Arts news

• Serpentine summer programme goes BIG

  10-06-2016 02:41
  
  The Serpentine’s outgoing director, Julia Peyton-Jones, has been at the helm of the institution since 1991 and inaugurated the annual Serpentine Gallery Pavilion programme in 2000. The 16th edition of the project, which runs from 10 June to 9 October, will be her last, and the programme has been dressed up for the occasion with four ancillary summer houses to complement the main design.The pavilion has been designed by the Copenhagen and New York-based firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), whic
  
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• France Returns Looted ‘Talking Drum’ to the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire

  24-02-2026 00:01 via artnews.com
  In a ceremony held on Friday at the Musée Quai Branly in Paris, France officially returned a drum known as the “talking drum” or Djidji Ayôkwé, to the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. The news was reported by French newspaper Le Monde.The ten-foot-long, 940-pound drum has a single-piece soundbox slit in half longitudinally. Extending out from the slit are two planks, one of which supports a carving of a jumping leopard. The box itself is decorated with carve
  
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• Artists Rally for Jamaica and L.A. With a Hollywood Auction During Art Week

  23-02-2026 22:20 via artnews.com
  The art world loves a party. This time it’s putting that energy to work. On February 26, during L.A. Art Week, CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary will launch “Get Up Stand Up: Artists for Jamaica and Los Angeles,” a benefit auction aimed at long-term recovery efforts after Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and the recent wildfires in Los Angeles.The event kicks off in Hollywood with a live sale led by Swiss auctioneer Simon de
  
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• Met Gala Reveals 2026 Dress Code: ‘Fashion is Art’

  23-02-2026 22:18 via artnews.com
  Last November, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute revealed that theme for this May’s Met Gala, is “Costume Art,” a capacious conceit that positions the museum’s five-millennia spanning collection in dialogue with the dressed body (never mind its nonrepresentational holdings). The Met Gala dress code has now been announced, and it pairs neatly: airy to the point of apolitical, a truth too apparent to debate—”Fashion is Art.”The
  
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• Newly Unearthed Documents Propose That the Eastern Island Head Was Not Stolen

  23-02-2026 21:35 via artnews.com
  A British archaeologist has proposed a revised account of the excavation of Hoa Hakananaiʻa, the moai better known as the Easter Island Head, arguing that its removal was not a unilateral act of imperial extraction but a collaborative effort between British explorers and Indigenous Rapa Nui islanders that ultimately led to its voyage to England.Hoa Hakananaiʻa was one of roughly 1,000 basalt statues scattered across Easter Island, a subtropical landmass about the size of Manhattan loca
  
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• Newly Unearthed Documents Propose That the Easter Island Head Was Not Stolen

  23-02-2026 21:35 via artnews.com
  A British archaeologist has proposed a revised account of the excavation of Hoa Hakananaiʻa, the moai better known as the Easter Island Head, arguing that its removal was not a unilateral act of imperial extraction but a collaborative effort between British explorers and Indigenous Rapa Nui islanders that ultimately led to its voyage to England.Hoa Hakananaiʻa was one of roughly 1,000 basalt statues scattered across Easter Island, a subtropical landmass about the size of Manhattan loca
  
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• Ancient Egyptian Tombs, Some Full of Pottery and Jewelry, Discovered at Qubbet Al-Hawa

  23-02-2026 21:30 via artnews.com
  A research team from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has announced new discoveries at Qubbet Al-Hawa, a well-known archaeological site in southeast Egypt, near the city of Aswan. The Upper Egyptian site is known for its sprawling necropolis.This latest mission, as reported in Ahram, focused on rock-cut burial shafts and chambers, most notably two chambers full of 160 pottery vessels, many of which are covered with text, that are believed to have been used to store grain and li
  
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• Newsmakers: Enzo, a Small Art Fair, Could Have a Big Impact on the LA Market

