The Week in Art

An exhibition opens this weekend at Conditions, the low-cost studio programme for artists in Croydon, on the outskirts of south London, featuring two of the great works of art of recent decades: Mark Leckey's Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) and Arthur Jafa's Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2016). Ben Luke talks to Mark and AJ about showing together and the affinities and contrasts in these two contemporary masterpieces. The 12th SITE SANTA FE International exhibition also opens on Friday, and Ben speaks to Cecilia Alemani, the artistic director of the biennial, about the show, which is called Once Within a Time. And this episode's Work of the Week is Glacial Decoy, the 1979 collaboration between the choreographer Trisha Brown and the artist Robert Rauschenberg. This landmark work is the subject of a new exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and its curator, Brandon Eng, tells us more.ARTHUR JAFA / MARK LECKEY: HARDCORE / LOVE, Conditions, 28 June-10 August. You can find out more about Conditions at conditions.studio. Listen to A brush with... Arthur Jafa and A brush with... Mark Leckey wherever you get your podcasts. Those interviews feature alongside 23 others from the A brush with… series in the book by Ben Luke, What is Art For? Contemporary artists on their influences, inspirations and disciplines, published by HENI, released on 2 September (US) and 4 September (UK), $39.95/£29.95 (hb).12th SITE SANTA FE International: Once Within a Time, 27 June-12 January 2026.Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg: Glacial Decoy, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US, until 24 May 2026.Summer season of art scubscription offer: get 50% off a digital subscription to The Art Newspaper and gain unrestricted access today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Art Newspaper's digital editor Alexander Morrison is in Basel for the annual Art Basel fair. He talks to our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, about the atmosphere at the fair after a long downturn in the art market and underwhelming auctions last month in New York. While some major museums around the world would rather avoid the topic of returning objects acquired in the colonial period to their countries of origin, The Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam is attempting to get on the front foot, with an exhibition called Unfinished past: return, keep, or...? One notable aspect of the show is that it is not presenting any human remains. Ben Luke speaks to our correspondent in the Netherlands, Senay Boztas, about the future of human body parts in Dutch museums. And this episode's Work of the Week is Untitled or Not Yet (1966) by Eva Hesse, which is in a new exhibition at The Courtauld in London, called Abstract Erotic. The exhibition unites Hesse with fellow sculptors Alice Adams and Louise Bourgeois. Ben talks to Jo Applin, the co-curator of the show.Art Basel continues until Sunday, 22 June.Unfinished Pasts, Wereldmuseum, Amsterdam, until 3 January 2027.Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams, The Courtauld, 20 June-14 September; Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s, the Courtauld, 20 June-14 September.Summer subscription offer: get up to 50% off an annual print & digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-SUMMER25P&D?promocode=SUMMER25&utm_source=special+offer+banner&utm_campaign=SUMMER25 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery, the UK's first purpose-built public art gallery, is hosting an exhibition of one of Britain's brightest young painting talents, Rachel Jones. Ben Luke visits the gallery to talk to her about the paintings—giant and tiny—in the show. The latest Liverpool Biennial has just opened in that great British city; Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper's contemporary art correspondent, joins Ben to review the show. And this episode's Work of the Week, is the UK Aids Memorial Quilt, which was instigated in 1989 and commemorates the lives of 384 individuals affected by HIV and Aids. It is made up of 42 quilts made from multiple panels and a further 23 individual panels. The quilt is being shown at Tate Modern this weekend, and we speak to the writer Charlie Porter, who included the quilt in his recent novel Nova Scotia House and instigated the project to show it at Tate.Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, until 19 October.Liverpool Biennial: BEDROCK, until 14 September.The UK Aids Memorial Quilt, Tate Modern, until 16 June; Charlie Porter, Nova Scotia House, Penguin, £18.99; US: Nightboat Books, 21 October, $17.95. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fifth edition of London Gallery Weekend takes place this weekend, and opens as the global art market is at a low ebb. So what can it do to change the mood? Ben Luke speaks to Ananya Mukhopadhyay, the managing director of Ames Yavuz, which is opening a new London gallery to coincide with the weekend events, and Jeremy Epstein, co-director of the Edel Assanti gallery, who is the co-founder and co-director of London Gallery Weekend. In 2018, a devastating electrical fire tore through the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro with catastrophic consequences. This week, it will temporarily reopen some of its galleries. The museum's director, Alexander Kellner, tells The Art Newspaper's digital editor Alexander Morrison about its steady rise from the ashes. And this episode's Work of the Week is a miniature portrait of Jane Austen by an anonymous 19th-century artist. The work belongs to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which this week opens the exhibition A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250. The show is co-organised by Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College in Baltimore, and she speaks to Alexander Morrison about the portrait.London Gallery Weekend, 6-8 June. Simon Lehner: Of Peasants & Basterds, Edel Assanti, 6 June-22 August; Polyphonies, Ames Yavuz, London, 6-26 June.The temporary reopening of the National Museum of Brazil continues until the end of July.A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250, Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 6 June-14 SeptemberSummer subscription offer: get up to 50% off an annual print & digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. Link here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-SUMMER25P&D?promocode=SUMMER25&utm_source=special+offer+banner&utm_campaign=SUMMER25 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We visit major museum projects unveiled this week in London and New York: Ben Luke takes a tour of V&A East Storehouse in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which offers unprecedented access to the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection. He meets the deputy director of the V&A, Tim Reeve, and speaks to key members of the team that are making this radical museological vision for London a reality: the museum's lead technician, Matt Clarke, its senior curator Georgia Haseldine, and Kate Parsons, the director of collections care and access. The Art Newspaper's editor-in-chief, Americas, Ben Sutton, visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which this week unveiled its revamped Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The wing holds the Met's collections of work from Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania. Ben talks to Alisa LaGamma, the curator of African art who is in charge of the Rockefeller Wing, and the Papua New Guinea-born, Brisbane-based artist Taloi Havini, one of a number of contemporary artists who created new works for the the project. And this episode's Work of the Week is Down and Up (2024-25) by Rachel Whiteread. It features in a new show of Whiteread's work, the first at the Goodwood Art Foundation, a not-for-profit contemporary art gallery and sculpture park in West Sussex, UK. Ben Luke talks to Rachel about the work.V&A East Storehouse, London, opens 31 May.The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art New York, reopens 31 May.Rachel Whiteread, Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex, UK, 31 May-2 November.Summer subscription offer: get up to 50% off an annual print & digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. Link here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-SUMMER25P&D?promocode=SUMMER25&utm_source=special+offer+banner&utm_campaign=SUMMER25 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A host of exhibitions and events this month and next celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, one of the godfathers of kinetic and auto-destructive art. Ben Luke speaks to Roland Wetzel, the director of the Tinguely Museum in Basel about the artist's life and work, and the events marking the centenary. In Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Fenix, a museum about migration, has just opened, featuring a dramatic stainless steel tornado form on its roof. We discuss the museum with its director, Anne Kremers. And this episode's Work of the Week is by an immigrant artist, Ben Shahn, who was born in modern-day Lithuania but travelled as a child to the US, where he became a leading painter associated with Social Realism. Among his greatest achievements was the mural The Meaning of Social Security, painted between 1940 and 1942 in Washington D.C. to reflect the benefits of the then-recent Social Security Act. Shahn is the subject of a major show that opened this week at the Jewish Museum in New York. We speak to Laura Katzman, the co-curator of the exhibition with the Jewish Museum's Stephen Brown, about Harvesting Wheat (1941), Shahn's study for one of the figures in the mural.The Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, has a permanent display of his work; Scream Machines–Art Ghost Train, by Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez, Tinguely Museum, until 30 August; Mechanics and Humanity: Eva Aeppli and Jean Tinguely, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, until 24 August; Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely: Myths & Machines, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK, until 1 February 2026; Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hultén, Grand Palais, Paris, 20 June-4 January 2026.The Fenix museum is open now.Ben Shahn: On Nonconformity, Jewish Museum, New York, 23 May-12 October. The book accompanying it published on 3 