President Donald Trump has made no secret of his love for all things gold—the larger and glitzier the better. So visitors this week to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., who happened upon a 10-foot-tall, golden “Iran War Participation Trophy” dedicated to the president, can be forgiven for initially thinking it was a legitimate monument installed by the current administration. “I thought it was serious because there are so many ridiculous things happening that it’s hard to tell,” said Gayl Staver, 75, speaking to the Washington Post, which reported on the appearance of the sculpture on Monday morning near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. “Of course he would want something like this,”...

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday. Industry Moves Artists Hellen Ascoli and José Morbán Selected for Delfina Foundation Residencies: The two artists will head to London for 12 weeks via support from the Jorge M. Perez Collection and El Espacio 23, the top collector’s Miami exhibition space. Storm King Art Center Names 2026 Artist Residencies: Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty, Jennifer Harley, Mimi Ọnụọha, Sasha Wortzel, and Chunghee Yun make up this year’s cohort, which gives artists “a process-focused experience on the museum’s 500-acre grounds in New York’s Hudson...

Kate Gottgens, “Audible Doom” (2021) (photo courtesy the artist)A prominent international gallery in Cape Town is facing allegations of withholding artworks from and delaying payments to artists. The claims stem from a now-deleted Instagram post by South African artist Kate Gottgens. Earlier this month, Gottgens alleged in the post that her former gallery, SMAC, failed to return her painting “Audible Doom” (2021) for four years after the work did not sell at the Miart fair in Milan in 2022. After nearly 13 years of working with the gallery, the artist left SMAC late last year and took to social media less than eight months after her departure to inquire about the whereabouts of her work, which she...

Mestiz’s woven world of flowers, animals, and curious creatures
 
Mexican design studio MESTIZ turns wicker into a medium of storytelling, unveiling a new family of handwoven creatures for upcoming Hermès window installations across Mexico. Large flowers sprout from striped planters, butterflies hover beside violet elephants, crabs clutch bright red handbags, and fish appear to swim through fields of tulips. The collection forms an imagined ecosystem where familiar objects abandon their everyday roles and take on playful personalities, like characters in a children’s book, turning wicker into a medium for storytelling. 
all images by Mestiz Studio
 
 
handcrafted creatures head to hermès...

WOODSTOCK, New York — When I arrived at Keltie Ferris’s studio last month, he invited me first to see the home he shares with his wife and their child. “It’s important to situate yourself,” he says, allowing me a glimpse into the domestic side of his life, before we focus on the work. Then we walk back across the field toward the studio, and a loud scratching noise catches his attention. Ferris points toward a massive black bear clambering up the fence and out of his robust vegetable garden. It’s a dramatic, although not uncommon sighting in the Catskills, but it spikes my adrenaline level and reminds us that we are not alone. Ferris tells me, reassuringly, that they are gentle, shy creatures, as...

Big changes are afoot at James Cohan Gallery, which launched its new identity as NORR COHAN on July 15. The announcement also revealed that partner David Norr is now the sole owner and leader of the gallery, which operates spaces in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood and maintains an international presence at art fairs. Founded in 1999 […]

In Memoriam is published every Wednesday afternoon and honors those we recently lost in the art world.Bruno Lucchesi (1926–2026)Figurative sculptorAcross a seven-decade career, he sculpted the human form in bronze, terracotta, marble, and more. His works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and many more. "His genius is to express a joy of life even when he shows conditions that create misery and suffering," photographer and writer David Finn said in a statement, "for Lucchesi’s subjects seem to feel that being alive is its own reward."Yaacov Agam (1928–2026)Israeli kinetic artistYaacov Agam (photo Yaacov...

