After years of negotiations starting with a visit by the late Pope Francis in 2022, the Vatican repatriated a wealth of Indigenous cultural treasures that were unveiled this week in a warehouse belonging to the Canadian Museum of History. The institution in Gatineau, Quebec—around a 2.5-hour drive west of Montreal—is currently storing the 62-object handover while Indigenous elders and experts take stock of each piece and investigate its origins. As reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), Vancouver Archbishop Richard Smith, representing the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, said at a news conference on Tuesday, “We recognize that reconciliation is not a single event but a long...

At the entrance of In Our Time: Eleven Artists + W.E.B. Du Bois at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, two identical, stark-white busts face off. Mirror images, they are separated by a hollow metal apparatus, a window of sorts. The sculpture, “Untitled” (2022), by the late artist Radcliffe Bailey, is a striking visual metaphor for W.E.B. Du Bois’s doctrine of double consciousness, the social historian’s conceptualization of African Americans’ racial positioning post-emancipation. In their orientation, the twin busts suggest the crisis of identity experienced under the duress of racism; the subjects’ autonomous self-fashioning is at odds with their marginalized civic position.“Untitled” is a succinct...

TONO, the time-based art festival, has announced the lineup for its 2026 edition, returning March 6–22 with a slate of new and existing video installations, performance commissions, music events, and screenings across Mexico City and Puebla. Programming will span major institutions including Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Casa del Lago UNAM, Museo Jumex, and Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, with additional exhibitions at Museo Amparo in Puebla.  This year’s live program includes work by Tino Sehgal, Space Afrika, Franziska Aigner, and Kelman Duran. TONO will also organize a dedicated exhibition by Ho Tzu Nyen and debut a special project by Mexican artist Avantgardo. In conjunction with his retrospective...

An unwavering desire to play with scale, permanence, and fragility recurs in Rebecca Manson’s practice. The New York-based artist (previously) is known for magnifying the minuscule and preserving fleeting lifeforms in porcelain, a material regarded for both its resilience and delicacy. These dichotomies emerge through dynamic sculptures of butterflies and moths that drape down walls and across floors in dramatic displays. Each wing is comprised of tens of thousands of small, hand-crafted pieces Manson and her team refer to as “smushes.” Layered into undulating compositions, these individual pieces mimic the lush texture of scales and the protective patterns of disguise some species use to hide from...

Earlier this week, a retired General Services Administration official accused the Trump administration of attempting to demolish four historic federal buildings in Washington, D.C., including the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, Bloomberg Law reported. The former official, Mydelle Wright, made the allegation in a supplemental declaration filed in a case brought by preservation groups seeking to stop President Trump from painting a stone federal building. Wright said the White House is soliciting bids for the demolition of the buildings without the involvement of the GSA, which she added has “sole authority over this process” when it comes to maintaining government buildings. “For the first time of which...

A performance artist from Luxembourg managed to turn a few scrawled lines of washable spray chalk into a night in jail during Art Basel Miami Beach—an outcome he claims was both unexpected and meaningful. Thomas Iser was arrested last week after spray-painting the words “Sorry to disturb, art in progress,” in exaggerated graffiti-style lettering, on a window of the Miami Beach Convention Center during the United States’ largest art fair. He then invited his three-year-old daughter to add her own marks with a chalk pen. Police charged Iser with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. Iser later told the Miami New Times that he knew an arrest was likely, though he said he was surprised officers “handcuffed...

Franco Vaccari, an Italian conceptual artist whose experiments with photography expanded the medium’s possibilities, has died at 89. His death was announced by his gallery, the Bologna-based P420, which did not specify a cause. Vaccari died just four months before his work was due to be surveyed in a retrospective held at Museion in Bolzano, Italy. Opening in March, the exhibition was being staged to mark what would’ve been Vaccari’s 90th birthday and is due to explore how the artist brought his work beyond art spaces, into the eye of the general public. He often relied on viewer participation for the completion of his pieces, which he typically called “esposizioni in tempo reale,” or “exhibitions...

