
Saltz Sez: Caspar David Friedrich’s Lonely Islands; Friedrich is the painter par excellence of German Romanticism, yet also a man for all times and places
HAPPY 100th NEW YORKER!

The Singular Wit of One of the New Yorker’s First Women Cartoonists; Barbara Shermund’s single-panel cartoons, drawn with a seemingly off-the-cuff fluidity of line and expression, came to define the magazine’s sense of humor

Ilona Staller Made Waves as Jeff Koons’s Muse. Now She’s Telling Her Side of the Story; Former porn star and member of Italian parliament is setting out on a new chapter: capturing her life in print, art, and film

Noah Davis: An Innovative Painter Who Also Reimagined Art’s Role in Community
LAWRENCE WESCHLER

Superdinoflagellistic! The Nanoworlds of Michael Benson, Photographer of Electro-microscopic Images of Sea Creatures

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ECON RUMBLE!
French Culture Sector Faces 'Violent' Cuts As Parliament Adopts 2025 Budget
ZONAMACO Returns With Respectable Early Sales, But Fewer Foreign Buyers Than Expected; While more international art lovers descended on Mexico City this year, buyers at ZONAMACO's VIP opening hailed mainly from Mexico and South America
Facing $10M Budget Deficit, Brooklyn Museum Will Lay Off Dozens of Workers; Staff cuts will affect both full, and part-time, workers across union and non-union roles
A Shift at Gagosian: Brooke Lampley from Sotheby's Will Focus on the Secondary Market
At Guadalajara Art Weekend, Open Studios Are the Biggest Draw; What started as a spontaneous gathering—artists inviting visitors to the city ahead of ZONAMACO—has evolved into ART WKND GDL, a highly coordinated series of events that shine a spotlight on the city's art scene
NEA Cancels Grant Program Supporting Underserved Communities; Announces Other Changes to Grant Criteria

New Criterion: Paintings About Painting; On “Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Post-War France, 1946–62,” at the Grey Art Museum, New York

Jurassic Tech Builds a Medieval Islamic Ceiling
MUSIC + SOUND
Fela Kuti in Prison; How Nigeria literally went to war against one musician—and lost
Review: I just listened to Wu-Tang Clan’s 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.' As Music, It’s Good. As Art, It’s Truly Great
Ted Gioia: Nine New Albums I'm Loving Right Now; But most of these are well-kept secrets
Ted Gioia: Why Love Songs Are Badass; And How to Read Sappho
‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli Ordered To Give Up One-Of-A-Kind Wu-Tang Clan Album He Paid $2M For

Documentary Trailer 'Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision'; Hendrix built a fab recording studio and the greatest musicians had to record there

Regarding L.A., Everyone Has an Opinion
The Rise of the Selfish Plutocrats; How little today’s superrich resemble the public-spirited patrons of the past; Kept in a hot, humid environment for the private enjoyment of one royal billionaire and his ultrarich guests

Raphael’s Tiny Masterpiece, Marked With His Fingerprint, Heads to Auction; At just 20, Raphael painted an unusually beautiful "Penitent Magdalene"
AI Art With Human “Expressive Elements” Can Be Copyrighted; US Copyright Office issued its latest findings on the controversial question of who owns artworks created using generative tools; Display sufficient human creativity

Appreciating Richard Serra! The Color Changes to His T.E.U.C.L.A. (2006) at UCLA, When Dry and When Wet: See Here!

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Kim Fay in Detroit: Michigan Fine Arts Competition at The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center

Gagosian Artists Kahlil Robert Irving and Cameron Welch share their approaches to materiality and longevity....

A Brief History of Women’s Eyebrows in Art; Since antiquity, women’s eyebrows have been sites of intense scrutiny, constantly shifting between trend cycles

Are You on the List? These Are the 27 Artists in the 2025 'Made in LA' Biennial, the Hammer Museum’s signature show, which centers the work of artists from the greater Los Angeles area, is set to open in October

Step Into Sonia Boyce’s Sensory World; Shimmering with color and sound, her exhibition Feeling Her Way at the Art Gallery of Ontario feels both expansive and enveloping

Book: Atmospheric Perspective; On Michael Lobel’s 'Van Gogh and the End of Nature'
How 10 Year Old 'Feria Material' Became a Hotspot for Emerging Art: An Interview With Founder Brett W. Schultz; In just a decade, Schultz's fair has become a collector-favorite, offering a more experimental, conversation-driven complement to ZONAMACO during Mexico City Art Week
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp: David Hockney Plays With Our Perception of Fine Art in Palm Springs; 'David Hockney: Perspective Should Be Reversed' is currently on show at the Palm Springs Art Museum
Gallerist Jack Shainman Takes Us Behind the Scenes of His Tribeca Debut!

