Arts news

• Isaiah Zagar, Creator of Tile-Swirling, Mind-Bending Murals, Dies at 86

  03-03-2026 23:45 via nytimes.com
  He covered Philadelphia with more than 50,000 square feet of madcap mosaics, showcasing his work at the Magic Gardens Museum.
  
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• ‘Cheap’ and ‘Appalling’: Trump’s Ballroom Plans Receive a Flood of Negative Comments

  03-03-2026 23:27 via nytimes.com
  The National Capital Planning Commission received about 32,000 messages during its public comment period. Suffice it to say: Many people are not happy with the president’s ballroom plans.
  
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• Live Nation Accused of Hurting Music Fans as Antitrust Trial Begins

  03-03-2026 23:10 via nytimes.com
  The Justice Department lawsuit says the concert giant acts as a monopoly in the music industry, a charge the company denies.
  
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• Site of Failed Pompidou Museum in Jersey City May Become Affordable Housing

  03-03-2026 23:03 via artnews.com
  After a years-long saga with countless twists and turns came to end last month, new reports signal that the site once prepared for the Centre Pompidou’s Jersey City museum has been eyed for affordable housing and community space.As reported by Gothamist (beneath a headline that begins “Au Revoir, Pompidou”), Jersey City Mayor James Solomon, shortly after taking office in January, “announced Monday that the city would work with Kushner Real Estate Group on new plans for th
  
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• Watermill Center Names Charles Chemin, Longtime Robert Wilson Collaborator, as Artistic Director

  03-03-2026 22:12 via artnews.com
  The Watermill Center, the interdisciplinary space in Water Mill, New York, founded by Robert Wilson, has appointed Charles Chemin to the role of artistic director.Chemin will take over the artistic vision of the organization, effectively succeeding Wilson, who selected Chemin for the role prior to his death in August 2025, per a release. Chemin will work in tandem with Watermill’s managing director, Elise Herget, and curator Noah Khoshbin.Chemin first began collaborating with Wilson in 199
  
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• Photographer Nick Ut Sues Netflix Over ‘Napalm Girl’ Documentary

  03-03-2026 21:33 via nytimes.com
  Nick Ut, the freelancer long credited for the award-winning photo from the Vietnam War, says a Netflix documentary questioning his work has defamed him.
  
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• Our Critics Are Split on the Weirdest Whitney Biennial in Recent Memory

  03-03-2026 21:31 via artnews.com
  The Whitney Biennial is both the most important recurring art exhibition in the US and, often, the most polarizing one. During a year when notions about what does and doesn’t constitute Americanness are the subject of everyday discourse, this survey of American art has now returned for its 82nd edition at the Whitney Museum in New York. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, it is bound to spur on yet more debate.Some 56 artists are included in this biennial, and they hail from count
  
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• ‘Night Side Songs’ Review: Feel Free to Sing Along

  03-03-2026 21:28 via nytimes.com
  The Lazours’ intimate new musical about illness and mortality is also about finding solace in other people, and in art.
  
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• Choosin’ 9 Songs About Texas

  03-03-2026 20:00 via nytimes.com
  Listen to Ella Langley’s Hot 100 hit and more songs about a place that’s long been a source of musical inspiration.
  
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• Isaiah Zagar, Who Festooned Philadelphia With Mosaics, Dies at 86

  03-03-2026 19:51 via nytimes.com
  He covered the city with more than 50,000 square feet of murals, and showcased his work at the Magic Gardens Museum.
  
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• Is He the Last Man in Naples, Italy, to Paint Numbers By Hand?

  03-03-2026 19:27 via nytimes.com
  The numeraio Pasquale De Stefano’s handmade market signs are a dying breed of everyday beauty in a baroque city.
  
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• 6 Design Products That May Be the Last of Their Kind

  03-03-2026 19:20 via nytimes.com
  Many artisanal practices are hanging by a thread, but there is still a chance to enjoy them.
  
