Arts news

• 3,600-Year-Old Bronze Age City Discovered in Northeast Kazakhstan

  18-11-2025 23:50 via artnews.com
  Archaeologists in Kazakhstan have uncovered a Late Bronze Age city dating to ca. 1600 BCE. The ancient site, called Semiyarka, covers nearly 250 acres in northeast Kazakhstan, according to a report Antiquity, a world archaeology journal published by Durham University in the UK. The report was written by a group of eight researchers from Durham University, University College London, and Kazakhstan’s Toraighyrov University, according to CBS News.Semiyarka was initially discovered i
  
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• Mütter Museum in Philadelphia Plots Expansion for Next Year

  18-11-2025 23:43 via artnews.com
  Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum is expanding, with construction expected to start next year in the historic former church next door. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the medical society that oversees the museum, announced the expansion on Monday.The museum will merge its current location on 19 South 22nd Street with the adjacent Swedenborgian Church and Parish House on 2129 Chestnut Street. This plan has been in the works for awhile, with the Mütter having purchased the pr
  
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• Marina Abramovic Says Curator Klaus Biesenbach Nearly Killed Her ‘Artist Is Present’ Performance 

  18-11-2025 22:31 via artnews.com
  What if one of the most commanding performance art events of the 21st century had never happened? What if a naysaying curator had quashed a performance that drew some 1,500 people, some of whom spent hours with the piece? These are the questions raised by an interview with performance art legend Marina Abramović on the Louis Theroux podcast.On the occasion of preparations for her show Balkan Erotic Epic, the legendary performance artist spoke with the British documentarian, journalist, and
  
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• California Attorney General Argues for Return of Nazi-Looted Painting Held by Madrid Museum

  18-11-2025 22:29 via artnews.com
  California has rejoined the 20-year legal battle over a Camille Pissarro painting that was sold under duress during the Nazi regime.This week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta vowed once more to return the work, which has continually been the subject of legal actions in the US, where a struggle between David Cassirer, the heir of Lilly Cassirer Neubauer, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid has played out in court.The painting in question, titled Rue Saint-Honoré in the Af
  
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• Public Theater’s ‘Initiative’: A Coming-of-Age Play Unfolds Over Five Hours

  18-11-2025 21:48 via nytimes.com
  The characters in Else Went’s quiet Off Broadway debut at the Public Theater try to make sense of the world while coming-of-age in the early aughts.
  
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• Christine Schueckler: Conservatives need to support the arts. Here's why. - 1819 News

  18-11-2025 21:03
  Christine Schueckler: Conservatives need to support the arts. Here's why.  1819 News
  
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• On ‘Finally Over It,’ Summer Walker Is R&B’s Maestro of the Funny Side of Heartbreak

  18-11-2025 20:15 via nytimes.com
  On “Finally Over It,” the singer and songwriter rolls her eyes and brings in like-minded cynics for tracks that recall the soulful sounds of the ’90s.
  
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• Dealers Tout ‘True Year-End Rebound’ at Shanghai’s Art Week Despite China’s Ongoing Economic Slowdown

  18-11-2025 20:08 via artnews.com
  The West Bund Art and Design fair and Art021 opened last week in Shanghai with a burst of commercial energy, as many galleries reported brisk first-day sales that defied a backdrop of economic caution and regional competition.“The energy here feels like a true year-end rebound,” Enrico Polato, founder of Shanghai’s Capsule Gallery, told ARTnews on West Bund’s opening day. “I’m glad to be connecting with new collectors who have shown genuine interest in our pro
  
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• Obsessed With ‘Wicked’? Try 9 More Songs From Beloved Musicals.

  18-11-2025 20:00 via nytimes.com
  If you’ve got Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on repeat, add these songs from “Rent,” “Hadestown,” “13” and more to the rotation.
  
