Category: Modern art

Even as it faces renewed scrutiny, Documenta, the famed German art festival, will continue onward with its next edition—but it will crucially not adopt a code of conduct for its next artistic director, as was initially expected. A code of conduct for the next artistic director was among the recommendations laid out last year by… Continue reading Documenta’s Next Edition Moves Forward—Without a Code of Conduct for Its Next Leader

Students at the Rhode Island School of Design have staged a sit-in at several buildings in downtown Providence, joining the wave of pro-Palestine protests sweeping American college campuses. The action is led by the RISD Students for Justice in Palestine (RSJP), who have called for the university to divest from Israel in response to its… Continue reading RISD Students Stage Sit-In for Gaza, Call for University Divestment from Israel

A 1,600-year-old rock inscribed with early Irish writing was found by a teacher at his home in Coventry, England. The rare artifact offers insight into earlier forms of the Irish language. Geography teacher Graham Senior was gardening when he found the sandstone inscribed in ogham, an alphabet for writing in the Irish language that dates… Continue reading Stone with Ancient Writing Discovered in England by Geography Teacher

A website claiming to be affiliated with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was found to be harvesting credit card information from people who were trying to buy tickets to the institution, according to the Art Newspaper. Around 50 people, the website, vangoghshop.pro, had offered tickets for dates that were unavailable on the museum’s official website. … Continue reading Website Posing as Van Gogh Museum Shut Down After Selling Fake Tickets

Who gets to profit from the TikTok-famous Renegade Dance? Or the viral catchphrase “on fleek”? When memes are by their very nature hyper-transmitted and endlessly remixed, is there any opportunity to “own” one’s innovations in the online cultural field? The problem of how to compensate digital labor and goods has animated scholars and popular thinkers… Continue reading Legacy Russell’s ‘Black Meme’ Critiques Representations of Black Culture—But Doesn’t Chart a Way Forward

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. THE HEADLINES SNATCHED. Bronze Age gold artifacts were stolen from the UK’s Ely Museum on Tuesday. They include the museum’s most prized holding, a gold torc valued at about $275,000, acquired in 2017 thanks to grants and public donations, as well as a… Continue reading Scammers Target Van Gogh Museum, Artifacts Stolen from UK Museum, AI Identifies Fake Art Online, and More: Morning Links for May 8, 2024

On Saturday, the Hammer Museum hosted its annual Gala in the Garden. This year, however, honored director Ann Philbin who is set to retire after 25 years at the helm. Under her direction, the university art museum affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has transformed into a contemporary art destination, with quadrupled… Continue reading Highlights from the Hammer Museum Gala

The fate of an outdoor installation by artist Mary Miss installed at the Des Moines Art Center (DMAC) is still undecided, even after a preliminary injunction blocking its demolition was issued by an Iowa court on Friday. Judge Stephen Locher of the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa concurred with the artist’s… Continue reading Controversial Demolition of Mary Miss Installation Reaches ‘Unsatisfying Status Quo’ After Court Ruling

Gustave Courbet’s infamous nude painting L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World) was targeted over the weekend by protesters who tagged it with the words “Me Too.”  The 1886 painting is on display at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in northern France in the show “Lacan, The Exhibition: When Art Meets Pscyhoanalysis” (through May 27), which examines theories… Continue reading Artist and Protestors Tag Gustave Courbet’s ‘Origin of the World’ with the Words ‘Me Too’

Was Frank Stella a sadist? More than once, I’ve wondered that while standing before his 1959 painting Die Fahne hoch!, a rectangular abstraction that features four black forms, each of which are demarcated by unpainted lines of white that pulsate toward the center. The painting, for all its austerity, contains a bizarre kind of beauty.… Continue reading Frank Stella’s Greatest Legacy Was as a Master Sadist

An exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania, Australia by the American artist Kirsha Kaechele titled “Ladies Lounge” is installing a toilet in the gallery, the BBC reported Tuesday. The exhibition, which was previously accessible only to those who identify as a woman, was closed on Monday after a man… Continue reading Australian Museum Plans to Installs Toilet in Women-Only Exhibition to Circumvent Anti-Discrimination Ruling

Sandra Hegedüs, a longtime patron of the Palais de Tokyo, said she would no longer provide financial support to Paris’s foremost contemporary art museum after it mounted an exhibition dealing with the history of Palestine. On Sunday, Hegedüs said on Instagram that she was leaving the Amis du Palais de Tokyo, a group of benefactors… Continue reading Palais de Tokyo Patron Pulls Support Over Exhibition About Palestine

