Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.New era at the Montclair Art MuseumTodd Caissie was named executive director of the Montclair Art Museum (MAM) after serving as deputy director starting last year and interim director beginning this one. He succeeds Ira Wagner, who is retiring after taking on the role in 2020. Alongside recently appointed chief curator Kate Kraczon, the museum is entering a new era — one it calls "people-centric," emphasizing emerging and underrepresented artists. "Traditionally, museums are object-driven and function like black holes—accumulating art while...

Surveys of the Brazilian states of Acre and Amazonas turned up evidence of pre-Colombian civilization that thrived in southwestern Amazonia. As reported by Heritage Daily, the new findings—published in the journal Nature—include signs of hundreds of earthworks that had not previously been identified. “The team conducted more than 4,400 kilometers of airborne LiDAR surveys over the Brazilian states of Acre and Amazonas. The laser-based technology, which can penetrate dense forest canopy, identified 432 earthworks, only 36 of which had previously been recorded,” Heritage Daily wrote. The new findings, including evidence of geometric ditched enclosures, embankments, and ceremonial complexes dating as far...

Workers at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new V&A East Storehouse have voted unanimously to strike in a dispute over working conditions, just weeks after the East London facility became one of the museum world’s most closely watched new cultural attractions.  The ballot, organized by the trade union Prospect, covers collections access officers who staff the museum’s much-publicized “Order an Object” program, which allows visitors to book appointments to view works from the V&A’s collection. According to the union, 100 percent of members who voted backed strike action on a turnout of nearly 88 percent, while 92 percent also supported action short of a strike.  Prospect argues that collections...

The classicists are fighting! Emily Wilson, whose celebrated Odyssey translation bucked historically Western and misogynistic approaches, has caused quite a stir with her scathing critique of Christopher Nolan's film in the London Review of Books. Far from a stuffy academic take, her text recognizes the murkiness of adaptations and still insists that Nolan bungles the questions of humanity and morality at the center of the epic:But the representation of Odysseus as a reluctant warlord makes a nonsense of the movie’s imagined world. We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it – a very different point. Any serious depiction of violence, ancient or modern,...

Hundreds of archaeological sites, including 6,000-year-old cave paintings, are under threat as the Trump administration moves to expand its southern border barrier in the Big Bend region of Texas. Amanda Castañeda, archaeology director of the Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center, told Hyperallergic that at least 425 Texas archaeological sites, including 84 intricate cave murals, could be disrupted by a Trump administration plan to create a $46 billion "smart wall" along the United States-Mexico border. The border wall expansion would include both physical barriers and artificial intelligence-powered surveillance infrastructure.On Monday, July 27, the federal government exempted the wall from...

STEKA replaces conventional round pan with an octagonal body
 
ADDI Designstudio developed the STEKA sauté pan for Japanese cookware brand Mozambique as a long-term cooking tool that combines a distinctive octagonal form with repairable construction and an uncoated aluminum surface. Designed for use on both kitchen stoves and open fires, the pan moves between domestic and outdoor cooking while focusing on durability, maintenance, and continued use.
 
The project began with a reconsideration of the conventional round pan. Rather than following the geometry typically used for cookware because of its efficient casting and mass-production properties, ADDI developed an octagonal body. The eight-sided form does...

The four massive bronze statues that make up the “Arts of War” and “Arts of Peace” statues on roads leading to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., were looking a little long in the tooth, according to President Trump. In April, the Department of the Interior engaged a studio in Maryland to conserve and regild the equestrian bronzes, originally unveiled in 1951, at a cost of $5.1 million. Earlier this week, President Trump posted photos on Truth Social of the project’s first phase, showing the scaffolding being removed from the “Arts of War” sculptures, designed by Leo Friedlander. Work on the other pair is expected to be complete by the end of September. Neither pair was ready in time for...

From meticulously cut and painted pieces of paper, realistic birds emerge amid foliage and forests in compositions by The Paper Ark. The collaborative practice of Nayan Shrimali and Venus Bird, which focuses on intricate paper reliefs, also centers on ecology by illustrating real species and their habitats around the world. The duo aims to raise awareness of biodiversity and conservation by evoking a sense of wonder akin to how we also often feel in nature. The artists recently exhibited a number of the pieces shown here with Antler Gallery at Seattle Art Fair, and “Great Green Macaws” appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of Audubon Magazine. See more on The Paper Ark’s Instagram. “Hyacinth Macaw”...