  23-02-2026 21:26 via artnews.com
  Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, an ARTnews series featuring conversations with the figures shaping how the art world is changing right now.This year sees the introduction of two new major fairs: Art Basel Qatar earlier this month and Frieze Abu Dhabi in November. Those enterprises will almost certainly have an important impact on the market, both in the Gulf and globally. But this week in Los Angeles, one collector is thinking through how a smaller fair can also
  
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• Sotheby’s to Auction Jean and Terry de Gunzburg Collection, Led by Claude Lalanne Mirrors and $15 M. Rothko

  23-02-2026 20:42 via artnews.com
  Sotheby’s is about to turn a pair of very polished lives into a two-part auction season.In April and May, the house will present roughly 135 works from the collection of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg, carrying a combined estimate of $67 million to $99 million. The first chapter arrives on April 22 with a dedicated design sale in New York, estimated at $30 million to $44 million and described by Sotheby’s as “the most valuable single-owner design sale in its history.” A selec
  
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• What Will Censorship Look Like in the Age of AI?

  23-02-2026 20:23 via artnews.com
  Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from On Censorship by Ai Weiwei. It releases in March from Thames & Hudson.
   
  In 2025, the rapid development of artificial intelligence pushed a group of young Chinese entrepreneurs to the forefront with DeepSeek, which propelled its search technology into new territories. This triggered panic within the highly competitive AI landscape, sparking strategic shifts in western-dominated technology ecosystems and causing significant market disrupt
  
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• Iris Cantor, Philanthropist Who Transformed the Met and the Brooklyn Museum, Dies at 95

  23-02-2026 19:38 via artnews.com
  Iris Cantor, a collector and philanthropist who provided the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and other US art institutions with millions of dollars worth of support, died on Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida. She was 95, according to a release from her foundation, which did not state a cause.Cantor was a transformative force in the American art world, with her patronage significantly reshaping some of the nation’s top museums. She helped steward the legacy of her husband, B. G
  
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• Refik Anadol’s ‘Lava Lamp’ Reignites the AI Art Debate on ’60 Minutes’

  23-02-2026 19:22 via artnews.com
  According to one 2017 study, museum visitors on average spend about 27 seconds looking at a work of art, which is barely enough time to squint, nod thoughtfully, and move on. But if you ask AI artist Refik Anadol about how long people spent with Unsupervised, the controversial artwork he showed at the Museum of Modern Art in 2022, he’d say he got people’s attention for much longer—about 38 minutes per person, to be precise. To make the work, Anadol fed AI metadata related
  
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• New Museum to Open in Portugal Around Collection of José Teixeira

  23-02-2026 18:23 via artnews.com
  A new museum is slated to open in Portugal in April around the contemporary art collection of José Teixeira, the chairman of dstgroup, a civil construction and public-works engineering company. The institution in Braga, about an hour by car or train from Porto in the northwest of Portugal, will showcase a collection of 1,500 artworks under the name MUZEU—Thought & Contemporary Art dst.“The collection champions artists and bodies of work with strong poetic, philosophical, a
  
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• An Appeals Court Clears a Spanish Art Dealer in the Case of a Convent’s Sculpture Offered at TEFAF 

  23-02-2026 18:19 via artnews.com
  After a convoluted process dating back to 2018, the High Court of Justice of Andalusia has overturned a four-year prison sentence for a Spanish antiques dealer in a case involving an artwork from a 16th-century convent in an ancient Italian city just north of Rome, El País reports.
  reports El País.At the center of the saga is a five-foot-high, 17th-century Baroque wood sculpture known as Saint Margaret of Cortona, by Granada artist José de Mora. It had resided for decades at
  
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• NADA New York Names Over 110 Galleries for 2026 Edition