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. THE HEADLINES PROTEST/ART. Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World (1866) and other artworks were tagged with the red-painted words, “MeToo,” and an embroidered art piece by Annette Messager was snatched in plain sight at the Centre Pompidou-Metz yesterday. The provocative Courbet painting… Continue reading Courbet’s ‘Origin of the World’ Tagged, Stalemate in Mary Miss Land Art Dispute, Gaza Protest at the Met Gala, and More: Morning Links for May 7, 2024

“Florals, for spring? Groundbreaking.” The infamous line so sarcastically delivered by Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada is certainly apt for this year’s Met Gala. This year’s theme for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit centers around the exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” which boasts roughly 250 rare pieces… Continue reading Unmissable Looks from the Met Gala 2024

A-list celebrities, fashion world icons, and the art world come together tonight at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for the annual Met Gala. The museum hosts the art-and-fashion ball each year on the first Monday of May to support its Costume Institute, which holds around 33,000 objects across seven centuries of fashion history. Guests are invited to… Continue reading Everything to Know about the 2024 Met Gala

A painting that nearly sold at auction three years ago for $1,600 has been revealed to be a missing masterwork by the by the Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It will go on public view for the first time at the Prado in Spain on May 27, according to the Associated Press. The painting, which depicts… Continue reading Newly Discovered Caravaggio will be Unveiled at the Prado in Madrid This Month

Art institutions around the world are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, which staged its first exhibit in April 1874, and curators are seizing the opportunity to dig further into the lesser-known aspects of the movement, notably the historically overlooked women artists from the period. Fresh looks at women Impressionists are underway or upcoming at… Continue reading ‘Berthe Morisot in Nice’ Delves into the Impressionist Painter’s Working Methods

How does an artist go from being a smash hit to falling through the cracks of art history? Beginning in 1957 and through the 1960s, the artist Marisol (1930–2016) was the toast of the New York art scene, her figurative sculptures of roughly hewn wood and found objects admired by artists, critics, and the public… Continue reading The Quiet Power of Marisol’s Work Is Highlighted in a Traveling Retrospective

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. The Headlines IN MEMORIAM. Artist Frank Stella has died at 87. During the 1950s, the iconic American artist marked paved the way for Minimalism, and brought “abstraction into brave new directions, defining an era with his ‘Black Paintings,’” reports ARTnews Senior Editor Alex Greenberger. Rejecting attempts to… Continue reading Frank Stella Dies, Dozens Arrested at Pro-Palestine Encampment at Chicago’s Art Institute, and More: Morning Links for May 6, 2024

Dozens of pro-Palestine protestors were arrested on Saturday at an encampment at the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the nation’s most heavily attended museums. The People’s Art Institute, a group run by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, said on Instagram that it was seeking for the museum and the… Continue reading Dozens Arrested at Pro-Palestine Encampment at Art Institute of Chicago

Frank Stella, an artist who brought abstraction into brave new directions, defining an era with his “Black Paintings” of the 1950s, died on Saturday at 87. The New York Times reported that he had been battling lymphoma. Stella was among the many artists who responded to the growth of Abstract Expressionism in the postwar years.… Continue reading Frank Stella, Trailblazing Artist Who Pushed Abstraction to Its Limits, Dies at 87

Ancient Egyptian pyramids and the Great Sphinx in Giza were briefly shuttered to the public this week for a tech billionaire’s wedding. That billionaire, Ankur Jain, and fitness trainer Erika Hammond reportedly paid to have those sites closed down for their wedding, a weeklong celebration that is estimated to have cost upward of $3 million.… Continue reading Ancient Egyptian Pyramids, Sphinx Close to Public for Tech Billionaire’s Lavish Wedding

Out of all the art fairs being held in New York this week, the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) fair may be your best bet for genuine discovery. The event centers emerging enterprises, and this year has 92 exhibitors, about half of which brought some truly intriguing wares. Percentage-wise, figurative painting ruled the fair, but… Continue reading The Best Booths at NADA New York, From Sci-Fi Utopias to Remixed Folklore

