Art Basel | Basel - this year’s edition of the fair was rather subdued

Inside Future Materials Bank at the Jan van Eyck Academie
 
In 2020, the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands opened their Future Materials Bank, a project with many limbs that supports the cataloguing, development, and dissemination of alternative materials for artists and designers. It exists in several forms: an online archive with over five hundred materials submissions as of 2026, a research laboratory, and a fellowship. Through the accumulation of these material experiments, this project in The Netherlands is pushing forward a future for more sustainable materials in the arts.
view of the Future Materials Lab, Jan van Eyck Academie
 
In conversation with future materials bank
 
In conversation...

In her first solo exhibition in Switzerland, at Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart, the artist’s films and installations chart the evolution of our relationship with technological capitalism

The exhibition at Basel’s HEK showcases artist whose work responds to “unstable and apocalyptic” times, drawing on religion, myth and ritual

The lawyer and president of the friends of the Kunsthaus Zürich discusses her enduring love of Philip Guston’s work and her regret at missing out on a Rothko

Russian artist Robert ⁠Kuzovkov, known as Seymon Skrepetsky, was gunned down Monday in Biała Podlaska, in eastern Poland. Two Belarusian nationals have been detained, though not yet charged, reports ArtReview, which adds that one was arrested close to the Belarusian consulate. The victim was found with five bullet wounds, reports UK’s Telegraph. An artist and performer, Skrepetsky gained notice with his cutting portraits of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and a conservative Moscow bishop, Patriarch Kirill. Ukrainian authorities had been targets for his criticism, notes the Telegraph, as had Russian opposition figures such as...

One of the most enduring traditions in the U.S. is undoubtedly the state fair. The very first was held in Syracuse, New York, in 1841, and throughout the mid-19th century, states launched their own unique takes. Some of the largest and busiest, such as those in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, have been running just about as long as the states have existed. And it’s no coincidence that some of the most well known and beloved events, which usually take place in the late summer or early autumn, represent the nation’s agricultural heartlands. The exhibition State Fairs: Growing American Craft at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery celebrates the unique crafts and customs of these annual...

New York’s gallery landscape has no shortage of white cubes. What it has less of are spaces willing to rethink... Read More

The US House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Republican Tom Cole of Oklahoma, advanced a budget proposal that could cut funding from the Department of Education’s only arts grant. Erin Harkey, CEO of the advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts, told Hyperallergic that eliminating the department’s Assistance for Arts Education program “would reduce support for critical work that students, educators, and communities depend on, including teacher professional development, accessible arts education programming, community partnerships, and arts education outreach.” The Assistance for Arts Education program was established in 2015 in part to support initiatives related to “disadvantaged students”...

A member of Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party attempted to censor the artist La Chola Poblete’s show, alleging religious offense

Founded by Dan Pearce, Maxim and Takiro, Club Unity launches with a mission to promote connection through art, music, film and culture

Christophe Leribault, the Louvre’s president-director since February, addressed the French Senate Wednesday, delivering an assessment that the storied Paris museum is “à bout de souffle,” or “at the end of its rope.” Speaking before the Senate’s Committee on Culture, Education, Communication and Sport, Leribault characterized the situation as being “at a crossroads” and that “urgent building issues are piling up, and we are facing a massive investment challenge.” He added, “To put it bluntly: despite its imposing majesty and the daily dedication of its staff, the Louvre is running on fumes. Its facilities and infrastructure are reaching the end of their lifespan.” The Louvre, the...

The Republican-chaired House Appropriations Committee on June 9 requested that Congress allocate $0 to the Department of Education’s Assistance for Arts Education program for fiscal year 2027, effectively seeking to cut it altogether, Hyperallergic reports. Established in 2015 with the goal of providing arts education to schoolchildren, particularly those with disabilities or of limited means, the program is the only […]

The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, has announced Soyoung Yoon as the new director of its prestigious Independent Study Program, effective immediately. Yoon, herself a Helena Rubinstein Critical Studies Fellow of the ISP’s 2006–2007 cohort, arrives to her new job from Parsons School of Design at the New School, where she was director of the fine […]

la scala’s workshops move toward lambrate
 
In Milan’s Lambrate district, where the former Innocenti factory once fed the streets with Lambretta scooters, Teatro alla Scala is preparing Magnifica Fabbrica as a new kind of backstage.
 
The project gathers the theater’s workshops, rehearsal rooms, storage spaces, and public routes into a large production complex beside the expanding Parco della Lambretta, turning an industrial site into a place where the making of theater can be seen.
 