The Pakistani-British artist rose to fame in the 1990s with her “concise humour and profoundly understated visual language”

At Art Basel Paris, “the art world seemed to be staging a rally for art created by flesh-and-blood people”

At 51, Maryam Rohani Vakili is exploring the symbolism of Iranian doors and knockers in increasingly abstract ways. They've been experimenting with layering, texture, and color, especially red and turquoise, to express the tension between memory, silence, and identity. The studio feels vibrant and alive with this dialogue between tradition and contemporary abstraction. They're also deeply engaged with a smaller ongoing project, Care & Share, where they create tiny traditional ceramic shoes....

When designer Pedro Neves was an undergraduate student, he attended an advanced seminar during which students were charged with creating an alphabet using modular elements. “As someone with minimal experience with type design, I was struck by the excitement of generating letterforms simply by using pre-existing modules,” he says in a statement. Little did he know that the assignment would spur an international participatory and educational project. In his faculty role at the University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Design, Neves organized a graduate course emphasizing modularity for letterform design and typographic compositions. LEGO turned out to be an ideal system, comprising individual elements...

MVRDV embeds a civic pavilion within the hills of Pujiang
 
MVRDV completes Pujiang Platform, a timber event pavilion and viewing structure embedded into the hills east of Pujiang, southwest of Chengdu, China. Conceived as an architectural extension of the terrain itself, the 414-square-meter pavilion uses earth-covered timber arches to reconstruct the silhouette of a hill that was previously flattened, while framing panoramic views toward the growing town below and the Qionglai Mountains beyond.
 
Set within a landscape that is rapidly transforming as Pujiang develops into a new sustainable town, the project aims to offer residents and visitors a place for gatherings, ceremonies, and civic use, and to do...

This spring's Talk of the Town is craving your operatic dominance and your submissions by January 15.

From raunchy Tom of Finland merch to a sponsorship deal for a Victorian loo—here are some of the arty items that have caught our eye this season

Ben Luke talks to the architecture critic and Gehry biographer Paul Goldberger, to the FLAG Art Foundation's founder and to Rebecca Shaykin, curator at New York's Jewish Museum

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Handowin He’s Website
Handowin He on Instagram

In recital for the Los Angeles Opera, tenor Ben Bliss makes the case for the next stage of his career.

Reporting from concurrent openings at Asia's legacy biennials

The Walled Off Hotel, which opened in 2017 directly opposite the West Bank barrier, has been described by the street artist as having “the worst view of any hotel in the world”

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Camille Walala and the language of color in the public realm
 
Bold blocks of color and chunky geometric forms define The Walala Lounge, Camille Walala’s permanent public installation in downtown Bentonville, Arkansas. Spread across the streets of the market district, the project transforms benches and planters into oversized sculptural steel elements, using saturated hues and graphic contrasts. Curated by justkids, the pieces work collectively to establish a visual cadence along the street, transforming moments of rest, waiting, and gathering into shared encounters with form and color.
 
Walala describes the project as an opportunity to move beyond surface-based work and into shared, physical...

NPO Aoyama Design Forum (ADF), a non-profit organization, has announced the ADF Design Award 2026, celebrating architecture that does more than please the eye—it aims to make a meaningful impact on society, culture, and the environment. The award aims to recognize outstanding works that challenge existing conventions, demonstrate innovative thinking, and enrich people’s lives through visionary, responsible design. Architects and designers around the world are invited to submit their proposals on a unique platform that fosters connections, promotes the exchange of ideas, and encourages meaningful cross-cultural collaboration.
 
In the world of architecture, numerous international competitions, events, and...

ARIA lets drivers fix their own modular electric city car
 
Meet ARIA, the modular electric city car created by the student team TU/ecomotive that drivers can repair themselves. Designed to last longer, the vehicle changes the status quo in the automotive industry by giving the users more control over repairs and maintenance instead of relying on manufacturers and shops. The main idea behind ARIA is simple: a car that people can fix themselves and that is functional for daily use and more sustainable over time. The modular electric city car is built from separate parts that work as modules, including the battery units, the body panels, and the electronic elements inside the car. 
 
When one part stops...

