Arts news

• New in Paperback: ‘The Grammarians’ and ‘Edison’

  20-11-2020 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Six new paperbacks to check out this week.
  
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• Books to Match Your Mood

  08-09-2026 21:21 via nytimes.com
  MJ Franklin of The New York Times Book Review recommends books based on your mood.
  
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• Lonnie G. Bunch III, Departing Smithsonian Secretary, Faced ‘Mounting Pressure Campaign’

  08-09-2026 21:17 via nytimes.com
  Under Lonnie G. Bunch III’s leadership, President Trump accused the Smithsonian of liberal, anti-American bias. Supporters say he was dedicated to nonpartisan scholarship.
  
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• Clive Davis’s Warhol, Hockney Paintings Head to Christie’s During Marquee New York Sales

  08-09-2026 21:11 via artnews.com
  
  Eight paintings from the collection of Clive Davis, the famed record producer who died this past June, will head to Christie’s during the November sales in New York. They are some of the first major consignments to those sales, and they are worth a total of more than $35 million. (Christie’s has not yet released individual estimates for each work.)Those eight works include a ca. 1986 painting of Andy Warhol painting of Aretha Franklin, the singer whom Davis befriended and supported p
  
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• Departing Smithsonian Secretary Faced ‘Mounting Pressure Campaign’

  08-09-2026 20:42 via nytimes.com
  Under Lonnie G. Bunch III’s leadership, President Trump accused the Smithsonian of liberal, anti-American bias. Supporters say he was dedicated to nonpartisan scholarship.
  
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• A Between-Seasons Playlist

  08-09-2026 20:00 via nytimes.com
  Hear a Robyn remix, new Sharp Pins and one perfect song from Haruomi Hosono.
  
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• Five Standouts at Portland’s Converge 45 Triennial, From a Gourd Frieze to a Performance That Played with Fire

  08-09-2026 19:52 via artnews.com
  
  The US art world has in recent years worked hard to bring a focus to cities outside the market capitals, mounting recurring exhibitions like Counterpublic in St. Louis, the Medina Triennial in upstate New York, and the lamentably discontinued Front Triennial in Cleveland (adding to long-running shows like the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh). One that has remained a little under the radar is Converge 45, established in 2016 by Portland dealer Elizabeth Leach in hopes of getting the art worl
  
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• Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch to Retire as Trump Targets Museum Consortium

  08-09-2026 19:32 via artnews.com
  
  Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III will retire at the end of this year, according to the Washington Post, amid a historic confrontation with the Trump administration over how the museum consortium historicize the United States. Bunch, who assumed leadership in 2019, has faced extraordinary pressure from the White House over the past 18 months to comply with President Trump’s ideological intervention in the Smithsonian, which has had its exhibitions targeted for including refere
  
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• Four-Hour Elon Musk Documentary by Alex Gibney Has Venice Premiere

  08-09-2026 18:52 via nytimes.com
  Much of what Alex Gibney’s documentary presents isn’t new. But in piecing it all together, he wants the viewer to take Musk seriously as a threat to democracy.
  
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• At the Stratford Festival, Forgiveness Is a Power Move

  08-09-2026 18:37 via nytimes.com
  For his final year as artistic director, Antoni Cimolino directs “The Tempest,” and like Prospero, he understands how to wield acts of kindness.
  
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• Lucien Smith, Onetime Market Darling Who Turned His Focus To Helping Emerging Artists, Has Died at 37

  08-09-2026 18:09 via artnews.com
  
  Lucien Smith, a onetime market darling who more recently focused on supporting emerging artists, has died at 37, according to multiple people who knew him over the years. No information has been released about the cause or place of his death.“I loved him and I’m hapy knowing he found some serenity later in life,” artist Joel Mesler told ARTnews via text, adding a heart emoji.“Lucien Smith was our friend and his death is tragic,” artist Andrew Kuo wrote on X. “
  
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• Smithsonian’s Secretary to Resign as Trump Tries to Rule the Institution

  08-09-2026 18:00 via nytimes.com
  In the face of escalating White House attacks about how museums present American history, Lonnie G. Bunch III has announced his decision to depart.
  
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• Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch Is Resigning

  08-09-2026 18:00 via nytimes.com
  In the face of escalating White House attacks about how museums present American history, Lonnie G. Bunch III has announced his decision to depart.
  
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• Oxford University Museum to Repatriate 39 Colonial-Era Human Remains

  08-09-2026 17:07 via artnews.com
  
  The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford agreed to return a colonial-era collection of human remains to the Indigenous Naga people in India, following years of negotiations, Naga representatives told the New York Times on Saturday. Formal repatriation efforts began six years ago in 2020.The 39 partial remains that will return to Nagaland by the end of this year include a warrior’s cranium, a woman’s skull, and a young person’s jaw, among others. While there were 40 re
  
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• The Man Who Bought The Scream: Collector Leon Black’s Reckoning Is Far from Over

  08-09-2026 17:00 via artnews.com
  
  Leon Black’s main passion is art, a love that can easily be traced back to his mother, the artist, and to his aunt, the art dealer, and to her husband, his uncle, who was also an artist. His collection, housed in both his Park Avenue town house and his weekend home in Bedford, New York, is considered by many to be one of the world’s finest in private hands. It’s easily worth more than $1 billion, and perhaps several multiples of that number. On the extensive grounds at his Bedf
  
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• Former Chairman of Kennedy Center Buys Disassembled Joel Shapiro Sculpture

  08-09-2026 16:57 via artnews.com
  
  A monumental Joel Shapiro sculpture that was disassembled last week at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. has found a new owner: none other than the embattled center’s former chairman, David Rubenstein.Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist, was reported as the buyer of Blue on Monday by the New York Times, which cited unnamed sources who said that 24-foot-tall sculpture would eventually go on view in the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art
  
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• Julia Roberts Will Return to Broadway in ‘Small Mouth Sounds’

  08-09-2026 16:00 via nytimes.com
  The all-star cast also includes Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson, Greta Lee, Martin Freeman and Isaac Powell. Also coming: a new production of “Downstate.”
  
