Israel), in 1928. After studying art in Jerusalem, he traveled to Zurich in 1949 to study with artist Johannes Itten, who introduced him to Bauhaus ideas on color and abstraction; he was also influenced by Vasily Kandinsky&
  
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• Gates of Olympus Slot: Mythic Thrills for Quick Play Enthusiasts

  22-06-2026 22:00 via zouchmagazine.com
  
  1. The Pulse of a Short Session
  When you step into the gates of an ancient city in a mere handful of spins, the excitement is immediate. gates of olympus game is built around that adrenaline rush—short bursts where every click promises a potential payoff.Fast‑paced gameplay keeps the heart racing.
  Each spin is a decision point, no waiting for long reels.
  Quick wins feel like instant victories.The high volatility means you’re chasing the big moments, not the steady drip of small
  
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• Sotheby’s Is Offering Knicks Star OG Anunoby’s NBA Finals Game 4–Winning Basketball

  22-06-2026 18:24 via artnews.com
  
  For most New Yorkers looking to savor the Knicks’ first NBA championship in 53 years, a commemorative T-shirt—perhaps purchased bootleg outside Madison Square Garden—will have to do. But for the lucky few superfans with a few million to spare, a far more rarefied piece of Knicks history is about to hit the auction block.Starting June 30, Sotheby’s will offer the game-winning basketball from the Knicks’ improbable Game 4 comeback against the San Antonio Spurs, in whi
  
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