June by Princeton University Press, priced $45.00/£38.00.The Meaning of Social Security murals:https://art.gsa.gov/artworks/637/the-meaning-of-social-security?ctx=3bc918796c456cc8fb8e3d3f033918d4249d0ce6&idx=6https://livingnewdeal.org/sites/wilbur-j-cohen-building-shahn-frescoes-washington-dc/#lg=1&slide=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Koyo Kouoh remembered, Queen Elizabeth II memorial, Jasper Johns by Robert StorrKoyo Kouoh, the Cameroon-born curator who was director of Zeitz Mocaa in Cape Town and had been invited to curate next year's Venice Biennale died on 10 May. There has been an outpouring of moving tributes to Kouoh from artists, curators and gallerists across the world, and Ben Luke speaks to Nolan Oswald Dennis, the Johannesburg-based artist who has a current show at Zeitz, and Liza Essers, the owner and director of Goodman Gallery, about her life and work. A design competition for the Queen Elizabeth II National Memorial in St James's Park in London has been launched, with five designs competing for the commission. We talk to Sandy Nairne, the former director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, who is on the committee tasked with choosing the winning design. And this episode's Work of the Week is Regrets, a painting from the series of that name made by Jasper Johns in 2013. The work is discussed in a new book of writings on Johns by the former curator at the Museum of Modern Art and of the Venice Biennale in 2007, Robert Storr. We speak to Storr about the work.Nolan Oswald Dennis: Understudies, Zeitz Mocaa, Cape Town, South Africa, until 27 July; Nolan Oswald Dennis: throwers, Gasworks, London, until 22 June.To see the five proposals for the Queen Elizabeth II National Memorial and give feedback visit competitions.malcolmreading.com/queenelizabethmemorial#overview. The opportunity to give feedback on the designs will close on 19 May.Robert Storr, Focal Points: Jasper Johns, HENI publishing, £19.99 (hb). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: after a two-year closure, the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing reopens this week, revealing a major overhaul by the architect Annabelle Selldorf. The gallery has also rehung its entire collection and Ben Luke takes a tour of both the revamped building and the new displays with the National Gallery director, Gabriele Finaldi. Tate Modern celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend, and Luke talks to The Art Newspaper's contemporary art correspondent Louisa Buck and another of our regular contributors, Dale Berning Sawa, about its seismic impact in London and beyond over the past quarter of a century, its complex present circumstances and its future. And this episode's Work of the Week is the late German artist Inge Mahn's sculpture Balancing Towers (1989). It is a key work in an exhibition called “Are we still up to it?” – Art & Democracy at the Herrenchiemsee, the castle on an island in the Chiemsee lake, in southern Bavaria, Germany. Oliver Kase, the director of collections at the Pinakothek der Moderne, in Munich, and co-curator of the exhibition, joins Luke to discuss the sculpture.The Sainsbury Wing and CC Land: The Wonder of Art, National Gallery, London, from 10 May. You can hear a conversation with Annabelle Selldorf about the Frick Collection on the episode of this podcast from 28 March 2025. And our interview with the architectural critic Rowan Moore reflecting on the debate about Selldorf's alterations to the original Sainsbury Wing project is in the episode from 4 November 2022.Tate Modern's 25th Birthday Weekender, Tate Modern, London, 9-12 May.“Are we still up to it?” – Art & Democracy, Herrenchiemsee Palace, Chiemsee, Germany, 10 May-12 October Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During his lifetime, the late artist Frank Auerbach never had an exhibition in Berlin, the city of his birth, which he left for the UK in 1939 to escape the Nazis. This weekend, the first show of his work in the German capital opens at the Galerie Michael Werner. Our digital editor, Alexander Morrison, went to Berlin to talk to the artist's son, the filmmaker Jake Auerbach, about the exhibition. A new book by Dan Hicks, a curator at the Pitts River Museum in Oxford, UK, titled Every Monument Must Fall explores the origins of the fierce contemporary debates around colonialism, art, and heritage. It investigates in particular the acquisition of human remains and their ongoing place in museums and other historical institutions. Ben Luke spoke to him about the publication. And this week's Work of the Week is Republic (1995) by Ian Hamilton Finlay, whose centenary is being celebrated this year with a new publication and a series of exhibitions in London, Edinburgh, Palma de Mallorca, Brescia, New York, Hamburg, Basel and Vienna. Luke spoke to Stephen Ban, a long-term specialist in Finley's work, about this sculptural installation.Frank Auerbach, Galerie Michael Werner, Berlin, 3 May-28 JuneDan Hicks, Every Monument Must Fall, is published by Hutchinson Heinemann. It is out now in the UK and priced £25. It will be published in the US in August and priced $47.99Fragments, an exhibition of Ian Hamilton Finlay's work, is showing at Victoria Miro, London, until 24 May. Further exhibitions are at the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, Kvenig Gallery in Palma de Mallorca, Galleria Massimo Minini in Brescia, David Nolan Gallery in New York, the Svea Semmler Gallery in Hamburg, the Stamper Gallery in Basel and the Galleria Hubert Winter in ViennaThe book Fragments is published by ACC Art Books and edited by Pia Maria Simig. It is published on 8 May and priced £50 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday, The Art Newspaper's managing editor, Louis Jebb, who has written an extensive obituary of the late pontiff, joins Ben Luke to talk about the late pope's engagement with art and with the Vatican art collections. Wednesday 23 April was the 250th anniversary of the birth of JMW Turner, one of the greatest British artists. A host of exhibitions and events are marking this moment, and we speak to Amy Concannon, the senior curator of historic British art at Tate Britain, about Turner's enduring appeal. And this episode's Work of the Week is arguably John Singer Sargent's most famous—and in its time, his most infamous—painting, Madame X (1883-84). A portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, it features in a major show of Sargent's work that opens this week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, before travelling later in the year to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, discusses the picture with Stephanie L. Herdrich, a co-curator of the exhibition.You can explore the Turner Bequest at tate.org.uk—the full collection will be online later this year. Cataloguing Turner's Bequest: Sketchbooks, Drawings, Watercolours, Tate Britain, London, ongoing. Full list of the Turner 250 events: tate.org.uk/art/turner-250Sargent and Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: 21 April-3 August; Sargent: The Paris Years, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 22 September 22-11 – January 2026.Last chance! Subscription offer: enjoy a three-month digital subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3. Get unrestricted access to the website and app including all digital monthly editions dating back to 2012. Offer ends on 30 April. Subscribe here. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ollowing on from opening her exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which continues until August, the US-born, Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim this week opened a show in London in collaboration with Thomas Mader. The exhibition, 1880 THAT, uses a notorious historic conference in Milan in 1880, which effectively outlawed sign language in Deaf education, as a springboard to explore languages and stigma in Deaf and hearing cultures today. Ben Luke discusses the show with Kim and Mader. In Abu Dhabi, the latest museum devoted to the interactive art of the Japanese collective teamLab opens this week in the Saadiyat Cultural District. The Art Newspaper's reporter in the Middle East, Melissa Gronlund, has visited the museum and tells us more about teamLab's newest immersive experience. And this episode's Work of the Week is Young Woman seated at a Virginal (1670-75), a painting by Jan Vermeer that may be the very last picture he ever made. Our special correspondent, Martin Bailey, tells us how new conservation of the picture has revealed that 17th-century pollution may hold the key to dating the painting.1880 THAT: Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader, Wellcome Collection, London, until 16 November; Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night is at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, until 6 July.teamLab: Phenomena, Abu Dhabi, opens 18 April.From Rembrandt to Vermeer: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, H'ART Museum, Amsterdam, until 24 August.Subscription offer: enjoy a three-month digital subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3. Get unrestricted access to the website and app, including all digital monthly editions dating back to 2012. Subscribe here.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In two-and-a-half months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, a series of executive orders and other initiatives have attempted systematically to eliminate and defund some of the federal agencies responsible for the distribution of federal money to museums, libraries and other organisations. The Art Newspaper's editor-in-chief in the Americas, Ben Sutton, joins Ben Luke to discuss what is being seen as an authoritarian and ideologically driven attempt to control cultural activities in taxpayer-funded institutions, restrict free speech and—to use the administration's own term—“rewrite history”. We also discuss the effect of the economic chaos caused by President Trump's seesawing on trade tariffs in the past week. That same topic is discussed by Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics, the writer of the Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report 2025. The report's key finding is that global art sales declined by 12% in 2024 and McAndrew discusses this stark statistic and other aspects of the survey. And this episode's Works of the Week are by Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone, the two artists in an exhibition subtitled The Art of Friendship at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. Jellett and Hone were key figures in Irish Modernism, and we talk to one of the curators of the exhibition, Brendan Rooney, about Jellett's painting, Decoration (1923) and Hone's stained-glass image of a chalice (1948-52), a study for her most famous piece, the East Window of Eton College Chapel in Berkshire, UK.The Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report 2025, theartmarket.artbasel.com.Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone: The Art of Friendship, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, until 10 August.Subscription offer: enjoy a three-month digital subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3. Get unrestricted access to the website and app, including all digital monthly editions dating back to 2012. Subscribe here.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

