The programme will include the redesign of displays, the creation of new exhibition space and the installation of new lighting systems

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s new admission and membership fees are tone-deaf and self-defeating

WHAT IF FORM DIDN’T FOLLOW FUNCTION, BUT PLEASURE?
 
When we opened our PLAY chapter, we borrowed Charles and Ray Eames’ invitation to ‘take your pleasure seriously.’ It was a deliberately simple proposition in a culture increasingly organized around optimization, productivity, and measurable outcomes. Over the weeks that followed, though, PLAY revealed itself as something more complicated than fun. It appeared as a design method, a social permission, a productive loss of control, and sometimes even a refusal to arrive anywhere at all.
 
Across architecture, art, and design, the projects we encountered suggested that PLAY does not necessarily remove us from reality. Quite the opposite: it can make us...

paola pivi on why we once looked to children for freedom
 
When I was young(er) people said ‘you need to keep alive the child in you.’ Last century there was a consciousness of the effect of society on the person and the value of play. Adults would look at children and value something precious that children had. When an adult retained that aspect in their life and still functioned as an adult, the other adults admired it. For years I made artworks that were defined as playful by others, and they asked me about play. For me, the aspect they called play was normal and I was puzzled about what I should answer.
 
I definitely approach my life and the world with curiosity and humbleness, approaching...

LUMION PRO TURNS COMPLEX DESIGNs INTO CLEAR visual NARRATIVES
 
Serving as a shared language between clients, planners, and stakeholders, Lumion Pro’s photo-matched renders and animations eliminate the friction that arises when traditional technical drawings fail to communicate the physical reality of an ambitious design concept. For architects, the software functions as far more than a final presentation tool, operating instead as a fundamental narrative engine that transforms abstract architectural concepts into approved realities.
 
A clear example of its impact unfolds through The Wilderness project by Agora Architects, a fully subterranean home designed to respect the surrounding landscape. Faced with...

saint of athens reimagines byzantine iconography in mykonos
 
Within the grounds of Kalesma Hotel in Mykonos, a small chapel dedicated to Saint Demetrius offers an unexpected reinterpretation of Byzantine iconography. Conceived by Saint of Athens in collaboration with illustrator Gerasimos Hatzis, the interior replaces the colorful palette associated with Orthodox frescoes with a sequence of black-and-white wall paintings that narrate the Passion of Christ, exploring how one of Christianity’s oldest artistic traditions can be translated through a contemporary visual language rooted in its theological framework.
 
Designed by K-Studio with interiors by Studio Bonarchi, the chapel follows the restrained...

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La pittura contemporanea ha spesso trasformato il ritorno in una narrazione di recupero: un’interruzione superata, una perdita convertita in nuova possibilità. When the Sun Shines Again, la prima grande personale newyorkese di Guimi You presso Lehmann Maupin, usa questa struttura per metterla in crisi. La mostra osserva ciò che accade quando il gesto artistico emerge da periodi di sospensione, quando il fare pittura si intreccia con la cura, l’attesa e forme di vita che tradizionalmente rimangono fuori dalla storia della produzione.
Guimi You, “When the Sun Shines Again”, installation view at Lehmann Maupin New York. Photography by Studio Kukla, courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul...

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Framing Hokkaido’s Forest Through Split-Level Living Spaces
 
Morimado House is a private residence by Yosuke Tomiya located in Hokkaido, Japan, where a dense forest borders the rear of the site. Rather than treating the forest as a backdrop, the project was conceived to make it an essential part of everyday living. Carefully positioned openings frame the changing scenery throughout the seasons, allowing nature to become an active presence within the home.
 
The interior is organized through a sequence of split-level spaces that gently connect different functions while maintaining visual continuity. A double-height living room, a window seat overlooking the forest, and interconnected levels encourage...

Shakespeare Opera Theatre presented two American operas exploring themes of hypocrisy and deception — in a church!

I mean.