Designed by Madrid-based studio FRPO, WALK Architecture & Landscape, and locally-based firm SD Partners, the project won the international competition launched by the Municipality of Milan and Fondazione Teatro alla...

Bristol-based artist Diana Beltrán Herrera continues to construct elaborate sculptures of flora and fauna in vibrant paper. Over the last few years, Herrera’s work has grown in both scale and subject matter as she incorporates new materials such as paperboard, thread, and cardboard, which have allowed her work to evolve beyond previous forms. The artist’s latest explorations of nature motifs include flower structures, leaf patterns, and most recently, coral formations. Uniquely, coral reefs exhibit fractal and hyperbolic geometry, making them a particularly fascinating subject for sculptural reproduction. Utilizing thread as a structural tool has been especially integral for Herrera’s explorations of...

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Fumi Nakamura’s Website
Fumi Nakamura on Instagram

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s concert Rigoletto hits some vocal turbulence

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. Good morning! The first day sales at Art Basel were stronger than last year, even if it’s no selling frenzy.  An artist who made work criticizing Putin was gunned down in Poland. The Louvre museum is “at the end of its rope,” said its president. The Headlines IS BASEL BACK? As the aisles cleared yesterday evening from Art Basel’s VIP preview day, one could say that Basel was back. Not that it had ever left. But dealers at the fair told ARTnews that their first day of sales was stronger than last year’s. Swift deals closed at a steady pace, rather than frenzied one. Admittedly, that...

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MOVEMENT IS NO LONGER A DISTRACTION
 
For decades, professionals have accepted an uncomfortable reality where hours spent at a desk chair result in stiff backs, constant shifting, and a creeping mental fatigue. Completely rejecting this outdated mandate of sitting still, KI introduces Cognetic Technology, a patented seating innovation invented by Aaron DeJule, centered around movement-based seating experiences. The innovation establishes a new design paradigm that operates in perfect sync with the body, transforming motion from a distraction in the workplace into a pathway of effortless comfort, continuous alignment, and heightened human performance. the Kiaura collection incorporates Cognetic Technology |...

Serentha Cabin: a low-tech desert retreat wrapped in steel  
Mexican design practice Orto Studio, led by principal architect Tomás R. Ortiz, has completed Serentha Cabin, an intimate 120-sqm retreat cradled by the sweeping vineyards and sun-bleached horizons of Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California, Mexico.  
Conceived as a climate-sensitive sanctuary, the home doesn’t fight the elements, but dances with them; its architecture responds directly to the region’s fierce solar canvas, dramatic temperature drops, and stubborn indigenous flora through a thoughtful choreography of two quiet, parallel volumes. By framing an intimate, open-air central courtyard, the structures protect a peaceful social heart of...

A full century after her heyday, Argentine soprano Hina Spani still moves us thanks to her vivid recordings and the savants who have cherished and shared them.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" That was Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara's first question for Claire Valdez — the artist and New York State assembly member running for Congress. Her answer touches on something all our readers will be familiar with: the need to create a more affordable life for artists. Read Bishara’s interview with Valdez, where she talks about union organizing, her faith in the working class, and making paintings of the night sky.Also in NYC, we report on the new director of the Whitney ISP, who inherits a controversy-ridden program marred by the cancellation of an artwork about Palestinian mourning. Plus, Christopher Myers’s Flatbush subway mosaics, shows to see...

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The situation faced by the gallery—which has still sent works to the fair despite its representatives not being present—adds pertinence to a nearby project about barriers in the art world

butterflies gather in loose thread at Ukurant
 
Inside Ukurant, the Copenhagen group show of emerging designers, Kristian Vallum Kryger Falden’s suspended textile work hangs like images caught in the middle of disappearing. Threads fall from the woven surfaces in pale, tangled lengths, while butterflies appear across the fabric where print, light, and loosened structure meet.
 
Entitled Unraveled in 49.5 Hours, the work is a continuation of Unraveled in Time, a series of sculptural textiles on view during 3daysofdesign. They move between textile and sculpture, with the image held in place by the same material that is slowly being pulled apart.
 
Falden’s presentation at Ukurant gives the project its...

