Arts news

• The Tiny Archipelago Whose Only Export Is Music

  05-05-2016 22:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “When we became independent, all we had was people. Today, all we export is music, maybe because it was always the easiest art. You don’t need any material to sing.”
  
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• Christie’s Nabs $450 M. S.I. Newhouse Cache, Led by Pollock, Picasso, and Brancusi Masterworks

  06-03-2026 21:13 via artnews.com
  Treasures priced at $100 million by 20th-century masters Jackson Pollock and Constantin Brancusi will lead Christie’s New York’s marquee May art sales, coming from the collection of media magnate S. I. Newhouse, Artnet News has revealed. While Christie’s has yet to confirm Artnet’s report, those two estimates, if met, would far exceed those artists’ current auction highs. Numbering as many as 40 works, the collection encompasses examples by giants like Jasper Johns
  
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• Pedro Friedeberg, Surrealist Artist Who Designed the Iconic Hand-Chair, Dies at 90

  06-03-2026 20:53 via artnews.com
  Pedro Friedeberg, an artist affiliated with the Mexican offshoot of the Surrealist movement and who is now best known for his absurdist designs, including the iconic Hand-Chair, died on Thursday in San Miguel de Allende. He was 90, according to his New York gallery, Ruiz-Healy Art.Friedeberg’s diverse practice included paintings dense with dreamy imagery and design objects that looked like body parts and animals. Though commonly labeled a Surrealist, he bristled against being associated wi
  
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• Now in Its 45th Edition, Arco Madrid Follows Its Own Measured Tempo

  06-03-2026 20:46 via artnews.com
  The 45th edition of Arco Madrid, which runs until Sunday, March 8, opened under an unseasonably cloudy Madrileño sky—an atmospheric departure for a fair more often associated with early spring brightness. Inside IFEMA Madrid, the city’s sprawling exhibition and convention complex, a second surprise awaited.Despite bringing together 211 galleries from 30 countries, the fair floor did not immediately hum with its usual intensity. At the entrance to the first booth
  
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• Lebanese Ministry of Culture Urges UNESCO to Grant Enhanced Protections to Cultural Property

  06-03-2026 20:25 via artnews.com
  Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture has appealed to UNESCO to provide additional protection for the nation’s cultural heritage as the U.S.–Israel–Iran conflict spills into its southern borders.According to a ministry statement on Wednesday, Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé spoke by phone with Khaled El-Enany, director-general of UNESCO, urging the United Nations agency to intervene on Lebanon’s behalf.The minister reportedly told El-Enany: “In light of the cur
  
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• Christie’s Triple-Header 20th and 21st Century Evening Sales Nets $265 M., as London Proves It’s Still a Draw to Collectors

  06-03-2026 19:16 via artnews.com
  This week has shown that there’s still a lot of money sloshing around London’s art market; Christie’s three-pronged 21st/20th century evening sale on Thursday took £197.5 million ($265 million), one day after Sotheby’s modern and contemporary auction brought £131 million ($175 million).The result marked a 52 percent increase on the house’s equivalent sale last year, achieving a 96 percen sell-through rate by lot and 98 percent by value. There were also n
  
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• Bauhaus Buildings at UNESCO World Heritage Site Damaged in Tel Aviv by Iranian Missile Strike

  06-03-2026 18:41 via artnews.com
  Two buildings that are part a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the White City of Tel Aviv were damaged this week during the ongoing missile strikes between Iran and the US and Israel. The Times of Israel first reported on the damage of one of these buildings.The White City is a complex of 4,000 buildings done in the Bauhaus style that were completed by German Jewish architects who fled to the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s. Constructed between the ’30s and the ’50s, the
  
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• Zanele Muholi, South African ‘Visual Activist,’ Wins the World’s Top Photography Prize

  06-03-2026 18:37 via artnews.com
  Zanele Muholi, an acclaimed photographer and activist whose work celebrates the queer Black experience in South Africa and beyond, has won the Hasselblad Award, the world’s leading photography prize, which carries a cash award of SEK 2,000,000 (approximately $218,000).As part of the award, Muholi will receive a solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden, along with an accompanying publication. The exhibition opens on October 10 and remains on view through April 24, 2027
  
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• Russian Archaeologist Arrested in Poland Amid Ukraine Probe Into Crimean Excavations

  06-03-2026 18:32 via artnews.com
  A senior archaeologist at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has been arrested in Poland at the request of Ukrainian authorities, according to The Art Newspaper, who are seeking his extradition over alleged illegal excavations carried out in Crimea.Alexander Butyagin, who heads the Hermitage’s department focused on ancient archaeology of the northern Black Sea region, was detained in Poland in December 2025 while traveling in Europe for a lecture tour. A Warsaw appeals court uphe
  
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• Sculpture in Rome Reattributed to Michelangelo, Who May Have Also Painted a Work Analyzed in Belgium