Knokke Art Fair è una delle fiere d’arte più antiche al mondo e la più longeva tradizione internazionale sulla costa belga, un luogo speciale dove l’arte emoziona, giovani e anziani, curiosi ed esperti. Che sia ammirata tra le solenni mura di un luogo deputato o all’aria aperta (con una scultura site-specific), l’arte suscita emozioni, stimola la riflessione e invita al dialogo.
Vista esterna della location di Knokke Art Fair, edizione 2026
Knokke Art Fair è un evento del tutto indipendente, incentrato sulla qualità basata su un’accurata selezione che si svolge prima dell’apertura della fiera, ed è organizzata da Alexander Tuteleers. In questo luogo, il tempo sembra essersi fermato in...

Sunset over Brooklyn at the end of a workday puts my mind at relative ease. A discarded still life of white roses in a golden frame resting against a pile of black trash bags outside someone's house ends up being the most memorable art installation of the week. A new storefront church opens near my house; I see it one night when I go to buy milk for the kids. It's got a lobby with fancy-looking brown leather sofas for the faithful to sit comfortably on. I pass by a bookstore and see a photobook by Hans Wilschut titled Beirut, Epi-Centre Ville. It traces the impact of the devastating blast of 2020 on the city's streets and soul. The book piques my interest, but I keep walking and see a Honda...

Fino al 30 novembre 2026 il Parco Archeologico di Pompei ospita la mostra Philip Colbert in Pompeii: Pop Mythology. La mostra, curata da Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, espone oltre trenta sculture monumentali dell’artista britannico tra le quali protagonista assoluto è l’astice antropomorfo, alter ego dell’artista e ormai suo marchio riconoscibile.
Philip Colbert, ph. courtesy of the artist studio
Le opere di Colbert sono progettate per risultare subito leggibili e perfettamente compatibili con le aspettative della comunicazione social. Molti lavori si distinguono per l’uso di colori saturi, monumentalità, ironia pop e kitsch con citazioni della classicità ridotte a segni facilmente riconoscibili e nel...

New York’s Tracey Amon filed a request on July 25 in the US District Court for the District of Southern New York to subpoena art advisor Sanford “Sandy” Heller. She wants him to turn over documents for use in her lawsuits in Switzerland over the disposition of the assets of her late husband, Maurice Alain Amon, who retained Heller as an advisor starting in 2013. Heller has been described as “possibly the biggest art advisor in the world,” and reputedly works with Roman Abramovich and Steve Cohen. The heir to the company SIPCA, which makes inks used in printing currency, Maurice died at 68 in 2019 while on holiday in Saint Tropez. The filing puts his value at some $600 million in assets and business...

By Betty Ann Brown "The idea becomes a machine that makes the art."—Sol LeWitt Dean De Cocker creates richly conceived, exquisitely crafted, and visually delightful artworks that shuttle between abstraction and conceptual representation. He has long been drawn to machines, from bicycles to motorcycles, cars to airplanes, and formal echoes of these devices appear in his current body of work, exhibited at the Visual Arts Center in the small Central California town of Visalia. Welcome to the...

On July 28, a group of 10 people ransacked the headquarters of the Italian fuel distribution company, Lilli Petroli, in L’Aquila, located in Italy’s Abruzzo region, spending as long as eight hours on the premises before making off with over £4 million ($4.63 million) of art, first reported local outlet Il Centro. About 30 artworks belonging to Lilli Petroli owner Mauro Lilli were stolen in the unusual heist, including bas-reliefs attributed to Pablo Picasso, a bronze ballerina sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, paintings by Bruno d’Arcevia of the Italian Manner movement, and pieces by sculptor Mario Moretto. None were ensured, and the collection had been displayed throughout the company’s lobby and offices....