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• Sotheby’s Hospices de Beaune Charity Wine Sale Nets $21.4 M. in France, with One Barrel Selling for $460,000

  18-11-2025 19:58 via artnews.com
  The 552 lots from the annual Hospices de Beaune charity wine auction in Burgundy, France, organized by Sotheby’s, made €18.75 million ($21.5 million) on Sunday. It was the third highest total achieved by the historic sale, which has been running since 1859. Last year’s auction took the equivalent of $15.2 million.
  The top lot, typically called “Pièce des Présidents” (the “Presidents’ Barrel”), was a 228-liter barrel of Pommard Premier
  
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• Kurt Cobain’s Guitar Goes to Auction at Christie’s, With $5 M. High Estimate

  18-11-2025 19:47 via artnews.com
  A 1969 Fender Competition Mustang beloved by Nirvana mastermind Kurt Cobain is heading to the auction block at Christie’s in March, with an estimated sale price of $2.5–$5 million. The instrument figured in the recording sessions for the albums Nevermind and In Utero as well as “numerous prominent live performances,” according to the auction house. It’s also the one Cobain wielded in the music video for that anthem of all anthems, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,&rdq
  
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• The Tiny But Mighty Chelsea Art Fair Draws Thousands to the Chelsea Hotel, Where Insiders Battle Newcomers for Fresh and Historic Work

  18-11-2025 19:42 via artnews.com
  Dealer Ellie Rines, who operates the New York gallery 56 Henry, hadn’t even changed out of her Citi Bike shoes into her gold go-go boots before collector Beth Rudin DeWoody entered the Chelsea Art Fair, at New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel, for the event’s VIP preview this past Saturday. DeWoody was the first to enter, a few minutes before the doors even opened, at noon. The tiny fair, taking place in a small, ground-floor parlor fitted out with petite booths, would open for i
  
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• Sperone Westwater Founders Are Locked in Legal Battle as Gallery Prepares to Close

  18-11-2025 19:26 via artnews.com
  Three months before yesterday’s announcement that Sperone Westwater would close after 50 years in business, dealer Gian Enzo Sperone sued his cofounder, Angela Westwater, claiming he was in a “parasitic deadlock” with her after she wrested control of a corporation that has a 50 percent stake in the gallery.The suit also accuses Westwater of mishandling funds, withholding records from Sperone and gallery stockholders, and mismanaging rent payments for the gallery. The two dealer
  
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• Artists Pick Their Favorite Films About Artists

  18-11-2025 18:34 via nytimes.com
  Movies with artist-protagonists are known to be disappointing. These pass muster and even inspire.
  
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• US Premiere of Marina Abramovic’s ‘Balkan Erotic Epic’ Leads Park Avenue Armory’s 2026 Program

  18-11-2025 18:00 via artnews.com
  A polarizing Marina Abramović performance will make its US premiere next year as part of the 2026 program at the Park Avenue Armory in New York.That four-hour piece, titled Balkan Erotic Epic, will have its first US performance on December 8 next year. Also slated to run at the Park Avenue Armory are pieces by artists Steve Reich and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, as well as a Simon Stone production of The Cherry Orchard and a Benjamin Millepied dance work based on Romeo and Juliet.All o
  
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• ‘Lahppon/Lost’ Was a Hit in Oslo. But in the Sami Heartland?

  18-11-2025 17:49 via nytimes.com
  The Norwegian National Ballet was nervous about taking a new work about a Sami uprising to the area where the historical event took place.
  
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• ‘Lahpphon/Lost’ Was a Hit in Oslo. But in the Sami Heartland?

  18-11-2025 17:49 via nytimes.com
  The Norwegian National Ballet was nervous about taking a new work about a Sami uprising to the area where the historical event took place.
  
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• Introducing California’s 2025 state arts grantees - California Arts Council (.gov)

  18-11-2025 17:20
  Introducing California’s 2025 state arts grantees  California Arts Council (.gov)
  
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• In This Show, Four Years of High School Unfold Over Five Hours

  18-11-2025 17:13 via nytimes.com
  The characters in Else Went’s quiet Off Broadway debut at the Public Theater try to make sense of the world while coming-of-age in the early aughts.
  
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• ‘Selena y Los Dinos’ Review: Still Dreaming of You

  18-11-2025 16:57 via nytimes.com
  In this look back at the singer Selena, the director Isabel Castro presents home video footage and photographs that have not been seen in other documentaries.
  
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• Met Museum Workers Move to Unionize

  18-11-2025 16:45 via artnews.com
  On Monday morning, a labor union petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to approve a bargaining unit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that would cover roughly 1,000 salaried and hourly workers across the museum’s sectors. If the vote passes, the Met would rank among the largest unionized museums in the nation. A press release from Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on November 17 cited “long term pay inequities, lack of job protection and ever-increasing wo
  
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• Christie’s Takes $690 M. at Fall Curtain Raiser, Art Basel Hong Kong Announces 2026 Details, and More: Morning Links for November 18, 2025

  18-11-2025 14:22 via artnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINES CHRISTIE’S FALL CURTAIN RAISER. Christie’s opened New York’s fall marquee auctions on Monday with an energetic doubleheader that drew a full house of collectors and advisers, ARTnews reports. The evening took $690 million with fees across 79 lots, sailing past the pre-sale low estimate of $534.7 million and landing just sl
  
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• Vanity Fair’s New Hollywood Issue, First Under New Editor, Is All About Men

  18-11-2025 14:12 via nytimes.com
  Mark Guiducci gave his first issue of Vanity Fair over to the guys.
  