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• Eiffel Tower Workers Strike in Outrage After Female Staffers Ordered to Leave Their Posts, Replaced by Men

  08-09-2026 15:18 via artnews.com
  
  The Eiffel Tower closed Monday due to strikes over outrage that female workers were allegedly ordered to leave and stay out of sight to comply with a special request from a traditional Hindu delegation that visited the monument over the weekend, reported Le Parisien. By Tuesday, the monument had reopened, and a representative of the Hindu religious organization BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, which has close ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist party, issued an apology.But
  
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• Loewe’s Fall 2026 Collection Inspired by Cosima Von Bonin’s Sea Creatures Lands in Stores

  08-09-2026 15:17 via artnews.com
  
  German artist Cosima von Bonin’s whimsical and kooky sea creatures have sat on school desk chairs and leaned across museum floors, but in March, her creations made it to Paris Fashion Week to sit on the front row at Loewe’s runway show, the second by creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. Now, those plush octopi, sea lions, whales, and pearl shells that shared prime seating with the likes of Sissy Spacek, Julia Garner, and Lil Yachty have landed in the Loewe st
  
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• Thieves Snatch Renoir Paintings, Ejected Kennedy Center Chairman Buys ‘Blue’ Sculpture, Mexican Sculptor Geles Cabrera Dies, and More: Morning Links for September 8, 2026

  08-09-2026 14:38 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good Morning!
  This morning, thieves nabbed four Renoir paintings and abandoned two before escaping from a southern French museum. Geles Cabrera, Mexico’s first professional female sculptor, has died at age 100. David Rubenstein, ousted chairman of the Kennedy Center, has acquired Joel Shapiro’s Blue sculpture that was just dism
  
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• Nothing Compares to Her: A Dance Love Letter to Sinead O’Connor

  08-09-2026 13:41 via nytimes.com
  The choreographer Sonya Tayeh’s “The Surge” is a dance response to themes in O’Connor’s life: spirituality, identity and what Tayeh calls jrage, or joy and rage.
  
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• Thieves Steal Artworks From Renoir Museum in France

  08-09-2026 12:32 via nytimes.com
  Almost a year after the brazen Louvre heist, thieves targeted a museum that was formerly the artist’s home in the south of France.
  
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• Four Paintings Stolen from Renoir Museum in Southern France

  08-09-2026 12:32 via artnews.com
  
  Thieves stole four paintings by Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir Tuesday morning from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in southern France, according to reports Le Monde and AFP. In their haste, the two suspects abandoned two of four paintings, according to BFM TV, but managed to escape with two artworks, estimated to be worth €9 million ($10.5 million). The museum’s alarm system went off at 5:48 a.m. (local time), with police reportedly arriving on site in five min
  
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• Four Paintings Stolen from France’s Renoir Museum in Predawn Raid

  08-09-2026 12:32 via artnews.com
  
  Thieves stole four paintings by Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir Tuesday morning from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in southern France, according to a report by Le Monde and AFP. In their haste, the two suspects abandoned two of four paintings, according to BFM TV, but managed to escape with two artworks, estimated to be worth €9 million ($10.5 million). The museum’s alarm system went off at 5:48 a.m. (local time), with police reportedly arriving on site in five
  
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• Reimagining Josephine Baker, on the Most Opulent Stage in Paris

  08-09-2026 11:09 via nytimes.com
  Amid the red velvet and gold leaf of the Palais Garnier, an experimental tribute strips away cabaret nostalgia to honor a complex American hero and a French icon.
  
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• Lil Durk’s Murder-for-Hire Trial: What to Know

  08-09-2026 11:04 via nytimes.com
  The Chicago rapper pleaded not guilty to five counts including stalking and plotting what prosecutors say was a revenge killing.
  
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• How the World’s Longest-Running Musical Finally Made It to Broadway

  08-09-2026 11:03 via nytimes.com
  “The Fantasticks” ran for decades in Greenwich Village. Now, in time for its Broadway debut, it gets a gender makeover.
  
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• The 25 Most Influential Fashion Photographs

  08-09-2026 11:02 via nytimes.com
  Two photographers, a fashion designer, a stylist, a creative director, an editor and a supermodel debate the images that have had an indelible impact on how we dress.
  
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• Sinead O’Connor and Oscar Wilde Ballets and More Dance This Fall

  08-09-2026 11:01 via nytimes.com
  Also this season, the return of Balanchine’s “Pithoprakta” at New York City Ballet, a choreographer guides audiences on a nature hike, and reflections on this American moment.
  
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• Jenny Holzer and Andy Goldsworthy Win $95,000 Praemium Imperiale Award

  08-09-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  Artists Jenny Holzer and Andy Goldsworthy are among the five recipients of Japan’s 37th Praemium Imperiale award—one of the world’s largest art prizes, dubbed by some the “Nobel Prize of the Arts.” They will each win 15 million yen (about $95,000).The award celebrates lifetime contributions to painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theater/film on a global scale. Fellow laureates this year include actor Cate Blanchett, who has won Academy Awards for performan
  
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