Arts news

• Matisse or monkey skeletons – who should win Museum of the Year 2017?

  28-04-2017 13:00
  
  Tate Modern’s switched-on new space, a jewel of a rock museum and Charles II’s stables all feature on the 2017 Museum of the Year shortlist. Rory Bremner, Fiona Shaw and more say why their favourite deserves to winFiona ShawRelated: Tiny geology centre vies with Tate Modern to be museum of the yearRelated: Object lessons at the Hepworth Wakefield: the importance of sculptureContinue reading...
  
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• China Pulls Artists from Gwangju Biennale as ‘Taiwan Pavilion’ Moves Forward

  28-08-2026 21:13 via artnews.com
  
  The Chinese ambassador to South Korea has ordered China’s artists to withdraw from the 16th Gwangju Biennale, which opens September 5, in protest of the Gwangju Biennial Foundation allowing Taiwanese exhibitors to participate under the name “Taiwan,” South Korean media reported today. In a meeting with Gwangju Mayor Min Hyung-bae at Gwangju City Hall yesterday, Ambassador Dai Bing expressed his “regret and concern” over the decision to restore the name “T
  
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• Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Embroiled in Alleged Bribery Scandal

  28-08-2026 20:28 via artnews.com
  
  Two municipal employees in the Dutch city of Rotterdam have been dismissed following an investigation into alleged corruption involving construction contracts. They include work connected to asbestos removal at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, one of the country’s most important museums.The employees were among three officials investigated after concerns emerged that municipal contracts had been approved at inflated prices. One of the three has since retired, while the other two were suspend
  
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• $4.3 M. Van Cleef & Arpels Necklace Stolen From Vienna Museum

  28-08-2026 18:39 via artnews.com
  
  Two men stole a diamond necklace worth millions of dollars from Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) on Thursday, after entering the museum as ordinary visitors and smashing open a display case.The unidentified men entered the MAK during opening hours and targeted the museum’s current exhibition of jewelry by Van Cleef & Arpels, the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reported. The men smashed a glass case, grabbed the necklace, and fled. No one was injured. Police
  
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• UK Government Puts Temporary Export Ban on $97.2 M. Rembrandt Painting

  28-08-2026 18:30 via artnews.com
  
  The United Kingdom’s government announced this week that it has put a temporary export ban on a Rembrandt painting valued at £71.7 million ($97.2 million).The painting in question is Rembrandt van Rijn’s Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657), which has been on view in the UK since the mid-18th century, according to a release. It was most recently on view at the National Museum of Cardiff from 2016 to 2019.Rembrandt’s portrait depicts Catrina Hooghsaet, a wealthy member of
  
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• Chief Executive of Sydney’s Forthcoming $915 M. Cultural Institution Steps Down Amid Ongoing Investigations, 10 Weeks Ahead of Its Opening

  28-08-2026 18:27 via artnews.com
  
  Just 10 weeks prior to the opening of Sydney’s latest cultural institution, Powerhouse Parramatta, its chief executive Lisa Havilah has stepped down amid ongoing “investigations into governance and procurement,” according to a statement released on Thursday from the office of Australia’s Minister for Arts John Graham.Since her 2018 appointment, Havilah has been overseeing the $915 million build of Powerhouse Parramatta—the city’s most significant cultural infr
  
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• Kennedy Center Board Says It Will Delay Adding Trump’s Name to the Center by One Month

  28-08-2026 17:59 via artnews.com
  
  The Kennedy Center board told a federal judge on Thursday that it will halt efforts to add President Trump’s name to the building until at least October 8, delaying its plans by a month.The announcement followed an emergency court hearing prompted by a Justice Department filing this week warning that the Kennedy Center could be demolished and potentially replaced with an outdoor amphitheater if the board is not allowed to close the building for two years for repairs. At the same time, the
  
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• Kennedy Board Says It Will Delay Adding Trump’s Name to the Center by One Month