Surrealists Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington Were Friends!
Street Artist RETNA Sues Heritage Auctions Over Alleged Wrongful Sale; RETNA alleges that his landlord improperly seized works by him as well as artists from Robert Mapplethorpe to Naudline Pierre
BOOKS + WORDS
The Other British Invasion: How UK Lingo Conquered the US; It used to be that Brits would complain about Americanisms diluting the English language. But in fact it’s a two-way street
Book Review: ‘Dorothy Parker in Hollywood’: Sharp Tongue, Restless Spirit; When Dorothy Parker took her razor wit to California and the movie industry, she brought her troubles, and ideals, along

Tosh Berman: I Dream of Jimbocho; There are over 150 bookstores in Jimbocho, Tokyo
A Haunting Compendium of Paris Ghost Stories
Director Sam Mendes on Bringing ‘The Hills of California’ To Broadway; “This is one of the hardest plays that I have ever directed," says Mendes. "It’s big in scale, but it’s also delicate and needs precision and a gentle hand."
Before Joan Didion Had John Gregory Dunne, There Was Noel Parmentel Jr. A First and Searing Love; Didion’s marriage was one of the most revered in American letters. But when the man who came first broke her heart, the devastation lasted a lifetime

New Show of Collage by African-American Artists Finds Multiplicity in Black Identity; Medium offers a site for meditations on subjects like collective history, cultural hybridity and gender fluidity

PHOTOGRAPHY

Video: How Kodak Invented The “Snapshot”

Artist Francesca Morales Gutierrez Finds Beauty In Brutality
How Robert Frank Pushed the Boundaries of Photography; Refreshing retrospective demonstrates that, far from being overshadowed by The Americans, Frank was only getting started with it

An Overdue History of Japanese Women Photographers; Expansive catalog offers an essential compilation of essays, interviews, and profiles of Japanese women photographers from the 1950s through the present day
Jonathan Becker’s Photographs of the Rich and Famous Offer Glimpses Into a Private, Sparkling World; Early look at the new photo memoir Lost Time and its scenes of a glittering jet set

Photographer Joanna Piotrowska: The Politics of Touch

Street Artist RETNA Is In a Fight Over His Studio. Now Its Contents Are Up for Grabs; Under the Golden State’s civil code, allows him to treat the contents of the artist’s studio as abandoned property; Works by RETNA as well as Robert Mapplethorpe, Naudline Pierre, and Shepard Fairey are among the lots

Photographer Norm Clasen 'American Icon' at M+B

Sabrina Bockler’s Sumptuous Still Lifes Are Enchanting the Art World; Artists's new works are now on view in 'Shallow Water' at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica
Joe Gordon-Levitt: TikTok’s Close Call, or Why the Walled Gardens should Fall

Why Collectors Are Clamoring for Marie Laurencin’s Sapphic Paintings; French artist's works are the subject of a new show at Almine Rech
Interview: How Art Humanizes the Hospital Experience: Interview With RxART Director Katie Hollander; Organization's roster of artists transform sterile and intimidating healthcare environments into places of joy, healing and beauty
David Hockney Unveils Unseen Work For Major Paris Retrospective; William Blake-inspired artwork to feature alongside new paintings in artist’s biggest exhibition
BOOKS + WORDS
How Historical Fiction Redefined the Literary Canon; In contemporary publishing, novels fixated on the past rather than the present have garnered the most attention and prestige
'Oscar Wilde: A Life in Six Acts' at the Morgan Library; “Oscar was almost always right (except in his erotic tastes and habits) about all the big issues of his time—social, moral, aesthetic.”
Could Following Joan Didion's Writing Routine Make Me Write Like Joan Didion? Strange Ways Writers Found Their Inspiration

Awesome! Miniature Book Nooks Belong on Every Bookshelf, How To Get Started
Mining The Future; How Science Fiction Shapes The World
Al Pacino Reveals in New Autobiography That Teleprompters Are “Greatest Thing I Have Found Late in My Acting Life”
On the Importance of Syntax in Writing; I Sing the Electric Body

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The Sinister Subtext of Farshid Bazmandegan’s Paintings at Track 16; Artist’s last show connects the art industry with geopolitics, urging us to examine our role in a complicated negotiation of denial and strategic ignorance
Interview: Art critic and Harvard Professor Sarah Lewis on Ways of Seeing Race in America

‘One of the Most Impactful Art Losses Ever’: Insurers Start to Assess LA Wildfire Damage
Headlines! Frieze ‘Assesses’ L.A. Edition as Fire Devastation Mounts; Save the Getty!; Museums and Galleries Close; Deadly blazes have claimed at least 10 lives and destroyed more than 10,000 structures
Must Read! For 200 years, LA Has Been Close To The Edge. Now It’s Fallen Over It; Joan Didion and the Santa Ana Winds; History of LA; "I’ve walked the streets of LA, its history as vivid as its fires. Now, the city burns, and its dreams smoulder in the ash"

An Evening With Dean Kissick and the Red Scare Podcast, the hotly anticipated panel that was actually pretty boring, and More Juicy Art World Gossip

Jean Tinguely’s Monumental Kinetic Sculptures Whir Back to Life; Stellar Milan retrospective, the artist's first major exhibition in decades, celebrates his groundbreaking sculptures, blending mechanical chaos, humor, and defiance

Was Kim Kardashian the Mystery Buyer of This $5 Million Basquiat? Her momager Kris Jenner just dropped more evidence of the Basquiat hanging in Kardashian's home

