Arts news

• Documenta 14 Reports Record Attendance [Updated]

  20-09-2017 00:07 via artnews.com
  A total of 891,500 visited the show in Kassel. Read More
  
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• “Vinegar Valentines” — Send A Token Of Your Sentiment To The Ex You Despise

  13-02-2026 20:50 via theconversation.com
  The name was given by present-day collectors and dealers; in their Victorian heyday, they were usually called mock or mocking valentines. They were very much intended to mock or offend their targets, and they did so with spirit. – The Conversation
  
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• Does Making Art Require A “Writer’s Room”? Or Is It Something Else?

  13-02-2026 20:31 via newyorker.com
  There’s no question that they’ve helped me write. And yet, if I look back over my career as a writer, the value I’ve derived from carefully controlling my environment has paled in comparison to my main source of motivation: scary e-mails from editors. – The New Yorker
  
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• Louvre Faces €10M Loss After Decades-Long Ticket Fraud Busted

  13-02-2026 20:19 via artnews.com
  A sweeping fraud scheme targeting ticket sales at the Louvre was uncovered earlier this week, leaving the scandal-plagued museum facing losses estimated at more than €10 million. The Palace of Versailles was also implicated in the scheme, which involved the sale of counterfeit tickets and the overbooking of guided tours, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Thursday.French authorities shared that nine people have been arrested, including two museum employees, several tour guides
  
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• Adrian Searle to Step Down as the Guardian’s Chief Art Critic After Three Decades

  13-02-2026 20:09 via artnews.com
  After 30 years at the Guardian, chief art critic Adrian Searle is stepping down from the role he has held since 1996.The Guardian announced today that Searle will leave his full-time role at the end of March. His final article, a look back at the past three decades and what he has learned, will appear on April 1. He will continue to contribute occasional pieces.Searle joined the Guardian after transitioning from a career as a painter. Over the next three decades, he became one of the most influe
  
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• Coffee Poets: The 16th-Century Muslim World’s Culture War Over The Brew Was Fought In Verse

  13-02-2026 20:03 via thuppahis.com
  In the medieval period, poets had used “coffee” as a symbol (or euphemism) for wine (forbidden in Islam), so praising coffee in a poem was suspect. So was all the fun being had at coffeehouses. Yet both the drink and the establishments serving it had passionate defenders making their case in poetry. – History Today
  
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• University of North Texas Cancels Victor Quiñonez Exhibition, Artist Claims Censorship over Anti-ICE Content in His Work

  13-02-2026 19:51 via artnews.com
  The exhibition was intended to be a homecoming for artist Victor “Marka27” Quiñonez who grew up in the Dallas–Fort Worth metro area. The excitement built when he got the first batch of images showing his traveling solo exhibition being installed at the University of North Texas’s CVAD Gallery. Quiñonez was looking forward to receiving images of the work being fully installed and was working on managing the RSVPs for an opening reception to take place th
  
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• What Does It Mean To “Rewire” Your Brain?

  13-02-2026 19:44 via aeon.co
  Is it a helpful shorthand for describing the remarkable plasticity of our nervous system or has it become a misleading oversimplification that distorts our grasp of science? – Aeon
  
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• The Art Of Literary Subversion

  13-02-2026 19:31 via aeon.co
  The unique power of literary tradition, unlike philosophy or science, is that literature can respond to its predecessors without invalidating them, can contradict them without competing with them. – Aeon
  
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• Christie’s to Offer Three Masterworks From Agnes Gund Collection This May

  13-02-2026 19:30 via artnews.com
  When Agnes Gund bought Mark Rothko’s 1964 abstraction No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) in 1967, she purchased it directly from the artist in his studio. The painting would go on to hang in her living room for decades. This May, it will be offered on the secondary market for the first time, leading a focused group of works from her collection at Christie’s.The auction house announced today that it will offer three pieces from the personal holdings of Gund, who died last Se
  
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• The Successor To The Corporation For Public Broadcasting

