Arts news

• The performance artist fighting class shame with drop scones and dead rats

  09-06-2016 13:51
  
  Catherine Hoffmann is a self-confessed survivor of Britain’s ‘feral underclass’ of the 1970s and 80s. As Stench Wench, she is now stripping half naked and scrabbling in squalor to reclaim a voice for her peersThree minutes into my interview with Catherine Hoffmann, sitting in a cafe in Bow, I notice a thick black hair growing out of my neck. I am horrified. “That’s just what happens,” says Hoffmann, cool as a cucumber. “I’m constantly tweezering, w
  
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• Politics Is Personal in “Turn the Volume Up!,” a Powerful Show of Protest Art at the Nasher Museum

  02-09-2026 22:38 via artnews.com
  
  “Just because an artist is not thinking directly about politics while making a work does not mean they are outside the political context,” said Xuxa Rodríguez, curator of “Turn the Volume Up!,” the newest exhibition at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art. The timely—or timeless—exhibition surveys art’s place in both the great and mundane moments of social justice. While it would not be wholly inaccurate to call it a show of protest art, t
  
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• Politics Is Personal in “Turn the Volume Up!,” a Powerful Show of Protest Art at Duke University’s Nasher Museum

  02-09-2026 22:38 via artnews.com
  
  “Just because an artist is not thinking directly about politics while making a work does not mean they are outside the political context,” said Xuxa Rodríguez, curator of “Turn the Volume Up!,” the newest exhibition at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art. The timely—or timeless—exhibition surveys art’s place in both the great and mundane moments of social justice. While it would not be wholly inaccurate to call it a show of protest art, t
  
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• Kerstin Brätsch Wins the $160,000 Zurich Art Prize

  02-09-2026 21:48 via artnews.com
  
  Kerstin Brätsch, a German-born painter known for vivid, playful abstract paintings and maximalist installations, is the winner of the 2027 Zurich Art Prize. The annual award comes with about $37,000 in prize money and about $123,000 toward production costs of a solo exhibition at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, the prize’s co-sponsor (along with Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.).Brätsch was born in Hamburg, Germany, and studied art in New York and Berlin. She currently teache
  
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• Your Fall Guide: 17 Art World Highlights Not to Miss

  02-09-2026 21:15 via artnews.com
  
  As surveyed in the latest issue of Art in America, see a highly discerning list of things to experience in the art world in the coming months.
  
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• Mildred Howard Wins $25,000 Artist Award, Anonymous Was A Woman Names Environmental Art Grants, and More: Industry Moves for September 2, 2026

  02-09-2026 21:15 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.Industry Moves Mildred Howard Wins Artists’ Legacy Foundation 2026 Artist Award: The Bay Area artist, who is currently the subject of a retrospective Oakland Museum of California, will receive $25,000 from the Oakland-based nonprofit. Created via a bequest from sculptor Viola Frey, the annual
  
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• Dealers Are Betting on the Future of South Korea Despite Measured First-Day Sales at Frieze and Kiaf

  02-09-2026 21:15 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.Though some parts of the art world are still on summer vacation, Asia has already dived into the fall season with an action-packed week in South Korea. Frieze Seoul today kicked off its fifth iteration in partnership with homegrown flagship fair Kiaf Seoul at the COEX convention center in Gangnam distri
  
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• Paul Durand-Ruel’s €43 M. Collection of Monet, Picasso, and Renoir Comes to Christie’s During Paris Art Week

  02-09-2026 20:51 via artnews.com
  
  During Paris Art Week, on October 22 and 23, Christie’s will present a sale dedicated to French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who was instrumental in the careers of Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The sale will feature 62 pieces of work that have remained in his family trust, among them, paintings from Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Pablo Picasso, Eugène Boudin, and Alfred Sisley. It is estimated to bring in €30 million to &euro
  
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• Recent Key Departures at Phillips Point to a Pivot in Strategy

  02-09-2026 20:41 via artnews.com
  
  Last week, ARTnews reported on a number of recent departures at Phillips auction house, including those of chairman of private sales Miety Heiden and chairman for Asia Jonathan Crockett, key members of the executive leadership. We can now additionally report that Joseph Prindle, chief technology officer, and Katherine Thorpe Kerr, global director of client strategy, have also left.In conversations with several people with intimate knowledge of Phillips, past and present, it appears Phillips has
  
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• David Zwirner Will Exhibit Yayoi Kusama’s Final Works Next Spring

  02-09-2026 20:15 via artnews.com
  
  Next April, New York will get one last glimpse into the elusive mind of Yayoi Kusama.David Zwirner announced today an exhibition of work from the final decade of Kusama’s life at its Tribeca space—a period the dealer described to The New York Times as “arguably […] the most extraordinary and successful decade of her career.”Kusama died on August 14 in Tokyo at age 97, leaving behind an iconic oeuvre of abstractions and an art world remade by the rise of her global
  
