Arts news

• Federal Judge Again Rules Trump Cannot Add Name to Kennedy Center

  15-09-2026 20:29 via artnews.com
  
  A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts could not inscribe “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” on the venue’s facade, dealing another setback to the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center’s months-long campaign to memorialize the president somewhere on the institution’s premises.US District Judge Christopher R. Cooper, who has presided over several legal challenges brought by Trump over the issue, wrote that any suc
  
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• IFPDA Continues to Expand with 2027 Edition, Lining Up 76 Exhibitors

  18-09-2026 14:00 via artnews.com
  
  Seventy-six exhibitors will take part in the International Fine Prints & Drawings Association 2027 fair, up more than 20 percent from its 2024 edition. Among the 14 exhibitors new to the fair and/or association are White Cube, Gladstone, Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, and Jill Newhouse Gallery. Drawings will account for roughly a quarter of the fair, which runs April 8–11, with at least 19 exhibitors showing them.The additions are notable for a fair that, not long ago,
  
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• Rodrigo Cass, Brazilian Artist Who Strove for ‘Sensitive Geometry,’ Has Died at 43

  18-09-2026 13:59 via artnews.com
  
  Rodrigo Cass, a Brazilian artist whose work found spirituality in minimal forms, died at 43 in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday.His death was confirmed by Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, the art gallery that represents him on Instagram. The gallery said that Cass died in an accident on Copacabana Beach and described the artist as someone with a “gentle presence” and “generosity” to the artistic community.Cass’s work frequently featured bright hues, in particular sunsh
  
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• Juanita McNeely Painted Abortion’s Messy Truth

  18-09-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  To enter Juanita McNeely’s exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is to experience literal tunnel vision: A long corridor, the European painting wing, lines your periphery with prismatic paintings and, at the end, just one canvas—hers—confronts you head on. McNeely’s portrait of a laboring mother, swathed in glowing fields of chartreuse, outshines (again, literally) art history’s greats. Walk toward it, gaze fixed, and canonical canvases that rhyme with hers
  
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• Francis Bacon’s beautiful detritus

  18-09-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  A collection of photos, contact sheets and other remnants from the artist’s studio floor throws light on his creative process and private life
  
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• Hostage Culture, Now With Fencing

  17-09-2026 23:16 via artsjournal.com
  Good Afternoon,The Kennedy Center is closed, fenced, and flashing “Emergency alert” where the show listings used to be (Washington Post). The president says it gets “ripped down” unless his name goes on it (ABC News), and photographers caught him aboard Air Force One studying a poster reading “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED” (The New York Times). The Atlantic calls it a shakedown: the leverage isn’t law, it’s the board’s affection for the institut
  
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• Hirshhorn Museum to Install ‘Eternally Unswimmable’ Pool by Elmgreen & Dragset in Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

  17-09-2026 22:15 via artnews.com
  
  When it reopens in a redesigned state at the end of October, the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., will be home to a curious new work by the Berlin-based Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset—in the form of a vacant swimming pool.“Upended, empty, and eternally unswimmable, the 28-foot-tall sculpture emblematizes the artists’ mastery of displacement—excerpting familiar objects from people’s surroundings and presenting them as new
  
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• Sharif Bey Wins Inaugural Spector Craft Prize

  17-09-2026 22:13 via artnews.com
  
  The newly launched Spector Craft Prize has announced its inaugural winner: Sharif Bey, an artist and educator based in Syracuse, New York.The Spector Craft Prize was established last year by the Spector Family Foundation to “reinforce American craft as a vital and enduring art form while creating new pathways for artists at every stage of their careers,” according to a release. It is being awarded in collaboration with Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas. Curator and craft schol
  
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• The US Air Force Nearly Nuked the Moon. Amid a New Space Race, Artist Jitish Kallat Revisits the Secret Cold War Scheme

  17-09-2026 21:33 via artnews.com
  
  In a secret 1958 project, the Air Force considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon. Scientists believed then they would learn a lot from the exercise, code named Project A119, and the US might gain ground in the Cold War space race with the Soviets. What’s more, the blast would perhaps be visible on Earth, boosting morale at home and cowing our enemies abroad. The risks (including the blast affecting humankind’s home) were deemed to outweigh the benefits, though, and the US gov
  
