Arts news

• Can 'The Nutcracker' Actually Be Working-Class, Christopher Wheeldon?

  04-12-2016 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  This is a huge reimagining of the Robert Joffrey "Nutcracker" for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago: It's set at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and a lot of money - like, a lot of money - is riding on its success.
  
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• Chung Sang-hwa, Korean Painter Associated with Dansaekhwa, Dies at 93

  30-01-2026 23:10 via artnews.com
  Chung Sang-hwa, a central figure in Korean modern art, died on January 28 after a prolonged illness. He was 93. The news was reported by the Korea Times.Chung is best known for his affiliation with Dansaekhwa (or “monochrome painting”), a mode of abstract art that emerged in the mid-1970s in Korea and which found new interest in the West in the 21st century.Dansaekhwa emerged from Korea’s earlier, more expressive Informel painting of the late 1950s and 1960s and was distinguish
  
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• Zapotec Tomb Unearthed in Mexico Hailed as ‘The Most Significant’ Discovery of Last Decade

  30-01-2026 21:54 via artnews.com
  Archaeologists in southern Mexico have unearthed a 1,400-year-old Zapotec tomb bearing intricate carvings, a discovery hailed by experts as “the most significant” of the last decade. The tomb was discovered in San Pablo Huitzo, Oaxaca, and dates to around the year 600 CE, according to a statement released last week by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Experts have noted the exceptional preservation of the burial chamber’s features, inclu
  
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• Highlights from the Baltimore Museum of Art’s 2025 Acquisitions, From Henri Matisse to Kiyan Williams to Senegalese Tapestries

  30-01-2026 21:42 via artnews.com
  The Baltimore Museum of Art has added 250 artworks in the past year to its encyclopedic collection. The wide-ranging acquisitions—from all over the world and spanning centuries—“reflect the museum’s focus on expanding the range of global voices represented within its collection,” according to a statement released by the museum.More than half of the new works—180 in total—are part of an anonymous gift of contemporary art by 63 different artists, among Gin
  
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• Newly Released Jeffrey Epstein Files Show $5,000 Donation to the Met Costume Institute

  30-01-2026 21:04 via artnews.com
  On Friday, the US Department of Justice publicly released over three million additional documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender. Tucked into those files is a copy of a donation check dated April 29, 2014 for $5,000 from Enhanced Education, a long-running foundation set up by Epstein that was once portrayed as a “charitable powerhouse,” according to the New York Times. The recipient of the donation: none other than the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with th
  
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• Remembering Catherine O’Hara, Who Played an Artist and A.i.A. Cover Girl in Beetlejuice

  30-01-2026 21:01 via artnews.com
  There is so much to appreciate about the actress and comedian Catherine O’Hara following the news of her death at age 71. But she’s long held a special place here at Art in America ever since her character in Beetlejuice (1988), a sculptor named Delia Deetz, appeared on a fictional cover of the magazine in the movie. Deetz created abstract sculptures with rough-hewn surfaces that feel at home in the world of the film’s director, Tim Burton. In a famous dinner party scene where
  
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• Sayre Gomez Opens Up About His Strange New Soldier Sculptures

  30-01-2026 20:40 via artnews.com
  Sayre Gomez is known for painting urban landscapes marked by gritty realism. But when it comes to his subject—Los Angeles—that realism is always tied up in fantasy, punctuated by signs and sunsets. For his latest show “Precious Moments,” on view at David Kordansky in Los Angeles through March 1, he mixed things up: the show’s titular figures are too cartoonish kids modeled after his own. They share haircuts with his children and even borrowed their clothes, their ex
  
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• Leon Black’s Extensive Art Collection Seemingly Revealed in Jeffrey Epstein Files

  30-01-2026 20:38 via artnews.com
  The newly released Jeffrey Epstein files contain a 51-page document cataloging a host of masterworks that appear to belong to Leon Black, a major art collector and businessman whose dealings with Epstein are well-documented.The document does not name Black, a trustee and former board chair at the Museum of Modern Art. His connections to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, fully came to light in 2021, resulting in him not seeking reelection as chair. At the time, several high-profile artists calle
  
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• US State Department Report Shows Biden Received $19,000 Painting as Gift During Presidential Term

  30-01-2026 20:25 via artnews.com
  In a new report published by the State Department’s Bureau of Protocol, records show that former President Joe Biden received a $19,000 painting from the president of Angola, João Lourenço, last year.The report, published annually, details gifts given to the president, their spouse, members of the cabinet, and other senior officals by foreign leaders and governments. Federal employees are required to report such gifts, if they are worth more than $480. Usually, those gifts ar
  
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• At 89, Martial Raysse, France’s Most Celebrated Pop Artist, Is Still as Productive and Restlessly Experimental as Ever