The Uffizi in Florence has announced a €50 million ($58 million) restoration plan that it expects to carry out over the course of two years. The renovations will encompass the Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Pitti, and the Boboli Gardens. Work has already begun on various projects, which are being staggered to avoid closing the museum completely. […]

Three star directors have severed ties with White Cube’s New York gallery, Artnet News reports. The trio—Courtney Willis Blair, Sukanya Rajaratnam, and Jessie Washburne-Harris—offered varying reasons for their departures. The news comes as powerhouses like David Zwirner and Pace, alongside a cohort of small and midsize galleries, shutter locations and cut staff and artists to […]

Elizabeth Mulholland is set to take on the role of senior director at David Zwirner Gallery’s Los Angeles outpost, according to ARTnews. The move follows Mulholland’s two-decade tenure at Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York, where she served as a director and subsequently became a partner.  Speaking to ARTnews, Andrew Kreps conveyed his gratitude to […]

The subway trek to the Upper East Side is slightly easier than Odysseus's journey across the Mediterranean, provided the 6 train is running. For those who prevail, their reward will be plentiful: A 2,300-year-old papyrus fragment containing parts of Homer's Odyssey is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The institution announced this week that the object would emerge from its long retirement on August 5. The fragment is now on public view at the museum in Gallery 162.In a video accompanying The Met's announcement, Séan Hemingway, curator in charge of Greek and Roman art, described the papyrus as “the earliest preserved fragment of Homer's Odyssey that we have today.”

As President Donald Trump and his appointees escalate their legislative attacks against historic sites and the artworks housed within them, Democrats and preservationist groups are pushing for protective countermeasures.On July 24, the heavily Trump-appointed Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) advanced a proposal that could diminish legal protections of historic sites. The 16–5 vote approved revisions to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, a measure that mandates federal agencies to consider possible damages to historically significant sites before undertaking construction projects.

Thieves stole €4 million ($4.6 million) worth of art from Italian fuel distribution company Lilli Petroli in an overnight raid at the firm’s headquarters in Abruzzo. The Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reports that the thieves made off with roughly 30 artworks, all belonging to the company’s owner Mauro Lilli.  The art was on display in […]

Walking down Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, you probably don’t realize that the name marks the original 17th-century East River shoreline of New York City. In fact, the street was named for a Lenape shell midden that was located on its southern section, which is also believed to have been adjacent to a Lenape canoe landing. It was one of many prominent middens that marked the region, and as Mark Kurlansky explains in his bestselling book The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell (2006), middens are “the most common marker of a pre-European settlement anywhere in the area of the mouth of the Hudson.” These piles of oyster shells, he notes, were sometimes as much as four feet deep, sometimes buried in...

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump lacks the authority to build a $400 million ballroom at the White House without congressional approval. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with historic preservationists who sued to halt construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the site where the White House’s East Wing stood before its demolition last fall.   In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that he “will be immediately appealing to the United States Supreme Court” and described the decision as “horrendous, politically motivated, and unlawful.” Friday’s ruling marks the second legal setback this week...

Known for her lush assemblages of flameworked glass, Amber Cowan reimagines a ubiquitous yet fragile medium. Flowers, filigree, and colorful baubles cluster into dense compositions that invoke fairytale narratives and whimsical nature scenes. Cowan typically works with industrial scraps, antiques, and other offcasts, which allows her to draw on products and colorways that are no longer in production. Currently leaning into cloche and coupe sculptures alongside her wall-based works, the Philadelphia-based artist is preparing for several upcoming exhibitions, including at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design in September and Design Miami in December. Her work is on view now in The Passion of Collecting...

A Pablo Picasso etching stolen from Milwuakee’s DeLind Art Appraisals in 2018 was handed over to the city’s plice department on Thursday, according to a press release. The etching and aquatint printed in ink on paper, titled Torero, is the ninth in an edition of 30. When it was stolen in 2018, Bill DeLind told news organizations that it was worth between $35,000 and $50,000. “It was like, ‘Oh my God,” DeLind told local news station 12 News on Thursday. “I never thought I’d see this again. And there it was.” In 2018, DeLind described the work as having “walked off the wall,” telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he did not see anyone in the business on the day the work disappeared, and...