  23-02-2026 17:00 via artnews.com
  The New Art Dealers Alliance has named the more than 110 exhibitors who will take part in the organization’s upcoming New York fair. Running May 13 to 17, the fair will return to the Starrett-Lehigh Building in West Chelsea for the second time.NADA New York’s 12th edition will feature 45 NADA members, including Chozick Family Art Gallery, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Embajada, Kates-Ferri Projects, la BEAST gallery, Proxyco, Rivalry Projects, and Spinello Projects, as well as two newly
  
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• Activists Hang Prince Andrew Arrest Photo in the Louvre, Turning Royal Crisis into a Work of Art

  23-02-2026 16:34 via artnews.com
  For roughly 15 minutes on Sunday, visitors to the Louvre could have stumbled upon a curious addition to the museum’s holdings: a framed photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, that was captured moments after his arrest on February 19.The image, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble as Andrew left police custody in Norfolk, shows him slumped in the back of a car. Activists from the anti-billionaire campaign group Everyone Hates Elon placed the
  
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• France Restitutes ‘Talking Drum’ to Ivory Coast, Is Free Entry to UK Museums at Risk? Morning Links for February 23, 2026

  23-02-2026 13:29 via artnews.com
  The HeadlinesDRUMMED UP. France has finally repatriated a long-promised looted artifact to the Ivory Coast, known as the “talking drum,” or Djidji Ayokwe, reports Le Monde. In 1916, when French colonial officers learned that the Ivory Coast’s Ebrie tribe used the 10-foot-long wood-sculpted drum to warn of oncoming French soldiers, the latter stole it from them. Eventually, the French brought the drum to Paris, where it made its rounds through several museums, ultimately landing
  
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• Hundreds of People Stage Sit-Ins in Spanish Museums in Protest of High VAT on Art Sales

  23-02-2026 13:03 via artnews.com
  Hundreds of artists, gallery owners, and collectors staged sit-ins last week in museums across Spain to draw attention to the country’s high cultural VAT.Over 100 demonstrators parked their backsides on the floor of Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía in the room dedicated to the late American artist Richard Serra. They surrounded Equal-Parallel/Guernica-Bengasi, a replica of a sculpture that had disappeared from a storage facility sometime between 1990 and 2005. It consisted of four 3
  
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• Hundreds of People Stage Sit-Ins in Museums Across Spain to Protest Against the Country’s High VAT on Art Sales

  23-02-2026 13:03 via artnews.com
  Hundreds of artists, gallery owners, and collectors staged sit-ins last week in museums across Spain to draw attention to the country’s high cultural VAT.Over 100 demonstrators parked their backsides on the floor of Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía in the room dedicated to the late American artist Richard Serra. They surrounded Equal-Parallel/Guernica-Bengasi, a replica of a sculpture that had disappeared from a storage facility sometime between 1990 and 2005. It consisted of four 3
  
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• Jasmine Little, Artist Who Painted Lush Still Lifes and Sculpted Etched Ceramics, Dead at 41

  21-02-2026 22:15 via artnews.com
  Jasmine Little, a Los Angeles–based painter who made lush still lifes and etched ceramic vessels dense with historical references, has died at 41. La Loma, her Los Angeles gallery, announced her death on Friday. No cause of death was provided.In a statement, gallery owner Kirk Nelson, who worked with Little since 2019, described her as “a force of nature” and her work as “a reflection ofher essence–at times tender, at times emotional, often naughty, always curious,
  
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• AJ Chronicles: Metropolitan Opera as Poster Child

  21-02-2026 21:36 via artsjournal.com
  My weekly pondering on arts and cultural stories for the week of February 22nd.
  
