Thousands of artists, academics, curators, journalists, and political figures are calling on leaders of the Venice Biennale to “address the implications” of Russia’s participation in an open letter published this week. Authored by the Arts Against Aggression International Movement, the petition comes just days after Biennale organizers confirmed in a news release that Russia will take part in its 61st edition, which opens on May 9 and runs until November 22.This year marks Russia’s return to the Biennale since its absence in the 2022 and 2024 editions. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva, the two artists scheduled to represent Russia,...

The Postclassic period of Maya civilization (800–1500 CE) was marked by significant environmental and societal stressors, including prolonged droughts and a shift from centralized authority to smaller, competitive polities. A new excavation at an archaeological site in Belize shows how despite these challenges, Postclassic Maya communities not only survived, but thrived. The excavation was conducted by a team of archaeologists and geologists at the Birds of Paradise (BOP) field complex located on the Rio Bravo floodplain in northwestern Belize. The culmination of 20 years of on-the-ground research in the Lowland Maya region, it provided evidence of Maya settlement of these wetlands after inland urban centers...

The European Union said it could pull funding to the Venice Biennale if the show goes through with hosting Russia, adding to mounting furor over plans by the country to show at the world’s most important art exhibition for the first time since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Henna Virkkunen and Glenn Micallef, respectively the EU’s commissioners for technology and culture, said in a joint statement that staging the Russian Pavilion ran aground of the EU’s stance on the country, whose war in Ukraine is still ongoing. “This decision by the Fondazione Biennale is not compatible with the EU’s collective response to Russia’s brutal aggression,” they wrote. “Should the Fondazione Biennale go forward...

Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, an ARTnews series featuring conversations with the figures shaping how the art world is changing right now. Next week, the world’s greatest art heist turns 36. To mark the anniversary of the 1990 theft of 13 artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is a new book titled Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World’s Largest Art Heist, out March 10. The author of the book is Geoffrey Kelly, who was the lead investigator into the theft at the FBI for 22 years. Kelly retired in 2024 and soon after began working on the book that mixes a retelling of the case, from the FBI’s point of view, with some...

Art Basel Qatar debuted in February as, in its own words, a showcase celebrating Qatar’s “vibrant cultural landscape” and “dynamic arts ecosystem.” This is not the Qatar I know.I grew up in Qatar as a queer person. In Qatar, LGBTQ+ people are silenced. Stepping out of line comes with severe punishment. It is not safe to challenge your family, the country, or religious teachings. You are forced to disappear in order to survive.The open and vibrant Qatar presented through Art Basel is not the state that exists.The system I grew up in Qatar was a totalitarian, authoritarian dictatorship. A ruling family keeps passing control of the country and all of its resources from generation to generation....

March means it's almost reading-in-the-park season, and a strong slate of new art books are here to kick off spring. Fans of the Helen Schjferbeck exhibition at The Met can now pick up a copy of the catalog, while a tome by Janie Paul gets a reissue timed with a long-running exhibition on artists incarcerated in Michigan prisons. In the realm of the supernatural, we also take a look at books on gender in medieval alchemical imagery and how the occult influenced modernism as we know it. Those and more below to get you started. —Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editorSeeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, edited by Dita Amory | Metropolitan Museum of Art, JanuaryI’ve lost count of the number...

Laura Phipps has been announced as the new director of the Gochman Family Collection (GFC), a private collection devoted to contemporary Indigenous art. Phipps arrives to the collection from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, where she was an associate curator. In her new capacity, she will serve as a public advocate for Native artists and guide the […]

A new sculpture portraying President Donald Trump caressing smiling sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, echoing one of the most famous scenes in Titanic (1997), cropped up in front of the United States Capitol this morning, Tuesday, March 10. The public artwork, titled “King of the World,” is the latest Trump-critical temporary installation by the anonymous artist or artists using the pseudonym The Secret Handshake. The sculpture imagines Trump holding Epstein's wingspan as a caricature of the disgraced financier stares gleefully ahead, imitating the iconic Titanic scene in which Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) stand on the bow of the ill-fated ship while she proclaims, “I'm...

