Arts news

• Help — four letters that require attention

  17-10-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  The way we respond to the needs of others is more complex than we care to admit
  
  Read more

• V&A Workers to Strike at All Four Sites Over Pay, Conditions

  21-10-2026 19:04 via artnews.com
  
  Unionized staff across all four branches of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London announced their intention to strike on October 29 and 30, citing stalled negotiations and allegations of “Amazon-style” working conditions at the newly opened V&A East Storehouse.The announcement follows two planned strikes in September at three V&A museums by workers represented by Prospect Union’s heritage division and the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). The V&A pree
  
  Read more

• Melting Ron DeSantis Statue Makes a Point About Climate Change in Florida

  21-10-2026 18:41 via artnews.com
  
  Among Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s favorite activities since he took office is pooh-poohing climate change initiatives while, almost surreptitiously, working to conserve swathes of the state he represents. Now, a group of environmental activists has found a way to make him sweat.A life-size statue of the Republican governor was unveiled in Tallahassee last week, only to begin melting in the Florida sunshine. As DeSantis’s silver-colored face slowly slipped away, a dastardly-lookin
  
  Read more

• Artists John Akomfrah, Ben Rivers, and Dozens Others Defend Sally Rooney in Open Letter

  21-10-2026 18:32 via artnews.com
  
  Earlier this month, the publisher Faber & Faber announced that it was pulling the books of Sally Rooney from UK shops due to the Irish novelist’s support for Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian group designated as a terrorist organization by the UK government. Now, dozens of artists and writers have signed an open letter that appeared in the New Statesman on Wednesday in protest of the UK government’s policy.Among the signatories are artists John Akomfrah and Ben Rivers, art hist
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• National Museum of Korea Director Offers to Resign

  21-10-2026 18:23 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story was updated on October 21, 2026, with additional information.The director of the National Museum of Korea, You Hong-june, has tendered his resignation after a misidentified calligraphic artwork belonging to him was put on display at his museum. The news was announced by the South Korean English language newspaper Korea Herald.The work in question was presented in the show “The Korean Table: Food, Nature, and Life” (on view through October 25) as a piec
  
  Read more

• Chanel Becomes Lead Sponsor of Hong Kong’s M+ Museum in Expanded Three-Year Deal

  21-10-2026 18:18 via artnews.com
  
  Chanel is deepening its relationship with Hong Kong’s M+ museum, signing on as its lead partner for the next three years and expanding its support beyond film to exhibitions, artist programs, and other projects.The French luxury house has backed M+, the contemporary visual culture museum in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, since 2023. The partnership has until now mostly focused on experimental cinema, film restoration, and building the museum’s moving-image collecti
  
  Read more

• The Best Works at Art Basel Paris’s Public Program, From a Crowd of TV Screens to a Flock of Plush Animals

  21-10-2026 18:05 via artnews.com
  
  Yesterday, visitors to the fifth edition of Art Basel Paris had the chance to preview its “Hors les murs” program, which spreads monumental artworks across nine exceptional cultural and heritage sites in the French capital. Among the highlights are works by Niki de Saint Phalle and Alicja Kwade, displayed along Avenue Winston Churchill, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.Yet these encounters also serve as reminders of what the program has lost. Kwade and Saint Phalle were
  
  Read more

• Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center to Launch Native Artist Residency with Walker Youngbird Foundation

  21-10-2026 18:00 via artnews.com
  
  The Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the Walker Youngbird Foundation will jointly launch a new residency program for Native artists beginning next spring.Called the Walker Youngbird Native Artist Residency, the initiative will bring a Native artist to FAWC for four weeks (May 23–June 19). The Walker Youngbird Foundation will provide $10,000 for the inaugural year, $2,500 of which will go to the artist as a stipend. The chosen artist will also receive a priva
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• NFL COLOR FIELD Program to Debut With Jammie Holmes Artwork Before First Football Game in France

  21-10-2026 17:58 via artnews.com
  
  In advance of its first-ever regular season game in Paris on Sunday, the National Football League announced NFL Color Field—“a new platform that brings football and visual arts together through large-scale installations, original programming and immersive cultural experiences,” as a press release describes it.Over the coming weekend, a painting by Jammie Holmes will figure in hand-painted end zones created for a flag-football field that will be set up beneath the Eiffel Tower a
  
  Read more

• Eli in Paris: The Fondation Louis Vuitton Will Mount a Giant Show of the Broad Collection Next Year

  21-10-2026 17:23 via artnews.com
  
  A major Paris art institution will host a significant Los Angeles collection next year. “The Broad in Paris” (April 21–August 30, 2027), at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, will be the largest display of works from the Broad collection ever mounted outside its home city, with some 164 works making the transatlantic voyage. The show will happen while the Broad is closed for renovation; it will reopen in 2028 with 70 percent more gallery space.“The Broad in Paris” will fe
  
  Read more

• Jeff Koons Talks AI, a $100 M. Modigliani in Paris, and More: Industry Moves for October 21, 2026