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• Ashley Stewart Rödder, Senior Director at Gagosian, Dies

  20-02-2026 22:40 via artnews.com
  Ashley Stewart Rödder, a senior director at Gagosian, died earlier this month, the gallery confirmed in an email to ARTnews on Friday. No cause of death was provided.Stewart Rödder had served as a senior director at Gagosian since 2019. She had previously served as director of sales at Salon 94 for four years, as well as a variety of positions at David Zwirner over the course of seven years.In an emailed statement, dealer Larry Gagosian described Rödder as a “fierce advocate
  
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• Ashley Stewart Rödder, Director at Gagosian, Dead at 42: A ‘Fierce Advocate’ for Artists

  20-02-2026 22:40 via artnews.com
  Ashley Stewart Rödder, a director at Gagosian, died earlier this week at the age of 42 after battling a severe illness over the past several years, the gallery told ARTnews in an email Saturday.Stewart Rödder had served as a director at Gagosian since 2019, where she worked closely with artists, most notably Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Stanley Whitney, Titus Kaphar, and Deana Lawson. The gallery said she worked on numerous exhibitions across its locations in New York, Beverly Hills, Paris, L
  
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• Commission of Fine Arts Approves Trump’s Proposed White House Ballroom

  20-02-2026 22:37 via artnews.com
  On Thursday, President Donald Trump came one step closer to building his $400 million White House ballroom, when an arts commission packed with allies approved designs for the project. Bypassing the usual review process—which at this stage of planning would normally have entailed only a preliminary vote—the Commission of Fine Arts gave its final approval of the proposal.The seven-person commission voted six-to-zero in favor of the plans, meaning they will not be subject to further re
  
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• online blackjack in california: a state of play

  20-02-2026 21:03 via zouchmagazine.com
  California’s tech corridors and coastal breezes make it a natural incubator for digital ventures. Still, when it comes to gambling, the state lags behind many of its peers. While the United Kingdom, Malta, and U. S.states such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania have rolled out fully licensed online casino ecosystems, California remains a patchwork of pilot programs and international offerings. Every evening, a handful of seasoned players fire up laptops or phones, hoping to capture the feel of
  
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• A New Spirit Of Choreographic Artistry In Olympic Figure Skating

  20-02-2026 20:50 via dancemagazine.com
  “It seems we’re in a particularly fruitful era of artistic innovation in skating. What’s driving the current wave — and how might it shape the future of the sport? – Dance Magazine
  
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• John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, and Mira Nair Among Cultural Figures Who Signed an Open Letter in Support of Former Barbican Director Devyani Saltzman

  20-02-2026 20:41 via artnews.com
  As of press time, some 250 cultural figures from around the world have signed an open letter in support of Devyani Saltzman, the former director of London’s Barbican Centre. Saltzman left abruptly earlier this week, just a few weeks after Abigail Pogson was appointed chief executive.Notable signatories include artists John Akomfrah and Isaac Julien, filmmaker Mira Nair, curators Mark Sealy and Zoé Whitley, writers Salman Rushdie and Kiran Desai, andSaltzman was named director of art
  
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• The World Shunned The Taliban. So Why Do They Seem To Be Thriving?

  20-02-2026 20:31 via thewalrus.ca
  In January, the Taliban announced a new criminal code that, among other provisions, allows domestic violence and the corporal punishment of children and appears to legitimize slavery through the use of the word “slave.” – The Walrus
  
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• Bard College to Launch ‘Independent Review’ of President’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

  20-02-2026 20:27 via artnews.com
  Bard College has launched an “independent review” of its president’s ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after newly released emails from the Department of Justice revealed close links between the two.The liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, made the announcement in a statement from its board of trustees on Thursday. The board said it had retained the outside law firm WilmerHale to review the email correspondence. The New York Times reporte
  
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• Robert Nichols’s Indelible Railroad Poems Back in Print

  20-02-2026 20:11 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/02/robert-nicholss-indelible-railroad-poems-back-in-print.html" title="Robert Nichols’s Indelible Railroad Poems Back in Print” rel=”nofollow”>Just received a masterly bilingual edition in English and German of “Slow Newsreel of Man Riding Train” by Robert Nichols. It is the latest in Stadtlichter Presse’s bilingual Heartbeats series devoted to American poets of the Beat generation.
  
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