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• Tehran’s Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Damaged in US-Israel Bombing of Iran

  03-03-2026 19:15 via artnews.com
  The Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the heart of Tehran, has reportedly been damaged in US-Israeli airstrikes as the military campaign against Iran spirals into a wider regional conflict.According to Iran’s cultural heritage minister, Reza Salehi-Amiri, debris and blast shockwaves from a strike near Arag Square in southern Tehran damaged the windows, doors, and mirrors of the Qajar-era complex. Salehi-Amiri described the incident as an attack on “Iran’s cultura
  
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• Hamnet, Hamlet and Oscar Wao: Three Lost Boys Across Time

  03-03-2026 19:02 via nytimes.com
  In the stage versions of two beloved books, the most impressive moments emerge when the productions stray from the source material.
  
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• Jeff Koons’s Winter Bears Sells for $7.6 M. at Christie’s, Highest-Priced Ever Achieved for an Artwork in a Mid-Season Sale

  03-03-2026 18:06 via artnews.com
  If the $7.6 million paid for a four-foot-tall set of smiling wooden bears has anything to do with it, the price point for the mid-season sales at the major auction houses might be about to go up.Last Thursday, Christie’s sold Jeff Koons’s 1988 sculpture Winter Bears (1988) with a pre-sale estimate of $3.8 million–$5 million, the highest valued work ever to appear in a mid-season sale. That price point is more often seen in the major marquee evening sales. Koons made the piece f
  
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• Jeff Koons’s Winter Bears Sells for $7.6 M. at Christie’s, Highest Price Ever Achieved for an Artwork in a Mid-Season Sale

  03-03-2026 18:06 via artnews.com
  If the $7.6 million paid for a four-foot-tall set of smiling wooden bears has anything to do with it, the price point for the mid-season sales at the major auction houses might be about to go up.Last Thursday, Christie’s sold Jeff Koons’s 1988 sculpture Winter Bears (1988) with a pre-sale estimate of $3.8 million–$5 million, the highest valued work ever to appear in a mid-season sale. That price point is more often seen in the major marquee evening sales. Koons made the piece f
  
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• Ceramics, Once the Lifeblood of Mexican Artisans, Are Under Pressure

  03-03-2026 17:28 via nytimes.com
  In the state of Michoacán, industrial agriculture and organized crime threaten a cottage industry.
  
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• Review: Millepied’s ‘Romeo and Juliet Suite’ at the Armory

  03-03-2026 17:21 via nytimes.com
  Benjamin Millepied’s “Romeo and Juliet Suite,” with its unusual approach to dance coupling and live performance, comes to the Park Avenue Armory.
  
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• Klaus Mäkelä’s Talents and Faults With the Chicago Symphony

  03-03-2026 16:49 via nytimes.com
  The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has placed a huge bet on Klaus Mäkelä for its future. It’s still too soon to tell whether that will pay off.
  
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• The 2026 Whitney Biennial Includes a Video Game Designed by Leo Castañeda You Can Play At Home

  03-03-2026 16:43 via artnews.com
  While the Whitney Biennial isn’t set to open its 2026 edition to the public until Sunday, anyone can get a sneak peek at one work in the show: Camoflux Recall Grotto.The work, a video game by Colombian artist Leo Castañeda, is available to play on the web from any computer. For the work, Castañeda hand-painted all the imagery over the course of a decade. Inspired by the Brazilian Amazon forest and the South Florida Everglades, Camoflux Recall Grotto asks players to cultivate
  
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• Russia’s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale Is Set to Reopen This Year, But Officials Say It Isn’t a ‘Return’

  03-03-2026 15:30 via artnews.com
  After closing for the last two editions of the Venice Biennale following its war in Ukraine, Russia will reopen its national pavilion this year, its organizers told ARTnews.In February 2022, Russian artists Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva, along with Lithuanian curator Raimundas Malašauskas, withdrew from the pavilion from that year’s Biennale, citing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Calling the war “politically and emotionally unbearable” and saying there w
  