German authorities have revealed new details about the January cyberattack on the Dresden State Art Collections, suggesting the incident was more severe than previously understood. Monopol reports that the Saxon Ministry of Justice confirmed the perpetrators remain unidentified and that investigators found the attack itself lasted several days, from January 17 to 21, when the breach was detected.  The Dresden State Art Collections, a network of some 15 museums in eastern Germany, announced shortly after the cyberattack was discovered that “large parts” of its digital infrastructure had been targeted. The attack left the museum group with limited phone and digital services, including online ticket sales...

Avedon, Oscar winner Ron Howard’s documentary feature about the life and work of legendary photographer Richard Avedon, has been acquired by Netflix, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned. The film, which had its world premiere at May’s Cannes Film Festival and was met with raves, will be released worldwide on the streaming platform later this year, and will receive an awards push.A production of Imagine Documentaries and Fifth Season in association with The Richard Avedon Foundation, Avedon counts among its producers Imagine Entertainment co-chiefs Howard and Brian Grazer and president Justin Wilkes, Imagine Documentaries president Sara Bernstein, Dallas Brennan Rexer and Christopher...

In 1906, Devil’s Tower in northeastern Wyoming became the first national monument in the U.S., preserving a little more than 1,300 acres around the 867-foot-tall column of igneous rock. Amid the rolling hills of the plains, it can be seen from miles around, and it’s been a sacred site and gathering place for myriad Indigenous American tribes, who refer to it by names like Bear Lodge or Bear’s House. One oral narrative describes how bears attacked a group of seven girls, and the ground swelled up to push the children toward the sky. There, they became the constellation Pleiades, or the “Seven Sisters,” which can be seen over the monument. In other stories, the distinctive striations around the...

Amid Israel's targeted land seizures and ongoing military offensives, the Mount Amel Castles in Lebanon and the archaeological ruins of Sebastia in the Occupied West Bank are among six new locations that were urgently added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in Danger this week. The international agency immediately recognized both locations as vulnerable upon inscribing them as World Heritage Sites at the World Heritage Committee's 48th session in Busan, South Korea.Israel condemned the designations, accusing UNESCO of “cynical exploitation of cultural heritage for political purposes.”

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At the age of 14, Janice Yang and her family emigrated from South Korea to the U.S. in the wake of a financial crisis that upended their sense of security. (Incidentally, the Korean stock market is experiencing a historic crash this month in the wake of unwinding global trade in the AI sector.) Displaced from everything they knew, her family had to start again. “Our stable economic situation in Korea changed to more precarious working-class reality in the U.S., where repeated business failures left us in a lot of debt,” Yang tells Colossal. For two decades, Yang worked unpaid at her family’s small sushi restaurant, where she dreamed of eventually pursuing her studies to become an artist, all while...

Slender House and Hanging Chamber by Studio Frank Havermans
 
The Besiendershuis in Nijmegen, Netherlands, a medieval toll house dating from 1525, was built in the Lower Rhenish Gothic style. The building functions as a residency for artists, writers, and musicians and hosts cultural events throughout the year. While its historic exterior presents a relatively quiet presence, its interior supports an active program of creative production and exchange. To mark the building’s 500th anniversary, Studio Frank Havermans extends this cultural activity into the surrounding urban space through two temporary wooden structures: The Hanging Chamber and The Slender House.
 
Positioned against the east and west facades...

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V&A staff represented by the Public and Commercial Services Union are also considering industrial action

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After fire destroyed half of the historic red-brick structure in 2024, its owners’ ambitious goal is to rebuild even faster than the French did with the Paris cathedral

Dan Ortiz Leizman turns plastic chairs into string instruments
 
The plastic monobloc chair has become so embedded in everyday life that it often escapes notice altogether. It sits on porches, outside cafés, at family gatherings, schoolyards, campsites, community events, and roadside restaurants. Found across continents and cultures, it is one of the few designed objects almost everyone recognizes, not because of who designed it, but because of how completely it has dissolved into daily life.
 
For artist and educator Dan Ortiz Leizman, that familiarity became impossible to ignore. In their ongoing project, MONOBLOC HARPS, they take discarded plastic chairs and turn them into playable string instruments,...