  21-10-2026 17:13 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.Happy Wednesday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week.Vielmetter Los Angeles Takes On Painter Patrick Eugène: The Brooklyn-born, Atlanta-based artist, whose figurative work draws on his Haitian heritage, will debut with the gallery at Art Basel Miami Beach in December ahead of a
  
  Read more

• London’s National Gallery to Exhibit 40 Works, From Rembrandt to René Magritte

  21-10-2026 17:12 via artnews.com
  
  Artworks by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Lucian Freud, and John Constable are coming together next year at the National Gallery in London, as part of an exhibition titled “Collected.”The works have been acquired through two programs: the Acceptance in Lieu and Cultural Gifts schemes, organized by the Arts Council England on behalf of the UK government. The first is an initiative that allows an inheritance tax bill to be replaced by transferring important or pre-eminent cultur
  
  Read more

• Youthful Edward Hopper Oil Paintings Revealed to Be Copies of Other Artists’ Work

  21-10-2026 16:02 via artnews.com
  
  An excerpt from Louis Shadwick’s new Edward Hopper biography, published in the Art Newspaper Tuesday, reveals that all six of the artist’s early oil paintings are in fact copies of other artists’ works, rather than Hopper’s own original compositions. Hopper made the paintings in a studio in his family’s home in Nyack, New York, when he was a teenager, before attending art school in New York City.The works were discovered in the attic of Hopper’s childhood home
  
  Read more

• Basquiat’s Long-Unseen Riff on Leonardo da Vinci To Lead Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale With $30 M. Estimate

  21-10-2026 15:57 via artnews.com
  
  The re-emergence of a long-unseen Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece is a miracle the art market occasionally performs. Christie’s announced Tuesday that one will appear at its 21st Century Evening Sale this fall.Untitled (Leonardo and His Five Grotesque Heads) will make its first public appearance in more than two decades when it leads Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale in New York on November 19, having surfaced from a “distinguished” private European collection. The es
  
  Read more

• Düsseldorf Galleries Sign Open Letter Against Far-Right Political Party’s Attempts to ‘Co-Opt’ Joseph Beuys

  21-10-2026 15:56 via artnews.com
  
  More than 30 galleries based in Düsseldorf, Germany, signed an open letter last week that called out the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party for its attempts to “instrumentalize Düsseldorf’s art and cultural history to serve a political narrative that promotes social exclusion.”Published on October 15 and initiated by Daniela Horn, the founder of Van Horn gallery, the letter centers around an event that was initially set to be staged at the city&rsqu
  
  Read more

• Theaster Gates Returned a David Drake Jar to His Descendants—It’s Now on View at a Virginia HBCU

  21-10-2026 15:47 via artnews.com
  
  In May, Theaster Gates set a precedent for restitution by transferring ownership of a stoneware vessel by David Drake, an enslaved ceramist widely known as “Dave the Potter,” to his descendants. The family estimates that some 200 of Drake’s surviving works remain in the possession of museums and collectors, though a growing number of institutions are agreeing to its request: return Drake’s work to his family, and we’ll keep it on view and accessible to the public.Th
  
  Read more

• Environmental Group Unveils Melting Statue of Florida Gov., New Beatles Museum Announced for Liverpool, V&A Unionized Staff to Strike Again, and More: Morning Links for October 21, 2026

  21-10-2026 15:26 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good morning!
  An environmental group has unveiled a life-size melting statue of Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Liverpool announces Beatles projects for the city, including a 100,000-square-foot museum.The Victoria & Albert Museum’s unionized staff plans to strike across all four London sites.The Headlines MELTING AWAY. A statue of Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been unveiled in Tal
  
  Read more

• Do memorials belong in train stations?

  21-10-2026 14:20 via ft.com
  The meaning of statues like the Kindertransport one risks being lost when the world is rushing past
  
  Read more

• Can AI Help Identify the Sitters in Historical Portraits?

  21-10-2026 11:30 via artnews.com
  
  Can AI help identify the sitters in historical portraits? This is the question pondered by an interdisciplinary project as well as an exhibition that opened this month at Geneva’s Musée d’art et d’histoire (MAH), showcasing a dozen 1762 chalk drawings of the family of Austria’s Empress Maria Theresa by the 18th-century artist Jean-Étienne Liotard.Twenty years ago, when Catriona Seth was preparing to publish a book about Marie-Antoinette, she chose a beloved
  
  Read more

• Rosana Paulino’s Pantheon of Black Plant Goddesses Arrives in Paris

  21-10-2026 09:00 via artnews.com
  
  The growing visibility of Rosana Paulino’s work reaches a new chapter with the opening this week of her first solo exhibition in Paris, at Mendes Wood DM’s outpost in the French capital.Titled “Bloom in the Sunlight, Dream in the Moonlight,” the exhibition introduces new plant goddesses into the Afro-botanical pantheon Paulino has been building since 2019 as part of her ongoing series “Senhora das Plantas” (Lady of the Plants), which elevates Black women to th
  
  Read more

• Hey Kennedy Center, I want my art back!