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• European Alliance Pledges Financial Support for Artistic Freedom, Iranian Artists Both Terrified and Joyful as War Continues, and More: Morning Links for March 3, 2026

  03-03-2026 15:02 via artnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good morning!The European Alliance of Academies has launched a nearly $2 million plan to support artistic freedom under pressure in Europe.Iranian artists in the diaspora are torn between the joyful hope of regime change and fear of rising casualties amid the ongoing war.The US Supreme Court will not hear a case asking for copyright protection of art made by
  
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• Vancouver Art Gallery Announces Major Gift of Stephen Shore Photographs

  03-03-2026 13:45 via artnews.com
  The Vancouver Art Gallery announced this week that it has received a gift of more than 800 works from American photographer Stephen Shore’s series “Uncommon Places.” The donation comes from the Vancouver-based Chan family, which has long supported the museum.Taken on road trips across North America between 1973 and 1981 and originally published as a book, “Uncommon Places” is considered a landmark in the history of contemporary photography. The series consists of co
  
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• Met Opera Gambles on Yuval Sharon for Its New ‘Tristan’

  03-03-2026 11:08 via nytimes.com
  Yuval Sharon, known for his bold approach to opera, is making his Met debut with what he has called “the single hardest work” to stage.
  
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• The Artist Transforming His Studio Into a Cathedral of Color

  03-03-2026 11:06 via nytimes.com
  David Novros has spent years finessing and repainting site-specific artworks in his SoHo space.
  
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• In ‘Young Sherlock,’ He’s a Gen Z Heartthrob

  03-03-2026 11:06 via nytimes.com
  The new series, streaming on Prime Video, tells the story of the famous detective’s youth with the trademark swagger of the producer Guy Ritchie.
  
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• 5 Oscar-Nominated Children’s Movies to Stream Now

  03-03-2026 11:06 via nytimes.com
  This month’s picks include the animated feature films that are competing for an Academy Award on March 15.
  
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• The ‘Sinners’ Cinematographer: ‘We All Had a Lot on the Line’

  03-03-2026 11:03 via nytimes.com
  The Oscar nominee Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s ambitious collaboration with Ryan Coogler was also risky, starting with the very heavy large-format cameras.
  
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• Should I Get Into Vinyl Records?

  03-03-2026 11:00 via nytimes.com
  There are plenty of reasons to consider collecting and playing LPs of your favorite music. Saving money isn’t one of them.
  
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• Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) Details Her Pointed Work on the Cover of Art in America

  03-03-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  In many ways, the confrontational cover of this issue needs no explanation: Lady Liberty is dead. But when A.i.A. sat down with the artist Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) to talk about her sculpture Liberté Morte (Dead Liberty), 2025, she shared an enlightening story about how the work extends the lineage of her lexicon.In 2016, I had a solo show in Paris and decided to consider the exchange that happened between France and the US. I had worked for Liberty Tax, where peo
  
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• Art in America’s Spring Issue Features American Art from A to Z, MAGA’s Theory of Art, a Print by Kara Walker, and More

  03-03-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  As we put to bed this issue about the 250th anniversary of the United States, I am feeling deeply uncertain. About the fate of the country itself, in the midst of ICE killings and protests in Minneapolis, I am certainly uncertain. But I am also uncertain about something at once much more specific and highly symbolic: the fate of the murals in the Cohen Building, slated for sale or possible demolition by the Trump administration. As I write this, artists like Joyce Kozloff and Martha Rosler have
  
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• Late Night Tunes In to Operation Epic Fury: Live from Mar-a-Lago

  03-03-2026 08:03 via nytimes.com
  The military operation’s name “is different from its original title, which was ‘Operation Epstein-o Distract-o,’” Jimmy Kimmel said.
  
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