“Why have there been no great women artists?” Maybe because too many of their masterpieces were dismissively shoved into storage for not having been painted by a more famous man. That, at least, seems to be what befell a still life by the 17th-century Flemish painter Clara Peeters. Still Life with Small Game and Grapes on a Gilded Tazza, ca. 1620, was at one point thought to be by Ambrosius Brueghel (son of Jan, grandson of Pieter). But, according to the Guardian, that attribution was rescinded in the early 20th century, leaving the still life in “anonymous” limbo ever since. Cynthia Osiecki, a curator at the National Museum of Norway in Oslo, came across Still Life with Small Game and Grapes on a...

A 1796 map of New York by Bernard Ratzer (image courtesy The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division)A hand-pump fire engine from 1830 and surviving dime museum attractions will be displayed alongside Jacob Riis's documentary photography and art by Keith Haring, Lynda Benglis, June Leaf, and others in the New Museum's forthcoming exhibition about the Bowery. The Bowery: Devil’s Mile will comprise archival materials, artifacts, and artworks representing four centuries of innovation and inspiration along the museum's home street. The show will open on September 24 alongside a previously announced Arthur Jafa survey in the Manhattan institution's newly expanded building.Originally a...

Over the weekend, a Russian drone strike destroyed a historic 18th century church in the Kherson region of Ukraine. The Holy Presentation Church, which was built in 1725 within a fort near Zaporizhzhia and transported to its current location at Beryslav in 1784, is said to be the last surviving example of wooden Cossack architecture […]

The statue gives new insight into the ancient Lydian civilisation, Turkey’s culture ministry says

The term “ark” invariably conjures images of the monumental boat onto which pairs of animals were stewarded prior to a cataclysmic, biblical flood. It’s a reference that feels apt amid the climate crisis and our planet’s rising sea levels, although in this case, the melting ice caps and creeping tides are down to us. The large-scale exhibition titled The Ark at Powerhouse Arts asks, will we care for the future of our planet the way we care for the animals we love? The presentation draws directly on the myth if The Deluge from Genesis, “an event of epic scale that becomes a metaphor for the present moment, where environmental and social upheaval converge,” says a statement. “Throughout the...

Recently rebranded artist membership organisation Artists Now has created a guide on how to make creative practices more eco-friendly

Xiao Hua Yang  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Xiao Hua Yang’s Website
Xiao Hua Yang on Instagram

Zémire et Azor, André-Ernest-Modest Grétry's riff on "Beauty and the Beast", gets a rare outing in the Berkshires.

Malin Byström is a radiant water nymph in the Bayerische Staatsoper's house-of-horrors-set Rusalka. 

The figure has been painted back onto the work at the Maurithuis after being removed at some stage in its history

Not really sure what was going on here.

Nell’estate del 1896, durante l’Esposizione panrussa di Nižnij Novgorod, Maksim Gorkij assiste a una delle prime proiezioni del cinematografo Lumière e prova a raccontare un’esperienza che ancora non possiede un linguaggio. Del cinematografo scrive poco, della novità tecnica ancora meno. Il suo sguardo si sposta subito altrove. A colpirlo è qualcosa che continua a sfuggire anche oggi, quando le immagini in movimento fanno ormai parte della nostra quotidianità.
Janis Rafa, “Baby I’m Yours, Forever”, 2026 in “Canicula”, Fondazione In Between Art Film presso Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venezia, 2026. Courtesy dell’artista e Fondazione In Between Art Film. Foto © Marco Cappelletti e...

110 years ago, Thomas Lupo’s grandfather opened the American Wood Column Corporation in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Specializing in architectural woodwork including decorative moulding, columns, balusters, corbels, and more, the historic family-owned company is shutting down after more than a century. A new documentary directed and produced by filmmaker and photographer Joshua Charrow takes viewers on one final walk-through of the factory. A vast collection of about 6,000 handmade wooden molds—many of them reverse carved molds—cover the walls and correspond to numbered samples for reference. “My grandfather bought these molds used, and they were used,” Lupo explains. “So they’ve got...

