Arts news

• Trump Administration Sued Over Wildly Over-Budget Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Changes

  12-05-2026 23:56 via ARTnews.com
  The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a Washington-area nonprofit focused on historic preservation, has sued the Trump administration over its controversial makeover of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, arguing that federal officials failed to follow legally required review procedures before coating the basin in a bright blue surface. Filed Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., the lawsuit seeks to halt work on the project through a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunct
  
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• Claire Maurier, the Narcissistic Mother in ‘400 Blows,’ Dies at 97

  12-05-2026 23:15 via NYT > Arts
  A landmark of New Wave cinema, “The 400 Blows” brought her enduring global attention. She later appeared in “La Cage Aux Folles” and “Amélie.”
  
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• In Tuscany, an Artistic Sculpture Hub Thrives

  12-05-2026 22:26 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  Pietrasanta, in the Tuscan region of Italy, has become an international sculpture hub that bursts with activity, especially in summer.
  
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• A Photographer of Newark’s People Gets a Show Among the People

  12-05-2026 22:25 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  A number of works by Manuel Acevedo are being displayed throughout the city in outdoor spots highly visible to the residents who inspired them.
  
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• Drawings Dominate at a Chicago de Kooning Exhibit

  12-05-2026 22:24 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  In an exception to the usual paintings-heavy blockbuster exhibitions, the Art Institute of Chicago is presenting the masterful drawings of Willem de Kooning.
  
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• The Swiss Collector Building a Massive Trove of Chinese Art

  12-05-2026 22:23 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  Over three decades, Sigg, a Swiss businessman and former diplomat, amassed thousands of contemporary Chinese works. Ai Weiwei calls him “my maker.”
  
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• Spotlighting the Woman Who Brought European Modernism to California

  12-05-2026 22:20 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  Although Galka Scheyer might an unfamiliar name, the artists she championed have become famous. A exhibition in Pasadena brings her to the foreground.
  
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• Leading French Gallery Air de Paris Is Declaring Bankruptcy and Closing After 36 Years

  12-05-2026 22:01 via ARTnews.com
  Air de Paris, a leading French gallery, will close its doors and declare bankruptcy after 36 years in business, the gallery’s cofounders, Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino, tell Cultured. Bonnefous says the gallery owes money only to the landlord and the bank, not her artists. The gallery is closing, per Cultured, due to its “fragile” finances as well as the founders’ health (Bonnefous suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Mennino also has unspe
  
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• Officers Sue Affleck and Damon’s Company Over ‘The Rip’ Portrayal

  12-05-2026 21:53 via NYT > Arts
  Two Miami law enforcement officials say the Netflix crime drama uses real-life details and portrays them in a negative light.
  
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• Clothing Brand Hurley Is Collaborating with Keith Haring Estate on Capsule Collection

  12-05-2026 21:19 via ARTnews.com
  The streetwear brand Hurley, which is known for surf and swim apparel, has released a capsule collection inspired by Keith Haring, one of the most recognizable and oft-licensed American artists.The collection includes cotton T-shirts, board shirts, bucket and trucker hats, bathing suits, and sweatshirts for men and women, with prices ranging from $28 (a black mesh trucker hat featuring one of Haring’s blue dancing figures astride a two-legged figure that looks like some kind of dolphin/hum
  
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• Across Venice, Artists Defy Censorship to Mourn and Memorialize Gaza

  12-05-2026 20:25 via ARTnews.com
  Entering the main exhibition of the 2026 Venice Biennale, “In Minor Keys,” from the Arsenale, the first artwork one encounters is a poem. “If I must die / you must live / to tell my story,” the poem by Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer begins. Those lines became a rallying cry for the pro-Palestine movement after Alareer was killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike in December 2023, and have since achieved a ubiquity that once seemed all but impossible for a poe
  
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• Amor Towles Shares Insights on His Own Rare Book Collection

  12-05-2026 20:01 via NYT > Arts
  The best-selling author and collector explains what draws him to add to his own bookshelves.
  
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• Revolution is the Theme at the Firsts London Book Fair

  12-05-2026 19:54 via NYT > Arts
  What to expect at the book fair in the Saatchi Gallery.
  
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• How to See Rare Books in London

  12-05-2026 19:47 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  Here’s a guide to illuminated manuscripts, antique tomes and first editions around the British capital.
  
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• The Rolling Stones, Very Early and Very Late

  12-05-2026 19:44 via NYT > Arts
  Listen to their 1963 debut through two tunes released just last week.
  
