Latest

New York Old Masters sales fall just short of expectations at Christie’s and Sotheby’s amid ‘tough’ market

At this year’s winter auctions, the two big houses saw ‘a mixed bag and mixed results’

NEA shuts down arts grant for 'underserved communities' amid flurry of Trump executive orders

The Trump administration's shifting priorities rejects diversity, equity and inclusion in arts organisations

Was a new Van Gogh really discovered at a garage sale? Here’s why I remain unconvinced

The New York-based LMI Group claims the $50 portrait is a previously unknown work by the Dutch master, perhaps now worth $15m, but the Van Gogh Museum rejects it

French culture sector faces ‘violent’ cuts as parliament adopts 2025 budget

The Académie des beaux-arts warns against threats to “freedom of research and creation" as government and local council spending on the arts is slashed

Artist Fareed Armaly rejects German prize, citing ‘disturbing trend of censorship’

The Academy of Arts, stressing it rejects all censorship, says it will not award the Käthe Kollwitz prize this year

The Week in Art

A podcast bringing you the latest news from the art world, every week

Trump tariffs and Zona Maco in Mexico, India Art Fair, and American photography at the Rijksmuseum—podcast

How have recent US executive orders affected the mood on the ground at the leading Mexican fair? Plus a report from India Art Fair as it opens amid state elections, plus a chat about one of the earliest portrait photographs

Zona Maco 2025

At Mexico City’s Material and Salón Acme fairs, artists go out on a limb

The long-running satellite fairs—which champion experimental, emerging and artist-run spaces—abound with adventurous works, tactile materials and body parts

Tariff anxieties are no match for buoyant mood at Mexico City’s Zona Maco

The fair’s VIP preview saw a rush of collectors and museum groups, many sales and little hand-wringing over a possible Mexico-US trade war

Mexican art handling startup goes from strength to strength

Comisario Art House is capitalising on the rapid expansion of the capital’s art scene

Lucía Sanromán, the new chief curator of Mexico City's Muac, has a vision for a more socially engaged museum

Sanromán has an ambitious agenda for the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo that includes repairing its fractured relationship with the local community

New museum in Mexico’s capital chronicles the country’s rich mural heritage

Museo Vivo del Muralismo includes works by greats such as Diego Rivera in a building that is a Unesco World Heritage Site

India Art Fair 2025

India Art Fair opens amid a tense Delhi election

Rising Hindu nationalism and recent incidents of censorship have made exhibitors increasingly cautious to show contentious works

Indian government remains ‘evasive’ over plans for the world’s biggest museum

The ambitious project will replace the National Museum in New Delhi—but crucial details remain under wraps

As competition heats up, India Art Fair refines its vision

The New Delhi fair's 16th edition—its biggest yet—welcomes 78 galleries and an expanded design section which builds on the country's ancient craft tradition

Khoj artists’ association in Delhi holds fundraising show at perilous time for India’s non-profits

Seventy former resident artists nurtured at the pioneering organisation have donated works to help ensure its support for future generations

Ayesha Singh’s India Art Fair tent commission remembers the forgotten women of Indian architecture

Singh considers the vast scale of India's religious, cultural and ideological movements at a time of charged historical revisionism

Art market

New gallery championing women and queer artists to open in east London

Founder Sarah Le Quang Sang says she feels both groups are still “under-represented and undervalued” in society and the art market

Classic Art London rises from the ashes of London Art Week

After the Old Master focused gallery trail was forced to wind down due to lack of funding, a new visitor engagement effort is launching this summer

Justin Sun, the buyer of Sotheby’s $6m banana, sues megacollector David Geffen over $78m Giacometti sculpture

Sun claims he is the rightful owner of Le Nez, which is purportedly now in Geffen’s possession in New York

Christie's pulls El Greco work from sale after Romanian government intervenes

Romanian prime minister Marcel Ciolacu said a legal team is pursuing the recovery of the painting once owned by King Carol I of Romania

Classic Art London rises from the ashes of London Art Week

After the Old Master focused gallery trail was forced to wind down due to lack of funding, a new visitor engagement effort is launching this summer

Museums & Heritage

Wanted! Italy seeks new directors for top museums

Candidates have until 6 March to apply to take the reins at some of the country's most prestigious institutions, including the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence and the Colosseum archaeological park

Operations staff make the art world go round—so why are they undervalued?

First survey of gallery and auction house staff reveals problems with job security, career paths and inequality

Technology reveals ancient text inside burnt Herculaneum scroll

Scientists used artificial intelligence and X-ray imaging to decipher the Roman object's contents

Unesco completes restoration of Mosul heritage sites damaged under Isis

The UN body has brought several religious and other buildings in the Iraqi city back to life as part of an $115m programme

Collector removes Boccioni sculpture from major Futurism exhibition citing misleading texts and safety concerns

Roberto Bilotti has removed the piece from Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, claiming it was being exhibited in “a dark corner” and was “not valued at all”

Exhibitions

The Big Review: Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art at the Alte Pinakothek ★★★★

An extensive exhibition dedicated to the Dutch artist highlights her beautifully detailed still-lifes. But do these paintings offer more than splendid decoration?

Art from a conflicted time: Anselm Kiefer's early works head to Oxford

An exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum brings together 42 paintings, watercolours, artist books, photos and woodcuts made between 1969 and 1982—along with three new works

Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Mai to hit the road on UK tour

The masterpiece will leave the National Portrait Gallery and head to Bradford and Cambridge

American Artist builds on author Octavia Butler’s prescient, dystopian vision

In their new show at Pioneer Works in New York, American Artist reflects on Butler’s most famous series of novels and her archives

Books

A new volume explores the intimate art of drawing, as seen through a wider lens

This “alternative” history navigates the medium through artists on the margins, as well as established practitioners

Beetlejuice and beyond: the origins of Tim Burton’s world of gothic romance and its enduring influence

Catalogue accompanying exhibition at London’s Design Museum explores the US film-maker’s unique aesthetic

Two books explore Piet Mondrian's journey into abstraction—and his posthumous influence on 1960s fashion

How, two decades after his death, did Mondrian become a brand icon, and make a lasting contribution to the “youthquake”?