From happenstance and humor to solemnity and tension, the images topping the 2026 Pure Street Photography Awards run the gamut of daily scenes. The annual contest is organized into two categories: black-and-white and open. Reflections of New York City meet dramatic views of urban spaces and pensive tableaux in rural communities, emphasizing timely and candid moments that center diverse human experiences. This year, eight winners were selected from nearly 1,600 entries submitted by photographers in 50 countries. An exhibition of 158 of the top images is slated to pop up at Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, India, from November 20 to 22. The open call is also now live for the 2027 edition, and you can see more and...

Amid the rugged, wave-churned shoreline of France’s Breton coast, a surprising tidbit of pop culture has kept beachcombers returning for more than 40 years. The short film “Silly Little Plastic Cat” transports us to this slice of Brittany, where local residents grew up collecting parts of a 1984 Garfield-themed plastic telephone on the beach—and still do. Photographer and director Zack Grant, founder the production studio 2020 Land, was intrigued by the story, which made news a few years back after the source of the dispersed merchandise was finally discovered. The part of Brittany where the phones wash up is situated along a busy shipping thoroughfare. At some point during their transit in the...

Interno giorno. Lo studio di Mario Raciti è immerso dentro una magnifica baraonda, sulla quale cadono pochi raggi filtrati dalle persiane, appena scompigliati da un ventilatore a soffitto. Viene strano pensare che, fino al 20 settembre, l’altro capo di questo studio affiorerà dentro la compostezza del Palazzo Reale di Milano. Per preparare le domande che seguono mi sono abbondantemente rifatto al volume di Mario Raciti Scritti e testimonianze, edito da Taut nel 2023 a cura di Iacopo Pesenti. Si è trattato di un passaggio essenziale per superare l’imbarazzo intrinseco del parlare di pittura, e specialmente di una pittura come quella di Raciti, che fa metodo dell’elusione sistematica di tutti i punti di...

Alina Bobrova  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Alina Bobrova’s Website
Alina Bobrova on Instagram

Skeletons, tombstones, and serpents. These are just a few of the iconic images pre-v ailing throughout the works of Morgan Sorensen—all relating to the themes of struggle, sadness, pain, and death. While anyone might agree that these graphic designs would all make for killer band T’s, there’s quite a bit of depth surrounding the artist’s […]
The post Future Relics: The Art of Morgan Sorensen first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

The body is an obsession for Monica Piloni. Whether it’s a hollowed face in the Samieses series or the eerie dolls depicted in “Ilegais”, a majority of Monica Piloni’s sculptures confront the human form. And while consistently returning to the body may seem confining to some, it’s a pursuit marked by liberation for the Brazilian […]
The post The Disconcertingly Honest Self-Portrait Sculptures of Monica Piloni first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

This article originally appeared in Hi-Fructose issue 42, which is sold out. See Matthew Grabelsky’s new solo show at Thinkspace gallery here.  Matthew Grabelsky had studied tradition in Florence, lived in the cultural nuclei of Europe, but hadn’t yet found the idea that would set him apart as an artist living in the twenty-first century. […]
The post Human/Nature: Animals Go Underground In the Paintings of Matthew Grabelsky first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

A selection of recent work by artist Emma Steinkraus. Based in Lexington, Virginia, Steinkraus  
   
   
   
   
 
Emma Steinkraus’s Website
Emma Steinkraus on Instagram

By Victoria Thomas Photographer and ceramic artist Catherine (Cathy) Opie first shocked and rocked the fine art world with her self-portraits during the late 1990s. Today, her decades of work — often termed confessional — now serve as context for the far more enigmatic Holding Blue installation, on view at Regen Projects through July 3. The Los Angeles-based artist identifies as a leather dyke, lesbian cowboy, an elder, and as "Mama Cathy," with a mustachioed male alter-ego named Bo. Opie is...

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Luke Rosing’s Website
Luke Rosing on Instagram

Alexis Jamet  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Alexis Jamet’s Website
Alexis Jamet on Instagram

“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.

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,...

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...

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...