  21-10-2026 00:52 via artsjournal.com
  Good Morning,Computer analysis of Edward III, published anonymously in 1596, assigns 23 segments to Shakespeare and nine to Christopher Marlowe, the first serious case that the two rivals wrote a play together (The Guardian).Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo opens at the Met this week; no opera won a Pulitzer or reached the finals between 1962 and 2000, so this one’s a milestone (SF Classical Voice). The Met also commissioned The Mothers of Kherson, an opera about Russia’s w
  
  Read more

• Art Basel Paris Opens Avant Première with ‘Good Energy,’ a Smattering of Sales, and One $100 M. Work

  20-10-2026 23:04 via artnews.com
  
  What’s the vibe in Paris, you may be asking? While the detritus of the weekend’s protests marks many of the city’s arrondissements, the art world is proceeding with business as usual, with events and openings going on as planned Monday night and Tuesday, culminating in the opening of Art Basel Paris’s Avant Première preview at 3 p.m.Around 10 minutes before opening, only a short line had formed to enter the Grand Palais, the architectural marvel that is home to Art
  
  Read more

• National Museum of Korea Director Apologizes for Misattribution of a Work on Display

  20-10-2026 22:01 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story was updated on October 20, 2026, with additional information.The director of the National Museum of Korea, You Hong-june, has issued a formal apology after a misidentified calligraphic artwork belonging to him was put on display at his museum. The news was announced by the South Korean English language newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily, which reported on the incident last week.The work at the center of the controversy was presented in the show “The Korean Table
  
  Read more

• The Washington Ballet At 50

  20-10-2026 21:01 via yahoo.com
  “Go-Go 50,” the upcoming mixed-bill program assembled to celebrate the anniversary, “exemplifies some of the company’s hallmarks: a willingness to gamble on new work, an embrace of diverse repertoire, and an ability to capitalize on the culture and cachet of its hometown.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
  
  Read more

• Donors Are Trying To Save Artworks At The Kennedy Center

  20-10-2026 20:30 via artnews.com
  
  Donors who have given artwork to the institution are trying to reclaim their gifts, fearing for their safety amid a renovation and in the wake of layoffs. They are not convinced that the leadership, largely appointed by Trump, values the artworks as part of the institution’s holdings. – ARTnews
  
  Read more

• What Got The Hollywood Establishment To Join The Vertical Microdrama Boom? SAG-AFTRA

  20-10-2026 20:03 via msn.com
  “SAG-AFTRA’s independent Verticals Agreement helped open the door for producers to hire union performers for the format’s notoriously small-scale productions. They’ve also brought some structure and legitimacy to the medium. … Bigger-name talent is now more open to verticals thanks to the protections the agreement brings.” – TheWrap (MSN)
  
  Read more

• James Gibson’s Cultural and Spiritual Legacy Lives on in His Sculptures

  20-10-2026 20:00 via artnews.com
  
  With a career spanning 60 years, James Gibson was a revered Tennessee teacher and sculptor. Today, over 240 sculptures from his estate are available to collectors for purchase.Related ArticlesJenny Holzer on Paris Protests: 'It's Gruesome That Kids Have to Fight for a Better Education' Donors Are Secretly Trying to Save the Kennedy Center's Artworks from 'Destruction' or Disposal Amid Trump Takeover It’s hard to miss a sculpture by James Gibson, whose numerous and often massive works can b
  
  Read more

• Jenny Holzer on Paris Protests: ‘It’s Gruesome That Kids Have to Fight for a Better Education’

  20-10-2026 19:56 via artnews.com
  
  In an interview conducted earlier this month, after the first large-scale demonstrations in Paris, Jenny Holzer addressed the protests that have continued to roil the city in the weeks since. “It’s gruesome that kids have to fight for a better education or for teachers to be paid properly, for their schools to be clean,” the artist told T: The New York Times Style Magazine. “I worry about the kids’ safety.”The occasion for the interview was Holzer’s solo
  
  Read more

• Donors Are Secretly Trying to Save the Kennedy Center’s Artworks from ‘Destruction’ or Disposal Amid Trump Takeover

  20-10-2026 19:45 via artnews.com
  
  It has been widely reported that the Kennedy Center is at the center of a power struggle between the Trump administration and preservationists, as the president wants to rename it in his own honor and insists that the decaying building must close for renovations. He has threatened that it will be razed if he does not get his way.Now, CNN reports that donors who have given artwork to the institution are trying to reclaim their gifts, fearing for their safety amid a renovation and in the wake of l
  
  Read more

• How Intuition Works

  20-10-2026 19:44 via aeon.co
  The key is to see that intuition works in much the same way as perception, in that both can directly present something to us as actual. Once we understand what gives perception this feature, we can see why intuitions might involve exercising the same basic kind of cognitive capacity. – Aeon
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUKnews on Twitter!