A guerrilla art installation featuring the names and visages of twenty public figures who’ve been linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appeared in a public park close to the White House in Washington, DC earlier this month. No individual or group has yet claimed authorship of the “Jeffrey Epstein Walk of Shame,” which consists of […]

The removal of Victor Quiñonez’s immigration-themed exhibition at the University of North Texas without explanation has intensified concerns about artistic freedom at public universities in the state

The Lab Saigon Adapts a French Villa into a Contemporary Teabar
 
Matte Teabar Flagship, designed by The Lab Saigon, occupies a century-old French villa located within a residential alley in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The project adapts the historic structure into a contemporary teahouse while preserving the character of the existing architecture and responding to the quiet rhythm of the surrounding neighborhood. Rather than introducing prominent signage or bright lighting, the entrance is marked by a small swinging sign featuring a green cat. The gesture references the many cats commonly seen in the area and integrates the teahouse visually into the everyday life of the alley.
 
Upon entering the site,...

The fifth edition of “Aberto”, an annual exhibition melding Modernist architecture and contemporary art, offers the public a rare opportunity to visit Longo’s Casa Bola

An Israeli airstrike caused “material damage” to the entrance of the Unesco World Heritage site according to the Lebanese ministry of culture

In part a reaction to the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles just over one year ago, a number of the city’s most significant arts institutions issued a collective pledge to follow climate-minded guidelines known as the Bizot Green Protocol. Initiated in 2015 by the Bizot Group, a network of art museum directors from institutions around the world, the protocol has been amended and revised in the decade since, as catastrophes attributable to climate change have intensified. Institutions behind the newly issued pledge include the Getty, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Hammer Museum, and the blue-chip gallery Hauser & Wirth. “This is the first time that...

Library of nudibranchs made from hand-felted sheep wool
 
Artist Arina Bo creates a hand-felted library of vibrant nudibranchs depicting marine life made from sheep wool. Each nudibranch in this archive is three inches long, grown-up size, as the artist puts it, and each one is a faithful replica of a real species. The cerata, those finger-like projections on a nudibranch’s back that serve as gills and defensive organs, are recreated individually in wool, each in the right shape and color for its species. 
 
The rhinophores, or the sensory horns on the head, are there too, tiny and upright. The surface textures, the spotted patterns, the contrasting color outlines along the body’s edge: all of it is...

The editor built an international network of publications—including 'The Art Newspaper'—that transformed cultural journalism

Fashion designer Dries Van Noten and his partner Patrick Vangheluwe will launch next month a new foundation in Venice dedicated to craftsmanship. The new Fondazione Dries Van Noten will be located in the historic Palazzo Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal in the San Polo neighborhood. Over the course of each year, the foundation will stage a number of presentations, collaborative projects, residencies, special events, and activations for artists, designers, and craftsmen at all levels of their careers. The goal of the Fondazione is “to unite the arts by dissolving traditional boundaries, affirming that all creative expression stems from the gestures and skills that define human making,” according to a...

Video still from ”Persisting Matters: Hilary Harkness″ (Awen Films, 2024) (videography by Isaak Liptzkin; all other photos by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy the artist and PPOW Gallery, unless otherwise noted)On stunningly small surfaces, Hilary Harkness packs in a vast density of information — over-the-top fantasias that ruminate on a “what-if” proposition applied to known histories. I had gotten to know Harkness socially in the 10-year period between her solo exhibitions, seeing work only occasionally during that time, so I found her 2023 show at New York City’s PPOW Gallery quite literally breathtaking. She requested we meet in January on Zoom, since she was on deadline and lives and works in New...

The life and times of Modern Primitive performance artist Fakir Musafar

By Kristine Schomaker I keep seeing Liberal Jane's work pop up across different platforms - Instagram, obviously, but also sliding through Facebook, saved in Pinterest boards, shared in group chats. This immersion matters more than I think we acknowledge. These aren't gallery pieces waiting for the right audience to find them. They're already embedded in the actual digital infrastructure where people are trying to survive right now. Caitlin Blunnie has been making this work for seven years,...

Acte Deux merges dozen fragmented spaces into one volume
 
Tucked beneath the roofline of a Parisian residential building, the Sous les Toits apartment by Acte Deux, its name meaning ‘under the rooftops’, brings together a cluster of small, leftover spaces into a single 55-square-meter dwelling. The project consolidates around a dozen previously separated units, former maids’ rooms, storage areas, closets, and even portions of shared circulation spaces into one continuous interior carved out beneath the attic structure.
 
To achieve this transformation, the renovation required substantial architectural intervention. New openings are introduced to connect the once-isolated rooms, a section of the roof...