  13-02-2026 19:15 via insideradio.com
  The wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has given birth to a new independent, nonprofit organization that looks to fill some of the gap left by CPB’s closure after nearly six decades. – InsideRadio
  
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• For The First Time, A Male Dancer Plays The Evil Fairy In New York City Ballet’s “Sleeping Beauty”

  13-02-2026 19:04 via nytimes.com
  In 2023, principal Taylor Stanley asked management if they’d permit a male-identifying dancer to play Carabosse; they said no. This year, they said no again. So Stanley went over their heads to choreographer Peter Martins, who’s fine with it. Now Stanley is making quite a meal of the role. – The New York Times
  
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• Australia’s First New City In 100 Years

  13-02-2026 18:44 via dezeen.com
  The masterplan forms one of Australia’s largest urban development projects and, once complete, will be the country’s first major city built in over a century, according to SOM. – Dezeen
  
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• America’s Richest Humanities Funder (And Its Implications)

  13-02-2026 18:31 via theatlantic.com
  Is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation the last best hope for American arts and letters—or is it killing them? – The Atlantic
  
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• Trump Wants the National Portrait Gallery to Commission a New Portrait

  13-02-2026 18:22 via artnews.com
  Since George Washington, it has been customary for presidents to have an official portrait—usually an oil painting—unveiled shortly after they leave office. That was to be the case for President Donald Trump, who sat for a portrait by artist Ronald Sherr just after leaving office in 2021. There is just one complication: Trump now wants a new one.Sherr’s portrait was ready to be accepted by the National Portrait Gallery, which maintains the nation’s presidential portraits,
  
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• Wisconsin Museum Treasurer Admits to Stealing $70,000 from Institution

  13-02-2026 18:16 via artnews.com
  The former treasurer of the Hearthstone Historic House Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin—touted as “the only building still standing from the dawn of electricity” on its website—admitted to stealing $70,000 from the institution.According to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday, Steven Jahnke confessed to embezzlement and now faces one count of theft in a business setting. As reported by the local radio station WTAQ, “board members became suspicious of transactions appar
  
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• A Dawning Recognition About AI And Music

  13-02-2026 18:15 via csmonitor.com
  Many worry that a kind of “canned” creativity will take over much of what originates from real people today, pushing a broad swath of lab technicians, ad writers, studio musicians, and commercial artists out of jobs and into unemployment lines. – Christian Science Monitor
  
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• Amy Sherald, Ming Smith Among Artworld Figures to Walk the Runway in Carolina Herrera’s Fall 2026 NYFW Show

  13-02-2026 18:10 via artnews.com
  On Thursday, Carolina Herrera creative director Wes Gordon presented the brand’s fall 2026 ready-to-wear collection during New York Fashion Week. The show was held at an event space on Little W. 12th Street in the Meatpacking District, and mixed in with the typical parade of willowy fashion models were several art world figures, who, while certainly fashionable themselves, are not necessarily known for walking the runway.  Among them were photographer Ming Smith, painter Amy Sherald,
  
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• How Minneapolis’s Theater Community Has Been Dealing With The ICE Occupation

  13-02-2026 18:02 via playbill.com
  It hasn’t been easy: some artists are scared to come to the theater, as are many audience members, and some shows have had to be cancelled. (Alex Pretti was shot two blocks from one theater on a two-show Saturday.) Yet performances are happening when and where they can — including, sometimes, in clandestine locations. – Playbill
  
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• Staff and Programming Cuts Are Coming to London’s National Gallery Amid Possible $11 M. Deficit

  13-02-2026 18:01 via artnews.com
  The National Gallery in London will institute cuts to staff and programming in the face of a deficit that would, in the absence of “decisive remedial action,” grow by 2027 to £8.2 million ($11.2 million), says the institution in an emailed statement.The museum says that “in the present global landscape and with the cost-of-living crisis, like many other institutions, we face increasing competition for people’s time and share of wallet.”“We have been work
  
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• Art Investing Startup Masterworks Files Legal Complaint Against an Early Hire Over Lawsuit Threat

