Arts news

• SF Camerawork To Close After Five Decades, Citing ‘Changing Philanthropic Landscape’

  11-08-2026 18:00 via artnews.com
  
  The Bay Area photography exhibition venue SF Camerawork is calling it quits after 52 years, the institution announced on its website yesterday.“This decision follows years of rising operating costs, declining public funding, and a changing philanthropic landscape,” said the institution. “SF Camerawork is not alone in facing these pressures; arts organizations across the country are confronting similar challenges. Despite the determined efforts of our staff, Board, artists, dono
  
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• Brazilian Police Recover Eight Stolen Matisse ‘Jazz’ Works Worth $193,000, Arrest One Suspect

  15-08-2026 00:08 via artnews.com
  
  Brazilian authorities have recovered eight prints from Henri Matisse’s iconic “Jazz” series (1947), the New York Times reports.  Two armed men stole the works on December 7 from the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo during public hours at the city’s largest library. In addition to the recovered Matisse works, they also took five paintings by Brazilian modernist Candido Portinari.The English edition of Folha de S. Paulo reported the value of the eigh
  
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• Mark Rydell, ‘Actor’s Director’ Known for ‘On Golden Pond,’ Dies at 97

  14-08-2026 23:13 via nytimes.com
  Having started out as an actor, he was able to coax sensitive work out of performers like Bette Midler, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and John Wayne.
  
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• A Picasso Stolen 65 Years Ago Has Resurfaced. The Guggenheim Wants It Back

  14-08-2026 21:36 via artnews.com
  
  A Pablo Picasso painting stolen while on loan from the Guggenheim Museum more than six decades ago has resurfaced, and the museum has gone to court to get it back.The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation filed suit in New York State Supreme Court this week, according to Hyperallergic, against Massachusetts residents Lawrence Jay Handler and Wendy Cohen Handler, who the museum says currently possess Femme dans un fauteuil (Woman in an Armchair), a small 1918 painting that disappeared from t
  
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• The Met Has Put the Oldest Existing Copy of the Odyssey on Display

  14-08-2026 20:56 via artnews.com
  
  Likely prompted by the runaway success of a certain classically oriented movie in theaters this summer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has returned the oldest preserved fragment of The Odyssey to one of its galleries, where it can be seen and appreciated after a long time out of view. The relic is now on display in Gallery 162 in the museum’s section devoted to Greek and Roman Art.In a round-up of Odyssey-related collection treasures on its website, the Met describes the relic as the first
  
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• Colombia’s Museo de Arte de Pereira Closes due to Extensive Earthquake Damage

  14-08-2026 20:55 via artnews.com
  
  As workers race against the 72-hour, so-called golden window to rescue survivors from collapsed buildings following Monday’s devastating 7.4 earthquake in northern Colombia, the region’s museums are also in serious jeopardy.On Monday evening, Alejandro Garces, a curator at the Museo de Arte de Pereira, posted photos on Instagram of the damage sustained to the museum that is located about 220 miles west of Bogotá and is the principal art institution for the states of Caldas, Ri
  
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• Roman Artifacts on View at Syria’s Damascus Citadel Following Repatriation from France

  14-08-2026 20:25 via artnews.com
  
  When French President Emmanuel Macron visited Damascus in early July, he pledged to support the country’s rebuilding efforts in the wake of former President Basher al-Assad’s overthrow 18 months prior. While the main focus of the visit was economic—Macron discussed reviving Syria’s banking sector and returning more than $50 million that had been confiscated from the Assad family—the diplomatic gesture also involved the return of 23 artifacts that had been held in Fr
  
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• Parkinson’s Made Daniel Barenboim Step Back. But He’s on the Conductor’s Podium Again.

  14-08-2026 20:24 via nytimes.com
  Daniel Barenboim is leading his orchestra of Arab and Israeli musicians on a European tour. His movements onstage were few, but often effective.
  