Good Bones! Meet Emma Ferrer, the Granddaughter of Audrey Hepburn Making Her Painting Debut; "The Scapegoat," now on view at Sapar Contemporary, emerges from Ferrer's deep fascination with ancient rites
PHOTOGRAPHY

Video: Official Doc Trailer for 'Ernest Cole: Lost and Found' About a Photographer; One of first Black freelance photographers in South Africa; "Profoundly moving life story"

Asian America’s Unofficial Photographer Laureate; 'Corky Lee’s Asian America' is a stunning glimpse into the fight for racial justice over the last half-century — one many Americans haven’t seen

The Road Dogs of the American West; Photographs by Bryan Schutmaat

Edward Curtis, the Man who Documented the First Americans
Inside the Dash To Save The Getty Villa From The Palisades Fire: A Timeline

Jerry Gogosian, the artist and witty IG sensation with an effervescence as bubbly as champagne, announces a break from the insincerities, avarice and jealousies of the fine art world. The hard toll of faith, against the dark forces of art fairs, failed promises and acid hearts, provided an existential crisis for Jerry, one in which she is turning into a lifesaving 180 degree course change. Jerry is on an artist's journey
Interview: The Inside Story of The Biggest Art Fraud In American History; Orlando Whitfield was a student when he became best friends with Inigo Philbrick, ‘the art world’s Bernie Madoff’. He talks about how their decade of hustling would lead one to a breakdown – and the other to jail

Andrew Alba’s New Works at Material Expose the Pain We Inherit

The Artful Magic of Tony DeLap on Display at The Honarkar Foundation in Laguna Beach
CONTRETEMPS IN THE AMERICAN RIVIERA

Julia Friedman: On Amada Cruz’s Cancellation of “Three American Painters: Then and Now” Art history got cancelled at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Artists Protest Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Cancellation of Michael Fried-Inspired Show; In a letter to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s board, eight artists included in the nixed exhibition denounce the “outrageous” termination of the show’s curator, Eik Kahng
What Will Meghan Markle's New Brand 'American Riviera Orchard' Sell? (Or Can We Forget About It Already?)

'Inside Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s Art Empire'; With their envy-inducing holdings, the Dean Collection, the music-industry power couple have helped lead the way for a generation of collectors of Black art. The rest of the world is finally catching up

Matt Stromberg: Major Collection of California Narrative Art Reopens in Orange County; New Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University holds over 5,000 works that plumb the rich history of the Golden State
HIRST CAUGHT BACKDATING
Damien Hirst Formaldehyde Animal Works Dated To 1990s Were Made In 2017; Three sculptures exhibited in galleries around world were artificially aged, sources claim
Damien Hirst’s Shark Changed My Life. Now He Has Taken A Chainsaw To His Glorious Past; In creating sculptures backdated to the days when his art electrified the world, the former YBA has cast doubt on his youthful legacy and destroyed our belief in his creative future
THE ANSWERS ARE ALL IN YOUR HEAD
The Free Press: Life’s Short. So Stop Trying to Perfect It.‘The world opens up once you realize you’re never going to sort your life out,’ writes recovering productivity geek Oliver Burkeman, author of 'Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals'
What Happens When Artists Start Going to Therapy? In a number of exhibitions on view this year, people are pushing back on the cliché of suffering being essential to art, embracing recovery and wellness instead
Daniel Jones, Author of the NYT Column 'Modern Love' Offers 'Seven Ways to Love Better': "Reading some 200,000 love stories has taught me a few lessons about love and life. Here are the ones that help me most"

Who is Takako Yamaguchi, the Under-Sung Painter Causing a Frenzy at Auction? After decades of quiet work, her evocative paintings breaking auction records and surpassing high estimates mark a sensational turn in the artist’s career


New Yorker Cartoons for the Week!
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COURAGE!
The Bunny Museum in LA Looks to Rebuild After Fires; Co-founders of the world’s largest collection of rabbit-themed items want to recreate “the hoppiest place in the world”
Writer Salman Rushdie Faces His Alleged Attacker in Court
Fight to the Death! Banksy to Fight Greeting Card Company for Control of His Trademark
Dutch Police Arrest Three in Explosive Museum Heist; Stolen Ancient Romanian Gold Treasures Have Yet To Be Recovered

Yoshitomo Nara, 'My Imperfect Self' at BLUM Los Angeles ... ... Video: See the Install!
FEBRUARY 2025

11 Shows to See in LA This February

Five NYC Shows to Start Your February
Artist Opportunities: March and April 2025
SURREALISM

On Surrealism: Gagosian Artists Glenn Brown and Alexandria Smith
Dismissed, Excluded and Now Adored: The Revenge Of The Women Surrealists; Written off as ‘muses’ and denied entry to the movement, they still produced extraordinary work that is only now being appreciated. We enter a gender-breaking world of occult worship – and cats

Meet Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie, the ‘Jazz Witch’ Who Captivated the Art World; "The Whole World Is a Mystery" at the Carnegie Museum of Art marks the first retrospective look at the artist in more than 30 years

Surrealism’s Legacy of Antifascist Activism; Show at Munich’s Lenbachhaus museum is an urgent study in the meaningful art-political networks that stressed solidarity and unity over isolation
Scholar Mary Ann Caws on Women Surrealists and André Breton’s Ass; If you can name more than two or three women surrealists without using Google, the 90-year-old art historian has probably helped make that happen
PHOTOGRAPHY

Video Interview: Photographer David Yarrow Speaks on the West, Western Values and How Lucky We Are!
How Photography Tells Lies; From AI-generated ‘promptography’ to dreamy sci-fi images, what constitutes truth when it comes to photography today?

