Latest

Christie's results are down 'just' 6% in 2024, 'despite challenging environment'

The house's auction total saw a double-digit decrease for a second year in a row—but private sales are booming

Kabir Jhalaabout 9 hours ago

Robert Smithson’s famed Land art piece Spiral Jetty added to US National Register of Historic Places

The 1,500ft-long, coiling earthwork in Utah’s Great Salt Lake is arguably the best known example of Land art

Benjamin Suttonabout 16 hours ago

Artist rejects deal with Icelandic company implicated in Fishrot scandal

The artist Odee rejected a proposal by the fishing conglomerate Samherji that would have required him to pay £1 and hand over control of the website; now the company wants £206,000

Elizabeth Mistryabout 11 hours ago

Artist withdraws from Miami-area exhibition over anti-BDS language in contract

“It was disheartening to experience this level of institutional complacency and complicity,” says the artist Les Gomez-Gonzalez

Francess Archer Dunbarabout 8 hours ago

Family of late Marlborough Gallery chairman Pierre Levai sue his lover, claiming she ‘kept him sick, starved’

Max and Rosemary Levai claim Pierre’s “long-time paramour” Marcia Levine is responsible for his death and should not receive any of his inheritance

Art market

Fuller picture of Sotheby's mass layoffs emerges

Staff cuts at auction house come as $1bn deal with Abu Dhabi wealth fund closes 

Anny Shaw. With additional reporting by Anna Brady2 days ago

Christie's is suing winning bidder of record-breaking Chardin for failure to pay

Italian investor Nanni Bassani Antivari secured the still-life Cut Melon with a €26.7m bid in June, but has yet to send the auction house any money

The Year in Review: art market slump squeezes biggest players and Frieze for sale

The top end of the market failed to recover, while auction houses expanded in Hong Kong amid dramatic shifts in the city

MFA Boston's Old Master paintings could bring up to $3.8m at auction

The deaccessioned works, to be offered at Christie's in New York, include 17 pieces by Dutch and Flemish artists from the 17th century

Museums & Heritage

Houston's Rothko Chapel reopens after hurricane damage is repaired

The Texas pilgrimage site for devotees of Abstract Expressionism returns just in time for the holidays

Torey Akers1 day ago

In Alabama, plans to preserve the last transatlantic slave ship are taking shape

The Clotilda shipwreck will remain submerged as a monument to the 110 enslaved people it carried—and in tribute to their descendants in Mobile, Alabama

Saudi Arabia launches digital art institute as part of $62.2bn Diriyah complex

A vast new digital art institute, Diriyah Art Futures in Riyadh, opened earlier this month with "cutting-edge labs and immersive exhibition spaces"

Louise Bourgeois’s mammoth spider will return to Tate Modern for the gallery's 25th anniversary

A new “capsule collection” trail will also feature works by Mark Rothko and Dorothea Tanning

Exhibitions

Gerhard Richter once thought film wasn't for him—in Rome, his latest exhibition proves how wrong he was

The artist's 36-minute film, ‘Moving Picture (946-3) Kyoto Version (2019–24)’, is currently on show at Gagosian

Dale Berning Sawaabout 20 hours ago

Art Institute of Chicago explores ‘complex terrain’ of Pan-African art

A new show examines what the term means and celebrates foundational Black liberation movements

Gaza Biennale seeks to provide support and relief for Palestinian artists

More than 50 Palestinian artists are participating in the worldwide event

Scientific wonders from Versailles, which once delighted kings, to go on show in London

The Science Museum exhibition will explore the French monarchy’s fascination with scientific observation and experimentation under Louis XIV and XV

The Big Review: Matisse | Invitation to the Voyage at the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel ★★★★½

Sprawling survey of the Modernist master, comprising more than 70 works, is a celebration of a remarkable six-decade career

Opinion

The Year in Review: Escalating art attacks and responses to war

This year has been marked by a rising number of politically-motivated attacks on art. But we should not forget the power of art to unite diverse groups of people

Influencers: is it time for museums to go all in?

As an advertising agency pays Instagram influencers to promote museums, is it really worth shelling out thousands of dollars for added publicity and to reach new audiences?