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• Italian Police Recover $10 M. Worth of Artworks by Cezanne, Matisse, and Renoir

  14-08-2026 19:59 via artnews.com
  
  If 2025 was the year of the museum robbery, perhaps 2026 will be the year of the recovery. On Friday, Italian police announced that they had recovered three artworks stolen in March from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca near Parma in Northern Italy, according to Reuters.The recovered paintings are Paul Cezanne’s Still Life with Cherries (1890), Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s late-career Les Poissons (1917), and Henri Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace (1922). Thei
  
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• ‘The Rivals of Amziah King’ Review: The Songs and the Bees

  14-08-2026 19:48 via nytimes.com
  Matthew McConaughey is put to his best use in years in this somewhat messy, but often rollicking film about a beekeeper and the foster child who reappears in his life.
  
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• Kit Fitzgerald, Pioneering Video Artist With a Painter’s Sensibility, Has Died at 73

  14-08-2026 19:40 via artnews.com
  
  Kit Fitzgerald, a visionary video artist with a sense for the music and motion of painting, died on August 3 at 73. The news was announced by her husband and longtime creative partner, Peter Gordon, on Instagram. He wrote that she “fought a rare and aggressive cancer, but always maintained a sense of beauty and wonderment.”A trained painter, Fitzgerald imbued electronic art with the unruly touch of brush and canvas—vivid color, dynamic light, stuttered gesture—resulting i
  
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• Low Salaries for the UK Arts Sector, Recovered Paintings in Brazil and Italy, and More: Morning LInks for August 14, 2026

  14-08-2026 19:09 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good morning!Police in Italy and Brazil have recovered nearly a dozen paintings stolen over the last year.London’s cultural sector is facing growing scrutiny over salaries that fall short of the expertise demanded.A new museum in Slovenia is turning Balkan humor into an unlikely cultural attraction.The Headlines BACK IN THE FRAME. 2025 was the year
  
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• Top Executive and Senior Sales Director Leave Pace Following Gallery’s ‘Restructuring’

  14-08-2026 18:09 via artnews.com
  
  The shakeup at Pace Gallery isn’t over. Just two months after the gallery laid off roughly 50 employees in a sweeping restructuring, two of the executives who helped shape Pace during its years of rapid expansion are headed for the exit.Amelia Redgrift, the gallery’s chief communications officer, and Dani Forest Brandi, a senior sales director, have both resigned. Where they’re going remains under wraps. Sources told ARTnews, however, that both have already landed senior roles
  
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• New French Law Sparks Hope for Long-Awaited Return of Looted ‘Ségou Treasure’ to Senegal

  14-08-2026 18:01 via artnews.com
  For decades, the descendants of the Senegalese Muslim mystic, scholar, and military commander Omar Saïdou Tall have been trying to retrieve his stolen belongings, known as the “treasure of Ségou,” from the French state. The trove, spread across several French museums and the national library, includes nearly 500 manuscripts containing Tall’s writings and those of contemporaries documenting the region’s history and culture, plus jewelry, weapons, and other arti
  
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• ‘Lanterns’ Review: It’s Not Easy Being Green

  14-08-2026 18:00 via nytimes.com
  HBO’s new Green Lantern series is the latest show in which being a superhero is no fun at all.
  
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• Michael E. Smith, the Elusive Sculptor-Poet, Opens Up After a Decade of Dodging Interviews

  14-08-2026 16:41 via artnews.com
  
  When I learned of an opportunity to interview Michael E. Smith—an artist I’ve long admired—my brain boomeranged: I was excited to hear from an elusive artist who seldom speaks, but also stumped as to what exactly I might ask the man. I intuited that direct questions—of the what does this mean, why did you make that variety—wouldn’t do for an artist whose work is so withholding. His sculptures have this magical yet vernacular quality you’d feel silly over
  
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• Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s ‘Quiet Hours’ Highlights the Home Piano

  14-08-2026 15:38 via nytimes.com
  Ellis Ludwig-Leone composed an album of nocturnes, each for a pianist friend to play on a home piano — or a piano that feels like home.
  