he Art Newspaper's annual report on museum visitor figures is out and shows that the slow build-back after the Covid-19 closures is over, and museums are back at what we might consider their “natural level”. Host Ben Luke talks to the co-editor of our report, Lee Cheshire, about what that means, and who were last year's big winners and losers. A new exhibition at the museum in the former London home of the 19th-century designer, socialist activist and writer, William Morris, looks at his ubiquity in the 21st century. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, visits Morris Mania, as the show is called, and talks to the William Morris Gallery's director Hadrian Garrard. And this episode's Work of the Week is a painting made in the winter of 1906 to 1907 by Henri Matisse. It depicts his daughter, Marguerite, and is a highlight of a show at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, called Matisse and Marguerite: Through her Father's Eyes. Ben Luke discusses the painting and its subject with Charlotte Barat-Mabille, one of the curators of the exhibition.Morris Mania, William Morris Gallery, London, 5 April-21 SeptemberMatisse and Marguerite: Through Her Father's Eyes, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, until 24 August 2025Subscription offer: enjoy a three-month digital subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3. Get unrestricted access to the website and app, including all digital monthly editions dating back to 2012. Subscribe here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a five-year closure, the Frick Collection in New York will reopen to the public on 17 April and this week opened its doors to the press. The Gilded Age mansion, created on Fifth Avenue for the industrialist Henry Clay Frick, has been restored and enhanced by Selldorf Architects, with the executive architect Beyer Blinder Belle. It is the biggest upgrade to the building since it first became a museum in 1935. Ben Luke talks to the architect Annabelle Selldorf. Then, Cabelle Ahn, a contributor to The Art Newspaper who is a specialist in 18th-century art, joins us to review the transformed museum. This episode's Work of the Week is A woman abalone diver wrestling with an octopus (around 1870), a woodblock print by the Japanese artist Taiso Yoshitoshi. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, discusses the work with James Russell, the curator of a new exhibition, Undersea, at Hastings Contemporary in the UK.The Frick Collection opens on 17 April.Undersea, Hastings Contemporary, 29 March-14 September.Subscription offer: enjoy a three-month digital subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3. Get unrestricted access to the website and app, including all digital monthly editions dating back to 2012. Subscribe here.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The largest ever exhibition of the work of Jack Whitten opens this weekend at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Ben Luke speaks to Michelle Kuo, the curator of the show, about the political and experimental commitment that drove Whitten's remarkable body of work. In Paris, one of the final exhibitions to open at the Centre Pompidou before it closes for five years was unveiled this week. Paris Noir brings together more than 150 artists from across the African diaspora who were based in, or had notable stays in, the French capital between the 1950s and 2000. Ben went to Paris to speak to Alicia Knock, the lead curator on the show. And this episode's Work of the Week is Arpita Singh's Searching Sita Through Torn Papers, Paper Strips and Labels (2015). It features in a new exhibition of the Indian artist's work at the Serpentine North in London. The Art Newspaper's associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, spoke to the Serpentine Galleries' artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, about the painting.Jack Whitten: The Messenger, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 23 March-2 August. You can hear Jack Whitten talking about his life and work in the show's audioguide at moma.org.Paris Noir: Artistic Circulations and Anti-colonial Resistance, 1950-2000, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 30 June.Arpita Singh: Remembering, Serpentine North, London, until 27 July.Subscription offer: enjoy a three-month digital subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3. Get unrestricted access to the website and app, including all digital monthly editions dating back to 2012. Subscribe here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a challenging year in which international galleries, auction houses and museums have been forced to scale back their operations and make redundancies on an alarming scale, a slower, more considered approach to business seems to be emerging. So are we into an era of longer, more in-depth exhibitions and bespoke events concerned more with authentic connection than flashy spectacle? Ben Luke talks to Anny Shaw, a contributing editor at The Art Newspaper. In the Netherlands, just as in the US, cuts by far-right politicians to international development seem likely to have a huge impact on arts projects. As Tefaf, the major international art fair opens in the Dutch city of Maastricht, we talk to Senay Boztas, our correspondent based in Amsterdam, about fears of a funding crisis. And this episode's Work of the Week is one of the greatest paintings ever made: The Hunters in the Snow (1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is part of an exhibition called Arcimboldo – Bassano – Bruegel: Nature's Time, which opened this week at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The museum's director, Jonathan Fine, tells us more.Arcimboldo–Bassano–Bruegel: Nature's Time, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, until 29 JuneSubscription offer: enjoy 3 issues of The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3—subscribe before 21 March to start your subscription with the April bumper issue including our Visitor Figures 2024 report and an EXPO Chicago special. Subscribe here. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It seems absurd that more than a year ahead of the next Venice Biennale, one of the major pavilions in the Giardini might be empty for next year's event. But that is the dilemma facing Creative Australia, which is responsible for that country's Biennale presentation. Last month, it announced the team comprising the Lebanese-born Sydney-based artist Khaled Sabsabi and the curator Michael Dagostino as its selection for the 2026 event—and then, within days, rescinded the invitation. An almighty row has engulfed the Australian art world to the extent that the pavilion has been thrown into doubt. So what happened? The Art Newspaper's Australian correspondent, Elizabeth Fortescue, tells Ben Luke about the debacle. A controversial auction of AI art concluded this week on Christie's website. It prompted an open letter signed by thousands of artists and creative people asking Christie's to cancel the sale and accusing the auction house of incentivising the “mass theft of human artists' work”. We talk to Louis Jebb, The Art Newspaper's managing editor, who oversees our technology coverage, about the sale and the latest developments in art and AI. And this episode's Work of the Week is Tired (1946), a terracotta sculpture made by the American-Mexican artist Elizabeth Catlett. It is part of the touring exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist, which arrived this week at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, after premiering at the Brooklyn Museum in New York last year. We discuss the sculpture with Catherine Morris, a senior curator at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, who co-curated the exhibition, and Lynn Matheny, the National Gallery of Art's deputy head of interpretation and curator of special projects.Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist, National Gallery of Art, 9 March-6 July; Art Institute of Chicago, 30 August-4 January 2026.Subscription offer: enjoy 3 issues of The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3—subscribe before 21 March to start your subscription with the April bumper issue including our Visitor Figures 2024 report and an EXPO Chicago special. Subscribe here. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tate Modern this week opened a vast exhibition exploring the life and work of the maverick Australian-born performance artist, fashion designer and self-styled “club monster”, Leigh Bowery, as well as the variety of cultural figures in his orbit in London. It coincides with other related London shows: one analysing the fashion work of Bowery and his collaborators and peers at the Fashion and Textile Museum, and another at the National Portrait Gallery about the style and culture magazine The Face, which emerged around the same time as Bowery set foot in the UK capital in the early 1980s. Ben Luke reviews the shows with Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper's contemporary art correspondent. Three years on from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and amid fraught international diplomacy following the US's abrupt shift in approach to the war under President Trump, we speak to Sophia Kishkovsky, our international correspondent who has widely reported on Russia and Ukraine, about how Ukraine's art world is responding to this new era. And this episode's Work of the Week is actually a pair of works made more than 400 years apart called The Women's Bath. The first is a woodcut based on a drawing by Albrecht Dürer from around 1500; the second a painting responding to it, made by the German artist Max Beckmann in 1919. They feature in an exhibition opening this week at the National Museum in Oslo, Gothic Modern: From Darkness to Light. Cynthia Osiecki, a curator at the museum, tells us more.Leigh Bowery!, Tate Modern, until 31 August; Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London, Fashion and Textile Museum, London, until 9 March; The Face Magazine: Culture Shift, National Portrait Gallery, London, until 18 May.Gothic Modern: From Darkness to Light, National Museum, Oslo, 28 February-15 June.Subscription offer: enjoy 3 issues of The Art Newspaper for just £3/$3/€3—subscribe before 21 March to start your subscription with the April bumper issue including our Visitor Figures 2024 report and an EXPO Chicago special. Subscribe here. