Arts news

• Visitor Figures 2016

  28-03-2017 23:00
  The grand totals: exhibition and museum attendance numbers worldwide
  
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• $1 M. Jack Whitten Painting Leads Steady Sales at San Francisco’s FOG Design+Art

  22-01-2026 23:57 via artnews.com
  At the FOG Design+Art, a San Francisco art fair set across two piers at the Fort Mason Center, the tone for opening night on Thursday was set by what takes place the event’s environs. There, one can find a slew of valet drivers in white dinner jackets; they’ve returned from picking up cars belonging to VIPs. Inside, drinks flowed, and stationed hors d’oeuvres—including sushi rolls, dim sum, yuzu-glaze salmon over beet couscous, and more—could be found.This glitzy pr
  
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• Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Names Kristen Shepherd as New President and CEO

  22-01-2026 21:31 via artnews.com
  The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced Thursday that it has named Kristen Shepherd as its new president and CEO. Shepherd will start in the role on February 9.Shepherd, 54, previously served as executive director and CEO at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida for five and a half years. She also held leadership positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum in New York, and Sotheby’s in New York and London. She has also served as a consulta
  
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• ICA San Francisco to Stage Major Public Art Commission by Jeffrey Gibson For Super Bowl LX

  22-01-2026 20:23 via artnews.com
  While the San Francisco 49ers may have blown their chance at a hometown Super Bowl win, that hasn’t stopped the Bay Area from getting into the festivities. On Thursday, the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco announced that it will stage a major new public art commission by Jeffrey Gibson.The work—an adaptation of Gibson’s 2022 video installation THIS BURNING WORLD—will be installed on the façade of the former Bloomingdale’s building at San Francisco
  
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• New Imaging Technology Revels Spicy, 2,000-Year-Old Graffiti Along Pompeii Passageway

  22-01-2026 20:10 via artnews.com
  Researchers at the Pompeii Archaeological Park have utilized cutting-edge imaging technology to decipher centuries-old graffiti—both textual and figurative, some of it quite spicy!—written on the walls of a theater district corridor in the ancient city. The project, called Bruits de coulous (Rumors) was initiated by a team from the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Québec in Montreal during two field campaigns, in 2022 and 2025.The goal of the project is to “restor
  
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• Walker Art Center Will Close Tomorrow in Support of Minneapolis ICE Protest

  22-01-2026 20:00 via artnews.com
  The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will close Friday, January 23, during the Day of Truth and Freedom protest, a state-wide action organized in response to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in Minnesota communities. Organizers of the action, led by local labor unions and community organizations, have asked Minnesotans to mount a general strike by not working, spending money, or going to school on the day of the protest.The Walker is the largest organization so far to announ
  
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• Leonardo da Vinci Mural Will Be On View in Milan During Olympics

  22-01-2026 19:51 via artnews.com
  When the Winter Olympics begin in Italy next month, a mural by Leonardo da Vinci in the midst of restoration will go on view for five weeks staring February 7. That means visitors to Milan not preoccupied with sports like figure-skating and luge can set their eyes on an unfinished painting on the ceiling and a wall of Sforza Castle by a master for the ages.As reported by Artnet News, “Visitors will be allowed to climb the towering 20-foot scaffold inside the castle’s Sala delle Asse
  
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• Travesía Cuatro Takes on Virginia Chihota, Baltimore Museum Fellowship Awardees, and More

  22-01-2026 18:47 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 Thursday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week.Industry MovesSaâdane Afif Joins Esther Schipper: Afif, who is currently having a show at the Hamburger Bahnhof, will continue to work with Mehdi Chouakri, a Berlin-based gallery that recently
  
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• Travesía Cuatro Takes on Virginia Chihota, Baltimore Museum Fellowship Awardees, and More: Industry Moves for January 22, 2026

  22-01-2026 18:47 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 Thursday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week.Saâdane Afif Joins Esther Schipper: Afif, who is currently having a show at the Hamburger Bahnhof, will continue to work with Mehdi Chouakri, a Berlin-based gallery that recently announced pla
  
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• Lorena Levi, Rising Artist Who Painted ‘Narrative Portraiture,’ Dies at 29

  22-01-2026 18:42 via artnews.com
  Lorena Levi, an artist whose portraits painted on wood gained her fast-growing momentum in the UK, died on January 8 at 29. Her death was announced this week via her Instagram, which said she had battled pancreatic cancer.Levi rose quickly over the past few years, staging a show in Milan with M+B, a well-regarded gallery based in Los Angeles, and taking part in the V.O. Curations program, which has offered artists ranging from Emma Prempeh to Cajsa von Zeipel studio spaces in London. Shortly bef
  
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• Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy review – a saucy parade of bouncing bosoms, smirky smokers and a spot of BDSM