On Tuesday Sotheby’s announced that they had logged their highest-ever numbers in sales between January and June of 2026, an astonishing $4.4 billion, representing a 58 percent increase in sales from the first half of 2025. The auction house attributed these returns, in part, to broadened engagement, some of which was fostered by their move […]

The Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art has announced the honorees for its annual Art+Film Gala, chaired by returning hosts Leonardo DiCaprio and LACAMA trustee Eva Chow. This year’s star-studded event on Nov. 7 will honor artist Vija Celmins and filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. The Art + Film gala raises funds for LACMA’s exhibition, acquisition, and education programming, with a special focus on projects at the intersection of visual art and film. Last year’s gala honored Ryan Coogler and Mary Corse, and raised $6.5 million for the museum, a tick higher than the $6.4 million raised in 2024. Celebrity guests included Cindy Crawford, Cynthia Erivo, and Paris Hilton; Doja Cat, a “a boundary-breaking...

The Longaberger Company was once a billion-dollar basket-weaving empire, employing over 8,000 people at its peak. Its headquarters in Newark, Ohio, was built in 1997 in the shape of a giant basket, complete with two enormous handles arching over a glass atrium ceiling. But after declining sales, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2018. The iconic Basket Building, which has sat empty for years, is now for sale.Ryan Miller, a photographer who worked at Longaberger in 2014, witnessed the company’s descent into financial instability. “After countless late and missed payments, I learned they were struggling to pay many of their contractors, myself included,” Miller told me. “That glass ceiling? Well, it...

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The social media giant Meta partnered with controversial TV personality and cosmetics mogul Kylie Jenner for the design and marketing of an “entry-level” line of its widely criticized camera glasses late last month. The collaborative campaign quickly provoked a wave of public backlash over unresolved concerns about privacy, consent, and personal safety as surveillance technology rapidly evolves. Based in the United Kingdom, the class-based activism group Everyone Hates Elon (EHE) visualized those concerns in a lenticular spoof ad that, based on where a viewer is standing, flips between a branded marketing photo of Jenner wearing a pair of Meta glasses and a black-and-white image showing a skeletal, X-ray...

On July 14, at an auction held within Sotheby’s Breuer building in New York, a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil set a new record with its $50.1 million purchase price, as per The New York Times. Nicknamed “Gus,” the T. rex skeleton became the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction, surpassing the previous figure […]

Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been reported missing following the expiration of his jail sentence. Otero Alcántara, who was serving five years on charges of showing disrespect to national symbols, was set to be released from Guanjay, a maximum-security prison roughly 35 miles southwest of Havana, on July 9. According to the Associated Press, he […]

Acclaimed British photographer Peter Marlow (1952-2016) was known for his journalistic attention to people and happenings in conflict zones and political interactions. Throughout his career, though, he also embarked on numerous personal documentary projects like Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea, which he completed in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the city experienced sharp economic decline—its historic docks were no longer viable for global industry. He was also president of Magnum Photos twice. One of Marlow’s more meditative projects revolved around 42 Anglican cathedrals across England. The Anglican Christian tradition stems from the establishment of the Church of England following the English...

According to a new report from the New York Times, new candidates for the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents have not yet made their way before Congress, as can usually be expected, due to Vice President JD Vance’s efforts to delay the process. Two people with knowledge of the board member approval process, who spoke to […]

New research suggests that a treasured bronze artifact excavated from the Sanxingdui archaeological site in China is an assemblage of different parts made in different areas at different points in time—“offering fresh evidence of ancient trade networks and advanced metalworking techniques,” according to a report in Heritage Daily. The research released by the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology pertains to a well-known bronze figure—wearing an elaborate head piece and kneeling with its hands extended—that was discovered in the Sichuan Province. The researchers claim that the headpiece, known as a zong, and the kneeling figure exhibit differences regarding their makeup in...