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• The Art of Britain’s Windrush Generation Has Never Felt More Relevant

  18-11-2025 11:03 via nytimes.com
  At a time of rising xenophobia and nativism, their work examines the meeting of different cultures, and their own right to belong.
  
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• George Benjamin and Pierre-Laurent Aimard: Friendship in Music

  18-11-2025 11:03 via nytimes.com
  The composer George Benjamin and the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard met as students. In a new piece, they perform at the keyboard together.
  
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• Body Slams, Curated: Pro Wrestling Enters Its Museum Era

  18-11-2025 11:03 via nytimes.com
  The over-the-top spectacle has been slicing into the art world, with gallery shows, performances and a forthcoming major exhibition.
  
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• ‘25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ Review: A Delightful Competition

  18-11-2025 11:03 via nytimes.com
  Adult actors play fierce middle-school spellers in a wonderful revival of William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s musical.
  
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• How Much Sex, Drugs and Violence Can Be in a PG-13 Movie?

  18-11-2025 11:02 via nytimes.com
  The movie ratings board has pulled back the curtain on how it approaches hot-button topics, including nudity, marijuana and guns.
  
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• Daniele Rustioni, Old-School Conductor, Joins the Met Opera

  18-11-2025 11:02 via nytimes.com
  Daniele Rustioni is already busy as the Met’s new principal guest conductor, with three shows onstage this fall.
  
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• New to Cyberpunk Books? Here’s Where to Start.

  18-11-2025 11:01 via nytimes.com
  The science fiction writer Chloe Gong recommends new and classic books that push the boundaries of the genre, with plenty of techno thrills.
  
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• A.I. Video Is Threatening Our Ability to Trust Documentaries

  18-11-2025 11:01 via nytimes.com
  A combination of technological developments and market forces is undermining the trust between viewer and filmmaker. What’s at stake is history itself.
  
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• What New York’s Waterfront Could Have Looked Like

  18-11-2025 11:00 via nytimes.com
  These proposals from The Times’s archives never came to pass. For most of them, that’s probably for the best.
  
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• Art Basel Hong Kong Names 240 Galleries for 2026 Fair, with New Names and Notable Absences

  18-11-2025 09:00 via artnews.com
  The list of exhibitors for the 2026 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong remains about the same size as last year’s roster, with some new exhibitors and some notable absences. There are 240 galleries from 42 countries and territories at the 2026 edition, taking place March 27 to 29, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre; preview days will be March 25 and 26. The number of exhibitors holds fairly steady from the 242 that exhibited last year. The Galleries sector will include 182
  
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• Late Night is Amused by Trump’s About-Face on the Epstein Files

  18-11-2025 08:04 via nytimes.com
  “We have nothing to hide,” President Trump said about releasing the documents. Jimmy Kimmel shot back: “I have some bad news: There’s no ‘we.’ It’s just you, bro.”
  
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• Sperone Westwater, Legendary New York Gallery, Closes After 50 Years

  18-11-2025 05:38 via artnews.com
  Sperone Westwater, a New York gallery that helped launch Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, Francesco Clemente, and countless others to international fame, will shutter after 50 years in business. Its final show will be its current one for Long, a British sculptor who has had more than a dozen shows with the gallery since its founding.“After 50 successful years, Sperone Westwater Gallery will be closing on December 31, as co-founders Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone have decided to pursue s
  
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• Christie’s Opens Marquee Auction Week with Double-Header Sale Totaling $690 M. Amid Deep Bidding

  18-11-2025 05:35 via artnews.com
  On Monday night, Christie’s kicked off its fall marquee auctions with back-to-back auctions in a packed house full of collectors and advisers ready to bid. The sale, which saw at least a dozen lots spark bidding wars, brought in a combined $690 million with fees. That total was well above the pre-sale low estimate of $534.7 million, though it did come in just over 5 percent below the pre-sale high of $731.5 million.The Robert and Patricia Ross Weiss sale, composed of 18 lots from the colle
  
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