  28-08-2026 17:59 via artnews.com
  
  The Kennedy Center board told a federal judge on Thursday that it will halt efforts to add President Trump’s name to the building until at least October 8, delaying its plans by a month.The announcement followed an emergency court hearing prompted by a Justice Department filing this week warning that the Kennedy Center could be demolished and potentially replaced with an outdoor amphitheater if the board is not allowed to close the building for two years for repairs. At the same time, the
  
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• Sydney’s Powerhouse Parramatta CEO Steps Down, €4 M. Diamond Necklace Stolen from Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts, £71 M. Rembrandt Portrait Placed Under Export Bar in the UK, and More: Morning Links for August 28, 2026

  28-08-2026 14:58 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good Morning!
  Lisa Havilah, CEO of Sydney’s Powerhouse Parramatta, has stepped down ten weeks before its opening.A €4 million ($4.7 million) diamond necklace has been stolen from the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. A £71 million ($96.4 million) Rembrandt portrait has been placed under an export bar in the United Kingdom.The Headlines&n
  
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• Ryan Gander: ‘I want things that surprise me. I want better art’

  28-08-2026 13:00 via ft.com
  The British artist has turned the city of Seoul into a giant treasure hunt and is bringing his playful interventions to Eastbourne’s Towner Gallery
  
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• As Right-Leaning Politicians Attack Cultural Institutions, a Basque Country Museum Director Believes in a Different ‘Vision of the Museum Worth Fighting For’

  28-08-2026 11:15 via artnews.com
  
  Nicknamed the “Little Louvre,” a hidden gem of European masterpieces in France’s Basque Country was given a new lease on life last fall.Founded in 1891, the Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne is home to some 7,000 artworks spanning antiquity to the early 20th century, and it reopened after 14 years of renovations that doubled its exhibition space. About 10 months before the opening, the museum also got a new leader in Barthélémy Etchegoyen Glama, a 33-year-old
  
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• Why Surrealists Turned to Animals to Plumb the Human Psyche

  28-08-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  Starfish, scorpions, swallows, and sheep—once you look, animals are everywhere in Surrealist paintings. These and many other creatures are the focus of Desmond Morris’sThe Surrealist Menagerie: Strange Beasts & Fantastic Visions, a new book that combines Morris’s longtime study of zoology (he had a doctorate from Oxford) with his own participation in the Surrealist movement. Morris died this April at the age of 98, and his work leaves us with a lingering question:
  
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• Collector and Patron Hasnaine Yavarhoussen Is Determined to Bring Madagascar’s Art Scene to the Rest of the World

  28-08-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  In 2019, just four nations mounted their debut pavilions at the Venice Biennale. Madagascar was one of them, and Hasnaine Yavarhoussen’s sponsorship was largely what made it possible.The year before, the Malagasy art collector and entrepreneur met with artist Joël Andrianomearisoa to discuss the country’s participation and his support. At the time of their meeting, Yavarhoussen had limited knowledge about Malagasy artists; his almost decade-old collection didn’t even inclu
  
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• Burnham retreats from call to return Parthenon sculptures to Greece

  28-08-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  UK prime minister previously called for British Museum to ‘send them back, no strings attached’
  
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• Burnham retreats from backing return of Parthenon sculptures to Greece

  28-08-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  UK prime minister previously called for British Museum to ‘send them back, no strings attached’
  
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• Riverside Art Museum Appoints Vivian Zavataro as Next Executive Director

  28-08-2026 00:06 via artnews.com
  
  The Riverside Art Museum (RAM) in California has named Vivian Zavataro as its next executive director. She will begin in the role on October 1.Zavataro succeeds Drew Oberjuerge, who served in the top job for more than 13 years and left in June 2025. “The Riverside Art Museum has grown from a beloved community museum into a dynamic cultural institution with an international presence,” RAM board president Patricia Reynolds said in a statement. “I am incredibly proud of the vision
  