Twenty artefacts from Pharaoh Amenhotep III's abandoned city, discovered on Luxor’s west bank in 2021, are part of the exhibition at the de Young Museum

Emma Shapiro and her lawyers are fighting the “loss of her artistic archive, audience, professional visibility and space for public debate”

You know, I’ve long wondered what exactly gets you canceled in the art world, because it doesn’t seem like a whole lot does. A recent psychological study is somewhat illuminating: Respondents reacted more negatively toward an artist accused of sexual assault compared to one accused of murder. In this time of war, the Reina Sofía puts art history’s most recognizable anti-war painting — Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937) — in dialogue with other artworks to explore political parallels. Right now, it’s paired with South African artist Dumile Feni’s large-scale charcoal drawing “African Guernica” (1967) — particularly timely, Agnish Ray writes, as racial hostilities simmer in Spain.Meanwhile,...

Beyond the structural grids lies a layer of design that dictates how a room feels the moment someone crosses the threshold. Recorded live at Milan Design Week 2026 in partnership with INDX|GLOBAL, the final episode of the Room For Dreams podcast covers the unseen atmospheric energy that gives architecture its emotional weight.
 
Designers Piyush Mehra of PS Design, Devika Khosla of The Works Interiors, Love Choudhary of AND Studio, and Amit Porwal of IPIPL discuss how they build for the subconscious mind. The panel breaks down the specific techniques used to trigger psychological shifts, such as using sequences of compression and release to create a sense of discovery, or using dynamic shapes and natural...

Zubin Mehta was a major part of musical life when I moved to Southern California in 1969, having started his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

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A backpack designed for enjoying fries on the move
 
McDonald’s China looked to one of its own fans, craft blogger Daomeidan, and transformed a handmade backpack concept into an official limited-edition product. For the 2026 edition of its annual Big Fries Day campaign, the company released, through the McDonald’s App and McDonald’s Mall mini program, the oversized Big Fries Backpack, which celebrates both the brand’s signature fries and the creativity of its fan community.
 
Every element of the backpack references a familiar part of a McDonald’s order. The silhouette draws on the chain’s brown paper delivery bags, while oversized golden arches frame the front. Fries-carton pockets on either...

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While municipal funding covered a modest share of organisations’ expenses, it had an outsized impact in cities that increased their cultural support, a new study from DataArts shows

Every month, we share opportunities for artists and designers, including open calls, grants, fellowships, and residencies. Make sure you never miss out by joining our monthly Opportunities Newsletter. Nuditas 2026: 5th Annual Juried Exhibition, Publication, Promotion, and SalesFeaturedReady to reveal the naked truth of the human body? From personal identity and body positivity to spirituality, mythology, emotion, and vulnerability, Nuditas 2026 celebrates the human form in all its expressions. Submit your strongest figurative or abstract works for the opportunity to exhibit internationally, be featured on Artsy, published in the official catalogue, and promoted worldwide.Learn more and submit:...

Across West Africa, Indigenous communities mark holidays, rites, and sacred events with a remarkable variety of ceremonies ranging from dances to processions. These masquerade traditions incorporate meticulously carved masks and full-body costumes that often facilitate links between humans and the spiritual world. There’s evidence of masked customs dating back millennia, and today, artists continue the tradition of hand-hewn masks and ensembles in vivid colors and a wide array of materials—sometimes with a twist. The exhibition New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, which opens at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg next month, celebrates contemporary creations by four...

It's a busy summer for Vida Miknevičiūtė and Eric Cutler, the subjects of this week's Grand Tier Grab Bag.

Yuval Sharon's production of The Excursions of Mr. Brouček shoots for the moon — and lands somewhat limply on Lake Constance.

It is no wonder Bernard Herrmann relishes the wistful lyricism in Barber's masterwork, as Herrmann's score for Vertigo is among the most beautiful and haunting of all film scores ever composed.

“Danger” is a word often associated with the candy-colored work of Los Angeles artist Kristen Liu-Wong. Her feminine tableaus, often rendered in a bright blend of acrylics, paint pen, and marker, have particularly veered into more menacing territory in recent years. “The world is a dangerous place,” Liu-Wong says, in a June interview. “I don’t […]
The post Dont Tempt Me: the Art of Kristen Liu-Wong first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

On paper, Nathan Reidt’s creatures sometimes reveal themselves through a fog of graphite. He may begin with a “vague, circle-y shape” and shade areas. “Then I just stare at it for a long time and wait for something to pop out and refine that a little and stare at it.” The Philadelphia-based artist explains by […]
The post Personal Growth: the Art of Nathan Reidt first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

João Daniel Pereira  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
João Daniel Pereira’s Website
João Daniel Pereira on Instagram

Wolf Trap Opera presented a lovely Eugene Onegin with particularly noteworthy performances by Magdalena Kuźma and Daniel O’Hearn.