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-3FOR3?utm_source=podcast&promocode=3FOR3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shows opening in Washington and Dublin this month explore quiltmaking by African American women. Ben Luke talks to Raina Lampkins-Fielder, chief curator for the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, and the organiser of the exhibition Kith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee's Bend at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), about the history of quiltmaking in this small part of Alabama, and the growing recognition of its artistic importance. The Musée Picasso in Paris this week unveiled its exhibition “Degenerate” art: Modern art on trial under the Nazis, which looks back not just at the infamous 1937 exhibition in Munich but also the years-long campaign to attack modern art and artists in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. We speak to the exhibition's co-curator, Johan Popelard. And this episode's Work of the Week marks the death last week of Mel Bochner, a leading figure in the development of conceptual art. We speak to his gallerist, Peter Freeman, who knew and worked with Bochner for more than 50 years. We look in particular detail at the 1969 work, 48" Standards (#1).Last chance: The Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency, until Sunday, 23 February. Buy it here. https://account.theartnewspaper.com/subscribe?sourcecode=year_ahead&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=theyearaheadKith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee's Bend, IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, from 28 February-27 October; We Gather at the Edge: Black Women and Contemporary Quilts, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, 21 February-22 June; Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, US, 27 June-12 October“Degenerate” art: Modern art on trial under the Nazis, Musée Picasso, Paris, until 25 May. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next month, the German artist Anselm Kiefer will be 80, and the first of a number of shows internationally to mark this landmark moment opened this week at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK. It focuses on his early works, and Ben Luke visits Oxford to discuss this pivotal moment in his career with Lena Fritsch, the curator of the exhibition. The latest edition of the biennial in the United Arab Emirate of Sharjah opened earlier this month. The Art Newspaper's correspondent Dale Berning Sawa visited during opening week and spoke to Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, the president and director of Sharjah Art Foundation, which runs the biennial, about this year's edition, her journey in art, and her role in establishing the biennial as a leading art world event. And this episode's Work of the Week is Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto (1901) by Pablo Picasso, a painting from the artist's Blue Period. Conservators at The Courtauld Institute in London have discovered an image of a mystery woman hidden beneath this portrait of De Soto, Picasso's friend and fellow artist. We talk to Barnaby Wright, deputy head of The Courtauld Gallery, about the painting and the image beneath it. The work features in a new exhibition at the gallery, Goya to Impressionism. Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection.Anselm Kiefer: Early Works, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK, 14 February-15 June; Anselm Kiefer: Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 7 March-9 June; Kiefer / Van Gogh, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 June-26 October; Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Ocean, Saint Louis Art Museum, US, 18 October 2025-25 January 2026To carry, the 16th Sharjah Biennial, until 15 June 2025.The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Goya to Impressionism. Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14 February-26 May.The Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is still available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last weekend, the US President Donald Trump signed executive orders placing 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which were due to take effect on Tuesday. But at the last minute, the tariffs were postponed, at least for a month. Inevitably, though, the talk of a trade war set nerves jangling at Zona Maco, the art fair in Mexico City, which opened on Wednesday. Ben Luke speaks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper's editor, Americas, who is in the Mexican capital, about the prevailing mood, and about the effect on the art world more generally of some of Trump's executive orders. It is also the India Art Fair in Delhi this week. Our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, is there and tells us more about the fair amid the wider social and political climate in India. And this episode's Work of the Week is Henry Fitz Jr's self-portrait, a daguerreotype, made in January or February 1840. It is thought to be the first photograph of a person made in the United States. It features in a major show at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, American Photography. We speak to Mattie Boom, Rijksmuseum's curator of Photography, about the work, and the wider show.Zona Maco, Mexico City, until 9 February.The India Art Fair, Delhi, until 9 February.American Photography, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, until 9 June. Carrie Mae Weems's 2021 series Painting the Town, Rijksmuseum, until the same date.The Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is still available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Hujar, Gregg Bordowitz and Rotimi Fani-Kayode are three artists whose work reflects in different ways on the Aids crisis that has devastated communities across the world since the 1980s. Hujar, who died from Aids-related pneumonia in 1987, is the subject of a new show at Raven Row in London, the largest to date at a UK gallery. Host Ben Luke takes a tour of the show with its curators, the writer John Douglas Millar, and the artist, master printer and model for some of Hujar's photographs, Gary Schneider. The artist Gregg Bordowitz was a member of The Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, founded in New York in the 1980s. Bordowitz has lived with HIV since the late 1980s, and it has fuelled his art and activism ever since, as a new show at Camden Art Centre in London demonstrates. We spoke to him about his life and work. And this episode's Work of the Week is Rotimi Fani-Kayode's Abiku (Born to Die) (1988), a photograph in The 80s: Photographing Britain, a show at Tate Britain in London. Fani-Kayode was a key figure in the UK's burgeoning avant-garde photography scene in the late 1980s, but died in his early 30s in 1989 from complications relating to Aids. We talk to Jasmine Kaur Chohan, co-curator of the Tate Britain show, about the work.Peter Hujar—Eyes Open in the Dark, Raven Row, London, 30 January-6 AprilGregg Bordowitz—There: a Feeling, Camden Art Centre, London, until 23 MarchThe 80s: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, until 5 MayThe Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is still available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Art Newspaper's correspondent for the Middle East, Sarvy Geranpayeh, has been reporting on the effect of Israel's military bombardment of Gaza on artists and art workers there since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict in 2023. In the wake of the three-stage ceasefire that began last Sunday, she has returned to those she has spoken to over the past 16 months to hear their views on the agreement and what happens next. The Musée du Louvre in Paris this week opened a show of the great 13th-century Italian painter Cimabue. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, spoke to Thomas Bohl, the exhibition's curator. And this episode's Work of the Week is actually three works produced in a family business of printmakers in 17th-century Netherlands. The works, by Hendrick Goltzius, and his grandsons Theodor and Adriaen Matham, are part of a new show, A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part I, 1500–1700), at the Blanton Museum of Art, part of The University of Texas, Austin. The curator of the exhibition, Holly Borham, tells me more about this printmaking dynasty.A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 22 January – 12 May 2025A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part I, 1500–1700), Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas, Austin, US, 25 January-15 June; the second part of this exhibition, covering the period 1700 to 1900, opens in June.The Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is still available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Los Angeles wildfires. The Art Newspaper's West Coast contributing editor in LA, Jori Finkel, tells our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the devastation in Southern California, and its effect on artists and institutions. The World Monuments Fund (WMF), the independent organisation devoted to safeguarding global heritage has released its biennial World Monuments Watch, a list of 25 sites that are potentially threatened. The aim of the list is, according to the WMF to “mobilise action, build public awareness, and demonstrate how heritage can help communities confront the crucial issues of our time”. Ben Luke talks to John Darlington, the director of projects for WMF Britain, who also reflects on the future of the organisation's project to train Syrian refugees