The Big Picture: Hara Mikiko Captures A Tokyo Tryst; Japanese actor turned photographer seeks an element of chance in her ethereal scenes from everyday life
Reviews: How One of the Greatest Photographers Turned Against Photography; U-turn at the heart of “Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue” at MoMA
Teen-Age Alienation, on Display; In the nineteen-eighties, Andrea Modica took photos of the students at her Catholic alma mater

Berlin in the 1990s Was Revolutionary: Inside C/O Berlin’s Analogue Photo Retrospective; Capturing the chaotic, post-Wall playground were the photographers who were living in the aftermath of the Weimar Republic, Nazi rule and the end of the Cold War on November 9, 1989

Review: Julie Speed’s Worldbuilding at Ballroom Marfa

Artist Nao Morigo: Miniature Collages Inspired by the Sea, Made From Newspaper Clippings and Nihonga Materials

Blakehaus Installations: Thinking Outside the Box of the Peter Blake Gallery; Impeccable Blend of Art, Architecture and Design; To create a site-specific exhibition; First two were in Palm Springs and the third was The Hunt House in Malibu
WORLD OF WARHOLA

Warhol Newspaper Sculptures

Book Review: Julia Warhola Was an Artist in Her Own Right; Calligrapher, illustrator, and mother to Andy Warhol lived with her son in New York City for decades, supporting and even collaborating with him on artistic projects; Warhol collected scrap and repurposed it
2025 Predictions; Chinese Horoscopes For The Year Of The Wood Snake 2025: Health, Wealth, Work and Love, Plus The Wood Snake’s Effect On The 5 Elements Of The Chinese Zodiac

Magnus Resch: An Art Glut Is About to Tank the Market. Here’s Why Collectors Should Buy Anyway
Ai Weiwei Speaks Out On DeepSeek’s Chilling Responses; Chinese-owned AI chatbot’s refusal to answer questions about the dissident artist and activist is “quite telling,” Ai said in a statement to Hyperallergic

Video: ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat. Engadin’ at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz
STUDIO + GALLERY

The Soho Loft ‘Bad Paintings’ Bought Artist Neil Jenney paid just $36,000 for this 11,000-square-foot space in 1973. It was “completely unlivable.”

Step Inside Artist Dale Chihuly’s Stunning Seattle Studio, Filled With an Epic Antiques Collection and His Otherworldly Glass Forms; New book from the artist takes us inside his museum-like studio, the Boathouse

They Still Make Art in Soho Reformed “wild man” painter John Alexander and ceramicist Fiona Waterstreet’s loft life
GO, VAN GOGH!

How Victorian London inspired Vincent Van Gogh

Where Did Van Gogh Shoot Himself? It May Have Been Near The Inn Where He Stayed, Not In A More Distant Wheatfield
MUSIC + SOUND

The Surreal Tale of a Strange Composer: Eden Ahbez, the One-Hit Songwriter of 'Nature Boy'; Nat King Cole Hit; Irving Berlin Loved It
Once Upon A Time In Shaolin: Have You Listened to ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’?

Review: I just listened to Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. As music, it’s good. As art, it’s truly great; Thirty-minute mix from world’s rarest album played at Mona in Tasmania, leaving listeners buzzing – and ‘a bit sad’
Have a Listen! Entrance (Intro) to 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' by Wu-Tang Clan
THE AMAZING DAVID LYNCH

David Lynch (1946-2025) Never Really Belonged to Us; ‘Filmmaker. Born Missoula, MT. Eagle Scout.’ The filmmaker, artist and musician, who died on 16 January, was at once a mystic and a master of this beautiful little ugly life
So Unlike His Movies, David Lynch’s Aw-Shucks Charm Was Its Own Work of Art
David Lynch’s Family Called for ‘Worldwide Group Meditation’ on His Birthday January 19
‘The Straight Story’ May Lack David Lynch’s Signature Darkness, but It Led to His Eerie Masterworks; "Mulholland Drive" and "Twin Peaks: The Return" may not have happened without little ol' Alvin Straight

1987 Vanity Fair: The Weird Dreams of David Lynch; Film director David Lynch specializes in the freaky and the perverse, 'Eraserhead,' 'The Elephant Man,' and 'Blue Velvet,' starring his new amour, Isabella Rossellini. But, our writer discovers, he's also a talented painter, whose work is shown here for the first time
Listen: David Lynch Saw the Nightmare Beneath the American Dream
In Conversation: David Lynch, The Director As Painter, Festival Impresario And Ant Collaborator

See the Memorable Scene! David Lynch Played Film Titan John Ford in Steven Spielberg's 'The Fabelmans'