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• Experimental Sound Artist Ryoji Ikeda Wins 2026 Nam June Paik Prize

  02-09-2026 20:07 via artnews.com
  
  The winner of the ninth Nam June Paik Prize is Japanese visual artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda. The biannual award comes with a ₩50,000,000 ($36,807) purse and a solo exhibition at the Nam June Paik Art Centre in Yongin, South Korea.“I am deeply honored to receive the Nam June Paik Prize. I had the privilege of meeting Nam June Paik in his later years, and his work continues to resonate with the questions behind my own,” Ikeda said in a statement upon receiving the pr
  
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• The Media Reacts to John Galliano’s Canceled Exhibition at the Met Museum

  02-09-2026 19:17 via artnews.com
  
  The canceled John Galliano exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened the media floodgates, with many commentators adding their two cents.In an op-ed for the New York Times, fashion critic Robin Givhan commented that the “exhibition should not have been canceled. Instead, the Met Gala should have been canceled.” She argued that the work of museums is to face these difficult subjects and that the Galliano exhibition “could help us make sense of other co
  
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• Joel Shapiro Would Have Been ‘Alarmed’ by Removal of Sculpture from Kennedy Center, Family Says

  02-09-2026 18:01 via artnews.com
  
  A monumental Joel Shapiro sculpture is being removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump moves to take control of the space.The sculpture, titled Blue, is one of many works by Shapiro to depict the human form using the spare language of Minimalism. In an Art in America profile of Shapiro published around the time of the artist’s death last year, Max Norman wrote that the artist’s figures appear “gracefully frozen in a gra
  
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• Venice Biennale President Stands by Decision to Host Russian Pavilion: ‘I’d Do It All Over Again’

  02-09-2026 17:29 via artnews.com
  
  Venice Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said this week that he had no qualms about hosting the Russian Pavilion for the first time since the onset of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.“The Biennale is independent; I’d do it all over again for the Russian pavilion,” Buttafuoco told the Italian publication Corriere della Sera in a candid interview that touched on his politics and his views on how the Biennale should function with regard to geopolitics. “With
  
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• David Nolan Gallery Moves from Upper East Side to Bigger Space in Tribeca

  02-09-2026 16:32 via artnews.com
  
  Striking a defiant tone at a time when the future of the gallery ecosystem remains unknown, David Nolan announced a move for his namesake gallery from New York’s Upper East Side to a bigger space in Tribeca.“At a time when the art world is contracting, in my usual subversive fashion, I wanted to place a bet on the industry and show my confidence in my artists and long-time collectors, along with expanding our collaborations with other galleries outside the U.S.,” Nolan said in
  
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• Serpentine’s Inaugural Fellowship Bridges the Gap Between Art and AI

  02-09-2026 15:23 via artnews.com
  
  The Serpentine’s artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist called 2024 the “Year of AI” in an interview with ARTnews. Now, the gallery is diving further into technology by launching the Future Art Ecosystems R&D Fellowship.The program picked four international applicants out of nearly 1,000 for a six-month fellowship commencing this month in London along with a cash prize of £10,000 ($13,480) each. The chosen applicants are artists Alice Bucknell from the United States, Al
  
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• Untitled Art, Miami Beach Names 166 Exhibitors for 2026 Edition 

  02-09-2026 15:00 via artnews.com
  
  The Untitled, Art Miami Beach fair has revealed the exhibitor list for its 15th edition, bringing together 166 galleries and nonprofit organizations from 36 countries and territories. Taking place December 2–December 5, 2026, the fair will be organized into five sectors, including the main galleries sector as well as a section for nonprofits, an artist spotlight section curated by Mexico City dealer Agustina Ferreyra, one for special projects overseen by Brussels dealer Damîen Dakota
  
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• Kennedy Center to Remove ‘Blue’ Landmark Sculpture, Bonhams Bumps Buyer’s Premium, and More: Morning Links for September 2, 2026

  02-09-2026 14:48 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good Morning!
  The Kennedy Center is removing its massive landmark sculpture, titled “Blue,” by the late artist Joel Shapiro.Bonhams is bumping its buyer’s premium up to 30 percent from 28 percent for bids of £25,000 ($33,700) or less. The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in San Diego is facing a financial crisis, and employees
  
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• Beryl Cook takes Bicester – and beyond

  02-09-2026 12:00 via ft.com
  The artist’s fabulously saucy heroines have arrived at the luxury shopping destination. Next they’re off to the Tate
  
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• The modern face of the debutante ball