  13-02-2026 17:58 via artnews.com
  From its offices on the 57th floor of 1 World Trade Center, employees at Masterworks hawk fractional ownership of blue-chip artworks, promising retail investors hefty returns. Reporting in both ARTnews in 2022 and the New York Times in 2024 has revealed a freewheeling atmosphere in which the company has played fast and loose with legal and ethical guidelines. An initial funding round valued the company at more than $1 billion, and by early 2022, the company had traded more than 100 paintings, to
  
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• Where The Power Lies: Institutions Versus Networks

  13-02-2026 17:44 via aeon.co
  Institutions foster cooperation by rewarding good behaviour and punishing rule-breakers. Yet they themselves depend on cooperative members to function. We haven’t solved the cooperation problem – we’ve simply moved it back one step. So why do institutions work at all? – Aeon
  
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• Scientists Look Inside The Brain Of A Musician While He’s Playing

  13-02-2026 17:31 via nytimes.com
  What happens in a performer’s brain while playing? Traditional brain-imaging tools like functional m.r.i. (f m.r.i.) require subjects to lie motionless in a scanner. Newer wearable technologies, including EEG (electroencephalography) caps fitted with electrodes, make it possible to study musicians in more natural settings. – The New York Times
  
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• AI Companies Are Eating Higher Education

  13-02-2026 17:15 via nytimes.com
  A.I. companies are increasingly exerting outsize influence over higher education and using these settings as training grounds to further their goal of creating artificial general intelligence (A.I. systems that can substitute for humans). – The New York Times
  
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• Is An Organized Ring Running Online Smear Campaigns In Hollywood?

  13-02-2026 17:03 via hollywoodreporter.com
  “This clandestine smear machine seemingly connects some of the most talked-about scandals of recent years. … (Figures are) targeted by mysteriously operated websites that are filled with character-assassinating claims and impossible to take down. In recent months, the origins of these sites have been connected and allegedly unmasked in court.” – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• Louvre’s Denon Wing Springs a Leak, Damaging One Painting—But the ‘Mona Lisa’ Is Safe

  13-02-2026 16:44 via artnews.com
  The Louvre’s Denon Wing, an area of the Paris museum that hosts masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, and many more, sprang a leak on Thursday night, marking the latest difficult turn for an institution that is facing fallout from last year’s heist, scrutiny over its infrastructure, and continued work stoppages.A union spokesperson told Reuters on Friday that the leak happened in Room 707 of the museum, which reportedly holds wo
  
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• Playwright Mark Ravenhill (“Shopping And F***Ing”) Is Directing Strauss’s “Salome”. Too Obvious A Choice?

  13-02-2026 16:35 via bachtrack.com
  “You know, when I said I was going to do Salome a couple of people told me that this was the perfect opera for me because it’s the closest to those ‘90s plays. And then in some ways I was a bit disappointed, because then I was wondering whether I was typecasting myself!” – Bachtrack
  
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• Cees Noteboom, One Of Europe’s Most Important Postwar Writers, Is Dead At 92

  13-02-2026 16:01 via apnews.com
  “A Dutch novelist, travel writer and journalist, (he) was lauded for his insights into European history and culture and often tipped as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.” – AP
  
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• More Kennedy Center Woes: Fundraising Is Reportedly A Mess

  13-02-2026 15:34 via politico.com
  According to several staffers (speaking anonymously), senior vice president of development Lisa Dale — best friend of Kari Lake and a former TV host — has skipped meetings with potential high-level donors and sometimes gives fundraising figures to Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell which are higher than the money which actually comes in. – Politico
  
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• London’s National Gallery, Facing $11.1 Million Deficit, Announces Staff-Wide Buyout Scheme And Cuts

  13-02-2026 15:06 via theartnewspaper.com
  “In the face of an £8.2 million deficit in the coming year, … initially there will be a ‘voluntary exit scheme’ available to all staff. … With regard to the exhibition programme, (there could be) fewer free exhibitions, not as many ticketed shows, less international borrowing of artworks, and more expensive tickets.” – The Art Newspaper
  
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