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Longtime senior director David Norr assumes sole ownership following a years-long leadership transition

The new grant, funded by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the Rema Hort Mann Fund, supports New York City artists undergoing cancer treatment

The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Jersey is now richer by more than 70 artworks after a donation from the collectors Anne and Arthur Goldstein that includes pieces by established figures such as Tauba Auerbach, Darren Bader, Mark Bradford, Nicole Eisenman, Kunié Sugiura, and John Waters, as well as emerging artists like Ever Baldwin, Troy Lamarr Chew II, and Lamar Peterson. “Anne and Arthur are visionary collectors who have long championed artists of color, women artists, and members of the LGBTQ+ community,” director Maura Reilly said in a statement. “This gift represents their enduring relationship with the museum and a remarkable synchronicity with the values that are at the heart...

a volkswagen cockpit reduced to handlebar width
 
While Volkswagen’s design language usually takes shape around four wheels, its newest licensed vehicle arrives with pedals beneath a flat-white frame. Developed and manufactured by n+ under license from Volkswagen, the Smart eBike range includes a Sport model and a Crossover model, with pre-orders open ahead of deliveries planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.
 
From the side, both bicycles look clean and almost diagrammatic, with the battery enclosed inside an oversized down tube and most of the cabling disappearing into the frame.
 
The Sport keeps a conventional diamond frame with a rigid aluminum fork; 2.2-inch urban tires maintain its lean profile....

The donation—from the New Jersey museum’s long-time patrons Anne and Arthur Goldstein—includes works by Mark Bradford, Nicole Eisenman and Takeshi Kawashima

Rarely do artists conceive of work that is prescient and, decades on, more urgent than when it was created. One who has accomplished this is certainly Ana Mendieta (1948-1985), whose interdisciplinary practice merged photography, land art, sculpture, film, and more. And in a large-scale, immersive survey of her work that opens today at Tate Modern, more than 120 pieces revisit the groundbreaking artist’s key series and empathetic exchange with land and nature. Mendieta is best known for her Silueta Series, in which she impressed the shape of the human body in water, mud, rock, and forests. These sometimes consisted of outlines “drawn” onto surfaces, such as a gunpowder tribute on a fallen tree, which...

One sphere and four tubes shape Audi ZERØ concept electric car
 
Designed by Wini Camacho, the Audi ZERØ is a conceptual electric vehicle that explores automotive design through a highly reduced geometric framework. The proposal is based on five primary volumes, one sphere and four tubes, which together define the vehicle’s architecture, proportions, and appearance. By reducing the design to these elemental forms, the project investigates how mathematical geometry can generate a new approach to vehicle design.
 
At the center of the concept, a spherical passenger cell forms the main cabin, while four tubular elements organize the remainder of the vehicle. Two tubes accommodate the wheel pods, while the...

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Erika Nina Suárez’s Website
Erika Nina Suárez on Instagram

One Italian soprano continues to save the day in bel canto roles at La Scala; this week Parterre Box features Marta Torbidoni.

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Private sales and flexible financing arrangements are also helping the businesses shore up their bottom lines

Exhibitions on chintz, ceramics, and pop culture will headline in South Kensington, while South Asian contemporary art and Vivienne Westwood will feature at the museum's east London and Dundee locations, respectively

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NEW VERSION OF Wim T. Schippers’ 1962 PEANUT BUTTER FLOOR
 
In a tribute to the late Dutch artist and comedian Wim T. Schippers, who passed away on June 10, 2026, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam recreates one of the artist’s iconic works – a delightful peanut butter hexagon fashioned on the floor of its Depot.
 
First introduced in 1962, the Peanut Butter Floor (Pindakaasvloer) is a conceptual artwork covered with a thick layer of peanut butter. The humorous, absurd nature of the work raises questions like ‘is this art?’ and ‘am I allowed to find this beautiful?’, reflecting Schippers’ belief that art does not necessarily have to be logical or useful, it may as well ‘be absurd...

takako saito invites spectators into her artwork
 
Look. Don’t touch. For centuries, museums have conditioned us to become careful observers. The artwork is complete before we arrive; our role is simply to contemplate it. Takako Saito spent more than seven decades quietly undoing that convention.
 
Closely associated with Fluxus yet never confined by it, the late Japanese artist built a practice grounded in material curiosity, everyday rituals and the simple joy of play. Her works ask to be touched, rearranged, smelled, listened to and shared. Long before ‘interactive design‘ entered the cultural vocabulary, Saito understood that participation could be the artwork itself.
Takako Saito in 2017 | all...

