Arts news

• 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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• Frieze Abu Dhabi Lines Up 84 Galleries for Inaugural Edition in November

  27-08-2026 09:00 via artnews.com
  
  Frieze Abu Dhabi announced today the 84 exhibitors who will participate in its inaugural edition, scheduled to run November 19–22 at Manarat Al Saadiyat, in the city’s Saadiyat Cultural District.The fair will bring together galleries from 63 cities in 36 countries, including 36 galleries (around 43 percent) with locations in the SWANA region. They include Carbon 12 (of Dubai), The Third Line (Dubai), Dastan (Tehran and Toronto), Gypsum (Cairo), Loft Art Gallery (Casablanca and Morocc
  
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• Yayoi Kusama, Avant-Garde Artist Who Pursued Infinity, Has Died at 97

  27-08-2026 05:30 via artnews.com
  
  Yayoi Kusama, whose obsessive repetitions of dots and nets became a means of expressing infinity, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary art worldwide, died on August 14 of multiple organ failure at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 97. Her death was reported on Thursday by Kyodo News and later confirmed by her David Zwirner Gallery, her longtime representation.“It’s been one of the great privileges of my professional life to have been able to represent Yayoi Kusama’s extraordina
  
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• Dartmouth’s Hood Museum Taps Whitney Museum Chief Curator Kim Contay to Be Next Director

  27-08-2026 01:15 via artnews.com
  
  The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College has named Kim Conaty, the chief curator of the Whitney Museum in New York as its next director. She will begin in the role on October 27.Contay has spent nearly a decade at the Whitney, joining in 2017 as curator of drawings and prints. She was promoted to chief curator in 2024. During her tenure at the museum, she organized exhibitions on Edward Hopper, Mary Corse, and Ruth Asawa. Contay becomes the eighth director to assume the top position and succe
  
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• Dartmouth’s Hood Museum Taps Whitney Museum Chief Curator Kim Conaty to Be Next Director

  27-08-2026 01:15 via artnews.com
  
  The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College has named Kim Conaty, the chief curator of the Whitney Museum in New York as its next director. She will begin in the role on October 27.Conaty has spent nearly a decade at the Whitney, joining in 2017 as curator of drawings and prints. She was promoted to chief curator in 2024. During her tenure at the museum, she organized exhibitions on Edward Hopper, Mary Corse, and Ruth Asawa.Conaty becomes the eighth director to assume the top position and succee
  
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