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• Cigarette Taxes Have Funneled $270 M. Toward Arts and Culture in Cleveland Since 2007

  12-05-2026 19:14 via ARTnews.com
  Museums and other arts institutions in Cleveland, Ohio, have a financial support structure that might surprise you. Some of the biggest visual arts presenters, as well as much smaller organizations, get money each time someone in Cuyahoga County, of which Cleveland is the county seat, buys a pack of cigarettes. According to the New York Times, Cleveland “is thought to be the only place in the country” where such a tax supports arts organizations, and the paper reports that via the no
  
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• Art and Cultural Engagement Can Slow the Pace of Aging: Report

  12-05-2026 17:54 via ARTnews.com
  A new study published in the journal Innovation in Aging suggests that engaging with art and culture can help slow down the biological clock and improve overall health.As reported in the Guardian, the UK-based study’s “results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level.” That’s according to Daisy Fancourt, lead author of the study and the head of the social biobehavioral research group at University College London, who added: “They provide evide
  
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• Venice Biennale’s Russian Pavilion and Pussy Riot Spar Over Usage of Protest Footage

  12-05-2026 17:50 via ARTnews.com
  The Russian Pavilion, already a focal point for pro-Ukrainian protests at the 2026 Venice Biennale, has drawn fresh controversy after an Instagram post accusing the anti-Putin band and art collective, Pussy Riot, of censorship and self-censorship. “Pussy Riot asked us to remove the footage featuring them from the documentary film about the project,” the Russian Pavilion wrote in an Instagram caption beneath an image, posted on Monday, bearing the words “Censored on request
  
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• Leigh Magar, High-End Milliner Turned Indigo Artist, Dies at 57

  12-05-2026 17:26 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  She was known for bespoke hats that attracted a celebrity following. Then she left Charleston for an island off South Carolina, where she began cultivating indigo.
  
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• Our Favorite Moments From This Year’s Tony-Nominated Broadway Shows

  12-05-2026 17:07 via NYT > Arts
  Here are some of the brilliant moments our writers can’t shake from this year’s batch of Tony-nominated productions.
  
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• Man Arrested for Allegedly Planning Terrorist Attack at Louvre

  12-05-2026 16:23 via ARTnews.com
  French authorities arrested a 27-year-old Tunisian man last Thursday for allegedly planning a terrorist attack at the Louvre in Paris. The news was confirmed by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) and first reported by Le Monde.The arrest was made as part of an investigation into the man’s “participation in a terrorist conspiracy in preparation for crimes against persons” and that he planned “an action inspired by jihadist ideology,” PNAT to
  
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• ‘Paranormal Activity’ to Haunt Broadway This Summer

  12-05-2026 16:00 via NYT > Arts
  Inspired by the popular film series, the play has already run in Britain and in four U.S. cities. It arrives in New York in August after a Boston stop.
  
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• Study Says Enjoying Art Makes You Younger, Nonprofit Sues Trump Administration Over Changes to Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and More: Morning Links for May 12, 2026

  12-05-2026 15:45 via ARTnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good morning!A new study says enjoying art regularly makes people younger.A nonprofit is suing the Trump Administration for painting D.C.’s Reflecting Pool blue.France’s president says new law for restituting art looted during colonialism is “unstoppable.”The Headlines AN ARTWORK A DAY KEEPS … YOU YOUNGER? A new study has found
  
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• Rex Reed, Film Critic Known for Acerbic Reviews, Dies at 87

  12-05-2026 14:08 via NYT > Arts
  He fawned over Old Hollywood stars and sparred with Frank Sinatra. Nora Ephron marveled at his ability to get his subjects to say the things they did.
  
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• Gozo Yoshimasu Wins £200,000 Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize

  12-05-2026 14:00 via ARTnews.com
  The inaugural Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize will go to Tokyo-based artist Gozo Yoshimasu, who will receive £200,000 (about $272,000), as well as exhibitions in London and New York as part of the prize.Yoshimasu is better known as a poet who first emerged in the avant-garde scene of 1960s Tokyo. Over the course of his career, he has merged his poetry with various forms of art-making, including performance, photography, audio recordings, and moving image.“My work has always mo
  
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• Watching ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ as an Elegy for Magazines

  12-05-2026 11:03 via NYT > Arts
  The film may be about fashion, but for some editors and writers, it gets a lot right about the dire state of fashion journalism.
  