Many years ago, when the Met was deciding who the next principal conductor/music director was going to be, it seemed to be a tie between YN-S and Fabio Luisi.

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Una donna con un fazzoletto, una gonna, un grembiule e una camicetta – un semplice abito tipico dei piccoli villaggi balcanici – corre intorno a un albero. Ancora e ancora. E ancora. Si ferma. Sette anni dopo, una donna che le somiglia corre intorno a un albero diverso. E ancora. In Round Around, questa donna è e non è solo Sandra Sterle, l’artista croata di performance multimediali, ma è anche un archetipo di altre donne impegnate in lavori ripetitivi in ​​piccoli luoghi decentrati. Ogni video è stato girato a distanza di sette anni (1996/2003/2010/2017/2024), ognuno in un luogo diverso (a Mljet, vicino a Zara, vicino a Spalato, sull’Isola Nuda/Omiš), ognuno con una telecamera diversa....

In Yorùbá culture, it’s said that more than 600 years ago, a hunter discovered a lush grove in southwestern Nigeria carved by a rushing river. His community had experienced drought and eagerly moved to the region, which they quickly learned was under the rule of the goddess of rivers and fertility, Ọ̀ṣun. In exchange for protection and prosperity, the people promised to celebrate the deity, and this pact grounds what’s now known as the Ọṣun-Òṣogbo Sacred Grove. A UNESCO World Heritage site spanning 190 acres, the spiritual sanctuary has long been revered by the Yorùbá people, and in the mid-20th century, a group of artists revitalized the landscape by erecting large-scale sculptures in...

Three major Robert Rauschenberg sculptures have been donated to ARTIST ROOMS by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

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St. Louis has long served as a center for advanced medical care and pediatric treatment, making it a place where... Read More

Skip surface prep before spray painting, and you’ll get the same result every time: paint that peels, bubbles, or won’t... Read More

Jenkin van Zyl premieres Enclosure, a large-scale film and installation set to transform Somerset House Studios

During the medieval and Renaissance periods, baskets were everyday essentials—no plastic bags at the supermarket or even reusable totes. They were also used for all sorts of activities, from handled varieties for produce at the market to decorative vessels holding sewing materials to large versions that could be worn like rucksacks. For Cardiff-based artist Lewis Prosser, a self-described “absurdist basketmaker,” folklore, regional identity, and cultural heritage center a multidisciplinary practice. Through sculptural baskets that can be worn as costumes or displayed like venerable sculptures, Prosser taps into storytelling, masking traditions, and public ceremony and celebration. Welsh communities still...

Volkswagen's latest e-bike range brings automotive-inspired safety technology to cycling with radar, rear-view cameras, smart lighting and connected wearables.

 
Earlier this month, Karen Harvey announced that Shutter Hub would begin a new chapter under the stewardship of its community, marking the organisation’s most significant evolution to date. It was also one of its most radical acts, placing the future of Shutter Hub into the hands of the people who have helped shape it over the past decade.
Since its beginnings, Shutter Hub has championed a democratic approach to photography, creating opportunities that are open, accessible, and driven by community rather than hierarchy. The creation of a Community Team is a natural continuation of those values, ensuring that the organisation’s future is informed by a diverse network of practitioners, educators, curators,...

Jeongmin Lee is interested in the ways “memory is carried through craft and repetition.” On traditional Korean mulberry paper, or hanji, Lee draws delicate lines in ink and pigments known as bunchae, rendering rippling textures that whirl across the page. Steeped in local folklore and mythology, the Busan-based artist creates surreal scenes that conjure fantastical tales of life by the sea. “Most of my recent projects begin with reading regional folktales, visiting places connected to those stories, and collecting fragments of history, mythology, and oral traditions,” she says. “I rarely paint a folktale exactly as it’s written; I’m more interested in its symbols, emotions, and the questions it...

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Sara Suppan’s Website
Sara Suppan on Instagram

Pierre Monteux's career defies time.