Christmas kitsch is great fun, of course, but Christmas can be just as wonderful without it, as this great singer proves.

Good morning! I can't believe we only have two more Fridays left in 2025 ... that is, until I remember what a year it's been. It feels like ages since we got memes of Katy Perry's brief stopover in space, the notorious Coldplay couple, or even the Signal chat notification heard 'round the world. Take a nostalgic trip through the chaos and humor of this year with Staff Writer Rhea Nayyar's list of the memes that defined 2025.In the news, a Picasso painting could be yours for $117 as part of a raffle with proceeds going toward Alzheimer's research. (One can't help but recall the multi-million-dollar art sales of late that have not been donated to this or any other cause, but I...

Atrey and Associates’ Delhi Residence: Climatic Intelligence and Sculptural Form
 
The Nadhyavart Residence in Delhi, designed by Atrey and Associates, mixes climatic intelligence, material honesty, and spatial refinement within brutalist architecture. The home integrates passive design strategies, calibrated geometries, and craft-driven detailings all packaged within a sweeping, curvilinear concrete mass. This bold, texturally raw and strong form is contrasted by a terracotta brick screen, which introduces warmth and rhythm. Designed with a perforated jaali-inspired pattern, this screen functions as a breathable skin, modulating sunlight and casting dynamic shadows to balance high performance with crafted,...

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This winter, Tate St Ives presents a major new exhibition from Lithuanian-born artist Emilija Škarnulytė, best-known for moving-image works that blur the boundaries between documentary and the imaginary. The show features films and immersive installations that explore the fluidity of time and the invisible systems shaping contemporary life. The building’s size allows Škarnulytė’s work to unfold as a fully immersive environment. Architectural structures in the gallery will invite visitors to view a single film from a series of different perspectives and scales, from the macro to the micro. Here, Škarnulytė foregrounds the ways mythology and technology can intertwine as a transcendental force. Each...

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Bart Nelissen is a visual artist whose work explores how we make sense of an increasingly overwhelming digital world. In his Aesthetica Art Prize-shortlisted series Datascapes, Nelissen takes cloud-like digital images and breaks them down into small geometric fragments – tiny squares that act like pieces of data. He layers and recombines these fragments, building new visual structures that reveal hidden patterns, echoing the human effort to find meaning in the chaos of information that surrounds us. Nelissen is fascinated by our instinctive drive for progress and our belief that innovation and technology can solve the problems we face. At the same time, he critically examines the darker side of...

Frank Gehry, a towering figure in the worlds of architecture and design, died at his home in Santa Monica, California, on December 5, after a brief respiratory illness. Over the course of his eight-decade career, Gehry altered the look of modern cities with his ebulliently sculptural public buildings, becoming one of the best known and […]

As the year comes to an end, I’m really at a loss for where to start recapping 2025’s top meme-ories. I’d wager that the inhumane detention of immigrants, the dismantling of arts funding throughout the United States, a government shutdown, SNAP benefits dangling by a thread, and the trickling release of Epstein file batches were at least partially responsible for harshing the vibes, but I still have to hold JD Vance and Elon Musk accountable for taking turns in bludgeoning the concept of humor with a spiked baseball bat in the thick of it all.What I can say about 2025 is that humor, especially the derisive sort, is the primary weapon in moments of profound incompetence, ignorance, and injustice far...

Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other happenings in today’s chaotic art world.A Big Museum WeekIt's been quite a year for the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, which had several federal grants terminated by the Trump administration in April and dozens of masked Customs and Border Patrol agents swarming its plaza a few months later. But 2025 is ending on a high note for the institution, which has just received a $20 million gift — the largest in its history — from the philanthropic coffers of MacKenzie Scott, easily the only good thing Jeff Bezos has ever been tangentially connected to.Elsewhere, museums are...