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Collector Paul-Emmanuel Reiffers Reveals His Most Nerve-Wracking Artwork Negotiation Yet; From establishing foundations that invigorate the French contemporary art scene to zeroing in on the strategies that inform a meaningful collection, Paul-Emmanuel Reiffers offers a glimpse into the journey of an arts patron today
Creative Power Couple Larry Fink and Martha Posner Share the Spotlight in a New Show; Curator Peter Barberie has tied together core artistic themes in their 'utterly different' work
PALATE PALETTE
At a Deluxe Private Dining Room on the 100th Floor, a Chef Toils in Obscurity

The Hottest Restaurant in France Is an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet; Les Grands Buffets features a seven-tiered lobster tower, a chocolate fountain, and only what it considers traditional French food. Gourmands are willing to wait months for a table

Holly Lane’s Elegiac Shrines to the Natural World; Artist evokes a keen awareness of the threats facing the environment by honoring it through opulent, reliquary-style frames and delicate paintings

Georgia O’Keeffe Was Sent to Hawaii to Paint Pineapples. She Painted Everything But; She had other plans...
The Unfathomable Loss of Artistic Heritage in Altadena; With much of the area now in ruins and no clear picture of recovery, artists are reflecting on the once-thriving community and imagining what the future might look like

Knight Review: Artist Olafur Eliasson’s Thrilling New L.A. Show, at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Whips Up Magic To Pry Open Perception
Must Read! Julia Friedman: Comfortably Numb; Attempting to foretell the next art world trend is a thankless task

Swiss Art Critic and Curator Hans Ulrich Obrist on A.I., Video Games, and Rethinking the Art World in 2025; ‘Curator who never sleeps’ talks video games and A.I. technologies
Waldemar Januszczak: A Potted History Of The Christmas Tree — From Pagans To Queen Victoria: That guady fir in your living room was once a symbol of death, hope and rebirth. Meet the 250-year-old German genius Caspar David Friedrich who painted it best

From Vampire Weekend to ‘Emily In Paris:’ The 14 Best Art–Pop Culture Crossovers of 2024
Moral Permission to Murder; Dostoevsky and the Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson; by Julia Friedman and David Hawkes

Constable in a Cupboard? 7 Thrift Store Finds That Turned Into Fortunes in 2024; Picassos, pots, and Victorian brooches have all turned out to be worth a pretty penny
New Magazine, 'AI Art Magazine,' Launches; Dedicated to AI-Generated Artworks; Art made by artificial intelligence (AI)
BOOKS + WORDS
David Sedaris: An Audience with the Pope; The Hem of His Garment; "I thought that the e-mailed invitation was spam. “Nice try, Russia,” I said to my laptop screen. But the Pope really did want to meet with comics and humorists
How Does the Writer Say Etcetera? Linguistic and aesthetic significance of “etceterization”

Jonathan Lethem’s Alternative Life as an Artist; In a new book, the novelist and essayist writes in parallel to, rather than directly about, art; “I grew up in a house full of paintings and books. My father made the paintings and my mother handed me the books.”
Strange Gods: Charles Fort’s 'Book of the Damned' (1919) “For every five people who read this book, four will go insane”
'Giant' Girls Don’t Cry: Edna Ferber’s great-niece pulls back the curtain on the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer’s personal life—and the sacrifices she made for her craft
THREADS

With Vintage Saris, Suchitra Mattai Weaves New Visions of Colonial History
Lauren Austin: Black Girl Quiltist
Stitch Picks: The Best Sewing Machines For Textile Art

Kate Tume: Activism and Artistry
Jean Milant, Founder of Cirrus Gallery and Cirrus Editions, Dies at 81
Architect Who Lost His Malibu Masterpiece In The 2018 Woolsey Fire Wants Los Angeles To Rebuild, But In A Radically New Way

Artist Gisela Colón Brings Her 'Monoliths' to Havana; Photos

‘I am not a Satanist!’: Meet the Great Blasphemer of Contemporary Art; The mischief-making Maurizio Cattelan on shaking up this year’s Venice Biennale, kneeling Hitler and that notorious solid-gold lavatory
All In It Together? A Guide to Artworld Friendships; Contemporary Art Runs On A Cocktail Of Fuels: Alcohol, Bullshit and Bonhomie

Did Pollock Really Pee in Peggy Guggenheim’s Fireplace? Considering all that Guggenheim had been through, what's a little urine between friends?

Kim Fay in Detroit: Tom Livo at Black Box

Yau: San Francisco Art Pioneer’s Collaged Dream Worlds; With the layers of his collaged “paste-ups,” Jess pulls us into an oneiric world, at once delightful and perplexing, magical and sublime
AMERICAN ART AS WEAPON

Was Robert Rauschenberg’s Venice Biennale Victory Rigged? New documentary explores the scandals surrounding the 1964 show, illuminating the US government’s obsession with its international image
Modern Art was CIA 'Weapon'; Revealed: How The Spy Agency Used Unwitting Artists Such As Pollock and De Kooning In A Cultural Cold War