Serpentine has unveiled Jesús Rafael Soto's Pénétrable BBL Jaune in Kensington Gardens, launching a summer season

David Hockney's My Parents is more than a portrait of Kenneth and Laura Hockney. It is a carefully constructed account

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Tornare sui propri passi spesso significa percorrere strade già attraversate, ma con degli occhi del tutto nuovi e con la mente sgombra, per far spazio a nuovi percorsi e nuove figure. Si è rincuorati dalla possibilità di riconoscere i propri riferimenti e, allo stesso tempo, si è spinti a esercitare l’osservazione del nuovo. Questo esercizio di osservazione e di scoperta accade a me quando osservo le tele di Luca Ceccherini (Arezzo, 1993) e accade all’artista quando, grazie al suo ingegno creativo, si appresta a proseguire il suo coerente e solido percorso pittorico, dando una forma e un luogo, ancora e ancora, ai giullari, menestrelli, acrobati, campagnoli e contrabbandieri che da sempre popolano le...

The Whitney Museum in New York has named Soyoung Yoon as the next director of its Independent Study Program (ISP). She will start in her role on June 16. Yoon will be only the third director in ISP’s history and the first women and person of color to lead the program. Her hiring comes just over a year after the Whitney controversially paused the ISP. The program did not accept applicants for the 2025–26 cohort, but will welcome its next class in the fall 2027. Yoon is currently the director of the Fine Arts MFA Program at the Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York. She is also an associate professor of art history and visual studies at the New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts....

After getting a Democratic Socialist Muslim mayor and winning its first NBA championship in 53 years, New York’s next big surprise could be a congresswoman who started out as an artist and art worker. New York State Assembly Member Claire Valdez, a union organizer at heart, is running for New York’s 7th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives. The seat covers large swaths of what’s recently been dubbed the “Commie Corridor,” a sequence of relatively progressive neighborhoods in Queens and North Brooklyn that are also home to a large population of artists. This constituency includes denizens of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Long Island City, and Ridgewood, where Valdez herself...

“The Widad Kawar Collection of Arab Dress and Heritage Arts”—comprising nearly 600 textiles, accessories, garments and other objects that attest to daily life across the Levant region and West Asia—has now found a home at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, Canada.  Assembled across decades by Palestinian art historian and collector Widad Kamel Kawar, […]

Arts advocacy groups are sounding the alarm after a congressional subcommittee last week approved a budget proposal that would eliminate the Department of Education's (DE) only arts grant program.The Republican-chaired House Appropriations Committee, a congressional subgroup that shapes the government’s annual budget, advanced a proposal that could defund the DE's Assistance for Arts Education program last Tuesday, June 9. "The Assistance for Arts Education program is the federal government’s only dedicated arts education grant program,” Erin Harkey, CEO of the advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts, explained in an email to Hyperallergic. “Eliminating it would reduce support for critical...

Most people have heard of Broadway or Manhattan’s Theater District, but in new mosaics at a Flatbush subway station, artist Christopher Myers celebrates a Brooklyn neighborhood’s equally rich performing arts legacy. Each day, more than 10,000 people encounter Myers’s four glass-tiled panels, titled “If you don't want your children to know the truth about life don't send 'em to the theater,” unveiled in March at the Church Avenue subway station. The Queens-born artist has created large-scale tapestries and sculptures that have been exhibited at museums and galleries around the world. But his subway piece, the first mosaic of his career, received a different level of...

We hope this finds you ecstatic, because, my brethren, the New York Knicks are champions! Come on, even if you’re not a die-hard basketball fan, revel in it a little — you might not get another chance for 50 years. (Hurts less to hear now, doesn’t it?) It’s the kind of thing that makes everything feel a little sweeter. Suddenly, the same streets I walk every day seem charged with a kind of magic: If you were on Manhattan Ave circa 1am on Sunday, for instance, you might’ve seen me woop rather than yell at the guy doing wheelies on his dirtbike, sending smoke wafting up in the air. It’s the feeling I get when I look upon Abram Champanier’s New Deal-era murals depicting Lewis Caroll’s Alice and...

On Tuesday, June 16, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation announced the latest round of grants for the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative (FCI), awarding $4.5 million to 83 visual arts organizations across the United States and Puerto Rico. This is the foundation’s largest funding cycle to date. Since the FCI program’s launch in 2021, a total of $21.8 […]

"God knows who all those people were, but I hope they collect."