in stonemasonry skills, in the wake of the change in government in Syria. And this episode's Work of the Week is All About Painting in Colour: An Illustrated Book, a portfolio in two volumes made by the leading artist of the late Edo period in Japan, Katsushika Hokusai. The last of his drawing manuals, made by the artist at the very end of his life, it features in a new book, Hokusai's Method. We talk to Ryoko Matsuba, one of the authors of the new book.Hokusai's Method, with texts by Kyoko Wada and Ryoko Matsuba, is published by Thames and Hudson. It is out on 23 January in the UK, and priced £35, and on 4 February in the US, priced $45.The Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is still available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A 2025 preview: Georgina Adam, our editor-at-large, tells host Ben Luke what might lie ahead for the market. And Ben is joined by Jane Morris, editor-at-large, and Gareth Harris, chief contributing editor, to select the big museum openings, biennials and exhibitions.All shows discussed are in The Art Newspaper's The Year Ahead 2025, priced £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here.Exhibitions: Site Santa Fe International, Santa Fe, US, 28 Jun-13 Jan 2026; Liverpool Biennial, 7 Jun-14 Sep; Folkestone Triennial, 19 Jul-19 Oct; Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 5 Apr-2 Sep; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, 19 Oct-7 Feb 2026; Gabriele Münter, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 7 Nov-26 Apr 2026; Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, 4 Apr-24 Aug; Elizabeth Catlett: a Black Revolutionary Artist, Brooklyn Museum, New York, until 19 Jan; National Gallery of Art (NGA), Washington DC, 9 Mar-6 Jul; Art Institute of Chicago, US, 30 Aug-4 Jan 2026; Ithell Colquhoun, Tate Britain, London, 13 Jun-19 Oct; Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams, Courtauld Gallery, London, 20 Jun-14 Sep; Michaelina Wautier, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 30 Sep-25 Jan 2026; Radical! Women Artists and Modernism, Belvedere, Vienna, 18 Jun-12 Oct; Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 24 May-7 Sep; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 Oct-1 Feb 2026; Lorna Simpson: Source Notes, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 19 May-2 Nov; Amy Sherald: American Sublime, SFMOMA, to 9 Mar; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 9 Apr-Aug; National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, 19 Sep-22 Feb 2026; Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior, Cincinnati Art Museum, 14 Feb-4 May; Cleveland Museum of Art, US, 14 Feb-8 Jun; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, US, 1 Oct-25 Jan 2026; Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting, National Portrait Gallery, London, 20 Jun-7 Sep; Linder: Danger Came Smiling, Hayward Gallery, London, 11 Feb-5 May; Arpita Singh, Serpentine Galleries, London, 13 Mar-27 Jul; Vija Celmins, Beyeler Collection, Basel, 15 Jun-21 Sep; An Indigenous Present, ICA/Boston, US, 9 Oct-8 Mar 2026; The Stars We Do Not See, NGA, Washington, DC, 18 Oct-1 Mar 2026; Duane Linklater, Dia Chelsea, 12 Sep-24 Jan 2026; Camden Art Centre, London, 4 Jul-21 Sep; Vienna Secession, 29 Nov-22 Feb 2026; Emily Kam Kngwarray, Tate Modern, London, 10 Jul-13 Jan 2026; Archie Moore, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, 30 Aug-23 Aug 2026; Histories of Ecology, MASP, Sao Paulo, 5 Sep-1 Feb 2026; Jack Whitten, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 23 Mar-2 Aug; Wifredo Lam, Museum of Modern Art, Rashid Johnson, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 18 Apr-18 Jan 2026; Adam Pendleton, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, 4 Apr-3 Jan 2027; Marie Antoinette Style, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 20 Sep-22 Mar 2026; Leigh Bowery!, Tate Modern, 27 Feb- 31 Aug; Blitz: the Club That Shaped the 80s, Design Museum, London, 19 Sep-29 Mar 2026; Do Ho Suh, Tate Modern, 1 May-26 Oct; Picasso: the Three Dancers, Tate Modern, 25 Sep-1 Apr 2026; Ed Atkins, Tate Britain, London, 2 Apr-25 Aug; Turner and Constable, Tate Britain, 27 Nov-12 Apr 2026; British Museum: Hiroshige, 1 May-7 Sep; Watteau and Circle, 15 May-14 Sep; Ancient India, 22 May-12 Oct; Kerry James Marshall, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 20 Sep-18 Jan 2026; Kiefer/Van Gogh, Royal Academy, 28 Jun-26 Oct; Anselm Kiefer, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 14 Feb-15 Jun; Anselm Kiefer, Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 7 Mar-9 Jun; Cimabue, Louvre, Paris, 22 Jan-12 May; Black Paris, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 19 Mar-30 Jun; Machine Love, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 13 Feb-8 Jun Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is the final episode of 2024 and so, as always, we review the year, looking at the top stories, the big issues and the best art. Host Ben Luke is joined by The Art Newspaper's contemporary art correspondent, Louisa Buck, our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, and Ben Sutton, our editor in the Americas. Under discussion, among much else: the growing faultlines between institutions and artists in relation to Gaza; the big museum stories, from Saudi Arabian funding to attacks on artworks and restitution; a market roundup; culture and the climate emergency; and the panel's exhibitions and biennials of the year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, three artist interviews: Carsten Höller on his book of games, Takashi Murakami on his new work, and Valeria Luiselli and Leo Heiblum on their Dia sound installation. Höller is the author of a book featuring 336 games that can be played alone, in pairs or in groups, without any props. He tells Ben Luke about art and play and his perennial quest for unpredictability. Takashi Murakami has been in London this week for the opening of his exhibition, Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami, at Gagosian. We speak to him about the show and his fascination with the television series Shōgun. And this episode's Work of the Week is Echoes from the Borderlands, a sound installation created by Valeria Luiselli, Ricardo Giraldo and Leo Heiblum, which was unveiled at Dia Chelsea in New York this week. Valeria and Leo join us to tell us more about the project.Book of Games by Carsten Höller, edited by Stefanie Hessler and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Taschen, 760 pp, £40 or $50 (hb)Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami, Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, until 8 March 2025.Echoes from the Borderlands: Study Two, Dia Chelsea, New York, until 1 March 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Art Newspaper's editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, and our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, are in Florida and report on the sales and the mood on the first VIP day at Art Basel Miami Beach. On 8 December, the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris will reopen, more than five years after the fire that partly destroyed it. Ben Luke talks to one of the architects responsible for its rise from the ashes, Pascal Prunet. And this episode's Work of the Week is The Madonna and Child with Saints (1526-27) by Parmigianino, better known as The Vision of Saint Jerome. The painting this week returned to public display for the first time in 10 years, in a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London, following conservation, and we talk to Maria Alambritis, the show's co-curator.Art Basel Miami Beach, until Sunday, 8 December.Notre-Dame reopens on Sunday, 8 December.Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome, National Gallery, London, until 9 March 2025Gift subscription: why not give a friend, colleague or family member a subscription to The Art Newspaper this holiday season? Choose between a digital-only and print and digital subscription package. Purchase the print and digital subscription before 13 December to get the January issue, which includes our essential magazine, The Year Ahead. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two exhibitions have just opened that look at art and tech: in London, Tate Modern's Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet celebrates the pioneers of kinetic, programmed and digital art, and offers a kind of origin story of contemporary immersive installation. Ben Luke speaks to Val Ravaglia, the co-curator of the show, amid the blinking lights and bleeping sound. In California, meanwhile, Digital Witness at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) looks at how new software and hardware shaped the worlds of design, photography, and film between the 1980s and now. We speak to the exhibition's curators, Britt Salvesen, the department head and curator of prints and drawings at Lacma, and Staci Steinberger, the curator of decorative arts and design at the museum. And this episode's Work of the Week is the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1661) by Andreas Cellarius, a celestial atlas made in the Netherlands. Rebecca Feakes, the librarian at the Blickling Estate, a 17-century mansion in Norfolk, UK, run by the National Trust, tells our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the book.Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Tate Modern, London, until 1 June 2025.Digital Witness: Revolutions in Design, Photography, and Film, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, until 13 July.The Harmonia Macrocosmica is the centrepiece of Journey Through the Stars, Blickling Estate, UK, until 5 January. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian (2019), the work featuring a banana stuck to a wall with grey duct tape, sold at Sotheby's in New York, on Wednesday for $5m or $6.2m with fees. But how did other works fare at this week's auctions in New York? Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper's editor, Americas, about the sales. Frank Auerbach, the painter who escaped the Holocaust and dedicated more than 70 years to creating portraits and cityscapes in London in raw, thick paint and expressive charcoal, has died. We speak to the curator of three of his most important exhibitions—and a model for Auerbach for more than 40 years—Catherine Lampert, about his work. And this episode's Work of the Week is Mzwandile at home after coming from the rehab center (2018), a photograph from Nyaope, a series by the South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa. In the series he explored the devastating effect on his local community of a heroin-based drug, called nyaope. The work is part of the exhibition Heroin Falls, at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, UK, and I spoke to Lindo about the work.Heroin Falls, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK, 23 November-27 April 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UK museums are at a moment of transformation with a new generation of directors taking the helm at several of the major national institutions in London. So for this landmark 300th episode, we felt it was a good moment to look at the challenges and opportunities for museums now and in the future. We invited Gus Casely-Hayford of V&A East, Nicholas Cullinan of the British Museum and Karin Hindsbo of Tate Modern to join our host Ben Luke for a wide-ranging discussion.LAST CHANCE subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Offer ends on 17 November. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: two exhibitions in London are showing remarkable works made during the Renaissance. At the King's Gallery, the museum that is part of Buckingham Palace, Drawing the Italian Renaissance offers a thematic journey through 160 works on paper made across Italy between 1450 and 1600. Ben Luke talks to Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, about the show. At the Royal Academy, meanwhile, the timescale is much tighter: a single year, 1504 to be precise, when Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were all in Florence. We talk to Julien Domercq, a curator at the Academy, about this remarkable crucible of creativity. And this episode's Work of the Week is a magnum opus of Renaissance textiles: the Battle of Pavia Tapestries, made in Brussels to designs by Bernard van Orley, and currently on view in an exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Thomas Campbell, the director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, talks to The Art Newspaper's associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the series.Drawing the Italian Renaissance, King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, until 9 March 2025Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 9 November-16 February 2025Art and War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries, de Young Museum, San Francisco, US, until 12 January; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, spring 2025Subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shortly after the US election on 5 November, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington opens The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, a radical new perspective on the history of the discipline from 1792 to now. Ahead of its opening, Ben Luke speaks to Karen Lemmey, a curator of sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and co-curator of the exhibition. In Warsaw, the Museum of Modern Art—a project 20 years in the making—has partially opened. We speak to its director, Joanna Mytkowska, about the long road to the unveiling and the upheavals in Polish politics along the way. And this episode's Work of the Week is The Lamentation over the Dead Christ (early 1620s) by Jusepe de Ribera. It features in the first survey of the Spanish-born Baroque artist ever staged in France, at the Petit Palais in Paris. The museum's director, Annick Lemoine, tells us more.The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 8 November-14 September 2025.The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw is open now; its full programme will be unveiled in February 2025.Ribera: Shadows and Light, Petit Palais, Paris, until 23 February 2025.The Art Newspaper subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: with less than two weeks before the US goes to the polls, and with early voting underway, Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper's editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, about what we might expect depending on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the presidential election on 5 November. The exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 is currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and will open at the National Gallery in London next March. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, travelled to the Tuscan city to look at the work of some of the Sienese artists who light up the show, in the context of the city itself. He was guided by the co-curator of the exhibition, Caroline Campbell, the director of the National Gallery of Ireland. And this episode's Work of the Week is Personal Accounts, an ongoing series of video installations exploring patriarchal violence by the South African artist Gabrielle Goliath. The latest cycle in the series, called Mango Blossoms, opens at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend and we speak to Gabrielle about the work.Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, until 26 January 2025; National Gallery, London, 8 March-22 June 2025.Gabrielle Goliath's Personal Accounts: Mango Blossoms is shown alongside a number of other cycles from the series at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 26 October-15 February 2025. The series also features in Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, Venice Biennale, until 24 November.Subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After descending on London last week, the art world arrived in Paris this week, with the main attraction being the Art Basel Paris art fair—now staged in the renovated Belle Epoque masterpiece, the Grand Palais. An editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, Jane Morris, was at the VIP opening and tells us more. As always, alongside the fair are a number of eye-catching museum shows and projects. Among them is Chapelle, a new in-situ work for the Musée Picasso by the Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca. Ben Luke talks to Kuitca about the piece. And this episode's Work of the Week is June (2022) by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, a work from a series in which the Polish-born Romani artist reimagines astrologically themed frescoes at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara in order to explore the history and contemporary life of the Roma people. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to Mirga-Tas about the work, as it goes on display at Tate St Ives in the UK.Art Basel Paris, Grand Palais, until Sunday, 20 October.Chapelle by Guillermo Kuitca, Musée Picasso, Paris, until 31 December 2027.Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Tate St Ives, UK, 19 October-5 January 2025Subscription offer: you can get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Frieze London art fair has a new look for 2024 as it looks to keep its freshness amid increased competition with the new kid on the art fair block, next week's Art Basel Paris. So how effective is the re-design? Ben Luke talks to Kabir Jhala, the art market editor at The Art Newspaper, about this year's fair and about the auctions which have also taken place in London this week. The duo The White Pube who, since 2015, have shaken-up the world of art criticism in the UK, have just published a new book, called Poor Artists. We speak to the duo, Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad, about it. And this episode's Work of the Week is a vital contribution to the history of the Italian Arte Povera group. Giuseppe Penone's Alpi Marittime (1968) has just gone on display in a new survey of Arte Povera at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The exhibition is curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and we talk to her about Penone's work.Frieze London and Frieze Masters, until 13 October, Regent's Park, London.Poor Artists by The White Pube, Particular Books (UK), £20 (hb), Prestel (US) published 12 November, $24.99; thewhitepube.com.Arte Povera, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, until 20 January.Subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: a huge survey of the work of the late linchpin of the Los Angeles contemporary scene Mike Kelley has arrived at Tate Modern in London. We speak to its co-curator Catherine Wood about this enormously influential artist and his visceral and absurd response to popular culture and folk traditions of the US. A major show of Indian art made between 1975 and 1998, a pivotal period of political, social and economic change in the country, opened this week at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. Shanay Jhaveri, a former curator of international art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who is now head of visual arts at the Barbican, leads us in a tour of show. And this episode's Work of the Week is Raoul Dufy's Thirty Years or La Vie en Rose (1931), a painting made originally for the 30th anniversary of a gallery in Paris, that was owned by the pioneering woman gallerist Berthe Weill. She is the subject of an exhibition at the Grey Art Museum at New York University, which will tour next year to Montreal and Paris. Lynn Gumpert, the co-curator of the show and director of the Grey Art Museum, tells us about the painting, the artist and the dealer.Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern, London, until 9 March 2025; Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 12 April-15 September 2025.The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 5 October-5 January 2025; and you can hear an in-depth interview with Nalini Malani on A brush with…, that's the episode from 21 February this year.Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde, Grey Art Museum, New York, until 1 March; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 10 May-7 September 2025; Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 8 October 2025-25 January 2026.Subscription offer: get three months of The Art Newspaper for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, three major international shows: Claude Monet's Thames views in London, the Henri Matisse retrospective in Basel and Helen Frankenthaler in Florence. An exhibition that Claude Monet hoped to see in his lifetime but which never happened has at last become a reality. A gathering of Monet's views of the Thames—looking from his hotel room at the Savoy and from across the river on a private terrace of St Thomas's hospital—has just opened at the Courtauld Gallery in London. Monet had hoped to stage such an event in London soon after the paintings were exhibited to acclaim in Paris in 1904, but so quickly had they dispersed, he was unable to do so. I spoke to the curator of the show, Karen Serres, first in the very room at the Savoy Hotel where he made many of the paintings, and then in the exhibition itself. Meanwhile, a rare European retrospective of Henri Matisse's work has opened at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. Matisse: Invitation to the Voyage focuses on the artist's travels, in the world and also in his imagination, through paintings, sculptures and cut-outs made over more than 50 years. Ben Luke went to Basel and spoke to Raphaël Bouvier, the curator. And this episode's Work of the Week is Mediterranean Thoughts (1960) one of the paintings in Helen Frankenthaler: Painting without Rules, a new exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The Art Newspaper's associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, spoke to Douglas Dreishpoon, who organised the show.Monet and London: Views of the Thames, Courtauld Gallery, London, until 19 January 2025.Matisse – Invitation to the Voyage, Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, until 26 January 2025.Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, until 26 January 2025.Subscription offer: get the perfect start to the new academic year with 50% off a student subscription to The Art Newspaper—that's £28, or the equivalent in your currency, for one year. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, has invited the US artist Glenn Ligon to explore its history and collections, and his interventions are revealed this week. Ben Luke goes to Cambridge to talk to Ligon about the project. Few artists' lives prompt as much discussion as that of Paul Gauguin, and a new biography of the French artist by Sue Prideaux has just been published. We talk to Sue about the book. And this episode's Work of the Week is the piece that has just been unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Mil Veces un Instante or (A Thousand Times in an Instant) by Teresa Margolles is made up of plaster casts of the faces of 726 trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people. Ekow Eshun, the chair of the group that commissions the projects for the Fourth Plinth, speaks to our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the work.Glenn Ligon: All Over The Place, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, until 2 March 2025. Distinguishing Piss from Rain: Writings and Interviews by Glenn Ligon, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, £32 or $38. Untitled (America/Me), High Line, New York, until November 2024. Listen to our in-depth interview, A brush with… Glenn Ligon from 18 August 2021.Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin, by Sue Prideaux, Faber, £30; published in the US next year, by WW Norton, $39.99.Teresa Margolles: Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, until 2026.Subscription offer: you can get the perfect start to the new academic year with 50% off a student subscription to The Art Newspaper—that's £28, or the equivalent in your currency, for one year. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the Van Gogh blockbuster in London, a new book on the birth of Impressionism, and Juan Pablo Echeverri's performative self-portraits. As the exhibition Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers opens at the National Gallery in London as part of its bicentenary celebrations, The Art Newspaper's special correspondent and resident expert in the Dutch painter, Martin Bailey, takes a tour of the exhibition with our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, meanwhile, has just opened the exhibition Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, its iteration of the show marking 150 years since the first Impressionist exhibition, which began earlier this year at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Coinciding with the show is the publication of the book Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism, by the Washington Post art critic, Sebastian Smee. Ben Luke speaks to Sebastian about the book. And this episode's Work of the Week is MUTIlady (2003) by Juan Pablo Echeverri. The photographic piece features nine photographs in which the late Colombian artist pictures himself with an apparently flayed body and wildly different haircuts seemingly reflecting a multitude of identities. The work is part of the exhibition GROW IT, SHOW IT! A look at hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok, which opened this week at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. The show's curator, Miriam Bettin, tells Ben more about the artist and the work.Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, The National Gallery, London, 14 September-19 January 2025; The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh's Masterpiece and Van Gogh's Finale: Auvers and the Artist's Rise to Fame by Martin Bailey, Frances Lincoln, each £10.99/$14.99 (pb), from 17 October, but available now at the National Gallery.Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism is published by W. W. Norton & Company in US and out now, priced $35. In the UK it's published by Oneworld, out on 17 October and priced £25; Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, National Gallery of Art, Washington, until 19 January 2025.GROW IT, SHOW IT! A look at hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, until 12 January 2025.Subscription offer: you can get the perfect start to the new academic year with 50% off a student subscription to The Art Newspaper—that's £28, or the equivalent in your currency, for one year. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Week in Art is back. In this first episode of the season: on Tuesday it was reported in the Financial Times that Sotheby's core earnings are down 88% in the first half of this year. This is the latest evidence to suggest that the art market may be in a far more serious economic rut than its major players have previously indicated, after disappointing sales and job cuts at the major auction houses, as well as closures and layoffs in the world of commercial galleries. In the September issue of The Art Newspaper, Scott Reyburn suggests that the art market could be entering a new era, and he joins our host Ben Luke to explain why. We then talk to Sasha Skochilenko, the artist who was freed in the prisoner exchange between Russia and the US in August, about her activism, arrest and incarceration as well as her experience of the swap and the art she has made since. And this episode's Work of the Week is The Angel of Hearth and Home, made by Max Ernst in 1937, and later renamed by the artist as The Triumph of Surrealism. The painting is part of the major travelling show marking the 100th anniversary of the first Surrealist manifesto, which makes its stop from this week at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, went to Paris to talk to Didier Ottinger, the co-curator of the exhibition.Sasha Skochilenko: skochilenko.ru.Surrealism, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 13 January 2025; Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, Spain; 4 February-11 May 2025; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 12 June-12 October 2025; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, US, end of 2025-beginning of 2026. You can hear our discussion about the centenary of the first Surrealist manifesto with the Surrealism expert Alyce Mahon on the episode of this podcast from 23 February this year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Thursday 4 July, the UK will hold a general election, with the Labour party currently far ahead in the opinion polls. Dale Berning Sawa, a contributor to The Art Newspaper who is also commissioning editor at the online news site The Conversation, joins Ben Luke to reflect on the effects on culture of 14 years of Conservative or Conservative-led governments, and what they and the other parties are promising regarding culture in their manifestos. In Florence, Italy, the former director of the Uffizi galleries, the German Eike Schmidt, has lost the race to be mayor of the city. We speak to our correspondent in Italy, James Imam, to find out what happened. And this episode's Work of the Week is All Power to All People by Hank Willis Thomas. This huge public sculpture depicting an Afro pick with a Black Power salute is at the Glastonbury festival, in a new initiative organised by the non-profit Level Ground, and we talk to Thomas about it.Hank Willis Thomas: All Power to All People, West Holts Stage, Glastonbury Festival, until 30 June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: Just Stop Oil's Stonehenge protest. On Wednesday, two activists sprayed orange powder paint made from cornflour on to three of the boulders at Stonehenge, prompting outrage and some support. Before this latest action, in an article for the July/August print edition of The Art Newspaper, John Paul Stonard had argued that Just Stop Oil's museum-based protests add up to “one of the most successful campaigns of civil disobedience in history”. He reflects on whether the latest protests reinforce this conviction. At the Hayward Gallery in London, the Bahamian-born, US-based artist Tavares Strachan has just opened his first major survey exhibition. We go to the gallery to talk to him. And this episode's Work of the Week is Janus Fleuri by Louise Bourgeois, made in 1968. It is one of the highlights of Unconscious Memories, a show in which Bourgeois's sculptures and installations are installed alongside the historic works in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. We speak to Cloé Perrone, the co-curator of the exhibition.Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere, Hayward Gallery, London, until 1 September.Louise Bourgeois: Unconscious memories, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 21 June-15 September.Subscription offer: a free eight-week trial of a digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: it's arguably the best loved of the major art fairs among collectors and dealers, but what have we learned about the art market at this year's Art Basel, in its original Swiss home? The Art Newspaper's acting art market editor, Tim Schneider, tells us about the big sales in Switzerland amid the wider market picture. The journalist Lynn Barber has a new book out, called A Little Art Education, in which she reflects on her encounters with artists from Salvador Dalí to Tracey Emin. We talk to her about the highs and lows of several decades of artist interviews. And this episode's Work of the Week is Woman Leaning on a Portfolio (1799) by Guillaume Lethière. Lethiére was born in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean to a plantation-owner father and an enslaved mother, but eventually became one of the most notable painters of his period in France and beyond. We talk to Esther Bell and Olivier Meslay, the curators of a major survey of Lethière's work opening this week at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, US, and travelling later in the year to the Louvre in Paris.Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland, until Sunday, 16 June.A Little Art Education by Lynn Barber, Cheerio, £15 (hb).Guillaume Lethière, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, US,15 June-14 October; Musée du Louvre, Paris, 13 November-17 February 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: we explore the Art Institute of Chicago's exhibition dedicated to what Georgia O'Keeffe called her New Yorks—paintings of skyscrapers and views from one of them across the East River, which marked a turning point in her career. Sarah Kelly Oehler, one of the curators of the show, tells us more. One of the most distinctive of all London's contemporary art spaces, Studio Voltaire, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and has begun a fundraising drive to consolidate its future, with a gala dinner this week and a Christie's auction later this month. We talk to the chair of Studio Voltaire's trustees and a non-executive director of Frieze, Victoria Siddall, about the anniversary and the precarious funding landscape, even for the UK's most dynamic non-profits. And this episode's Work of the Week is an untitled painting from the Austrian painter Martha Jungwirth's 2022 series Francisco de Goya, Still Life with Ribs and Lamb's Head. Based on a work by the Spanish master in the Louvre in Paris, Jungwirth's painting features in a new survey of her work that has just opened at the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain. We speak to its curator, Lekha Hileman Waitoller.Georgia O'Keeffe: My New Yorks, Art Institute of Chicago, until 22 September; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, from 25 October-16 February 2025.The date of XXX, as the sale of works to benefit Studio Voltaire at Christie's is called, is yet to be confirmed. Check the organisations' websites for updates; Beryl Cook/Tom of Finland, Studio Voltaire, London, until 25 August.Martha Jungwirth, Guggenheim Bilbao, until 22 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The publication in April of Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Index Annual Report has provided the art world with much food for thought. We look at the implications for artists and institutions with Louis Jebb, the managing editor of The Art Newspaper and our technology specialist. As the Centre Pompidou in Paris is taken over on all its floors by what it calls the “ninth art”—graphic novels and comics—we talk to Joel Meadows, the editor-in-chief of Tripwire magazine and a comics aficionado, about the rise of this subculture in museums and the market. And this episode's Work of the Week is Edgar Degas' Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879), which depicts a Black circus performer, Anna Albertine Olga Brown, who was briefly known as Miss La La. She and the painting are the subject of a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London opening next week. We talk to Anne Robbins, the curator of paintings at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and external curator of the exhibition, and Sterre Overmars, the curatorial fellow for post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, about the painting.Comics on Every Floor, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 4 November.Discover Degas & Miss La La, National Gallery, London, 6 June-1 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the Louvre's director admits that the Paris museum wants to move its most famous painting away from the crowded gallery in which it is currently displayed, we ask the Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp: does the museum have a Mona Lisa problem? We also talk about the painting's continuing allure and the ongoing efforts to explain its mysteries. In London, remarkably, Judy Chicago has just opened her first major multidisciplinary survey in a British public gallery, at the Serpentine North. We talk to her about the show. And this episode's Work of the Week is Christian Schad's Self-Portrait with Model (1927). The painting features in Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the director of the museum and co-curator of the show, tells us more.Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine North, London, until 1 September.Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany, Leopold Museum, Vienna, until 29 September. Subscription offer: get a free six-week trial of a digital subscription to The Art Newspaper. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We take a tour of Tate Britain's new exhibition, Now You See Us, featuring more than 100 women artists who worked between the 16th and 20th centuries, with Tabitha Barber, its curator. The Dia Art Foundation has reached its half century and its director, Jessica Morgan, tells us how it has changed in that time, and especially how it has radically expanded the range of artists it shows and collects. We also discuss the new commission at Dia Beacon by Steve McQueen. And this episode's Work of the Week is one of the few record-breaking paintings in a relatively middling auction week in New York: Martin Wong's Portrait of Mikey Piñero at Ridge Street and Stanton (1985), which sold for more than $1.6m (with fees) on Tuesday evening at Christie's. Barry Blinderman, who sold the work in 1985 from his Semaphore gallery in New York, tells us more about the painting and the extraordinary circumstances of its making.Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain, London, until 13 October.Steve McQueen: Bass, Dia Beacon, until 12 May 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk to The Art Newspaper's reporter Sarvy Geranpayeh about her conversations with six Palestinian artists about their daily lives amid Israel's ongoing military offensive in Gaza. Frank Stella, one of the key artists in the history of American abstraction, has died, aged 87. We speak to Bonnie Clearwater, the director and chief curator of the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who worked with Stella on two landmark shows. And as Spring finally arrives in London, this episode's Work of the Week is, fittingly, Vanessa Bell's View into a Garden (1926). It features in an exhibition opening next week at the Garden Museum in London, called Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors. Emma House, the curator at the museum, tells me more.Glory of the World: Color Field Painting (1950s to 1983), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, US, until 25 August. Frank Stella: Recent Sculpture, Deitch Projects, New York, until 24 May.Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors, Garden Museum, London, 15 May-29 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After years of decreasing public funding, the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic and enduring questions around the ethics of corporate sponsorship, UK museums are facing unprecedented financial pressures. Some commentators are suggesting that the time has come to abandon the policy of free admission to museums that is viewed by many as key to the cultural fabric of the UK. Among those arguing for charging is the critic and broadcaster Ben Lewis, who joins Ben Luke to discuss the issue. This week, the British Museum opened the exhibition Michelangelo: the Last Decades. It focuses on the period after 1534, when Michelangelo left his native Florence for Rome, never to return, and embarked on many of his most ambitious projects. We take a tour of the show with its curator, Sarah Vowles. And this episode's Work of the Week is Maria Blanchard's Girl at Her First Communion (1914). The painting features in a new exhibition at the Museo Picasso in Málaga. Its curator, José Lebrero Stals, tells us more about this underappreciated Spanish artist, who was at the heart of the Parisian avant garde in the 1910s and 20s.Michelangelo: the Last Decades, British Museum, until 28 July.María Blanchard: A Painter in Spite of Cubism, Museo Picasso Málaga, Spain, until 29 September.LAST CHANCE subscription offer: subscribe for as little as 50p per week for digital and £1 per week for print and digital, or the equivalent in your currency. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last painting made by Gustav Klimt, left on his easel when he died in 1918 of illnesses relating to the Spanish flu epidemic of that year, has sold at auction in Vienna for €35m including fees. But much remains unclear about the picture, including its sitter, its commissioner and what happened to it in the Second World War. Ben Luke talks to Catherine Hickley, The Art Newspaper's museums editor, about whether this murky provenance contributed to its relatively low price for a Klimt in the saleroom. A retrospective of the pioneering German artist Rebecca Horn opens this week at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and we talk to Jana Baumann, its co-curator, about the show. And this episode's Work of the Week is Mont Sainte Victoire, one of dozens of paintings made by Paul Cézanne of the towering limestone peak near Aix-en-Provence in France. Painted in 1886-87, it is in the collection of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Elizabeth Steele, the Phillips's Head of Conservation, describes how she revealed the painting from a century of discoloured varnish and dust as it goes on view in the exhibition Up Close with Paul Cezanne, which is at the Phillips until 14 July.Rebecca Horn, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, 26 April-13 OctoberUp Close with Paul Cezanne, Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., until 14 July.Subscription offer: subscribe to The Art Newspaper for as little as 50p per week for digital and £1 per week for print and digital, or the equivalent in your currency. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.