  06-03-2026 18:28 via artnews.com
  A marble bust in a Roman basilica was attributed to Michelangelo nearly 200 years after it was last associated with the Renaissance master.The sculpture of Jesus Christ in the Basilica of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura had been attributed to Michelangelo until the early 19th century, after which its origins were thought to have come from other hands. But as reported by Reuters, “Italian independent researcher Valentina Salerno—a member of the Vatican committee for the celebrations m
  
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• San Francisco and De Young Museum Hit With Sexual Harassment Lawsuit, Alleging ‘Outrageous Conduct’

  06-03-2026 18:14 via artnews.com
  In a complaint filed February 20 in San Francisco Superior Court, a security guard at the De Young Museum in San Francisco alleges sexual harassment and retaliation. The complaint names the city and county of San Francisco, the Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums (which operates the De Young and the Legion of Honor), and Patrick Smithwick, who supervises the plaintiff and other guards. It alleges gender-based harassment, sexual harassment, failure to prevent harassment, and retaliation for
  
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• Strikes Damage UNESCO Sites in Israel and Iran, Cologne Cathedral to Charge Tourists Entry: Morning Links for March 6, 2026

  06-03-2026 17:38 via artnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesHERITAGE STRIKES. Amid the escalating Middle East war, UNESCO World Heritage buildings in Tel Aviv’s White City district have been damaged by Iranian missile strikes, which killed one woman and injured many, reports the Art Newspaper. The buildings were built between 1935 and 1937 as part of an urban plan in the Bauhaus architectural s
  
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• Christie’s Unveils New Rostrum by Jony Ive, Apple’s Former Chief Design Officer

  06-03-2026 17:35 via artnews.com
  Jony Ive is arguably the world’s most well-known product designer, famed for all the iMacs, iPods, iPhones, and Apple Watches he conceived during his nearly three-decade tenure with Apple Inc. Now, he can claim one major contribution to the art world as well.Christie’s tapped LoveFrom, the design collective Ive founded with Marc Newson in 2019 soon after he left Apple, to design a new rostrum for the auction house. This sleek object, made of oak sourced from the same French forest th
  
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• UK Government Looks to Allow AI Firms to Use Copyright-Protected without Owner’s Consent, Drawing Ire from Artists

  06-03-2026 17:00 via artnews.com
  Just days after the US Supreme Court said it would not reconsider whether art generated by artificial intelligence can receive copyright protection, the UK has looked set to make its own major decision on AI and copyright.For the past two months, the UK government has been consulting on a legal overhaul of its intellectual property laws, with a particular focus on AI. An economic impact assessment, along with an update on the consultation, is due on March 18, with final results to follow sometim
  
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• Cosima von Bonin Sculpts Plush Whales and Clams for Loewe Runway Show

  06-03-2026 16:38 via artnews.com
  Loewe cultivated a reputation for collaborating with cutting-edge contemporary artists under creative director Jonathan Anderson, who exited the fashion house for Dior last year. But based on Loewe’s Fall Winter 2026 collection debut during Paris Fashion Week on Friday, those collaborations appear to remain a core part of Loewe’s ethos.Sculptor Cosima von Bonin was the artist of choice this time around. Alongside designs by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, the show featured plus
  
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• A Tracey Emin Retrospective Asks If We Expect Too Much from Women Artists

  06-03-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  “I’m starting to think I am a really boring artist,” admits Tracey Emin in the catalog accompanying her retrospective at the Tate Modern. It’s quite the reflection from a woman who made her name on shock value. Her 1998 self-portrait-cum-performance-cum-sculpture My Bed—her actual, slept-in bed covered in the detritus of her life—shook the art world with its confronting vulnerability and unspoken violence. Now, Emin’s works are no longer made of discarde
  
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• Carol Bove’s Gripping Guggenheim Retrospective Transcends Time and Space

  05-03-2026 23:20 via artnews.com
  Lionel Ziprin’s unlikely rediscovery really got going with a walk-in safe in Carol Bove’s Brooklyn studio. It was a big safe, and an old one—Bove initially had to use a car jack to pry open its metal door—and it became the unlikely home for all things related to Ziprin, a doyen of the Lower East Side art scene of the 1950s and ’60s who was all but forgotten in the intervening decades.After Bove came into possession of Ziprin’s poetry and drawings via his daugh
  
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• The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston Solves a Big Mystery (But Not That One)

  05-03-2026 22:26 via artnews.com
  The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, vexed for decades by one of the art world’s most dramatic mysteries, cracked a case of less but still some significance when conservators identified the original fabric for a set of chairs in need of restoration in the museum’s Dutch Room—the site of the greatest art heist of all time.That mystery derives from the still unsolved case of three invaluable paintings—by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Manet—that were stolen by thieves who br
  