Recently discovered Roman busts, Binyamina, Israel BINYAMINA, ISRAEL—Haaretz reports that two 1,700-year-old marble busts have been discovered in a wine-collection pit at a winepress dated to the Roman and Byzantine periods in northern Israel. One of the busts is inscribed in Greek with the name “Lycurgus,” perhaps referring to the legendary founder of Sparta, or a statesman and orator who lived in Athens in the fourth century B.C. Archaeologists Eliran Oren and Michael Solotskin of the Israel Antiquities Authority said that sculptures may have been buried in the pit to hide them during an invasion. “In the Roman period, statues of this kind were displayed both in public buildings and in the homes of...

Designer Taekhan Yun’s parents run an English school in Cambodia. One day, during a visit, he noticed how the kids were constantly shifting in their chairs, trying to get comfortable. “It made me realize how naturally furniture and spaces are designed around adult standards, while children are often expected to adapt and conform to those environments,” he tells Colossal. That’s when the idea was born to not only create functional pieces that would better suit the students’ needs but to invite them to create their own. Yun has always been interested in participatory creative projects, especially because of “the unexpected outcomes that emerge when people from different backgrounds come together to...

Interior of newly discovered Etruscan tomb, San Giuliano necropolis, Italy ROME, ITALY—According to a report in La Brújula Verde, a second intact Etruscan tomb has been discovered in central Italy’s San Giuliano necropolis by a team of researchers led by Davide Zori of the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project (SGARP) and Baylor University. More than 600 tombs have been identified in the area, but most of them have been looted since the Roman conquest of the region in the third century B.C. The slab closing this tomb had remained in its original position, with no signs of tampering. The remains of at least two individuals have been found inside the tomb, with a spearhead next to one of the sets of...

Ancient chuño, Acarí Valley, Peru ALBERTA, CANADA—Two freeze-dried potatoes estimated to be 500 years old were discovered in a ceramic jar set into a floor at Tambo Viejo, a coastal Inca site in southern Peru’s arid Acarí Valley, according to a Phys.org report. Lidio Valdez of the University of Calgary said that freeze-dried potatoes, known as chuño, can only be created by exposing whole potatoes to extreme winter night frosts in the mountains, then thawing them in the sun, and repeating the cycle. The potatoes are then trampled and dried. The variety of potatoes found at Tambo Viejo were naturally toxic, and would have also required soaking for several weeks after the freezing process had been...

In the popular imagination, artists are often thought to create for the sake of creating, unfettered by the demands of the market-driven world outside their studios. Though many well-known artists have muddled the boundaries between art and commerce (Jeff Koons comes to mind), the two realms have a contentious relationship. Business savvy artists are often […]
The post Changing the Subject: The Art of Tristan Eaton first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Glossy, synthetic, and very compressed, Ant Hamlyn’s botanicals are unlike anything you’d find in nature. He taps into the aesthetic of Y2K and the early 2000s, when early computer graphics, sci-fi, and teen punk melded into a kind of optimistic, tech-forward visual experience. Think early flip phones, polyurethane miniskirts, and Now That’s What I Call Music on CD. Better Go South, which presents the artist’s current solo exhibition Soft // Chrome, describes the artist’s approach as “celebrating our human capacity to find beauty and connection even within the most manufactured environments.” “Soft // Chrome Pink Daisies” (2026), hand-sewn metallic fabrics, fiber stuffing, polyurethane-coated...

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Adrian Kay Wong’s Website
Adrian Kay Wong on Instagram

Parterre Box features soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä, making her title role debut in Die Walküre in Munich next week, in a performance of Tristan und Isolde from 2021.

La ricerca di Senzeni Marasela (Thokoza, Sudafrica, 1977) riflette sulla colonizzazione britannica del Sudafrica e poi ci parla dell’apartheid, ponendo l’accento sulla vita delle donne nere e sul lavoro nelle miniere dell’area intorno a Johannesburg utilizzando materiali tessili e il ricamo. Nella mostra In Minor Keys alla 61. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte a cura di Koyo Kouoh, l’artista presenta The Conversation (2018) e una serie sugli incidenti avvenuti nelle miniere tra il 1960 e il 2024: Coalbrook 435, 1960 (2025), Kinross 177, 1986 (2025), Marikana 34, 2012 (2025), Stilfontein 77, 2024 (2025), Val Reefs 104, 1995 (2025), Welkom 30, 2023 (2025), Comet (2025). Marasela ha un alter ego...