The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has named curator, writer, and educator Hamza Walker the winner of the 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. The honor, presented annually since 1998, recognizes “outstanding curatorial achievements of individuals bringing innovative thinking, bold vision, and dedicated service to the field of exhibition-making,” per […]

The UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum has named Kathryn Kanjo as its new director. Kanjo, who for nine years has served as director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, will be the first leader of the institution, formed this past October when the University of California, Irvine, took over the Orange County Museum of Art and […]

It’s somehow been more than a year already since we launched Colossal’s new site design, and it’s spectacular to hear your feedback about how you peruse and use the site. Whether you click on things of interest in our newsletters or encourage your students to explore thousands of articles about artists, nature, science, and visual culture, we want you to keep coming back—and learning—again and again. That’s why we’re continuing to build out the Colossal Art Glossary! This month, we’ve added 10 new entries: Activist Art Bauhaus Brutalism Community Art / Social Practice Dutch Golden Age painting Land Art / Environmental Art Magical Realism Tondo Vanitas WPA / Federal Art Project Teachers...

For about the price of a good toaster oven that doesn't break upon first use, you might be able to take home your very own Pablo Picasso painting. The auction series 1 Picasso for 100 Euros is back for the third time since 2013, raffling an original Picasso work for €100 (~$117) a ticket to support a charitable organization. This year, Picasso's “Tête de Femme (Head of a Woman)” (1941), a gouache on paper, will be up for sale to benefit research at the Fondation Recherche Alzheimer, France's leading Alzheimer's research organization. The artwork is estimated to be worth €1 million (~$1.17 million). Proceeds from the competition will fund the expansion of research centers for the...

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Glasgow-born Nigerian artist Nnena Kalu has been named the winner of the 2025 Turner Prize. Considered the UK’s most prestigious award in the field of the visual arts, the prize comes with a £25,000 purse (about $33,000). Kalu, who is autistic and largely unable to communicate verbally, is known for colorful large-scale swirling abstract drawings and for […]

From sequins, glass beads, rhinestones, plaster, paint, and more, Jorge Mañes Rubio sculpts new narratives from ancient tales. Drawing on the motifs of Spanish illuminated manuscripts, as well as family heirlooms and pop culture, the artist explores the relationship between past and present, reinterpreting religious imagery into unexpected forms like beaded basketballs and other functional objects. One recent work, “La Noche que Desvela una Luz sin Medida,” fashions a black safety glove used by motocross racers into a form that evokes a medieval gauntlet. It’s embellished with flame motifs, twisted cord, glass, and tiny medallions that the artist’s great-grandmother collected at monasteries across...

Gulfshore Opera's vigorous production of Carmen answers a familiar question.

It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: "Charmante Psyché!"

Head of Research at Framer Framed Emily Shin-Jie Lee reflects on how ‘Shapeshifters’ rethinks museological conventions, foregrounds opacity and care, and gathers artists whose practices challenge inherited colonial frameworks. Installation view of ‘Shapeshifters: On Wounds, […]

A landmark recognition for the neurodivergent artist whose dynamic sculptures and drawings reshape contemporary abstraction The winner of the Turner Prize 2025, Nnena Kalu, in their exhibition at Cartwright Hall. The winner was announced at […]

A single oak tree can support more than 2,300 species: lichens clinging to bark, birds nesting in branches, butterflies drifting through leaves and a vast underground network of fungi. In Of the Oak, now open at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, acclaimed collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) makes this extraordinary biodiversity visible. They have created a “digital double” of Kew Gardens’ majestic Lucombe Oak – one of its oldest trees – using LiDAR, radar and CT-scanning. The resulting immersive video and sound experience is as enchanting as it is educational, showing how energy and carbon flow into the soil, whilst aiming to inspire a renewed connection with the natural world. The piece now travels...

 
From 19 January – 02 April 2026, we’ll take over four floors of the ARB building with work by 120 photographers from around the world, transforming the space and covering the walls with hundreds of images printed by our favourite newspaper print partners Newspaper Club. As an added bonus for 2026, the last two weeks of the exhibition will also see it featured as part of the Cambridge Festival.
© Nicola Di Nella
The selected photographers exhibiting in the Shutter Hub OPEN 2026 are:
Stewart Alexander, Rachel Hope Allan, Alessandro Ascenzi, Chris Avis, Wendy Bagnall, Madina Baymirzaeva, Jan Beesley, Alan Bennett, Sarah Bird, Susan Bittker, Ana Blumenkron, Rick Blumsack, Anton Bou, Victoria Braithwaite,...