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• Sprüth Magers Removes AI-Assisted David Salle Painting Amid Copyright Controversy

  05-03-2026 22:01 via artnews.com
  A painting in David Salle’s new exhibition at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles has been removed from view after critics questioned whether the painter copied another artist’s work.Salle’s painting, Hatchet (2025), features as its primary subject a woman in a black-and-white dress—her face cropped by the edge of the canvas—brandishing a sledgehammer. The exhibition, titled “My Frankenstein,” opened on February 24,
  
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• Trump’s White House Ballroom Proposal Faces Preservation Concerns Ahead of Federal Vote

  05-03-2026 21:42 via artnews.com
  A federal planning commission is set to vote Thursday on President Donald Trump’s proposal to build a massive ballroom at the White House, a plan critics say would dramatically alter the scale and historic layout of the presidential residence.The National Capital Planning Commission will consider the proposal for a roughly 90,000-square-foot addition to the White House complex, including a 22,000-square-foot ballroom designed to host as many as 1,000 guests. The project has already receive
  
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• Where Did the IMLS’s Funding for Museums and Libraries Go? Into Trump’s ‘Freedom Truck’ Road Show, It Seems 

  05-03-2026 20:49 via artnews.com
  Have you always wished that you could visit a museum devoted to U.S. history, like maybe the one at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., but wished that rather than a brick-and-mortar museum in the nation’s capital, it could be on a tractor trailer in, say, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, or Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania?Well, the Trump administration is making those dreams come true with a fleet of six “Freedom Trucks”—mobile museums that will travel the nation through
  
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• The Aztec Dancers Of Silicon Valley

  05-03-2026 20:06 via mercurynews.com
  “Calpulli Ocelocihuatl (is) one of roughly half-a-dozen Aztec dance groups active in San Jose. Other Aztec dance groups – some whose histories stretch back more than half a century — are also thriving along the West Coast, from Washington state down to Sacramento, Oakland, Salinas and San Diego.” – The Mercury News (San Jose)
  
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• $7.6 M. Grant from William Penn Foundation Will Support Low-Income and Disabled Museum-Goers in Philadelphia

  05-03-2026 19:56 via artnews.com
  Earlier this week, the William Penn Foundation announced a slew of grants, totally $7.6 million, that will support access to museums for low-income families and people with disabilities.The grants apply to six specific organizations based on the number of ACCESS visitors each received during the 2024-25 fiscal year. (The ACCESS card allows people who receive public assistance or identify as having a disability to receive heavily discounted tickets to participating cultural institutions, of which
  
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• Why Dictionaries Still Matter

  05-03-2026 19:44 via thenation.com
  The book is formal and highly structured; it seems like something from another, vaguely bygone time. Still, dictionary editors have long paid close attention to how language is used and perused—in signs, in novels, in articles and pronouncements, and lately on the Web. – The Nation
  
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• Our Culture Of Insurance Is Breaking Down

  05-03-2026 19:12 via aeon.co
  What emerged in tandem with the growth of capitalism was a system in which insurance and investment were bound together until it became integral to the economic system, seen as essential in protecting investments. This is why today you can’t get a mortgage without it. – Aeon
  
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• The British Museum Employee Who Stole More Than 300 Prints

  05-03-2026 19:04 via the-independent.com
  “Nigel Peverett, who worked at the museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings in the early 1970s, had remained a ‘frequent visitor’ until one day in April 1992, when he was caught.” He was prosecuted, hospitalized after a suicide attempt, and got a suspended sentence. Amazingly, he kept his employee pension. – The Independent (UK)
  
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• Looking Back at NYC with Nostalgia and Dismay

  05-03-2026 18:59 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/03/looking-back-at-nyc-with-nostalgia-and-dismay.html" title="Looking Back at NYC with Nostalgia and Dismay” rel=”nofollow”>In a newly recorded video, the noted writers Elisabeth Bronfen, Maaza Mengiste, and Christoph Keller look back at their experience of New York City with nostalgic affection — and, it must be said, with considerable dismay — from their vantage points in Switzerland and Germany.
  
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• Russia Returns To Exhibiting At The Venice Biennale

  05-03-2026 18:44 via nytimes.com
  Russia will host a pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, the world’s most important art event — the latest sign of the country’s will to end its pariah status in global cultural and sporting life amid the war in Ukraine. – The New York Times
  
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• How We Can Shape Our Dreams

  05-03-2026 18:31 via thewalrus.ca
  Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI) uses external stimuli to connect with a dreamer and encourage them to focus on a particular topic or theme. – The Walrus
  
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• Exiled Belarussian Theatre Brings Dissident Work To Venice Biennale

  05-03-2026 18:16 via news.artnet.com
  The exhibition, titled “Official. Unofficial. Belarus.,” is a group show presenting work by Belarusian artists who works challenge the long-standing authoritative regime in their native country. – Artnet
  
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