See the Trailer: Doc 'Taking Venice' SIFF 2024; Cultural Weaponization; Rauschenberg and the First American to Win the Golden Lion International Grand Prize for Painting
NYT Review: America's Secret Weapon; A study of how the C.I.A. sponsored modern art exhibitions and literary journals during the cold war; "The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters" (2000)
Excerpt: Chapter One: Exquisite Corpse "The Cultural Cold War; The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters" By Frances Stonor Saunders
THE ELUSIVE CADY NOLAND
Cady Noland’s Ultra-Mysterious L.A. Show; Rumor and Innuendo ... ... Update: Artist was not contacted about the show in advance, did not give consent for it, and did not travel to Los Angeles to install it or see it

Absolutely Would Tanya; Artist Cady Noland, Patty Hearst as Bandit
THREADS

Meet Basil Kincaid, the Artist-Quilter Making a Splash in Miami Beach; For the residency's twelfth year, the Rubell Museum leans into textile art

Aerial Embroidery by Victoria Rose Richards

Priscilla Edwards: Hoarder, Stitcher and Sculptor
STREETWISE

Brooklyn Street Art Images Of The Week!

Olafur Eliasson’s Art —and Dance Moves— Feature on Musician Peggy Gou’s New Album; Gou dons one of Eliasson's sculptures on the cover of her new album, "I Hear You"; Have a Listen!


Matthew Porter 'Bright Sun Sours' at M+B; See the Work!


What is Vielmetter Taking to Art Basel Miami Beach? It's All Amazing! See it here!
MONSIEUR NOUAR: LE FRANCAIS BUSTER KEATON

Dans la Cuisine
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MUCH LOVED WALTER ROBINSON (1950 - 2025) FIND OUT WHY!
Saltz Sez: Walter Robinson, Rogue Pirate of the Art World by Jerry Saltz
Maverick Painter and Critic Walter Robinson, Who Helmed Artnet Magazine, Is Dead at 74; Edited influential outlets, made alluring appropriation art, and with a rare, wry sensibility, helped define his era

Charlie James Gallery Remembers Walter Robinson: "Light gleamed on the spear’s point as she thrust it at me in a lightning move..."

Georgia O’Keeffe: She Lived Deliciously Alone in the Wild, Wild West

*cough* How This A.I. Image Became the First to Snag Copyright Protection; U.S. Copyright Office ruled generally last month that work created from A.I. text prompts could not be copyrighted

Kim Fay in Detroit: ’Nightshade': The World In The Evening at Oakland University Art Gallery
MEXICO CITY ART WEEK
Observer’s Guide to the Gallery Shows Not to Miss During Mexico City Art Week; If you're headed to ZONAMACO, put these exhibitions on your itinerary
Céramica Suro, Ceramics Workshop and Residency Have Been Instrumental In Creating An Extremely Cohesive Artistic Community; Attracted a roster of celebrated artists from Marcel Dzama and Jorge Pardo to Jeffrey Gibson, Nairy Baghramian, Pae White and Alicia Kwade; How Guadalajara Became a Go-To Artist Hotspot: An Interview With José Noé Suro

Look Inside the Whitney's Annual Art-World Bash; Young creatives and patrons alike gathered for a glittering, disco-themed evening in support of the Whitney’s Independent Study Program, a postgraduate initiative that supports living artists throughout their careers
DESIGN

Crafted in Wood: Including Works from the Collection of Ken Spitzbard

A Modern History of Commercialised Fetishism
They Started a Design Firm in Their Living Room. Now They’re Grossing $50 Million a Year; Blockbuster design brands may be battling retail headwinds, but boutique firm Roman and Williams, beloved by the Hollywood set, is soaring. Their only complaint? Knockoffs

How the Gleeful Aesthetic of L.A.’s 1984 Olympics Unified a Sprawling City

Maya Fuji 'Igokochi' at Charlie James Gallery
An Art Critic Goes to the Rodeo; Uniform, merchandise, alcohol, nationalism – these are the real markers of a ritual gathering. A bucking cow or the installation of art is just the excuse
On the Subject of an Artists Late Work; "Late works are eyewitnesses from the edge, from the end of life"

Kim Fay In Detroit: Joshua Rainer at Louis Buhl & Co.

Yau: Myron Stout’s Monkish Devotion to Art; Stout achieved an ascetic sensuality in his geometric abstractions, a paradoxical synthesis of restraint and hedonism that is unmatched by any of his contemporaries

'
LA Te Quiero' at Charlie James Gallery with Luke Butler, Danie Cansino, Elmer Guevara, Ozzie Juarez, Manuel López, Patrick Martinez, Erick Medel and Shizu Saldamando
Kenny Schachter: Biker-Gang Art Forgers! Hauser Hoovers Up Another Hotel! Kenny Schachter Files from the Swiss Alps; Readying a New York show in the Engadine, our columnist still finds time to meet up with a revered dealer, visit the local pool, and much more
JAKE GREWAL

‘I’m Not Worried About Going Stagnant Or Out Of Fashion’: An Interview With Jake Grewal

Jake Grewal: Under the Same Sky
Baz Luhrmann and an Art Collector Open a Secret Bar in the East Village; The director tells Vanity Fair he’s treating his latest project “like a movie.” His muse? A fictitious dandy called Monsieur
We’re Being Frozen Out of British Cultural Life, Say Jewish Artists; Artists, writers and performers claim they are being excluded because they refuse to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal