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• At Netflix Is a Joke, the Attention Economy Rules the Festival

  12-05-2026 11:03 via NYT > Arts
  Though stand-up by stars like John Mulaney and Dave Chappelle were on the program, roasts, podcasts and other shows that incorporated comedy were hot.
  
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• Luna Lab Is Building a Future for Female Composers

  12-05-2026 11:02 via NYT > Arts
  Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid didn’t have female mentors. They founded Luna Composition Lab so young composers would.
  
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• In ‘Should I Marry a Murderer’ and ‘Trust Me,’ Informants Risk Almost Everything

  12-05-2026 11:01 via NYT > Arts
  In two new Netflix docuseries, women put their lives, safety and sanity on the line to help law enforcement bring down the bad guy.
  
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• Two Museums Take on Performative Masculinity, Looksmaxxing, Incels, and Other Macho Buzzwords That Don’t Belong There.

  12-05-2026 11:00 via ARTnews.com
  The title is a ploy and the Stedelijk knows it.“Beyond the Manosphere: Masculinities Today” is a clickbait thirst-trap trend-driven symptom of everything wrong with museums entering the attention-economy game. The veneer of urgency and cultural relevance feels forced and already dated. It’s the tweedy teacher saying “No cap” two years too late—while also using it slightly wrong. I believe the kids call this “cringe.”And the institution is aware of
  
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• In Cleveland, Smokers Are Helping to Keep the Arts Alive

  12-05-2026 11:00 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  A novel cigarette tax has generated $270 million for cultural organizations in the Cleveland area, which makes declining smoking rates “a double-edged sword.”
  
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• At a Powerful Carnegie International, Solidarity Is a Means of Survival

  12-05-2026 11:00 via ARTnews.com
  By my count, there are at least three flying people included in Pittsburgh’s recently opened Carnegie International. One can be found in Khalil Rabah’s video Critical Interrogations: Renewed Belief (1997), in which one man is launched by another over an olive tree, a symbol of resilience in the artist’s native Palestine. Another can be found—sort of—in Shala Miller’s video installation Flight (2026), a murky abstraction projected onto sinuous screens hung from
  
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• A Taxidermist Gives Dead Animals a New Life

  12-05-2026 11:00 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  The creation, care and keeping of creatures is a responsibility the last full-time museum taxidermist in the U.S. takes both seriously and joyfully.
  
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• Engaging with the arts can slow biological aging, study shows - NPR

  12-05-2026 10:44 via news.google.com
  Engaging with the arts can slow biological aging, study shows  NPR
  
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• Artist Trevor Paglen Will Curate the Swiss Edition of Art Basel’s Digital Art Sector

  12-05-2026 10:04 via ARTnews.com
  Trevor Paglen, the New York–based artist known for his incisive engagement with knotty technological issues including surveillance and AI, will curate the third edition of “Zero 10,” Art Basel’s new sector dedicated to the art of the digital era, the first to take place at the fair’s Swiss edition (June 17–21). Major international galleries, including Marian Goodman, Hauser and Wirth, and Almine Rech, will present work by widely known contemporary artists such
  
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• Artist Trevor Paglen Will Curate the Swiss Edition of Art Basel’s Digital Art Initiative

  12-05-2026 10:04 via ARTnews.com
  Trevor Paglen, the New York–based artist known for his incisive engagement with knotty technological issues including surveillance and AI, will curate the third edition of “Zero 10,” Art Basel’s new initiative dedicated to the art of the digital era, the first to take place at the fair’s Swiss edition (June 17–21).Major international galleries, including Marian Goodman, Hauser and Wirth, and Almine Rech, will present work by widely known contemporary artists s
  
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• A Reporter Shares His Secrets to Covering the Cannes Film Festival

  12-05-2026 09:00 via NYT > Arts
  Kyle Buchanan, who has attended the annual launchpad for Oscar contenders in France since 2013, subsists on Red Bull and around four hours of sleep.
  
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• Stephen Colbert Hosts 4 of His ‘Best Television Friends’

  12-05-2026 08:49 via NYT > Arts
  Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver and Seth Meyers, co-hosts of the Strike Force Five podcast along with Colbert, joined as guests on what is likely their last appearance together on the “Late Show.”
  
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• At Frieze New York and Beyond, Indigenous Artists Are in the Spotlight

  12-05-2026 04:48 via NYT > Arts > Art & Design
  With works showing in New York, Venice and elsewhere, Sara Flores, Suzanne Kite and Seba Calfuqueo are exploding past notions of what, exactly, Indigenous art is.
  
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