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• Photogs Get Picture Of Trump Studying Headlines About Demolishing Kenned Center

  17-09-2026 21:18 via nytimes.com
  Late Wednesday night, photojournalists captured images through the windows of Air Force One that showed President Trump reviewing a large poster board with what looked like a rendering of a construction site beneath three very visible words: “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” – The New York Times
  
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• Singapore Is Paying Its People To Read Books

  17-09-2026 21:03 via theguardian.com
  “Under the scheme, readers accrue points that can be redeemed for a few cents. People will have to log 50 daily reading sessions (of 15 minutes or more) on a government website to earn S$1 (80 cents US). … One reading session is allowed daily.” – The Guardian
  
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• Plaintiffs in Ongoing Kennedy Center Lawsuit Call for Leadership to Step Aside or for Judge to Appoint Receivership

  17-09-2026 21:03 via artnews.com
  
  The group of eight preservation groups that currently have a lawsuit pending to prevent changes at the Kennedy Center without congressional approval have called for the institution’s leadership to step aside or for the court to take the drastic step of putting the cultural organization into receivership, citing the leadership’s fiduciary duty to steward the Center.The eight plaintiffs are the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Co
  
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• PR Firm Cultural Counsel to Restructure with Founder Adam Abdalla Transitioning to New Role

  17-09-2026 20:35 via artnews.com
  
  Cultural Counsel, an art publicity powerhouse since 2015 with a national reach that has counted top-flight museums, galleries, and foundations in its client list, is restructuring its operations, sources tell ARTnews—starting with leadership. Adam Abdalla, the firm’s founder and most visible figure, will transition to a new role, with senior vice president Marcella Zimmerman assuming public-facing affairs.In a statement to ARTnews on Wednesday, Abdalla, who will retain ownership of t
  
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• AI Companies Are Destroying Books. What Does That Mean For Art?

  17-09-2026 20:31 via artnews.com
  
  AI companies, after losing copyright lawsuits over using pirated books found in digital formats, found a way forward, since the law doesn’t prohibit them from buying physical books and destroying them. In another ironic twist, they are looking only for books printed before 2022, because they want books that definitely have not been produced using AI. – ARTnews
  
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• Pace Prints Acquires Brand X Editions

  17-09-2026 20:08 via artnews.com
  
  Pace Prints has acquired Brand X Editions, the nearly 50-year-old New York printmaking studio and publisher known for its work with artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Helen Frankenthaler, Jeff Koons, Glenn Ligon, and Mickalene Thomas.The acquisition brings Brand X under the leadership of Pace Prints president and CEO Jacob Lewis, who took ownership of Pace Prints from its founder, Richard Solomon, and his partners last year. Both companies will continue to ope
  
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• How Marcello Angelini Remade Tulsa Ballet

  17-09-2026 20:02 via tulsaflyer.org
  
  “During Angelini’s (31-year) tenure as artistic director, Tulsa Ballet has grown from a well-regarded regional troupe — best known for its efforts to preserve the Ballet Russe traditions championed by its founders, Roman Jasinski and Moscelyne Larkin — into a versatile dance company that many critics consider among the best in the United States.” – Tulsa Flyer
  
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• United States Repatriates 58 Cultural Artifacts to China

  17-09-2026 20:01 via artnews.com
  
  The United States has repatriated a total of 58 cultural relics, artworks, and fossils to China. A handover ceremony was held by the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, according to the embassy’s official WeChat account, reported the Global Times.The Cultural Property, Art, and Antiquities Program of the US Homeland Security Investigations returned such artifacts as a Bodhisattva statue from the Tianlongshan Grottoes in North China’s Shanxi Province, which was looted mor
  
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• Journalism Inside Libraries

  17-09-2026 19:44 via niemanlab.org
  “I once described the larger ambition as opening 16,000 community-led newsrooms, one in every public library in the country.” Now he believes the goal should be “creating 16,000 places where neighbors can look more closely at where they live and make something public from what they find.” – NiemanLab
  
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• London Philharmonic Survey: Interest In Orchestral Music Is Up, Particularly Among Young People

  17-09-2026 19:27 via gramophone.co.uk
  The RPO findings show that there is a rising interest among young people – the nationally representative poll of 2,000 adults revealing that 89 per cent of adults would be interested in attending a concert or performance featuring classical or orchestral music. This figure is up from 79 per cent in 2018. – Gramophone
  
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• What Happens Now For The Kennedy Center?