  30-01-2026 20:00 via artnews.com
  When you get to the chance to meet a giant of the art world, it’s an opportunity you don’t pass up. Martial Raysse, 89, is one of those giants. The reclusive artist seldom grants interviews, but he welcomed me into his home, just outside Bordeaux, shortly before the opening of his exhibition at Galerie Templon in Paris earlier this month. The exhibition marks the artist’s debut with the gallery, which is showing 30 of Raysse’s recent paintings and sculptures—narrowe
  
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• Macron-Backed Bill to Return Art Looted During Colonial Era Passes French Senate

  30-01-2026 18:19 via artnews.com
  French senators have unanimously adopted a bill designed to simplify the return of artworks looted during the colonial era, a move that advances President Emmanuel Macron’s long-running effort to recast France’s relationship with its former colonies. The legislation now heads to the National Assembly, where it must still be approved before becoming law.Macron has made restitution a central plank of his cultural and diplomatic agenda since taking office in 2017, going further than any
  
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• How Joseph Grigely Blazed a Trail for Disability Arts

  30-01-2026 16:46 via artnews.com
  I never thought I’d get misty-eyed reading an essay called “Why I Am an Asshole,” but artists are always surprising me, and that’s why I love my job. This tragicomic tearjerker, from 2021, appears in Joseph Grigely’s new essay collection Otherhow: Essays and Documents on Art and Disability 1985–2024. The book made me laugh and cry, and it made me angry, too—angry alongside, rather than at, the author. I felt seen. I learned lots.You’re probably won
  
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• Anish Kapoor Plans to Send Sculpture to Space, Says He ‘Cannot Stand’ Elon Musk

  30-01-2026 16:37 via artnews.com
  Anish Kapoor, a Turner Prize–winning artist who has never been afraid of controversy, has plotted his next project: sending a sculpture to space.What, exactly, the work might be remains a mystery, but he told the Times of London this week that it will ponder such questions as: “What is adequate? What can stand up against vast, eternal, cosmic space? It’s ambitious to put something in space which is visible from Earth.” According to Kapoor, the sculpture “might&rdquo
  
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• Clark Art Institute Promotes Esther Bell to Director

  30-01-2026 16:34 via artnews.com
  The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has promoted Esther Bell, its deputy director and chief curator, to serve as the museum’s sixth director. She begins in the post on July 1.Bell is the first woman to hold the role in the Clark’s 70-year history. She will succeed Olivier Meslay, who has been the director since 2016 and announced last year that he will move back to France in 2026.Having joined the Clark in 2017, she was among Meslay’s early hires; she was el
  
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• ‘Risking Your Life is Unbelievably Inspiring’: Minneapolis Artists Put Their Bodies on the Line Against ICE

  30-01-2026 15:30 via artnews.com
  When U.S. Border Patrol agents subdued, disarmed, and then killed nurse Alex Pretti on January 24, it was on the doorstep of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and just a few blocks from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). Multiple flash-bang grenades and chemical munitions deployed by federal agents in the aftermath resulted in an eleven-hour shelter-in-place order for the MCAD community, which numbers about 800 students from 13 countries. The school has had one employee appre
  
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• Faiza Butt to Represent Pakistan at Venice Biennale, Kahlo-Branded Condos Hit the Market, and More: Morning Links for January 30, 2026

  30-01-2026 15:03 via artnews.com
  The HeadlinesRECKONING WITH RESTITUTION. French senators adopted a long-awaited bill to facilitate the restitution of art looted during the colonial era, reports the Agence France-Presse. If passed by the National Assembly, the lower house of French Parliament, the legislation will move closer to fulfilling a promise made in Burkina Faso by Emmanuel Macron  in 2017 to return African cultural heritage to the continent. “The idea is not to empty French museums, but to ach
  
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• Yet-to-Be-Built Frida Kahlo-Branded Apartments Hit the Market in Miami

  30-01-2026 12:47 via artnews.com
  Condos in a Frida Kahlo-branded luxury condominium development in Miami went on sale this week, even though the project has yet to break ground. Promotional materials describe the planned residences as “inspired by Frida Kahlo’s expressive spirit.”Renderings of the so-called Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences show a massive image of the artist emblazoned across one side of a 14-story tower designed by Carlos Ott, the architect behind Paris’s Opéra Bastille. A second, e
  
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• Frida Kahlo–Branded Apartments Hit the Market in Miami

  30-01-2026 12:47 via artnews.com
  Condos in a Frida Kahlo–branded luxury condominium development in Miami went on sale this week, even though the project has yet to break ground. Promotional materials describe the planned residences as “inspired by Frida Kahlo’s expressive spirit.”Renderings of the Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences show a massive image of the artist emblazoned across one side of a 14-story tower designed by Carlos Ott, the architect behind Paris’s Opéra Bastille. A second, eight
  