Coming to Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles; George Rouy 'The Bleed, Part II'; Read about the stealth ultra-contemporary art star, click here

Indictment Era Andre: Though he didn’t show in the US in the years between the murder of his wife Ana Mendieta and his indictment for said murder in 1985 and his trial, where he got off, in 1988, Carl Andre did have quite a busy European exhibition schedule
SALLY MANN IN FORT WORTH
Sally Mann Photos Seized From Texas Museum Following Official Complaint
National Organizations Weigh in on Controversy at the Modern in Fort Worth
NYT: The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann

Yau: Martha Diamond Found Joy in Paint; Diamond’s attention to the brush’s capacity to be simultaneously expressive and responsive is visible throughout her strongest paintings
The Free Press: How to Like Things More; Get Lost In A Tiny Detail. Memorize. Find The One Flaw. Here’s How To Truly Enjoy Every Experience

First Museum Survey Of Works By Vincent Valdez On View at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
SAMO BY THE SEA
Backstory: How Gagosian’s Blockbuster LA Basquiat Show Happened; Stars and billionaire lenders had to align for the mega-gallery’s museum-quality show of the late artist’s work, currently on display in Los Angeles
Hear What Happens When Basquiat’s Sisters Met with Filmmaker Tamra Davis, Art Dealer Larry Gagosian, and Author and Curator Fred Hoffman
When MOCA Said "No Thanks!" to This Basquiat; Curator Paul Schimmel Turned it Down

Hunter Drohojowska-Philp: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s LA-made Work Goes on Show at Gagosian

Access To Abstraction; Anne Libby and Anna Rosen Find Freedom in Collaboration

Kim Fay in Detroit: Inaugural Exhibition at Art We Love
When Feminism Ruled CalArts
The Annual ArtReview Power 100
The ArtReview Arty Types Who Shaped 2024
ArtReview Spotlights Gulf Leaders in This Year’s ‘Power 100’ List; Sharjah Art Foundation's founding director Hoor Al Qasimi has taken the top spot

Artist Kami Mierzvvinsk Sees Art as a Tool in “From Nature” in Paris; Stirring paintings of Kami Mierzvvinsk are on view in Paris this week in Whitewall Projects' first exhibition, "From Nature"
The Last Moments of ‘Queer’ Tell a Murderous True Story About William S. Burroughs’ Haunted, Tragic Life; Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes tell IndieWire how they wove Burroughs' accidental and morbidly slapstick murder of his wife, Joan Vollmer, into their film

Walead Beshty 'Profit & Loss' at Regen Projects
Tennis Star and Art Collector Venus Williams and Artist Titus Kaphar Rectify a Missed Connection In This Candid Conversation

The Visceral Humanity of Ralph Lemon’s Art; Blending and blurring his roles as an artist, choreographer, and writer, a survey of Lemon’s art centers his luminous legacy of storytelling, memory, and transformation

Great Little Story! Manet Made a Delightful Artistic Joke With a Single Asparagus Spear; Impressionist responded to a collector’s generous gesture with one of his own

Artist Ishi Glinsky on Artist Kristopher Raos

A Neo-Rococo Movement Is On the Rise; This sumptuous style, which is being revived by a growing cohort of artists, is like a cornucopia for complex meanings
How One Man’s Handmade Architectural Marvel Altered the L.A. Skyline; The Watts Towers, were constructed from scrap metal and found objects. The spires are architectural marvels and monumental testaments of human ingenuity, outsider art, and vision
Australian Artist, Lindy Lee, Commissioned To Make Work Using Pure Gold Worth $6.7M; Gold saved her family in escape from Communist China

How Women Surrealists Shaped the Movement’s Past—And Its Present; At the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; Over the past century, Surrealism has continually evolved—see how these women artists made it their own

The Hort Legacy: How New York’s Boldest Art Collectors Are Preserving Their Vision; Susan and Michael Hort have transformed personal loss and a keen eye for emerging talent into a collection of over 5,000 works. Now, they’re cementing their legacy with a private museum at Art Omi Pavilions
The Pact of 'Oscar de la Rent Boy'; "I, Oscar Orlis de la Renta Fiallo, will give you, at all times and during all my life, and by will and testament after my death, one half of all my possessions, incomes and earnings..."

Q&A with Artist Hills Snyder, Part II: The artist answers big questions on art, road trips, life, love and the American West from artists, curators, art writers, critics and gallerists

Jasper Johns Doing Numbers

Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Art Epitomized Orientalism. A Major Show in Doha Reconsiders His Legacy; 400-work exhibition "Seeing Is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme" present broader and more diverse perspectives on the artist, without overlooking the critical scrutiny
Fascinating Read! How Food, Art, and Life Intersected in Swiss Artist Daniel Spoerri’s Uncanny Assemblages

Kim Fay in Detroit: Heloisa Pomfret at N’namdi Center; ”The Brain” A genius in our midst
DOUG AITKEN