This newly translated volume compiles the photographic traces of a libidinous love affair

Author Annie Ernaux and journalist Marc Marie’s collaborative memoir documents a passionate yet haunted relationship

Diary

Parkinson’s charity sale presents cubed art by Rana Begum and George Shaw

Works by 118 artists, on show at Bonhams, will be sold in aid of the Cure3 initiative

Curator formerly known as Aaron Cezar wows as Prince

The director of the Delfina Foundation showed off his inner purple during Singapore's Art SG fair

Activist Coco Fusco is using laughter to trump fear

The Cuban American artist has created a satirical newspaper lambasting the new US president

Parkinson’s charity sale presents cubed art by Rana Begum and George Shaw

Works by 118 artists, on show at Bonhams, will be sold in aid of the Cure3 initiative

Tom Hanks reverts to type for New York exhibition

Highlights from the Hollywood actor's 300-strong collection of typewriters will go on show in New York state

Book Club

Don McCullin on swapping war zones for museums and why his ‘printing days are over’

The revered photojournalist has turned his focus to ancient statues for a new photography book

An expert’s guide to Anselm Kiefer: five must-read books on the German artist

All you ever wanted to know about Kiefer, from a deep dive into his studios to the poetry that inspires him—selected by the curators Emilie Gordenker, Edwin Becker and Leontine Coelewij

‘I thought I would be trampled to death’: travelling with Gilbert & George to put on a show in 1990s Beijing

An exclusive extract from a new book by James Birch who helped organise exhibitions for the artist duo in Communist Russia and China

Obituaries

Remembering Leonid Bazhanov, larger-than-life curator who pushed Russian contemporary art in new directions

The death of Bazhanov, who founded institutions including the groundbreaking National Centre for Contemporary Art, follows that of two other leading figures of the Conceptualist movement

Remembering Colin Renfrew, a lover of Modern art who revolutionised archaeology

His championing of radiocarbon dating and other new scientific approaches demonstrated the untenability of the conventional explanation for cultural change

Jo Baer, painter who pivoted from abstraction to ‘radical figuration’, has died, aged 95

Baer was equally renowned for her work in Minimalist abstraction and figurative painting

Aaron De Groft, Orlando Museum of Art director fired in Basquiat forgery scandal, has died, aged 59

Following successful stints at museums in Virginia and on Florida’s Gulf Coast, De Groft’s career became mired in the Basquiat fakes fiasco

David Lynch, artist and film-maker who portrayed America’s dark side with surreal humour and violence, has died, aged 78

Lynch trained as a painter before becoming a successful film-maker and ultimately returning to visual art in recent decades

Opinion

Comment | Sotheby’s fees fiasco displays terrible timing and a miscalculation of market dynamics

The auction house's swift reversal of its recently overhauled premium structure is an admission of how wrongly it read the runes, writes Melanie Gerlis

Comment | Why seeing art by train should be the next big thing

Flying to an exhibition is increasingly unjustifiable. But by choosing the train, visitors can enjoy endless, inspiring encounters with art and life

Comment | What happens behind the scenes at the museum is what really matters

From delicate cleaning to forklifts, the unseen, but crucial, investment often goes unnoticed

Comment | Why the road to the sale of Frieze is a winding one

The potential sale raises questions around how to value the prestigious and unique art brand

Comment | Despite what some critics claim, art today isn’t really too obsessed with ‘social justice’

In viral essays and beyond, those who bemoan the dominance of identity politics in museums often reveal more of their own biases than of the art world's

A brush with... podcast

A podcast that asks artists the questions you've always wanted to

A brush with… Linder — podcast

In the first episode of 2025, Linder, best known for gritty and glamorous photomontages, discusses the Manchester punk scene of the 1970s, the impact of reading Germaine Greer and the Brontës and using her scalpel as a ‘magic wand’

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack
Sponsored by Bloomberg Connects

Adventures with Van Gogh

Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries.

Was a new Van Gogh really discovered at a garage sale? Here’s why I remain unconvinced

The New York-based LMI Group claims the $50 portrait is a previously unknown work by the Dutch master, perhaps now worth $15m, but the Van Gogh Museum rejects it

Technology

News, background and analysis on the latest tech developments—artificial intelligence tools; Web3, the blockchain, NFTs; virtual and augmented reality; social media platforms—and how they affect the art market, museums, artists and curators.

Artists can copyright works made using AI as an ‘assistive tool’, US Copyright Office concludes

The Copyright Office’s new report also concluded that “the incorporation of AI-generated content into a larger copyrightable work” is acceptable

Comment | How technology can help the art world take a big step towards sustainability

A new report published by the virtual reality platform Vortic makes clear the environmental benefits of going digital—and a hybrid approach could a way forward in the short term

Technologyfeature

Immersive inspirations: three key developments from 2024

It was a big year for immersive art, with major institutions getting involved, new virtual reality kit, and a groundbreaking event in Venice

Does Trump’s return spell boom or bust for the NFT art market?

Experts are sceptical that the NFT market will ever rebound to its 2021 levels, but the crypto asset sector may still manage to take over the art world one way or the other

Palestine Museum US launches NFT collection in support of Gaza artists

The museum released a non-fungible token of a work by the Gazan artist Mohammed Alhaj to kick off the new initiative

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