  17-09-2026 19:15 via msn.com
  Outside, digital signs that typically advertise upcoming performances instead flashed a red “Emergency alert” announcing the building was closed to the public. Guards stood at the doors. On Wednesday, fencing was erected around the building. – Washington Post
  
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• Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum To Add A Second Location

  17-09-2026 19:04 via artnews.com
  
  Because of overcrowding in the main building’s galleries, the museum will acquire an additional space a few blocks away: the Ice and Automobile Palace, which has been vacant since 2007 and will undergo a €70 million ($81 million) renovation.  When it opens, the new branch will display 21st-century works. – ARTnews
  
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• Why Academic History Matters

  17-09-2026 18:44 via historytoday.com
  Academic history matters. It matters for honing critical engagement, for challenging all-encompassing technological vapidity, for strengthening individuality. It matters because it shows us that process cannot be separated from what we produce. – History Today
  
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• Trump Administration Moves Forward With Warning Signs Outside Smithsonian

  17-09-2026 18:31 via artnews.com
  
  The Trump administration has advanced plans to install signs outside the Smithsonian Institution’s museums, prioritizing the National Museum of American History (NMAH), warning visitors that they will encounter what the administration described as ideologically driven displays that cast the US in an unfavorable light.Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told US senators Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Merkley in a September 3 letter that a “commitment to transparency” and “academic hon
  
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• FCC Says It Could Earn Billions From New Wireless Spectrum Auctions

  17-09-2026 18:15 via reuters.com
   Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said Wednesday that a series of upcoming wireless spectrum auctions ​over the next couple of years could generate more than $100 billion in proceeds. – Reuters
  
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• What Happens To Warner Bros. If The Paramount Merger Falls Apart?

  17-09-2026 18:01 via msn.com
  “To be clear, the deal collapsing wouldn’t be fatal to Warner Bros. Discovery. CEO David Zaslav would walk away with a $7 billion break-up fee that could offer additional flexibility as an independent company. But experts who spoke to TheWrap are skeptical that management would continue to go it alone long-term.” – TheWrap (MSN)
  
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• American Music at 250 – Take 9: Can an Orchestra Still Embody the Soul of a City? Gustavo Dudamel and the New York Philharmonic

  17-09-2026 17:52 via artsjournal.com
  
  The current issue of “The New York Review of Books” includes my essay on state of American orchestras
  
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• Spaceship Lucas: LA’s New Museum Of Narrative Art

  17-09-2026 17:44 via wsj.com
  It is a Goliath of a building, 700 feet long with 300,000 square feet of space. In terms of massiveness, visual impact and sheer joyous bravado, it offers as much spectacle as any of his films. But it is not so much its size that amazes, but its uncanny shape. – The Wall Street Journal
  
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• Inside The Unraveling Of The Ed Sheeran Tour

  17-09-2026 17:44 via wsj.com
  How Sheeran, a musician known for his crowd-pleasing, inoffensive everyman appeal, landed in this situation illustrates the hazards of planning a lucrative, global music tour at a time of intense geopolitical unrest and cultural division over violent conflicts. – The Wall Street Journal
  
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• AI Companies Are Destroying Books by the Millions. What Will It Mean for Art?

  17-09-2026 17:32 via artnews.com
  
  Many artworks are inconceivable without artists being able to source old books. Just think of the collages of the beloved Bay Area artist Jess, or the early assemblages of Carol Bove, with books displayed on thrift-store shelves, or, on a massively larger scale, Argentinian artist Marta Minujín’s 1983 installation The Parthenon of Books, built from publications banned by her country’s longstanding military dictatorship (and readapted for the 2017 Documenta exhibition). All tha
  
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• Trump’s Shakedown Of The Kennedy Center

  17-09-2026 17:31 via theatlantic.com
  
  “Trump is taking the Center hostage and threatening to in effect kill it unless he gets his way.” The president is counting on the board’s civic spirit and affection for the institution—neither of which he evidently possesses—to strong-arm it into giving him what the law and courts would not allow. – The Atlantic
  
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