La scelta di mettere in dialogo Arthur Jafa e Richard Prince potrebbe apparire, a prima vista, come l’ennesima operazione curatoriale costruita attorno al paradigma dell’appropriazione. Helter Skelter, la mostra curata da Nancy Spector per Fondazione Prada a Ca’ Corner della Regina, dimostra invece come questo dispositivo critico possa ancora produrre nuovi significati quando viene sottratto alla semplice genealogia postmoderna per confrontarsi con la crisi contemporanea dell’immagine.
Arthur Jafa, “Viriconium”, 2026. Veduta della mostra “Helter Skelter: Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince”. Foto di Andrea Rossetti, per gentile concessione della Fondazione Prada
Entrambi gli artisti costruiscono...

A grandly sung revival of The Ballad of Baby Doe at Central City Opera mines poignance from America's past and present.

Daniel Barenboim’s Tristan und Isolde is a performance I keep coming back to, again and again.

Lino Fiorito non ha mai separato davvero la pittura dallo spazio. Anche quando lavora sulla superficie della tela, le sue immagini sembrano già pensate come corpi; quando invece la forma occupa fisicamente un ambiente, continua a comportarsi come un dipinto. È a partire da questa continuità che le due mostre presentate tra 480 Site Specific ed EDICOLA480 possono essere lette come un unico progetto articolato in due tempi, in cui la seconda non rappresenta una conclusione, ma una naturale condensazione della prima.
Lino Fiorito solo show, installation view, 2026, 480 Site Specific, Napoli, courtesy dell’artista e 480 Site Specific, Photo: Danilo Donzelli
La mostra ospitata da 480 Site Specific, a cura di...

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Liang Wang’s Website
Liang Wang on Instagram

Ho parlato con lo scultore di Zagabria, Vladimir Novak, per diverse settimane questa primavera, culminando in una conversazione, “Tra scultura e città”, organizzata da Residency Unlimited a New York. Il lavoro recente di Novak si concentra su questioni scultoree relative alle risposte fisiche degli oggetti nello spazio in modi sorprendenti. Ciò include meccanismi accuratamente calibrati, come l’uso di piccole macchine leggermente decentrate e posizionate dietro le quinte che animano l’opera e le interazioni con il pubblico che le attivano.
Vladimir Novak, “≈ 30 Steps In Balance”, 2018. © Vladimir Novak, foto di Zvonimir Ferina, per gentile concessione dell’Artista
Qual è il ruolo della...

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“Identità mutanti”, “Il latte dei sogni”. Il tema dell’identità oltrepassa il secolo scorso, attraversa le Biennali e le riflessioni critiche di FAM, le tendenze Queer e le metamorfosi di Barney per bagnare le rive di Santarcangelo. La 56esima edizione di Santarcangelo Festival, se da un lato deve ancora fare i conti con un corpo collettivo ereditato dalla sua storia, si sofferma su quello individuale. Se il nuovo direttore (Luigi De Angelis) dovrà – tra le altre cose – riportare soprattutto il festival alla sua storia di gratuite pratiche di inclusione cittadina e di coinvolgimento popolare, l’attuale programma dell’edizione diretta da Tomasz Kireńczuk mette al centro il corpo...

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...

Memory may not be a tape-recorder, but in Sasha Gordon’s work, it serves as a device for the initial transportation. Characters wander this fluxing landscape—be it a drive-through window, a master bedroom, or white suburbia—shifting through the dynamic background of her dream-like haze. As a viewer of Gordon’s narrative paintings, you are intruding on intimate […]
The post Shadow Work: How Sasha Gordon Processes Trauma With Colorful, Yet Intimate Art Works first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Will Sweeney is a commercial artist based in the UK. With a big reach and an enormous imagination, his illustrations adorn album sleeves, shirts for big fashion brands, toys in Japan, and almost any other sort of wearable or product one could imagine. Recently, we asked Sweeney to describe a bit of the machinations that […]
The post Welcome to the Will Sweeney-verse first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

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...