  22-01-2026 18:38
  The Box, PlymouthRoof-felters, bawdy boozers, off-duty sailors, whip-wielding dominatrixes … this 100th birthday show in Cook’s home town is an exuberant celebration of working-class frivolityGenerally, you get two versions of England in art: it’s either bucolic vistas, rolling hills, babbling brooks and gambolling sheep – or it’s downtrodden, browbeaten, grim poverty and misery. But Beryl Cook saw something else in all the drizzle and grey of this damp old country
  
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• Researchers Have Found the World’s Oldest Known Rock Art in Indonesia, Dating Back 67,800 Years

  22-01-2026 18:07 via artnews.com
  Less than two years after discovering a 51,200-year-old cave painting of a pig on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, in what was then declared the oldest known figurative artwork, the same researchers have discovered an even older work.The newly dated work, located on the southeastern peninsula of Sulawesi, is a hand stencil dating to 67,800 years ago. Little of the work remains: it exists now as “only a 14 × 10 cm patch of faded pigment bearing a portion of the
  
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• The Tate Has a Frida Kahlo Problem

  22-01-2026 17:53 via artnews.com
  Curators at Tate Modern are finding that Frida Kahlo’s global popularity now comes with a practical drawback: it has become harder to borrow her paintings.The museum’s forthcoming exhibition, Frida: The Making of an Icon, opening in June, will include 36 works by the Mexican artist, fewer than the more than the 50 shown during Tate Modern’s last major Kahlo exhibition in 2005, according to reporting by The Independent. The reduced number reflects the growing scar
  
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• Tate Faces Trouble Securing Frida Kahlo Masterpieces for Summer Blockbuster

  22-01-2026 17:53 via artnews.com
  Curators at Tate Modern are finding that Frida Kahlo’s global popularity now comes with a practical drawback: it has become harder to borrow her paintings.The museum’s forthcoming exhibition, Frida: The Making of an Icon, opening in June, will include 36 works by the Mexican artist, fewer than the more than the 50 shown during Tate Modern’s last major Kahlo exhibition in 2005, according to reporting by the Times of London. (The show premieres at the Museum of Fine Art
  
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• Art Gallery of Ontario Nixed Nan Goldin Acquisition Because of Her Comments on Israel’s War in Gaza

  22-01-2026 17:49 via artnews.com
  The Art Gallery of Ontario, one of Canada’s most internationally well-regarded museums, chose not to acquire a piece by Nan Goldin because of the artist’s comments on Israel’s war in Gaza, according to a report published by the Globe and Mail on Wednesday.The work, a 2024 video called Stendhal Syndrome, was to be acquired in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Drawn from 35mm slides that show blurred images of semi-nude figures a
  
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• Short Film by Artist Alexandre Singh and Art Historian Natalie Musteata Nominated for an Oscar

  22-01-2026 17:45 via artnews.com
  Two People Exchanging Saliva, a black-and-white film written and directed by Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata, has been nominated for an Academy Award in the live action short film category.The 36-minute film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this year, and has been making the festival rounds this fall and winter, winning various prizes and honors, including also being shortlisted for a 2026 César Award, often referred to as a “French Oscar.” The film is bei
  
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• Nahmad Contemporary to Stage Picasso Exhibition in Collaboration with Supermodel Naomi Campbell 

  22-01-2026 17:44 via artnews.com
  Nahmad Contemporary will mount an exhibition titled “Picasso | Painter and Model, Reflections by Naomi Campbell” next month at its exhibition space in Gstaad, Switzerland.The exhibition, which runs February 14–March 15, focuses on Pablo Picasso’s late series “Le Peintre et son modèle” (The Painter and his model), and will feature 14 works produced between 1963 and 1965. Several of the works on view have been previously exhibited in Picasso exhibitions a
  
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• How Beverly Buchanan Crafted Her Own Economy of Exchange

  22-01-2026 17:44 via artnews.com
  For the 20-plus years she lived in Athens, Georgia, Beverly Buchanan paid for everyday needs with artworks. Or some of them, at least.A calendar with 12 hand-drawn self-portraits that she traded with her doctor, Dr. Stephen Lucas, opens “Beverly’s Athens,” a show on view at the University of Georgia’s Athenaeum through March 21. After visits, she’d pay him not with cash or co-pays but with art. They made the exchanges in the parking lot, as if illicitly.Dr. Lucas le
  
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• How NADA Is Building the Next Generation of Collectors Through a Series of Salons

  22-01-2026 16:26 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.There are obvious hurdles to becoming an art collector, chief among them money and space. But then there are the less obvious ones, and chief among these is the intimidation factor: Contemporary art, and the galleries that show it, can seem scary or snooty or both, and a lot of people just don’t f
  
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• UK Government Spends Big on Arts Sector, Creative Time Appoints Jean Cooney As Executive Director: Morning Links for January 22, 2026

  22-01-2026 15:06 via artnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The Headlines UK ART INJECTION. London-based national museums must do more to serve audiences across the UK, culture secretary Lisa Nandy said on Wednesday as she announced a £1.5 billion funding package for the arts, described as the biggest reset for the sector in a generation. The Guardian reported that while institutions such as the British Museum a
  