Julian Adon Alexander  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Julian Adon Alexander’s Website
Julian Adon Alexander on Instagram

By Betty Ann Brown "Beauty comes from the balance between two and three dimensions, between abstraction and representation — I seek the equilibrium behind changing appearances."—Henri Matisse Jill sykes by Eric Minh Swenson Jill Sykes creates beautiful paintings of botanical phenomena. Like Matisse, she translates three-dimensional objects into two-dimensional images, occupying the territory between abstraction and representation to achieve balance and equilibrium. From a very early age,...

All images courtesy of CHOI&CHOI Gallery and the artist Sculptor Yu Jinyoung garnered international acclaim for her striking figures, whose bodies are often partially transparent. These are individuals “who wish to become invisible,” she says: “those who exist free from external attention and interference.” These explorations of both intentional isolation and somber loneliness have always […]
The post The Once Invisible Figures of Yu JinYoung first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Aaron Agosto  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Aaron Agosto’s Website
Aaron Agosto on Instagram

By Victoria Thomas There's something about a hanging. Whether legal or not, the visual experience seems mythic, supernatural, theatrical, and ritualistic, versus the efficiency of a swift kill. If local authorities greenlight the killing, it's called a hanging. If they don't, the hanging is extrajudicial, and it's called a lynching. Anyone with even the scantiest grasp of American history will know that our country has a sordid romance with lynching — a romance which persists. And unless...

Common Objects brings together the work of 97 photographers from across the globe to explore the role of the image and its ability to shape perception. Organized not by theme or geography but by visual association, the book draws on the logic of the reference catalog—a structure built for sustained, democratic looking. Within it, photographs from vastly different cultures and contexts find themselves in unexpected proximity, generating connections and contrasts that no single image could produce alone. In this format, the photographs enter into a subtle dialogue with one another, revealing how context, sequence, and framing shape interpretation and inform visual experience.  
   
   
   
   
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Claudia Koh  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Claudia Koh on Instagram

Photos by Robert Berg, Gregory Gorman, courtesy of the Donum; with additional photos by Annie Owens Balancing awe and meditative moments, the sculptures of The Donum Collection populate a sprawling vineyard estate, with many works many commissioned expressly to respond to the lush landscape they inhabit. Seventy works of art, ranging from bronze sculptures by […]
The post Field Trip: The Donum Collection & Estate Balances Awe and Meditative moments first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

In the mountains of northern Italy, far from his studio in Madrid, David Oliver was supposed to be resting. It was early 2025 and he had gone with friends to a house in the Dolomites on a retreat to disconnect. Instead, Oliver found himself staring at images on his phone of cities under bombardment in […]
The post Grip Face Mirrors Modern Digital Anxiety With Fresh & Furry Artworks first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

By Betty Ann Brown Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, February 22–June 28, 2026 Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.—Dolores Huerta The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF, originally the Rebel Chicano Art Front) was an art collective founded in Sacramento in the early 1970s. The visual art members, who focused on printmaking and murals, collaborated with writers, musicians, performers, and teachers. Together, they...

It is credited with ‘democratising photography’ on a global level – and now Shutter Hub is making its most democratic move yet. As of this month, the organisation will pass into the control of the community it was built for, in what founder Karen Harvey MBE describes as ‘a logical next step: to make things more equitable we need multiple perspectives.’ The announcement follows Karen’s decision to remove paid memberships last year, making Shutter Hub ‘fully open-access and available at no cost to all’. It’s a typically altruistic move from the social entrepreneur: also the founder of Toiletries Amnesty, the award-winning NGO. She was made an MBE in 2024 for services to people living in hygiene...

The week of Art Basel is for me the most compelling moment in the city, and this year it reaffirmed its position as the most closely watched annual event in the international art calendar.

By Melanie Chapman There is much to appreciate about the new pop-up exhibition Hospital of Emotions, currently on view at St. Vincent Medical Center (2131 W. Third Street, Los Angeles) until July 31. But if you want to maximize the benefits of your visit, avoid the bombardment of images now flooding the internet and even consider not reading this review. Like seeing all the best parts of a movie by watching the trailer, it is better to just go, and go soon, with as little advanced exposure as...