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• For 20 Years, Turkish Media Star Vuslat Made Art in Secret. Now She’s on the Biennial Circuit

  27-08-2026 22:35 via artnews.com
  
  For nearly two decades, Vuslat Doğan Sabancı lived two lives.By day, she was one of the most powerful figures in Turkish media, serving as chief executive of Hürriyet, the country’s largest newspaper. At night—after work, dinner, and putting her children to bed—she went to her studio and made art. “Sometimes I would work until six in the morning,” Vuslat told ARTnews on a Zoom call from Istanbul.The strange thing was that almost nobody saw what s
  
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• As New York Prices Artists Out, New Haven Is Drawing Them In

  27-08-2026 22:22 via artnews.com
  
  Chiffon Thomas discovered pretty quickly that New York wasn’t going to work. An artist and sculptor who moved to the city after three years in Los Angeles, Thomas needed a studio with room to weld metal and a parking spot for his van. New York real estate was prohibitively expensive and he went in search of another solution. Detroit and Philadelphia have recently become outposts for artists as New York becomes ever more expensive. The move Thomas eventually made signals that there is anoth
  
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• Demolition of Tbilisi Arts Complex Sparks Protests

  27-08-2026 21:35 via artnews.com
  
  An arts complex in Tbilisi, Georgia, is being razed despite protests from its architects and some members of the local community. Following approval by Tbilisi’s city government in June, demolition work on the Rike Park Music Theatre and Exhibition Hall—colloquially known as Rike Tubes—began at the end of July and is scheduled to be completed by December. The news was reported by Reuters following a photo-essay documenting the destruction of the complex and that of a second lan
  
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• Neolithic Figure Astride a Leopard Unearthed in Turkey: ‘Unlike Anything Seen Before’

  27-08-2026 21:03 via artnews.com
  
  An 11,000-year-old statue depicting a person on the back of a leopard was unearthed by archaeologists at a Stone Age site in southern Turkey, the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced in a statement on August 25. The find from the Neolithic site Karahan Tepe measures about 28 inches tall and would have sat on a platform along the wall of a larger round building roughly 10 feet in diameter. Notably, the style of the composite statue is “unlike anything seen before,&rdquo
  
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• At Peter Marino’s Foundation, Centuries of Art History Devilishly Collapse into Each Other

  27-08-2026 20:40 via artnews.com
  
  The Peter Marino Art Foundation occupies the former Rogers Memorial Library, a charming historic building in Southampton, New York, that its namesake has transformed into something much stranger inside. This summer, the iconoclastic architect and collector has placed portraits by Robert Nava alongside those by Y.Z. Kami; abstractions by Betty Parsons and Carla Accardi share a wall. Nearby is a magnificent room filled with Tiffany silver, while a luscious, red-painted space is filled with Vi
  
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• Phillips Faces Major Senior Leadership Shake-Up, Ahead of Fall Sales

  27-08-2026 19:54 via artnews.com
  
  Half of the executive leadership team at Phillips is no longer with the auction house, and several other high-ranking employees have departed the company since the May sales.The two most senior departures are Miety Heiden, chairman of private sales, and Jonathan Crockett, chairman for Asia. Both will officially leave their roles next month. (Crockett’s departure was first reported in Art Asia Pacific and the Baer Faxt newsletter earlier today.) Until now, the house’s four-person
  
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• Phillips Face Major Senior Leadership Shake-Up, Ahead of Fall Sales

  27-08-2026 19:54 via artnews.com
  
  Half of the executive leadership team at Phillips is no longer with the auction house, and several other high-ranking employees have departed the company since the May sales.The two most senior departures are Miety Heiden, chairman of private sales, and Jonathan Crockett, chairman for Asia. Both will officially leave their roles next month. (Crockett’s departure was first reported in Art Asia Pacific and the Baer Faxt newsletter earlier today.) Until now, the house’s four-person
  