  02-09-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  African American communities have developed their own cotillion traditions
  
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• Poet Arch Hades: ‘I don’t have to share a space with another human being’

  02-09-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  In the Channel Islands, the painter and sculptor is free to mix two favourite aesthetics — Snow White’s cottage and Cologne Cathedral — with no one to judge
  
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• La Scala has made its streaming free

  02-09-2026 00:50 via artsjournal.com
  Good Morning,Silicon Valley has discovered the theatre — not as a patron but as a training ground, with founders and engineers filing into improv classes to learn a skill that refuses to scale (The New York Times).
  Listeners can’t reliably tell AI-made music from the human kind, and largely don’t care once they’re told (Washington Post).
  Edinburgh’s Fringe sold 2.8 million tickets, back within sight of pre-pandemic numbers (Yahoo) — finally. AMC — an exh
  
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• UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham Reverses Call for British Museum to Return Parthenon Marbles

  01-09-2026 23:42 via artnews.com
  
  UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office in July, has reversed his previous calls for the British Museum in London to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, the Financial Times reports.Burnham had as early as 2002 said he supported the Parthenon marbles’ return to Greece, reupping that statement as recently as 2023. At the time, he added that their return should be “no strings attached.”However, when asked by the FT in an interview last month about his current stance on
  
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• In the Face of European Colonization, Aboriginal Artists Created Images of Powerful Beings, Study Finds

  01-09-2026 23:07 via artnews.com
  
  In the face of European colonization, Aboriginal artists created images of powerful ancestral beings, a new study has found. The results of the eight-year study, led by Paul Taçon, an archaeologist at Griffith University, were published online by the journal Australian Archaeology August 14.Awunbarna is a landmark located in the northwestern region of Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory. The area, which is owned by the Aboriginal Amurdak people, is renowned for its Aborigi
  
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• Art Gallery of Ontario Director Stephan Jost to Depart After a Decade

  01-09-2026 21:57 via artnews.com
  
  Stephan Jost, the director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario, will leave his posts at the end of the year, the Toronto museum announced on Tuesday.Within the Canadian art scene, Jost’s leadership has been polarizing. He has drawn praise for making a significant investment in modern and contemporary art at the AGO, which acquired a range of important artworks in that area, including 450 works by Diane Arbus, 200 works by Peter Hujar, and 227 works by Hiroshi Sugimoto. In 2027, the museu
  
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• ICE Unit Says It Seized 22,000 Ancient Artifacts in Florida

  01-09-2026 21:47 via artnews.com
  
  The Homeland Security Investigations unit of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said it seized more than 22,000 ancient artifacts in Florida as part of a smuggling inquest that counts “among the largest in the agency’s history,” according to a press release.“The identification and authentication process for the large number of items will take time,” the release reads, “but preliminary evaluations indicate that some objects may have origina
  
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• Christie’s London Offers a Restituted Kandinsky, Long Displayed in a German Museum, for $30 M.

  01-09-2026 21:46 via artnews.com
  
  A Wassily Kandinsky painting left behind by a Dutch family fleeing the Nazi occupation and later on view for decades in a German museum will come to the auction block at Christie’s London on October 14, during Frieze week. Estimated in excess of $30 million, Das bunte Leben (The Colorful Life, 1907) was restituted to the heirs of Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann in 2023 after a six-year legal battle. Measuring just over four feet high and five feet wide, it was Kandinsky’s largest ca
  
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• Today in Great Jobs: Casting Director Who Chooses The Series Of Actors Starring In “Oh, Mary!”

  01-09-2026 21:02 via npr.org
  
  Henry Russell Bergstein: “I think all these performers that we’ve had play the role are very different. But at heart, they have a sort of … I don’t know if the word wacky and access to wackiness is the right thing, but they also all have incredible acting chops.” – NPR
  
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• How Our Gamification Culture Kills The Spirit Of Play

  01-09-2026 20:31 via aeon.co
  The entire architecture of digital life – with its algorithmic feeds, frictionless production and the ambient expectation that we should be consuming or optimising at all times – nudges us towards chasing outputs rather than generating meaning. – Aeon
  
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• Camille Henrot Will Show 12 Dog Sculptures in Central Park This Fall

  01-09-2026 20:22 via artnews.com
  
  Dog-watching, already one of Central Park’s top attractions, is about to get a little more enticing. This fall, the Paris-born, New York–based artist Camille Henrot will install 12 large-scale dog sculptures in Doris C. Freedman Plaza, a very visible spot at the southwest corner of the New York park. The Public Art Fund project will be on view for a full year, from September 9 through August 29, 2027.Henrot’s “Dogs” will be made of bronze, stone, steel, and concrete
  
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