As collectors tire of mega-fairs and splurge on experiential travel, a new wave of boutique events seeks to draw buyers and sellers to places like Aspen, Joshua Tree, St Moritz and Mallorca

The Contemporary Art Center (CAC) Vilnius has appointed artist Nikita Kadan and art historian, writer, and curator Natalia Sielewicz curators of the Sixteenth Baltic Triennial, to take place in 2027. Kadan, who lives and works in Kyiv, is known for paintings and installations reckoning with history, memory, and trauma; Sielewicz is chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and the […]

Is there anything more soothing than a sleeping baby swan—known as a cygnet? Or anything more illustrative of the relationship between nature and urban development in the U.K. than the red fox, which are seen in neighborhoods as often as in the wild? For this year’s British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA), photographers from around Great Britain and its islands—including young, budding documentarians—highlight some of the region’s most beloved creatures. Paul Hobson’s black-and-white image of a leaping, silhouetted toad takes top honors this year, captured at a pond near his home in Sheffield. He snapped the photo from inside the pond, having built a glass box that could settle into the water...

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth has announced Emerson Bowyer as its new chief curator. He began his new role on March 5. An expert in British and French art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Sydney-born Bowyer joined the Kimbell from the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was the Searle Curator as well as Curator, Painting […]

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“I think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions; simple, mysterious and evocative; thus educational,” Isamu Noguchi said in a pamphlet about his Playscapes. Perhaps best known for his stone sculptures and Akari lamps, the Japanese artist and designer always had an eye on the spaces that define childhood, particularly public playgrounds and their influence on the young mind. In 1933, Noguchi proposed redeveloping an entire New York City block into “Play Mountain,” an enormous topographical project that would be unstructured and open-ended. Rather than have swings and swift metal slides, for example, Noguchi wanted earthen steps, a bandshell, and a large hill for sledding and gathering. The...

Time to Act at Pittsburgh Opera effectively employs Greek tragedy to explore the all-too-common tragedies haunting schools across the United States.

Daguerreotypes. Photograms. Double exposure. Today, we’re spotlighting five experimental photography exhibitions. These shows feature a mix of 20th century pioneers, like Lillian Bassman, whose visionary work redefined fashion and fine art photography, alongside contemporary practitioners such as Garry Fabian Miller and Liz Nielsen, who continue to explore light, colour and process in groundbreaking ways. Across these exhibitions, each image challenges perception, interrogates memory and celebrates the material and conceptual possibilities of lens-based medium. This is traditional imagery, reimagined. Liz Nielsen: Interdimensional Timelines  Joseloff Gallery at Hartford School of Art | Until 11 April ...

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DESIGN SHANGHAI CELEBRATES THE GLOBAL ASCENT OF ASIAN CRAFT
  From March 19-22, 2026, Design Shanghai hosts over 500 brands from 20 countries, serving as a powerful catalyst for elevating local talent onto the global stage. The 13th edition of the fair returns to its original, historic venue to celebrate the rich craft heritage of East Asia. Beyond the main exhibition, visitors can expect an exploration of the industry through five distinctive special features. These curated zones tease a future where traditional artistry meets experimental innovation, offering a first look at collectible design and art that positions Chinese creativity at the forefront of the global design conversation.
banner: Liang Living...

Mini robot carries sponge filter inspired by sea urchin
 
Engineers at RMIT University in Australia have built a dolphin-shaped mini robot that can collect oil spills from oceans and seas using a sponge filter inspired by sea urchins. Made of tiny, microscopic spikes, the filter comes with a coating that turns the spikes into a porous filter material. The base of the filter is a lightweight, sponge-like substrate, absorbent enough for liquid to pass through and hold the coating in place. 
 
It is applied using an eco process, meaning without the harsh chemicals that most oil-absorbing materials have traditionally required. Once coated, the reusable filter surface repels water all the while attracting and...

No one in my experience both live and on records could swagger, spin out roulades, and ripple through Rossini and Handel like Samuel Ramey.

Before hearing Samuel Ramey as Zaccaria in Nabucco, I had always been more interested in higher voices.

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Parks. Railway stations. City halls. Hotels. Theatres. Abstract artist Tada Minami (1924-2014) was committed to practice that spanned beyond the confines of the museum. She often left her creations in urban spaces, where they have since formed an integral part of everyday life. Across an almost 70-year career, she covered huge ground, varying her approach to both material and scale. Her works include massive, stainless-steel sculptures that appear to rise sharply skywards; glass and acrylic constructions that reflect the environment; and “Illuminated Walls,” which contain richly-coloured light. Tada is emblematic of a postwar Japan that was rapidly modernising, transforming itself into the nation of...