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• Edinburgh Fringe: 8 Buzzy Shows to See

  14-08-2026 13:06 via nytimes.com
  Whether on a constant treadmill, turning trauma into laughs or venturing into children’s entertainment, these acts are winning over viewers and critics.
  
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• 8 Matisse Works, Looted from Library in Brazil, Are Recovered

  14-08-2026 12:56 via nytimes.com
  The prints by the French master were taken in São Paulo last year in a brazen daylight heist.
  
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• Brad Pitt’s Return to Drinking Is Not Unsafe, Experts Say

  14-08-2026 11:03 via nytimes.com
  His disclosure in an interview revived a key question about sobriety: whether someone who once drank dangerously can ever drink moderately.
  
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• Stavros Halkias Never Wanted to Get Political

  14-08-2026 11:02 via nytimes.com
  The podcast host and emerging Hollywood presence spoke about his new stand-up special, giving advice to incels and comedy’s rightward creep.
  
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• Phoebe Bridgers Reaches New Heights With “Lost Weekend”

  14-08-2026 11:02 via nytimes.com
  Humor and pathos coexist, resulting in the best album of her career.
  
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• In “The Bend in the River,” Robb Moss’s Old Friends Reflect on Aging

  14-08-2026 11:02 via nytimes.com
  In “The Bend in the River,” Robb Moss catches up with the subjects of two of his previous films as they reflect on their lives and what’s left.
  
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• After Notre-Dame Fire, France Restored the Cathedral — but Not These Windows

  14-08-2026 11:02 via nytimes.com
  France has faithfully renovated most of what burned at Notre-Dame in 2019. Contentiously, six towering windows will soon be replaced by a new design.
  
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• A ‘Schmigadoon!’ Cast Album and More Theater to Stream

  14-08-2026 11:02 via nytimes.com
  Other streaming picks include a deft “Winter’s Tale,” a reimagining of a solo show about sex work and a ’70s production of Chekhov by tweens.
  
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• RM, a Superstar With BTS, Gets Hois Feet Wet As an Art Curator

  14-08-2026 11:00 via nytimes.com
  RM, of BTS, brings 145 works by Korean artists to SFMOMA this fall. “I know Picasso, I know van Gogh. I don’t know anyone from my country,” he told himself as he began to buy. “You have to find your root.”
  
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• RM, a Superstar With BTS, Gets His Feet Wet As an Art Curator

  14-08-2026 11:00 via nytimes.com
  RM, of BTS, brings 145 works by Korean artists to SFMOMA this fall. “I know Picasso, I know van Gogh. I don’t know anyone from my country,” he told himself as he began to buy. “You have to find your root.”
  
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• How Thrillers Hook You With Their First Sentence

  14-08-2026 11:00 via nytimes.com
  Can our Book Review editor, Tina Jordan, guess thrillers from their first sentence? In this game we explore a few of the books from The New York Times’s “50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century” list; and learn a bit more about why opening sentences are so important to get people reading.
  
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• Fried at Last: Why Michael Fried’s Attacks on Literalism Matter As Never Before

  14-08-2026 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  Finally! The real Michael Fried has stood up. A new collection of his life’s work reveals him to be a poet with a memory bestowed from the gods—one who weathered Peter Schjeldahl’s trumped-up charges of being a formalist, conservative fuddy-dud, one who emerges in our AI slop epoch as one of the great art seers who makes a frightening lot of sense, now more than ever. The critic who found a helpful narrative to understand the history, and future, of our images, without a drop o
  
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• How Jane Schoenbrun Has Fun With Horror (and Chicken) at Camp Miasma

  14-08-2026 10:50 via nytimes.com
  The director Jane Schoenbrun breaks down how they played with genre conventions in “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.”
  
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