All images courtesy of the artist and GNYP gallery In Aistė Stancikaitė’s painting “Some Time We Walk Together,” two gloved hands are joined by a set of finger cuffs. The connected, silver rings resemble wedding bands. As for the hands, whether they belong to one or two people is up to the viewer to decide. […]
The post AISTĖ STANCIKAITĖ Uses Painting to Create HUMAN STORIES first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Grape pips, Cetamura del Chianti, Italy CHIANTI, ITALY—According to a statement released by the University of York, analysis of grape seeds recovered from mud at the bottom of wells carved into the rock at the Etruscan and Roman site of Cetamura del Chianti suggests that vintners there cloned vines that produced white berries. Oya Inanli of the University of York said that a majority of the seeds in the study were dated to between 300 B.C. and A.D. 300 and belonged to this single variety of grape. After the Romans conquered central Italy, new varieties of grapes were introduced to the site. The study also showed that the Etruscan’s white-berry variety was related to grapes grown in southern France,...

Based in the foothills of Cambewarra Mountain in New South Wales, Australia, Tamara Dean captures ethereal images that explore the intrinsic bond between the human body and the natural world. She is driven by what she describes as a desire to “explore the reality that humans are not separate from nature, but intrinsically part of it.” Using bodies to express this relationship, the figures within her compositions do not emerge as prominent subjects of portraiture. Instead, they exist as elements embedded within each scene, often emerging as extensions of surrounding flora. “I am interested in those moments when the body appears to merge with the landscape, becoming almost plant-like, animal-like or...

Excavations underway at Heraclea Sintica, Bulgaria RUPITE, BULGARIA—The Sofia News Agency reports that a fragment of a marble statue that may depict the goddess Artemis has been unearthed at the site of the ancient Greek city of Heraclea Sintica, which is located in southwestern Bulgaria. Ludmil Vagalinski of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences said that the figure’s hunter-style sandals are usually associated with Artemis, even though the statue is thought to have been placed in front of a temple of Heracles. The proportions of the fragments suggest that the statue was life-sized, he added. Vagalinski and his colleagues will examine a marble head found nearby several years ago to see if the pieces may have...

Minhan Lin
 
 
Minhan Lin’s Website
Minhan Lin on Instagram

The one who got away was Anna Caterina Antonacci, a thrilling performer.

“Metafisica / Metafisiche” è una straordinaria rassegna enciclopedica che ci fa vedere come nell’arte contemporanea si ritrovino radici che affondano nell’avanguardia storica della pittura metafisica di inizio Novecento. A Palazzo Reale di Milano, con quattrocento opere distribuite in tredici saloni, il curatore Vicenzo Trione, affiancato da una squadra di collaboratori costituita da Anna Luigia De Simone, Anna Calise, Vincenzo Di Rosa e Alessia Scaparra Seneca, dimostra i collegamenti fra la poetica della Metafisica con vari movimenti dell’arte contemporanea, collegamenti estesi anche agli ambiti della fotografia, del cinema, dell’architettura e della moda. Questo complesso e articolato progetto...

Sin dalle origini, si sa, la luce è sinonimo di rinascita: porta con sé speranza, gioia, novità e tutta una serie di connotazioni positive capaci di illuminare il futuro. E se Lucio Dalla cantava “Aspettiamo che ritorni la luce, di sentire una voce, aspettiamo senza avere paura domani”, la medesima luce è un faro che accompagna l’omonima mostra collettiva, curata da Diana Segantini e promossa dalla Fondazione Augusto Rancilio, visibile fino al 5 luglio 2026 a Villa Arconati a Castellazzo di Bollate (MI).
Igor Eskinja, Eskinja, “At your place”, lightbox, plexiglass, 2008; Antoni Taulé, “Seuil de la caverne”, 1986, olio su tela; Nives Widauer, “Moonbrightnight” (dalla serie of moon...

Conductors, schlock, and 26-27, oh my! Make sure to weigh in on our next edition of The Talk of the Town.

La pittura contemporanea è entrata da tempo nella propria fase necromantica. Origina fantasmi, archivi, rovine, temporalità collassate e mitologie tossiche, ma raramente produce ancora storia. Il trauma si presenta oggi come filtro atmosferico: una nebbia estetica compatibile con la circolazione dell’immagine. Il sistema dell’arte dipende dall’immaginario terminale; distopie climatiche, folklore post-umani, allegorie coloniali ricombinate e iconografie del deterioramento sono diventati il linguaggio dominante di una pittura che oscilla tra fascinazione archeologica e consumo della catastrofe. La vera ossessione non è più la fine del mondo, ma la paura che la fine del mondo abbia smesso di produrre...