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In alcuni artisti la creatività è fortemente intrecciata al vissuto, mentre in altri la componente autobiografica è meno influente. Alla prima categoria di sicuro appartiene Robert Mapplethorpe, la cui produzione fotografica è connessa a un’esistenza diventata, nell’ultimo decennio, molto crudele e a una biografia personale che diventa sociale. All’osservatore capita così, di fronte alle sue fotografie, di non poter fare a meno di sentire il vissuto dell’artista, incrociandolo con le immagini, anche quando – e ne è la maggioranza – le immagini hanno un tono distante e opposto al dolore esistenziale. Un vissuto che si dipana, sia nella vita vera sia nella fotografia, anche pensando agli...

Olayami Dabls is careful to call attention to the distinction between material culture and fine art. After working as an artist and curator for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in the 1970s, Dabls shifted directions and founded the MBAD African Bead Museum in 1994 to reintroduce African culture and healing into the Detroit community. The artist had noticed that much of the African American history museum’s collections were regarded with fear and misunderstanding, particularly as they were viewed through a colonial, European lens. With MBAD, Dabls decided to honor ancestral creation and directed his energy to fulfilling “a need in our community to offer a true experience, free of...

The Hasselblad Award is one of the world’s most prestigious accolades in photography. The prize – comprising a gold medal, camera, solo show and SEK 2,000,000 – has been given out annually since 1980, and its honourees read like a who’s who of contemporary image-making. Previous winners include Alfredo Jaar, Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, Graciela Iturbide, Jeff Wall, Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans, as well as icons of the 20th century like Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and William Eggleston. Now, Zanele Muholi (b. 1972) joins this list, becoming the 2026 laureate. Muholi has paved new ground by using the camera as a tool for visual activism, first and foremost claiming...

While most of us will pass by stray stones and piles of rubble without much of a second thought, Elizabeth Saloka sees tons of potential. From a couple of rock piles outside of her regular supermarket to crumbling curbs or demolished structures, she sifts through a variety of shapes and sizes to find rocks that may eventually transform into vibrant mimics of common household items, boxed sandwiches from Pret a Manger, or Babybel brand snacking cheese. “Last fall, I bought a ton of marble scraps off a sculptor in Woodstock for like, $10 off Facebook,” Saloka tells Colossal. “For sandwiches and cakes, crumbling asphalt parking lots are good. When I lived in Sunset Park, they demolished a building a couple...

The Pacific Northwest is perhaps the wildest, most breathtaking region in the continental United States. With its combination of mountain ranges, conifer forests, lakes, rivers, and ancient sequoias looming over the California coast, the geography and texture of Wyoming, Montana, California, and Oregon return us to North America’s primordial past. It reminds us of when […]
The post Close Encounters: The Paintings of David Rice first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

A new home designed by Equipo de Arquitectura begs the question: is it a house in a forest or a forest in a house? The name of the project sheds some light on that, aptly titled “Un Bosque en la Casa,” or “A Forest in the House.” Bricks, steel, glass, and concrete combine in a single-story contemporary home that’s all corners, volume, and apertures, while the trees and tropical plants around it organically soften its angles. Architects Horacio Cherniavsky and Viviana Pozzoli took the lead on this new home in San Bernardino, Paraguay, challenging the notion that nature is in direct opposition to development. “‘A Forest in the House’ proposes an alternative approach to harmonizing the built form...

A captivating Asmik Grigorian leads the Bayerishce Staatsoper's revival of its Holocaust-set Salome. 

Ilana Walder-Biesanz discovers how Houston Grand Opera is celebrating 250 years of America and 100 years of Carlisle Floyd with a new production of Of Mice and Men.

Julija Panova  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Julija Panova on Instagram

Lo spazio del contemporaneo è lo spazio digitale; la maggior parte del nostro quotidiano si svolge a contatto con strumenti digitali, con display iper-connessi e con flussi incessanti. Byung-Chul Han legge il digitale come zona che produce, paradossalmente alle premesse originali, solitudine e frammentazione, “uno sciame di individui isolati” (Nello sciame, 2013). Invece, tra le pieghe di una città analogica che interroga il rapporto tra icone e contemporaneo come Venezia, una mostra collettiva apre su una prospettiva alternativa.  Restiamo umani! Utopie e Distopie nell’Era Digitale presso lo Spazio Berlendis a Venezia conclude la prima edizione del Premio Berlendis (promosso da Marignana Arte e...