Comment | Why it's important to find hope for—and through—the arts after the US election

The divisions within American society cannot be ignored, but let’s focus on where the country is united, and how the cultural sector can foster that unity

Jamie Bennett and Suzy Delvalle

Comment | EU’s new anti-looting law is another blow for legitimate trade

Though laudible in its aim to kerb trafficking of stolen goods, planned rules will impose unreasonable burdens on lawful and genuine trade

Rudy Capildeo

Comment | In the run up to the US election, Boston's Museum of Fine Art is hopeful about art's role in a democratic future

The museum's latest exhibition explains and scrutinises democracy through objects spanning 2,500 years

Phoebe Segal

Obituaries

Lorraine O’Grady, conceptual artist who dissected language and dualities, has died, aged 90

O’Grady, who devoted herself to art in her early forties, spent the ensuing decades making incisive works that spanned photography, collage, performance and more

Remembering Joseph Rykwert, influential writer and teacher on the theory of architecture

Warsaw-born RIBA gold medal winner, who became the professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, changed architectural understanding

Remembering Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, groundbreaking director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Charismatic leader who steered the museum through a difficult period in the 1980s, and later became a university vice-chancellor

Remembering Frank Auerbach, one of the leading artists of his generation, who has died aged 93

The German-born British painter, a leading figure in the School of London, produced some of the most enduring and perceptive observations of what it meant to be alive during his time

Remembering Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, the Unesco boss who fought for the dispossessed

The headline-making director-general of Unesco, who clashed with Reagan and Thatcher, died recently at the age of 103

Book Club

Some of our favourite books of 2024—picked by The Art Newspaper’s books team

Our literary editors share what has delighted them this year, from art-themed novels to edifying histories

Magnum’s opus of America: a new photography compendium reveals the many sides of the US

The publication’s co-editor Peter van Agtmael chooses seven key images from legendary agency’s new book

An expert’s guide to the Venetian Renaissance: five must-read books on the period

All you ever wanted to know about the subject, from the story of Carpaccio and Bellini's narrative painting to a Venice guide for little explorers—selected by the curators Annette Hojer and Christine Follmann

Books

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

The arts should be recognised as a key part of what it means to be human, argues a new publication

An urgent treatise on the decommodification of culture by the professor of cultural economy Justin O’Connor

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.

What links Van Gogh, Trump, a golden toilet and Cattelan's $6.2m banana?

This unlikely grouping is part of an astonishing story involving New York’s Guggenheim Museum

The Week in Art

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

Carsten Höller, Takashi Murakami, sounds of the US-Mexico border — podcast

Höller discusses his new book of games, Murakami chats AI and the television series Shōgun, and two artists talk about a new sound installation at Dia’s New York City space

A brush with... podcast

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

A brush with… Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset — podcast

In the first episode of A brush with featuring an artist duo, Elmgreen and Dragset discuss their influences, and the cultural experiences that have shaped their lives and work

Hosted by and Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack
Sponsored byBloomberg Connects

Stellar work: Mercury crater named after artist Ruth Asawa

The Japanese-American sculptor is the 23rd woman to be given the honour—compared with 100 men

Elon Musk serves up disconcerting AI art

The controversial billionaire failed to spot a contemporary car in Caillebotte picture altered using artificial intelligence by Luma

Go big or go to the London gallery offering small beautiful art

Flowers Gallery has opened its annual exhibition of little pieces

‘The Roman emperors wouldn’t have put up with it’: Harry Kane statue gets art critics talking

The footballer attended the unveiling of the work after it finally found a permanent home

Listen up, Elon: Clifton Suspension Bridge Museum makes dramatic exit from X

Bristol institution makes waves after quitting social media platform

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.

Paintboxed! Artists invited to work with 1980s digital art tool once championed by Keith Haring and Richard Hamilton

ArtMeta art fair and Tezos ecosystem are taking Quantel Paintbox—used by contemporary art giants four decades ago—on a global tour to introduce it to a new generation of creators

Vatican launches AI-generated version of St Peter’s Basilica

Co-developed by Microsoft, the project also identified conservation issues at the world-famous church

Technologyanalysis

How auction houses are embracing artificial intelligence

New services such as AI-enhanced translation are proving popular, even as human involvement remains crucial

From roving gallery to London’s Mayfair: Unit’s social media journey, 11 years on

Joe Kennedy and Jonny Burt didn’t have any of the traditional things needed to start a gallery—but they did have the power of Instagram

New York's Salon 94 is feeling the TikTok visitor effect

A content creator's positive post has led to a massive uptick in the gallery's footfall