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• Artist Gao Zhen Receives Three-Year Prison Sentence for ‘Slandering China’s Heroes’

  27-08-2026 19:03 via artnews.com
  
  Artist Gao Zhen, who was detained in China in 2024 on “suspicion of slandering China’s heroes and martyrs” over a satirical sculpture of Mao Zedong, has been sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison, rights groups say. The BBC reported yesterday that a court in Hebei province ruled on Tuesday that Gao Zhen’s artwork “infringes upon the hero’s reputation and harms the public interest.” The 70-year-old artist is known for a dissident oeuvre tha
  
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• $1.98 M. Worth of Gold Pieces Stolen From the Treasure of Villena

  27-08-2026 18:26 via artnews.com
  
  Thieves ransacked Spain’s Villena Museum, taking with them one of Europe’s most significant Bronze Age gold collections in a record four-minute heist on Thursday morning, the Guardian reported.The thieves stole items from the Treasure of Villena, one of the city’s treasured prehistoric artifacts that includes some 66 Bronze Age objects, among them, 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, three bottles, and other miscellaneous pieces dating to 1000 BCE. It’s unclear how many pieces were s
  
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• Germany’s 100-Year-Old Merz Academy Declared Insolvent

  27-08-2026 17:59 via artnews.com
  
  The Merz Academy in Stuttgart, Germany, has filed for insolvency, the academy announced on Wednesday. Classes, however, are expected to continue at the university, which offers Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs at the intersection of design, art, media, and technology. Monopol reported that the university’s application was approved on Tuesday by the Stuttgart District Court with a provisional self-administration order. The insolvency, it believes, is a result of a failing
  
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• Claire Denis Is Miu Miu Women’s Tales Latest Iteration’s Director

  27-08-2026 17:40 via artnews.com
  
  French filmmaker and screenwriter Claire Denis is the director of the 32nd installment of the Miu Miu Women’s Tales film series.The new short film, titled “Avec Kim,” will premiere September 5 during the upcoming edition of the Venice Film Festival. It will follow the screening of the previous episode “Discipline,” which was directed by Mona Fastvold and was first presented in New York last February, as reported.“Making films for
  
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• MoMA to Stage Major Exhibition on Mid-Century African Modernism, Centered on the Concept of ‘Emancipatory Art’  

  27-08-2026 16:55 via artnews.com
  
  The Museum of Modern Art in New York will stage a major exhibition examining mid-century modernism in Africa next year.Running May 2–August 14, 2027, the thematic exhibition, titled “Freedom and Futures: Emancipatory Art in Africa, 1956–1982,” will bring together around 250 objects, including 40 from MoMA’s collection. The exhibition is curated by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, a painting and sculpture curator who also leads the Africa group of the museum’s Contem
  
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• Thieves Steal One of Europe’s Most Significant Bronze Age Gold Collections, Frieze Abu Dhabi Announces Exhibitors, Growing Pains in Britain’s Expanding Cultural Scene, and More: Morning Links for August 27, 2026

  27-08-2026 15:40 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good Morning!
  Thieves have stolen most of Spain’s Treasure of Villena, one of Europe’s most significant Bronze Age gold collections, in just four minutes.  Frieze is heading to Abu Dhabi for the first time this November, unveiling a line-up of 84 galleries for its inaugural edition.Britain’s cultural scene is showing signs of a new
  
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• Craig Jun Li’s Art of Show-and-Tell

  27-08-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  “What I do is like a show-and-tell,” Craig Jun Li explained when we spoke, referring to his displays of found objects and archival material—faded photographs, old letters, buttons. Such ephemera made up his January solo exhibition at Chapter NY. “I want to show the effect these materials have had on me,” he added. Yet the show’s title suggests deeper desires: “I Want to Love with No Fear.”“I blocked the radiators,” he said, explaining a
  
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