Bringing together works that orbit around the sun as image, index, and metaphor, curator Murtaza Vali offers a compelling lens on ten years of experimentation at 421. SUN™ becomes an elemental archive through which the […]

For Shuo Hao, finding the proper place is at the heart of her practice. The Chinese artist, who is currently based in Paris, has long been interested in the ancient text Yijing and how it offers a system of understanding for a world perpetually in flux. The cosmological book provides structure through the five elements—earth, water, air, fire, and metal—and also considers the relationships between humans and nature and the order of things, more broadly. Shuo Hao works with antique furniture, typically sourced from auctions and second-hand shops. Wood worn with age is her preferred material, and most objects she selects date between the 16th and 20th centuries. Like much of her practice, choosing these...

At 72, Elaine Carr is painting with gratitude. They lean towards more positive themes now. Their paintings tend to be a composition of beautiful colors that most times seem animated. Known for their bold colors and sometimes playful themes, Elaine's paintings are colorful compositions of still life, landscapes, and portraiture. They're primarily self-taught, having painted since childhood, but now in their retirement years they paint with a goal of creating works that evoke good emotions....

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Joshua Dudley Greer’s Website
Joshua Dudley Greer on Instagram

The Turner Prize, established in 1984 and named after the radical Romantic painter JMW Turner, has long reflected the shifting currents of British contemporary art. Each year, the award spotlights those pushing the boundaries of creativity, urging audiences to reconsider both the art world and our modern society. Previous editions have brought early recognition to the likes of Damien Hirst, Lubaina Himid and Laure Prouvost. Now, NNena Kalu joins that illustrious list. The artist was named as the 2025 winner in an awards ceremony in Bradford last night. It makes Kalu the first artist with a learning disability to receive the renowned accolade. The jury commended Kalu’s “bold and compelling work”, praising...

Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination explores the transformative power of photographic portraiture to shape identity, imagination and political consciousness. The exhibition traces how photographers across mid-20th century Africa and its diaspora captured the aspirations of individuals while contributing to broader movements for Pan-African solidarity. These portraits illuminate Africa not only as a physical continent but as a conceptual space, defined by dialogue, creativity and shared possibility. Through the circulation of images across borders, the exhibition demonstrates how portraiture functioned as both witness and catalyst during moments of decolonial transformation, when European...

Exploring how classical Italian aesthetics continue to inspire and transform her artistic journey. In this conversation with Clay Artist, Monica Vaccari , she reflects on the enduring influence of classical Italian aesthetics and how they shape her creative practice. Discover the inspirations behind her work and the dialogue she creates between tradition and contemporary artistry. Access the full interview below: Conversation with Clay Artist, Monica Vaccari on classical Influences on...

In conversation with Suzette Bell-Roberts, Adama Delphine Fawundu traces the spiralling currents of Luba, Kongo, and Yoruba knowledge systems, revealing how vibration, memory, and ancestral materials converge in her immersive installation for the 36th Bienal […]

“Creating new characters is a way for me to collect ‘things’ without having to collect actual physical things. Read the full article on Matt Furie by clicking above!
The post Cruisin’ With Matt Furie first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Lately in the studio, Jalila Bell is fired up clearing space for new work and diving into their steampunk series—where imagination, invention, and rebellion collide. At 50, hitting that milestone has powered them up and made them bolder. They're being pushier with mixed-media materials, mashing together effigy and new worlds. With their new steampunk series, they're breaking rules about what "their art" looks like, bending reality, and letting their imagination lead the charge. What's...

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Sayuri Ichida’s Website
Sayuri Ichida on Instagram

A century of Brazilian art reframed through five thematic axes tracing continuities, ruptures and shifting cultural imaginaries. © Anita Malfatti. Courtesy of MAM Rio. Photo: Romulo Fialdini & Valentino Fialdini The Museu de Arte Moderna […]