Matt Stromberg: Doug Aitken’s Poetic Tableau of Southern California; “I wanted to make something aggressively non-linear, using sound and music to express things that hard language couldn’t,” the artist said of his latest work
“Lightscape,” Artist Doug Aitken’s Latest Work, Takes on the American West, With a Little Help From Hollywood; Artist's latest work required five years, one mountain lion, and countless friends to realize. Its first iteration—presented in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic — blends film and live music to conjure a vision of our collective future
How the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul Fight Explains Today’s Art Market; Industry veterans are competing against powerful newcomers, prices have been falling, and we may not be anywhere near a bottom
The Riddle of the Rich-Poor Artist; Data on visual artists' socioeconomic backgrounds shows why it's so hard to win public support for a cultural sector defined by day-to-day hardship; Privilege versus policy; AI as punisher

Monumental Arte Povera Survey in a Parisian Palace of Wealth Sidesteps Anti-Capitalist Critiques

The Trouble with Photographer Tina Barney’s Evocation of Old Money

Sex Sells! Art Deco Star Tamara de Lempicka Has Never Been More Popular. Here’s Why

Las Vegas Gallery Is Selling a Bronze Cast of a Leonardo Wax Sculpture for $100 Million; Da Vinci created 'Horse and Rider' in the 1500s

Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth
BOOKS + WORDS
Author Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: “I Loved Him. He Was My Safety.” When he was 42, Cormac McCarthy fell in love with a 16-year-old girl he met by a motel pool. Augusta Britt would go on to become one of the most significant—and secret—inspirations in literary history, giving life to many of McCarthy’s most iconic characters across his celebrated novels and Hollywood films. For 47 years, Britt closely guarded her identity and her story. Until now. Listen to the Story...
Review: James Retells Huckleberry Finn From Jim's Perspective; Author Percival Everett reimagines Mark Twain's novel from the enslaved character's point of view
Blank Ruled Pages in the Getty Museum Collection
The Hunt: The Search for Sappho’s Lost Poetry Awaits a New Chapter; Greek poet frequently pined for women in tender yet charged lines about love’s ravages
‘The Book of Elsewhere’ by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, Reviewed; Acclaimed British ‘weird fiction’ author Miéville has stepped in to spin off his take on Reeves’s unstoppable (but inevitably sensitive, world-weary and introspective) brand of killing machine; Netflix Anime is coming
ARCHITECTURE

GU Could’ve Been Home By Now; Architectural masterpiece and landmark may reconfigure the building’s signature spaces

‘Bringing People to Art Is Important’: Star Architect Annabelle Selldorf on Her Vital Mission; Since its inception in 1988, the foundation of Selldorf Architects is art. Multiple major museum projects are on the horizon
Rising Architect Zeina Koreitem Had a Nomadic Upbringing. Now, She Builds Spaces That Feel Like Home; MILLIØNS, the studio founded by Koreitem and her partner John May, just opened a major renovation of the Everson Museum of Art

Video: Architect Liz Diller: “You have to be a mind reader"
PUBLIC INSTITUTION
Curtains for LACMA!
Vanity Fair: Inside the LACMA Gala, Hollywood’s Starriest Museum Moment; Long-running fundraiser might be the only place where the two worlds truly do intertwine in a way that seems seamless. This year’s edition, honoring Baz Luhrmann and Simone Leigh, brought out Charli XCX, Leo, Kim, Blake, and more
MoMA's Thematic Installation Works. Can LACMA Match It?

Before AI, Two Japanese Artists, Kazuo Shiraga and Akira Kanayama, Took the Human Hand out of Gestural Brushstrokes

Ben Davis: Why Only Some Artworks Give You Chills — And Most Just Don’t; 'Aesthetic Chills,' Part 2 of a 2-part series

David Lynch is Illustrating Film Director Justine Triet’s ‘Anatomy of a Fall' Book, an Annotated Edition of the Film’s Screenplay

Interview: Former Interview Magazine Editor Joan Agajanian Quinn Shows Us Her Treasured Art Collection

Artist Mel Chin's Unsolved Mysteries
THE SENSIBLE RICH
Yacht Owners are Commissioning Copies of Original Art to Bring to Sea

Curator Genevieve Williams and Her “Luminaries of Light: Pioneers of the California Light and Space Movement” at the Honarkar Foundation

The Last Relic: Chris Burden's 'Coals to Newcastle' (1987); Smuggling joints into Mexico
Now You Can Shop for Art at Saks Fifth Avenue; The fashion brand will offer prints by artists like Sol LeWitt and Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Artists are Being Outsourced! Sotheby’s to Auction Painting by Humanoid Robot, known as Ai-Da, in a Futuristic First— And It’s Expected To Fetch Up To $180K; She’s a real Vincent van Go-bot. Oh, good God, Ai-Da is also a poet!
Updates and News on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square; One of the world’s most famous public art commissions
Who Will Clinch the U.K.’s Top Art Honor? Inside the Turner Prize Exhibition
Video: The Unveiling of the The Fourth Plinth Sculpture: Antelope by Samson Kambalu
CADY DID

“Beginning October 17, and spanning three rooms of the Pavilions, Glenstone will share a presentation of works by Cady Noland. Developed in collaboration with the artist, this presentation will mark the first major survey by a U.S. museum of her decades-long career.”
Just How Much Control Can an Artist Have Over Their Work? Cady Noland, who became the darling of the art world, has tested the limits
BEST OF THE WEEK with JERRY GOGOSIAN

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