The Arnolfini Portrait, a main attraction at London’s National Gallery, has received a new frame intended to reshape how viewers see the famed Jan van Eyck painting. It is normal for beloved artworks to get new frames every once in a while, and when they do, those frames tend not to receive much discourse. But… Continue reading Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini Portrait’ Gets a New Frame, Polarizing Social Media Users

Break out your wands (and wallets), Potter fans. Slated to hit the auction block at Sotheby’s New York this summer is the original watercolor that graced the cover of the first book in the “Harry Potter” series. The painting is anticipated to become the most expensive item related to the franchise ever sold at auction.… Continue reading Original ‘Harry Potter’ Cover Art Heads to Auction, Where It May Break Records

For the second year in a row, far from Frieze New York in Hudson Yards, the SoHo art dealer Eric Firestone is hosting 18 New York galleries, all of whom are celebrating the 1970s. The fair is situated on the upper floors of Firestone’s gallery on Great Jones Street, where painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and jazz… Continue reading A Riotous, Edgy Alternative Fair About 1970s Art Returns to New York

Arnolfini, an arts center in Bristol, England, apologized on Friday for a decision to cancel two events held as part of the Palestine Film Festival, a move that many artists and activists claimed was a form of censorship. Those events were a screening of Farha (2021), a film set during the Nakba, and a discussion… Continue reading British Arts Center Apologizes for Canceling Palestinian Film Events

The opening of the Frieze New York art fair this week brought six-figure sales and a bunch of celebrities. But whereas last year’s Frieze New York saw the sale of a $2.5 million Jack Whitten painting, no gallery reported any transaction quite so sizable this time around. Once again, Hauser & Wirth and White Cube,… Continue reading $850,000 Ed Clark Painting Tops First-Day Sales at Frieze New York

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. THE HEADLINES GETTY BRONZE DISPUTE. The European Court of Human Rights upheld a 2018 Italian judicial ruling that an ancient Greek statue at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles should be confiscated and returned to Italy, describing it as “an unlawfully… Continue reading EU Court Says Getty Should Return Ancient Greek Bronze to Italy, Kyiv ‘Derussifies’ Monument, Da Vinci Gets Biopic, and More: Morning Links for May 3, 2024

This spring, Storm King Art Center is getting a serious makeover. Since its founding in 1960, the 500-acre sculpture park in the Hudson Valley has been gradually populated by world-class works: the modernist abstractions of David Smith and Mark di Suvero; Louise Nevelson’s glowering black cabinetry; towering monoliths by Ursula von Rydingsvard; and, most recently,… Continue reading How Arlene Shechet Makes Her Recalcitrant Materials Come Alive

The 2024 edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York opened to press on Wednesday afternoon at a new location, Chelsea’s Starrett-Lehigh building. While previous editions of the fair were held in Harlem, this year the fair moved to industry heavyweight neighborhood of Chelsea. More specifically, the Starrett-Lehigh, a massive near-century old… Continue reading The Best Booths at 1-54 New York, From Leaf Assemblages to Invented Archaeological Finds

During the early 1960s, at the height of “Beatlemania,” New York City was taken by storm as The Beatles kicked off their visit to the US. Tens of thousands of fans hurried to the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Fab Four, and band member Paul McCartney was ready to greet them. But… Continue reading Paul McCartney’s Rarely Seen Photography Gets a Big Museum Show in New York

Leonardo da Vinci is coming soon to a movie theater near you. The Renaissance artist will become the latest artist to receive a biopic, Variety reports, in the form of a new film from Andrew Haigh, the director most famous for making last year’s All of Us Strangers. The film will be based on Walter… Continue reading Leonardo da Vinci to Get the Hollywood Treatment from ‘All of Us Strangers’ Director

Until it reopened in a $230 million new building this past June, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum was an anomaly among United States institutions: it held a world-class collection of modern and postwar art with nowhere to properly exhibit the bulk of it at once. Now, a 50,000-square-foot space allows masterpieces like Picasso’s 1906 La… Continue reading In Collection Hangs, Major Museums Remix the Classics

A painting by the British artist Frank Auerbach from his lauded “Albert Street” series is slated to hit the auction block after having been recovered by UK authorities from money launderer Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, according to the Guardian. Mayhew-Lewis bought the picture, which the UK’s National Crime Agency says could be worth “millions of pounds,” in 2017 for £1.6… Continue reading Multimillion-Dollar Frank Auerbach to Be Sold by the UK’s National Crime Agency