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• A Must-See Lotty Rosenfeld Retrospective Is a Playbook for Fighting Fascism

  30-01-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  In the 1980s, two women—a German Jew and a Palestinian—met in Chile, where they were both born to families of immigrants. Together, they crafted some of the most powerful antifascist art of the era, collaborating on installations and documenting one another’s performances. One of those women, the artist Lotty Rosenfeld, is the subject of a revelatory retrospective at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, on view through March 15. The other, her close friend, the writ
  
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• Columbia Museum of Art – Executive Director

  30-01-2026 02:19 via artsjournal.com
  The Columbia Museum of Art (CMA), in Columbia, South Carolina, an AAM-accredited institution, seeks an Executive Director to build upon its 75-year legacy. The Director will be charged with charting new pathways for growth, engagement, sustainability, and implementing an ambitious strategic plan. As the preeminent art museum in South Carolina’s capital, the CMA has been a dynamic prominent cultural anchor in the region for decades. Founded in 1950 and celebrating its 75th anniversary in 20
  
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• The Illinois Symphony Orchestra seeks Director of Development.

  30-01-2026 02:13 via artsjournal.com
  Aspen Leadership Group is proud to partner with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra in the search for a Director of Development.Reporting to the Executive Director, the Director of Development will lead all fundraising efforts for the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, overseeing annual giving, major gifts, corporate sponsorships, grants, and special events to achieve the organization’s contributed revenue goals. The Director will cultivate and steward donors, manage a portfolio of prospects, and s
  
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• Belgrade Trump Hotel Project Dropped After Serbia’s Culture Minister Is Indicted

  29-01-2026 23:06 via artnews.com
  Plans to turn one of Belgrade’s most charged architectural sites into a Trump-branded luxury hotel have collapsed after Serbia’s culture minister and several senior heritage officials were indicted, according to The Art Newspaper, bringing a controversial redevelopment proposal to an abrupt halt.The project would have transformed the Generalštab complex, a former Yugoslav military headquarters and landmark of postwar Modernism, into a high-end development anchored by
  
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• Gagosian, David Zwirner, Pace, and Dozens More Galleries Join Anti-ICE National Strike

  29-01-2026 23:03 via artnews.com
  In a rare show of political solidarity for the art world, a growing number of New York galleries will close on Friday, January 30, as part of the nationwide general strike protesting expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. These actions come amid global scrutiny over the use of deadly force against protestors and allegations that federal tactics are eroding constitutional rights, including protections for free expression and due process.Industry heavyweights, such as Pace
  
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• Diagnosing King Henry VIII

  29-01-2026 20:59 via historytoday.com
  Over the course of his 38-year reign, he aged from a famously handsome monarch into an overweight, volatile despot. Various explanations, from syphilis to scurvy to psychopathy, have been proposed over the centuries, yet these diagnoses often tell us more about the preoccupations of the time than about Henry himself. – History Today
  
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• BBC Told To Avoid Color-Blind Casting

  29-01-2026 20:31 via deadline.com
  The BBC has been urged to rethink color-blind casting “tokenism” and “preachy” storylines about the UK’s colonial history in scripted series, according to a major study commissioned by the broadcaster. – Deadline
  
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• Why Is “American Psycho” Popping Up All Over? (And Should We Be Worried?)

  29-01-2026 20:05 via theguardian.com
  In the 35 years since the novel made its bloody splash, there have been a hit movie, a stage musical, and countless memes. Now a remake of the film is in the works, the musical is being revived, and Patrick Bateman is a role model for the Andrew Tate manosphere. – The Guardian
  
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• How Did The Iconic “Infinite Jest” Become A Punchline?

  29-01-2026 19:44 via newyorker.com
  The occasion is a moment to ask how a novel that mourns addiction and venerates humility and patience became a glib cultural punch line, routinely subjected to the word “performative” in its most damning sense. – The New Yorker
  
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• The Washington Post Is Imploding

  29-01-2026 19:31 via msn.com
  Under Bezos’s leadership, CEO Will Lewis has floated a bunch of proposals to make the company profitable, few of which so far resemble anything people might actually want to buy. – Intelligencer (MSN)
  
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• Minneapolis Bookshop Becomes Famous After ICE Murders

  29-01-2026 19:31 via publishersweekly.com
  Greg Ketter became a social media phenomenon over the weekend, when MS Now aired a video of him pacing half a block away from where Alex J. Pretti had been murdered by agents an hour earlier, cursing the 50-100 armed ICE agents keeping the crowd back. – Publishers Weekly
  
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• Music Companies Sue Anthropic For $3 Billion Over Copyright

  29-01-2026 19:15 via musicbusinessworldwide.com
  The companies, including Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO Music, are seeking more than $3 billion in potential statutory damages over alleged infringement of more than 20,000 songs. – Music Business Worldwide
  
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