Each year, on 8 March, countries around the world come together to celebrate International Women’s Day. The annual event was first held in 1911, when over one million people in Austria, Denmark and Germany took to the streets to mark the occasion. Today, it continues to be a moment to acknowledge the remarkable contribution of women and girls to society and to collectively demand more be done to achieve gender justice. To celebrate International Women’s Day 2026, we’re spotlighting 10 global exhibitions of women artists. Many address issues that are intimate and personal, often treated with taboo by society, but that continue to resonate with millions worldwide. Tracey Emin considers the body as a site...

È online il bando per partecipare alla 108ª Collettiva Giovani Artisti della Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, lo storico appuntamento dedicato alla scoperta e alla promozione dell’arte contemporanea emergente. Rivolta ad artiste e artisti under 30 che vivono o hanno scelto di risiedere nel Triveneto, la Collettiva è aperta a tutti i linguaggi del contemporaneo – pittura, scultura, installazione, video, performance e pratiche processuali – e prevede una sezione specifica dedicata al concorso per l’immagine grafica della manifestazione. Per il secondo anno consecutivo, l’iniziativa è parte integrante di CreArt 3.0 #stringing_together, progetto finanziato nell’ambito del Programma Europa Creativa....

In 1943, Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design a building for the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York. By this time, he was already considered one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, having designed the iconic Unity Temple (1908), Fallingwater House (1937) and Johnson Wax Headquarter (1939). Wright’s inverted-ziggurat design was not built until 1959, delayed by modifications to the design; the rising cost of building materials following WWII; and the death of the museum’s benefactor, Solomon R. Guggenheim. When it opened, the masterpiece was soon recognised as an architectural icon, and more than 60 years on, it welcomes 1.3 million visitors a year. In the words of critic...

Il lievito non lavora alla luce. Ha bisogno di calore, di tempo, di un ambiente giusto. Non si può accelerare: se provi a forzarlo, muore. Se lo lasci stare, trasforma tutto. Gli artisti, a volte, funzionano allo stesso modo. In biologia si chiama fermentazione: un processo in cui organismi microscopici – invisibili, pazienti – convertono una materia in qualcosa di completamente diverso. Non è magia. È chimica lenta. È la stessa cosa che succede quando un’idea entra in un corpo, ci rimane per mesi, e poi esce trasformata in qualcosa che prima non esisteva, magari in un’opera. Materica, polimaterica, performativa, sonora, non importa. Ora esiste. Vive. C’è. Da questa analogia – precisa, quasi...

Art history, in Hess' painting, is comprised of tiny renditions of famed works that are patch-worked together. They appear like reams of unfurled toilet paper that form vortices. One spiral extends into the past. Another spiral contains the twenty-first century... Read the full article on the artist by clicking above!
The post F. Scott Hess: Art History & The Dreams of a Reluctant Realist first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Deb JJ Lee  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Deb JJ Lee’s Website
Deb JJ Lee on Instagram

Benché di primo acchito pittura e immagine digitale sembrino afferire a due dimensioni antitetiche, la prima connessa ai tempi lunghi del lavoro manuale, alla fisicità dei materiali e a una secolare genealogia stilistica e iconografica che spesso si vuole esangue, la seconda alla smaterializzazione, alla planarità retroilluminata, all’automatismo inventivo e all’assenza di prospettiva storica, diversi pittori hanno focalizzato le loro ricerche sull’esplorazione delle reciproche influenze e delle possibili integrazioni tra queste due sfere.
Flavio de Marco, “Screen Life”, installation view at Villa delle Rose, 2026, ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna |...

Sam Gibbons isn’t letting you off the hook. Sex, violence, religion, ego—everything comes together in colorful palettes unrestricted by shape or form. His rare, vibrant paintings are teeming with images both familiar and grotesque, and they’re demanding some careful attention Read the full article form our archives by clicking above.
The post Organized Chaos: The Art of Sam Gibbons first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.

Alice Angelini  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Alice Angelini’s Website
Alice Angelini on Instagram

This collection includes work from 60+ artists and also happens to be our biggest volume yet—276 pages and, for the first time, in a much larger format.

Costanza Starrabba aka Starrenco  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Starrenco on Instagram

Surrounded in her Massachusetts studio by pins, glue, and piles of brightly colored paper strips, a visitor might initially mistake Lisa Nilsson for a reclusive arts and crafts teacher. But as her nimble hands purposefully curl the paper into shapes, and then magically weave the shapes into identifiable forms, a new impression emerges. Read the full article by clicking above!
The post The Cross-sectioned Paper Sculptures of Lisa Nilsson first appeared on Hi-Fructose Magazine.