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• Creative Time Appoints Jean Cooney As Executive Director

  22-01-2026 15:00 via artnews.com
  Creative Time, a New York-based arts nonprofit known for commissioning and presenting large-scale public art projects, has appointed Jean Cooney as its executive director, the organization announced Thursday.Cooney has served as vice president of arts and culture for the Times Square Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes the major tourist destination, and as director of Times Square Arts since 2019. Prior to that, she spent seven years at Creative Time in various roles, culminating in deputy direc
  
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• Vienna to Temporarily Close Composer Museums Amid Culture Budget Cuts

  22-01-2026 12:39 via artnews.com
  Austria’s capital Vienna will temporarily close several museums dedicated to famous composers this year as part of city-wide budget cuts, officials announced on Wednesday. The closures affect sites including the apartment where Franz Schubert died, the residence of Johann Strauss, and Joseph Haydn’s former home. Schubert’s birthplace will also close for a redesign ahead of the 200th anniversary of his death in 2028.Matti Bunzl, head of the Wien Museum, which oversees several of
  
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• UK Announces £1.5 B. Arts Funding Package to Expand Access Beyond London

  22-01-2026 12:24 via artnews.com
  London museums are being urged to extend their reach across the country, as culture secretary Lisa Nandy announced a landmark £1.5 billion funding package for the arts on Wednesday. National institutions, including the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, will receive £600 million, but Nandy emphasized that the investment comes with a responsibility to engage audiences outside the capital.“Almost all of our national institutions are based in London, which means the
  
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• Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra seeks Vice President, Marketing and PR

  21-01-2026 22:26 via artsjournal.com
  Aspen Leadership Group is proud to partner with Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in the search for a Vice President, Marketing and PR.Reporting to the President & CEO, the Vice President, Marketing and PR will lead the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s storytelling and audience-development strategy, with responsibility for marketing and selling approximately $3 million in annual ticket revenue across a broad and dynamic portfolio of programs. This includes the Symphonic and Pops subscripti
  
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• Painter Amy Sherald Signs with Talent Agency CAA

  21-01-2026 22:15 via artnews.com
  Amy Sherald, a painter renowned for her tender portraits of Black American life, has signed with talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CCA), marking the latest high-profile crossover between the art world and Hollywood. Sherald rose to national fame in 2018 after being commissioned by former First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, D.C. The work depicts Obama in grayscale, posed against a pale blue background with her c
  
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• Bonhams Posts $970 M. in 2025 Sales as It Tries to Turn the Page

  21-01-2026 22:07 via artnews.com
  Bonhams ended 2025 with $970 million in global sales, a headline number that, in another year, might have been received as unambiguously good news. Instead, it arrives trailing a thicket of context: a widely circulated Financial Times report on a £213 million pre-tax loss, a change in ownership, and renewed scrutiny of how auction houses account for downturns during a softening market.Still, the topline result marks one of the strongest sales performances in Bonhams’s
  
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• Frank Lloyd Wright House in Chicago for Sale for $350,000—Or Is It?

  21-01-2026 21:29 via artnews.com
  A Frank Lloyd Wright house in dire need of restoration has been reported to be up for sale with an asking price of $350,000, after the property was supposedly put on the market by the Federal National Mortgage Associate—best known as Fannie Mae—as part of a court ordered-sale following foreclosure in December.As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, “The development potentially represents the best shot in more than a generation to revive the landmark two-story stucco home at 42 N.
  
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• Sally Tallant Departs Queens Museum to Lead London’s Hayward Gallery

  21-01-2026 21:26 via artnews.com
  The Southbank Centre has named Sally Tallant the new director of the Hayward Gallery, a role she will begin in July. She is replacing the Hayward’s longtime director Ralph Rugoff, who recently announced his resignation after 20 years at the helm.As part of her new position, Tallant will also oversee visual art installations at other institutions that make up the Southbank Centre, a cultural hub along the Thames River in London. In additional to the Hayward Gallery, which focuses on contemp
  
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• A Labor Economist Looks At Opera And Says It Isn’t Dying (But Its Business Model Might Be)

  21-01-2026 21:02 via theconversation.com
  Christos Makridis of Arizona State University: “I found the public’s demand for meaningful, live cultural experiences — including opera — remains strong. … (But) few opera companies have embraced strategies the rest of the entertainment industry regularly uses: audience data analysis, experimentation with digital content and streaming, engagement through online platforms rather than brochures.” – The Conversation
  
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• San Francisco Ballet And “Anticipatory Obedience”

  21-01-2026 20:31 via sfchronicle.com
  Trot out the national anthem, the flag or a John Philip Sousa march, they believe, and it’s like a free exclamation mark to whatever point they’re trying to make: “Ha! See? The stars and stripes are on my side!” – San Francisco Chronicle
  
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