The City Series by Shutter Hub is an ongoing publishing project exploring the people, places, cultures, and contradictions that shape cities around the world. Rather than documenting a location as a fixed subject, the series invites photographers to respond to a city as an idea: something experienced, observed, imagined, and interpreted through the photographic eye.
For its second edition, we turn our attention to London in partnership with Battersea Power Supplies, a new museum and gift shop celebrating Battersea Power Station. We invite photographers from across the globe to contribute to a major publication celebrating one of the world’s most photographed, complex, and ever-changing cities. We want to see...

By Victoria Thomas When John Lennon met Yoko Ono in 1966, he had no idea who she was. More remarkably, Yoko was equally unaware of John. This neutral introduction seems impossible for us today, especially for children of the 1960s. But defying mere nostalgia, The Broad meets this challenge with Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, Ono's first LA museum show, which offers a full season of multi-arts media programming, including the installation of seven digital antiwar billboards across Los Angeles....

For an artist to return to painting after life‑altering injury is to witness the human spirit at its most unguarded. In such a moment, understanding the forces that carry you back to the page becomes all‑important, and in Joel Bradish Nichols’ case, the answers lie in the people and pursuits he had cherished. In a coma for months after a near‑fatal accident, his re‑emergence into artistic practice becomes inseparable from a narrative of devotion and determination — a surrounding spiritedness...

By Tabea Martin ‘Me Myself’ brings together four artists — Anna‑Lena Ruff, Debora Schultheiss, Tabea Martin, and Eva Schick — whose works move across differing styles and energies yet find in this art space an unforced coherence. I sense a shared thread of observation and inner dialogue, and a contemplation of natural female presence. The exhibition is currently showing at the Anja Edith Brinckmann Galerie, Basel. From here, the individual narratives invite a closer reading. By Anna-Lena...

 
Join us on Sunday 07 June from 1.30pm to celebrate the launch of INTO THE TREES by photographer Jo Stapleton, curated by Karen Harvey and published by Shutter Hub Editions.
INTO THE TREES is an expressionist photographic account of Jo’s interactions with trees and woodland, later remembered and reimagined in the darkroom using a range of alternative processes and techniques.
Drinks and canapés will be served from 1.30pm before the formal launch event at 2pm, including a book signing and interview discussion between Karen and Jo about the making of the book and the role photography has to play in helping to protect our wildlife and green spaces.
To celebrate the launch of the book, Jo has produced a...

In the forest nothing stands still. Time layered through thoughts and feelings, leaves kicked and crunched as we walk. The trees talk to each other, sending mycelium messages, carbon gifts, and warnings of drought or illness. From ancient wisdom to popular culture, it’s all here.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, did it make a sound? Of course it did. And if Jo Stapleton was there to capture the moment, there would be a visual symphony of light, shape and form to follow.
Published by Shutter Hub Editions, this beautiful collection of 100 images by Jo Stapleton is an expressionist photographic account of her interactions with trees, forest and woodland, later remembered and...

 
There’s just two weeks left to submit your work for The City Series: Cambridge!
An ongoing series of publications, The City Series sets out to explore the people, places, and cultures that shape cities around the world, showcasing images that respond to a place not as a fixed subject, but as an idea shaped by experience, observation, and interpretation.
The inaugural volume explores a city that has welcomed us, and been home to nearly a dozen Shutter Hub exhibitions – Cambridge.
Rather than defining Cambridge by landmarks or narratives, we invite photographers to approach the city openly, perhaps through people, atmosphere, details, routines, abstractions, or moments that feel personal or unexpected....

Limited Edition print by Gerhard Wichler It’s been a distinctly textured start to the year at THE GAZE, where invigorating artistic narratives emerge across forms and disciplines, threading their way through an unsettled climate. I’m delighted to share the completion and publication of a candid, close‑range interview with abstract artist Gerhard Wichler—an exchange that brought a refreshing clarity amid the mayhem of today’s world. You can read our fascinating interview here. We also mark an...

The Undercurrent Surfaces There are moments in a country’s creative consciousness when the atmosphere tilts. For many of the designers showing at Zurich Fashion Week 2026, the seeds were sown during last year’s pre‑events. And so, after more than twelve months of preparation, this was the week their work stepped fully into the light — an undercurrent now rising into a transformative movement in modern style. As I walked into the Kongresshaus Zurich this February, the first edition of Zurich...